Losing the abundant healing from the Queenguard's Armor left the Faerie tanks (Rakan) with their wings clipped. We’re giving back some tankiness in the form of the teamwide HP buff and restoring more Damage Amp for the Queen’s Crown at higher breakpoints only, which should restore flight to vertical Faerie comps in a healthier way than an unkillable Rakan. Because the line could use more love than just Faerie trait buffs, we’re reverting our Preserver nerf and giving Kalista a slightly improved AD ratio that’ll help her in Multistriker lines where she tends to build more AD.

Vex has become the super-tank to fear thanks to a smaller buff in 14.20 that was greatly amplified alongside a Mage Mana bugfix and Mage trait buff.

Due to demotion protection, our Masters tier gets bigger and bigger throughout the set. At the same time, Masters is the first tier that supports an ordered leaderboard. This combo has us running into a problem exclusive to TFT; our back-end services simply can’t support scrolling through the many amazingly talented Masters players. For now, we have a short-term fix to this that should keep the leaderboards usable and (maybe) a bit more exclusive. Long term, we have ideas on how to fix this, but the fix we’re shipping now should only affect a few populous regions, and only later during the set.

Last patch we added a small number of bots to our low to middle rank brackets to speed up queues and improve overall player experience. Bots should match lobby skill relatively well. As TFT continues to grow we’ve seen skill gaps widen between new players and our mid to high range—this is just a byproduct of players getting better, and TFT’s gameplay getting deeper set after set. By introducing bots in Gold and below, we’re able to create a smoother and more enjoyable climbing experience up until Platinum rank. While this is not our first exploration with bots (we added them to our new player experience many patches ago), we want this feature to create the best possible experience, and we’ll continue to make changes to this end.

And everyone around the world cheered.

Since we’re nerfing Support Golem II (Augment) pretty heavily, it gives us room to buff the stats of Golems everywhere, which will help out other Golem Augments/Charms that aren’t as dominant as Support Golem.

Let ‘Em Cook, which granted a Spatula and a Pan, had the goal of letting players concoct wild comps going deep in both classes and origins, but in higher elos, it panned out differently, resulting in players reforging a Pan or Spatula so they can get two Emblems for the same trait. We’re removing Let ‘Em Cook and replacing it with a very similar Portal, Make ‘Em Cook, to now force the hand that cooks to cook.

Arcana was one of the biggest benefactors of a fast 8 meta, becoming a powerful splash for many comps. Almost overnight, champions like Tahm Kench and Xerath became high priority with the value their traits added to various meta comps. We’re tuning down the bonuses you’ll receive, mostly at higher Arcana breakpoints, but we’re leaving the champions unnerfed (except for Hecarim, who needs to be reined in a bit more). Eldritch is getting scarier. The summon will do more damage for reroll players and be a lot tankier (especially at Eldritch 5) into the late game. Ahh Faerie. Rakan and Kalista combos have been especially powerful this patch and last patch, with the power coming from a less visible space: the Queensguard’s Armor’s Healing. Rakan 2 with Queenguard’s Armor could quickly become unkillable, even with healing cut, healing up to 7K HP in a fight. We’re significantly hitting the healing from the Queen and the heal/shield amp from the item as a direct nerf to this ultra-powerful frontline combo. Still, we’re giving the Crown a bit more base Health to ensure Faerie 5 can stabilize and win streak when accessed early. There’s a concern here that Kalista is part of the issue with this combo’s power. From what we have seen in the data, she’s not. Kalista has failed to succeed in Multistriker 7 comps, and her win rate is less tied to her star level than to Rakan’s. Regardless, we will be delivering a slight nerf to Multistriker 3 later on, but don’t expect to see her or Rakan on the change list, as our trait nerf here is directly impacting their best performing cases.

You may notice a few 4-star buffs here. With access to 4-stars via Worth the Wait, we’re giving a few champs buffs to their 4-star forms in addition to the needed buffs at other star levels. Much of the Hunter power budget has been locked away in Twitch, who scales exceptionally well into the late game with his multi-target access and Sunder utility. We’re trimming some of his AOE power off and bestowing some extra fiery sneeze-power onto the Convergence’s favorite dragon (don’t @ me Smolder fans). Zoe hasn’t seen much playtime since the days of pre-rework Arcana Ahri, and even then, she was never the star. We’re giving her a slight damage bump but also allowing her single-target spell not to fizzle if her current target dies while it’s in flight. This should make her more reliable as a reroll carry or your Blue Buff holder.

AAs a ramping reroll carry, we’re happy with Ahri’s rework in patch 14.18, but now that the dust has settled, it’s time for a buff to her Orb damage, the part of her spell that doesn’t continually grow each cast. Buffing her here should ensure she can dish out meaningful damage without needing to ramp into Foxfire-finity. Kog’Maw has seen great success at hitting top 4, but pretty bad top 1 or 2 success this set. His win rate depends on how strong his Attack Speed-scaling friends have been with his go-to build prioritizing casting more to support his allies. We’re making some changes to him below that should result in a net buff while also allowing him to benefit from more AD-focused builds. Even with a more AD-focused build, he’ll still be setting allies abuzz as we’re lowering his mana needed to cast by a single auto-attack—who knows, maybe that’s the difference maker. Syndra has had it rough since her reign earlier in that set. We’re giving her a bit of base damage back in the hopes of seeing her appear in a match history near you sometime soon.

