Patch 1.4: season of Fortune

We’re increasing Darius’ health at Level 2 to make him more durable and consistent, increasing the payoff for meeting his level up condition and giving Noxus aggro decks a more appealing top-end option.

When compared to other similar champions like Nautilus (same cost) or Karma (same level-up condition), Anivia’s power level and kit weren’t quite matching up outside of very specific strategies. A cost adjustment should help her see more effective and widespread use.

We’re looking to preserve what players liked about Braum’s old design while adjusting him to have healthier gameplay patterns that are also a better fit for more Freljord decks. While his cost has increased, his new baseline power and access to a Mighty Poro at level one should make him more widely usable. Similarly, adjusting his leveled-up stat boost to a more typical +1|+1 should improve his general power and ability to end games.

Jinx’s Rocket offers a satisfying payoff but could use a bit more consistency, especially in Expeditions.

Genevieve has stiff competition at her cost and we’d like her to be a more generally appealing option, so she’s getting a straightforward stat boost to improve her impact.

We like the idea of Unyielding Spirit’s dream (making an immortal unit), but it’s definitely been contentious and was ultimately resulting in some toxic gameplay patterns.

When it comes to new content, we typically want to allow players time to solve for metagame problems with existing tools—hell, we think it’s a big part of the fun of card games. In this case, that played a part in us not initially changing Unyielding Spirit, but we ultimately feel the card is too prone to causing frustrating results and needs additional options to be countered.

Basilisk Rider didn’t quite incentivize Noxus allegiance strategies well enough. Similarly, many aggressive Noxus decks are ignoring more expensive Noxus units in favor of burn or utility cards from other regions, and we want to provide more tools for traditional Trifarian-based aggressive decks.

Ol’ Captain Decimate is meant to be a late game finisher against slow decks, but discarding your hand (and requiring cards in hand to do anything) was a bit too high variance for that role, so we’ve adjusted his effect to simply create Decimates in hand.

Aurora Porealis had too steep a cost for no immediate impact, so we’re moving it down in cost to allow it to be used without falling so far behind.

Accompanying our changes to Braum, we’re adjusting Poro Herder to provide Poro decks a more appealing on-curve option.

One of the OG bombs in LoR back during beta, She Who Wanders has seen better days. We think she could use a boost when it comes to being a huge, gameshaking bomb for niche decks, so we’re adding Regeneration to help her close out games.

They Who Endure provides a massive payoff for decks that can kill many of their own units, but is a little too efficient and flexible. With this change, we want to preserve that payoff while allowing more time for opposing plans to develop.

The strength of Ren’s old effect warranted a sizable mana cost, which left the card tough to build around (and often not fun to play against). We’ve fully redesigned it with the goal of giving Ephemeral decks more options for units that can be played to set up future plays.

Jae’s line of text is really exciting as a build-around possibility, but his cost and stat profile often made it feel like a trap to do so. We’re adjusting him across the board with the goal of making the dream (or parts of it) more consistently attainable.

It can be extremely difficult to come back against aggressive Shadow Isles decks if they get off to a quick start and you fall behind early. We want Escaped Abomination to be a bit more answerable in the early game, especially in the context of Cursed Keeper + Blighted Caretaker curves that create a large board advantage while contributing to synergies.

The Harrowing is meant to be a splashy finisher for Shadow Isles decks, but it’s struggled to find a home. We’re dropping its cost by one to help out more synergy-driven Shadow Isles strategies.

Deep decks have generally been in a good spot, but their tools for creating early game presence have been stronger than we want for a deck that can sink you in the late game. This adjustment should make sure Deep decks are playing from behind a bit more often.

Mind Meld was simply too costly for its effect.

We want to both give a boost to Barrel decks and provide a more effective option for aggressive Bilgewater decks—this buff should help push Petty Officer towards its intended role as a versatile option that allows more decks access to Barrels.

We want to preserve the Merchant’s role as a lynchpin of Nab decks while making it easier for opponents to remove, and harder for players to protect and build up multiple copies in the backline.