Variety is the spice of life, and now that we've had a full patch to get our feet under ourselves in this low-gravity setting, we can add a tad more with new and returning Opening Encounters! I for one am excited to play reroll in the Cheaper Level Encounter and fast eight in the Double Duplicators Encounter to throw my opponents off.

With Opening Encounters adding more opportunities for variable and exciting Augment distributions, and fresh starts, we're lowering the frequency of our higher-power Augments to move them back to what they were with in Lore & Legends.

We want to make sure players lower down on the lobby have more autonomy with their items, which is why we give them more component anvils, but we didn't mean for them to get component anvils and a guaranteed Reforger, which was often just used to reroll Emblems.You are going to see a lot of inflation reduction changes this patch and a small amount of it is here in our early stage loot distribution which, when too consistently high, can create for snowballing interest and fastly inflated mid-game economies.

Stage 4-7 is when late game begins and we start seeing boards become fully capped. Trimming a bit of gold here will just make for one less reroll to afford while trying to hit a three-star 4-cost.

Kayle's Boon was very powerful, but it also was not, and yes, this statement is still true. A random item going Radiant on your carry could be game winning, but that utility item going radiant on your one item tertiary trait bot… not so much. Now the Boon is focused on item collection which will have a smaller power ceiling but a much higher and more consistent power floor.Ekko's Boon is also quite good on Casters and Tanks, but it's rarely usable on Marksmen or Fighters, so we're rebalancing the Anomaly to be in a better spot on all classes.Our changes to Thresh's Boon make it more consistent while also reducing its most inflationary output that resulted in quite a lot of three-star 4-costs.12 gold is a lot, so we're lowering that option for Yasuo's Boon in the hopes that full devotion becomes more appealing while also lowering one of our many sources of economy inflation.

New God Blessings are sure to have you using the full Realm of the Gods timer in making your decisions. I for one am very excited for Thresh's mini-recombobulators!

The bulk of our changes here are to reduce inflation through many small cuts rather than one drastic measure. And with resources coming down, we're preemptively nerfing Yasuo's best hexes so he doesn't become the de facto God.

Anima is over-performing in elite and casual play alike, primarily around the mid-tier cashouts. We're rebalancing their 300/400 cashout items and total values.Welcome to Arbiter, can I take your order? We've got “overperforming causes the proc on instances of damage and attacks,” and “underperforming causes the proc on rerolls and falling below a health threshold.” Now, it's time to cook on these so every cause feels worth the effect and no Arbiter comes out too well-done or undercooked.In the next section you are going to notice a very very big nerf to Viktor, so keep that in mind when you see all the Psionic Items get buffed.We want almost every Stargazer pattern to feel good with all the Stargazers. Currently, this isn't the case with the Fountain pattern really only benefitting Lulu as a carry. We're disabling that pattern for this patch as we work on a different output that can support a variety of Stargazer comps and splashes alike. It's no secret that the Medallion (Reroll) pattern is bringing the set's reroll lines to the podium. We're lowering the bonus you get for 3-stars significantly here, but with the general power level of the set coming down this patch, it shouldn't leave Medallion out of the running.Finally, we've got Timebreaker which has near-exclusively become an econ-bot with our release patch. We're fine with the trait's continued use as a stimulus splash, but we're reworking it to first be a teamwide Attack Speed splash, then be an econ splash, and finally be able to be played as a reroll mini-vertical. We look forward to seeing how the (4) piece enables new reroll comps and fast 8 tempo strategies alike.

Caitlyn's headshot is getting a huge buff, but in this case it is literally getting bigger, and firing faster. Speaking of big, Cho'Gath's been too tough to get ramping up, so we're giving our hungriest, voidiest, boy a nice base buff to keep him nomming and growing. With Timebreaker's rework, we're hoping to see Ezreal emerge as a reroll carry, so a small buff to his floor should see him scaling easier into the late game. Finally for the one-costs, we've fixed a Talon bug that had Omnivamp not correctly applying to his bleed. Since Talon's already one of our most powerful one-costs, we've got a compensation nerf with a bit more tagged onto it to keep the accumulation of these changes safely in the nerf zone.If you couldn't tell from our Ezreal buff, we really want to see more creative uses of our Timebreakers, so we've got a Milio buff to keep him kicking into the meta.With our biggest Arbiter outliers in check, we're able to give Diana more power both in her ability damage and durability. Maokai lags behind our other tanks, so we're upping his bonus HP hook, which alongside a Bruiser buff should feel a lot sturdier than the 5% looks on paper.Samira has been popping up as a consistent comp somewhat recently as we write these notes (8 days before the patch goes live). We've got a decent sized nerf for her here, but we're tracking her rise as the meta develops in case we have to increase/decrease it. Viktor, on the other hand, is getting the largest nerf of the patch. He's certainly put the Vik in Viktory with his dramatic performance even after our B-patch nerf, so we're responding with a dramatic nerf that also allows us to put some power into the Psionic items and underperforming Psionic champions (Gragas).Corki's our only four-cost carry lagging behind his peers, and he's only a tad behind, so we're giving him a very light buff since he'll also be aided by the power ceiling of the set coming down.Not hitting a primary tank and being able to two-star them is an issue this set. While we have stronger 3-cost tanks this time around, we're working to add more frontline options both this patch and next patch. For 17.2, we're buffing our under-performing low-cost tank options, making the Mighty Mech a playable tank without needing to transform him into his two-slot form, and giving Tahm Kench one more follow-up change to make him a better tank option than loot printer. We believe this will make the race to Nunu (who is getting nerfed) less important, and solve many of the “where is my front-line” situations, but we've got one more solve for this planned in 17.3. I'll give you a hint as to what that is so it doesn't come out of nowhere from the dark. That was the hint by the way.As for our five-costs, we're rebalancing Grave's tech tree to lower the power of his dominant Assault Frame while improving his Marksman tree. Finally, while we think five-costs are generally balanced this set (slightly weaker than their Lore & Legends counterparts, but strong 5-costs was part of that set's identity), one has been overperforming the rest by a vexing margin. The bulk of our Vex nerf is coming in the form of her absurd range because how can a Yordle cast a shadow that long anyways? But, jokes aside, we've got a smaller damage nerf for her too.

This Augment has been benched for a similar Thresh Blessing that's been newly seated.

More Champion Augments have arrived! Explode boards with Gragas, dive in with Leona, or unlock the Prismatic APEX PRIMORDIAN with the Heart of the Swarm!

Another pass on econ-reduction for our solid econ Augments. Past that we've got a few nerfs to our strongest comp enabling Augments like The Big Band, Bronze for Life, and Twin Guardians/Two Tanky.

The top line of our Emblems is still a bit too high.

Due to a few bugs we've had to remove Kayle's Exaltation. Past that we're trying to make sure Thresh and Yasuo's Artifacts are up to the same par as the other toys from the Gods.