Despite a nerf last patch, Hecarim has continued to gallop over the line for 3-cost balance, performing many hands (that’s the measurement for horses btw) above the rest of the herd. We’re taking him back to the stables with a base AD nerf, but we’re buffing his AD ratio to avoid any long faces for our Hecarim carry enjoyers. With Ezreal and Frost in a stable spot, we can give our sad artist lad more power for his stormy phase.

The dominant Arcana Varus fast 8 comp needs more than just an Arcana nerf to keep it in check. We’re cooling down Varus’s base AD, but are confident that this line will continue to be viable as it continues to be refined (risky tip: Varus can hit the enemy backline if positioned in 3rd row, and they are clumped).

Knife legs more knifey.

We’re nerfing many of our Crests and Crowns that have been on the stronger side of things for a while now. These nerfs should make it so you only choose the Crest/Crown when you have a good position to do so (have core items for their go-to carry or are already fielding a few of the trait’s units) instead of just being an instant-click due to the strong boards they create immediately. Precise Planning has quietly become “gain three extra gold” in our higher elo community. We’re decreasing the gold reward but making it a bit easier to hit (you can win or lose by 4 or fewer units now). It’ll still take a bit of planning to use, but maybe not so much precision.Prizefighter has seen considerable success across all regions but is particularly valuable in our CN server, where its snowballing power has been seen as too much. We like the playstyle it encourages but require one more win for each item component. Support Golem I and II have been dominant for a while now, while other Golem-linked Augments and Charms have struggled to find a footing. We’ve got a solution for this, but it’s admittedly not pretty. But then again, the origin of Golem stories out of 16th-century Prague folklore isn’t exactly pretty either. We’re removing Support Golem I entirely while lowering the number of Support Items Support Golem II receives, allowing us to significantly buff the tankiness of Golems across the Convergence (See Systems section). Both Worth the Wait Augments haven’t really been worth in a meta dominated by fast 8 comps. Worth the Wait I is getting a buff that’ll have you waiting no time to instantly two-star the unit selected, while Worth the Wait II is getting much more worth, with almost no cap (no, not that definition, you bright-eyed youths), to how many copies of the 2-cost you’ll get throughout the game. Even if you don’t chase the four-star 2-cost, +2 gold a turn is very solid.

Blue Buff is currently overperforming Spear of Shojin for casters by a gap we’re not entirely comfortable with. Red Buff is also in the same boat, being the preferred healing cut (Wound) for AP casters, even when Morellonomicon is sitting right there unbothered, unread, happy on its own bookshelf. Both Bramble Vest and Dragon’s Claw have been relatively weak, outperformed by Stoneplates and Belt items even in lobbies where they should be successful. We’re increasing their Armor or MR by 10, which should also be a nice buff for the Replication Augment.

Having your Unstable Treasure Chest pop only to toss items to champions just about to die isn’t the best feeling. So, we’re making the Unstable Treasure Chest more stable by having the items thrown to the highest percentage HP allies instead. This means that your backline carries will benefit more from the Treasure Chest, so be sure to play around with that as well. This is both a buff and a quality-of-life change, but it’s needed since the Chest is one of our worst performing Support Items. The tooltip may not reflect this change until patch 14.21, but it is in!

14.20 is our last patch with new Charms, and we’ve got some good ones that are sure to have you clicking buy…in the right scenarios, of course. Combat Mastery is an excellent pickup for mid-game tempo players to keep their tempo up, especially if they think they’ll be winning their next combat. Golden Armor is the perfect Charm to turn your econ-driven loss streak into the start of a win streak. Finally, we’ve got Scope Expansion, which is perfect for making a melee carry team give your opponents Rapid Firecannon flashbacks.

The decline of bee populations poses a serious threat to global agriculture and ecosystems.

While Blitzcrank’s shield duration nerf may seem large, it’s important to note that this nerf will likely only impact them on Stages 4+, when they’re starred up and tanky enough for their shield to last more than 4 seconds.

All these champions have shields except for Akali, who never saw the point of pointless metal. If that one’s too high art of wordplay for ya, you’ll likely enjoy the Tier 3 context joke more.

Mordekaiser is getting less bonky and more tonky.

You’ve heard of the ancient - 5 AD meme, but have you heard whispers of the - 3 AD one?

Like your typical youngsters, Smolder’s been known to partake in risk-taking behaviors, such as flying dangerously close to an enemy AOE. While we can’t speed up the development of the prefrontal cortex, the brain region responsible for decision-making and impulse control, we can harden his scales so that rogue Varus shot doesn’t ground our little flier for good.

Tactitician’s Badges for Oracle and Visionary ranks of the Dawn of Heroes Revival are hard to achieve, so we’re ensuring the recognition is worth the effort to push to the upper echelon ranks!

In the olden days of Dawn of Heroes, Vayne and Draven were much stronger with access to extra Attack Speed items like Zeke’s Herald (when it was a core item). Now, they’re failing to keep up with other reroll carries and are at risk of being Forgotten entirely.

The Dawn of Heroes Revival has increased access to Tactician's Tools (Crown, Cape, etc.) via the Divine Blessing, which combined with Pandora's Items, allows players to access a super secret easter egg too consistently. Since we still want to enable players to cook unique compositions with Tactician's Tools-related blessings, we're disabling Pandora's Items instead, to avoid the Augment being an automatic win when players can access the easter egg.