Patch 25.23

Toplane


Zaahen RELEASED!!!

Rek’Sai nerfed
Vladimir nerfed
Dr. Mundo buffed
Swain buffed
Volibear buffed

Hey Friends,

Apologies for the delays. The exam week has been quite hectic. As a sidenote: newly released champion Zaahen will get a detailed follow up post soon. Once again we have Volibear toplane “buffs” which basically changed nothing (his winrate even regressed a bit with the slight pick rate increase.)

Vladimir got hit quite hard with the base armor nerfs making him no longer worth considering as one of the best ap options in the toplane. While the Rek’Sai can be felt, the changes still nowhere close enough to “kill” the champ and her identity. The playstyle still remains the same -> get majority of your stacks from using W and E on minions whenever possible and eventually outsustain your lane opponent.

Dr. Mundo buffs nudge him once again above 50% win rate. Though, I’m way more excited for yet another small Swain buff. It’s no secret that Swain is one of my favorite champions in the game. The buffs will not push him into a top tier toplaner by any means, but they will help out with his mana issues throughout the game.

Major changes to high – low priority list for competitive play are still “blocked” by the swap possibilities which limit ranged / high resource champions to rise up the list.

Notably, Zaahen has been released in a quite overpowered state and currently resides at the top of the high priority list. Even after the hotfix nerf, and with a mediocre early game, this champion is a complete menace with 1st item power spike and only becomes stronger as the game progresses. (He does seem to struggle a bit vs ranged champions and Jax if you were looking for quick info on what’s good against it).

solo queue 25.23 – tierlist template from drafting.gg

Irelia has been replaced by Zaahen in the S tier. Currently, this champion is straight up overtuned – if you are good on it, there is no unplayable matchups (though he does appear to struggle into Jax and champions that can kite him – ranged).

Shen seems to be dropping winrate each patch as the amount of ranged champions in solo queue increases. I wanted to give a quick shoutout to Quinn, Cassiopeia and Kayle – these ranged champions look quite OP at the moment, but their pick rates are still lowkey compared to S tier champions or meta staples.

Keep an eye out for the Zaahen post which will cover his kit, combos, playstyle and builds/runes in depth!

until next time o7.