Patch 26.6



Champions
Zaahen nerfed
Shyvana updated
Cassiopeia buffed
Olaf buffed
Skarner buffed
Tryndamere buffed

Items
Chempunk Chainsword buffed
Sunfire buffed


Hey Friends,

Not the biggest patch again due to the First Stand tournament, but we do have the long anticipated Shyvana update to cover which will receive a separate post. I’m excited to share my analysis of her kit, playstyle and itemization!

We got two item buffs that impact toplane. Chempunk is slightly more gold efficient now, but I still recommend sitting on the executioner’s calling for the anti-heal needs unless you have nothing else to spend your gold on. Even better if you can get other teammates to buy anti-heal instead as bruisers (ad) don’t have the best tools to apply and maintain the anti-heal compared to mages or adcs. Sunfire, on the other hand, got a much needed improvement to the build path (ruby+600 gold instead of 1000 gold to finish the item) which will make the item much easier to complete. Great QoL change.

Zaahen received a small nerf to the W pullback. E nerf is a slightly bigger one that won’t affect the toplane role. Toplane Zaahen lost 30-50 damage on W pullback (around 30 damage on 2 items and 40-50 damage on 3-4 items assuming you are building ad).

Cassiopeia received a nice buff to her base mana and E bonus damage when the target is poisoned. She was already quite strong in solo queue and this will only make her even better. She was already showing up as a niche pick into matchups like Rumble. Her toplane pick rate will, no doubt, increase which will make the buffs seem lesser than they actually are.

Skarner is something we haven’t seen in the toplane ever since the first few patches of the rework. The buffs to Q mana cost and the Q3 damage will make him a legitimate toplane pick once again. The trick being, that you no longer build skarner as a full tank, but instead splash Titanic hydra or Sterrak somewhere in the build. Matchups are yet to be explored, but historically he did well into other tanks, bruisers with no % hp damage or weaker early game ranged champions as it is quite easy to farm with Q and soak poke with W. His core itemization still includes stacking hp and tear/Winter’s Approach. Tear on the first base and Winter’s Approach as your 2nd item.

Olaf received some bug fixes to W and Q along the buffs to Q slow and some base attack speed and a nerf to E self damage. Overall it’s mostly a buff to jungle Olaf, though the Q slow might feel more impactful than the win rate would indicate in some of the ranged matchups where the extra slow might be meaningful (eg Jayce, Kennen, Vayne, Varus…)

Tryndamere also received a base attack speed buff similar to Olaf. Overall, this is a 3rd buff to Tryndamere since the start of the season, but he is still not performing great overall. My guess is that this is due to system changes such as homeguards and weaker grubs which greatly reduce his ability to snowball his lane.

High Low priority changes introduce some position shifts, but overall quite stable. Keeping an eye out how Skarner top will develop after the buffs.

solo queue 26.6

AD Twisted Fate is showing up again a bit in the higher brackets of solo queue. He is nowhere near op as he used to be, but he is viable. Kraken – Collector – IE. Playstyle is a carry (though you still build RFC 4th or maybe earlier if you are not building items on curve).

Garen was rated a bit too conservative after the buffs in the previous patch.

Skarner win rate looks quite good so far, but the sample size is still way too low in the early hours of the patch. Similar to Shyvana, keeping an eye out.

Shyvana introduction. She is primarily a jungler but I’ll be keeping my eye out on the champion and how it develops.

Vayne and Varus promoted to A tier as I already implied in the previous post.

Until next time o7.