We’ve got a lot of big changes this patch, but this should be the most felt! We’re moving Item Component selection from the Space Gods to Pengu’s Offering with the goal of increasing player agency. This will allow you to focus on what God Blessing/Boon you want without that component you really need getting in the way.

No God choice should be monotheistic based upon the power of their end game Boon. We’re doing some rebalancing to make sure each Boon feels situationally powerful based upon your strategy.

Feeling blessed? We’ve got two powerful new Blessings for you to ponder your fealty with.

Thresh– same path for everyone, felt to gamble. Pandora’s bench was fun and iconic, but we couldn’t have it as an augment. We really wanted to keep it in the game but it’s just not good for the game. We swung, and we missed… pretty badly.

We’ve gone through and banned Augments that had too much synergy with Opening Encounters. We’ve also lessened the impact of two of our Encounters (Double Duplicators and Reroll Opener) that leaned too heavily into one strategy.

Have we gone soft?Stage 3-7 PvE has felt exceptionally tough this set, especially for our Anima players really looking to guarantee the loss. So while we could have added a “Get good” caption to Gromp upon the PvE victory, it’s probably better to keep their difficulty in line with other sets.

Anima (6) is tough to turn into a comp that can shift your momentum from loss-streak to boss-streak. But now, we’ve got a huge buff for the trait that allows you to continually get loot after each player combat regardless of if you won, or did that other thing that I try not to do.Marauder is over-performing across all its breakpoints so we’re giving it a small nerf that combined with another small Master Yi nerf should keep the comp from raiding the lobby.The Fountain formation for Stargazer is back, with a rework that will allow multiple comp variations to be played! Champions that drink from the Fountain’s hexes will heal every two seconds, and the longer the fight goes on the more Stargazer champions can stack AD and AP! One more small change for Stargazer comes with additional hexes to the left hand corner for the Huntress formation—now you can play Xayah in both corners and still get hit by that Nunu cast!

One reason some champs haven't found success, is that some 1-cost lines start strong and don't really fall off late-game, which is over the line for where we want 1-costs. With these 1-costs in check and some buffs coming up for less successful units, we’re sure to see some new stars in the meta.

While Akali hasn’t found success as a carry, many of the comps she’s slotted into are quite strong. With nerfs to things like Briar and Bel’Veth here, and Master Yi later on we’re able to sneak in a buff to this Shuriken slinging Armor shredding ninja.Jax’s flat damage reduction can make champions that rely on consistent tickles of damage feel far less effective. I mean, do you know how annoying crying in zero-gravity with a helmet on is—cause Corki and his 21 instances of damage certainly do.

A huge focus of this patch is lifting comps that haven’t been seeing much play. Our 3-cost changes don’t differ here, as we’ve got buffs for Diana, Fizz, Miss Fortune, Ornn, Samira, and Kai’Sa (JK not her).It’s no secret that Kai’Sa with the right set-up can outperform many 4-costs. We’re lowering her missile damage quite a bit even though it looks small since she fires 16 with each cast.

In general we’re trying to lift the AP 4-costs closer to where our AD ones already are but beyond that we have a few more goals with 4-costs including the addition of a semi-new one; Morgana. For Aurelion Sol, an AP buff to his non-Ultimate Mecha form should bring him safely into the space as a playable unit, while champions like LeBlanc only needed a tiny buff to return to playability.We’ve also got a mini-rework for Xayah. Currently, her ability wants you to get as many autos in as you can since it lasts a set amount of time. If you attack a lot then that’s really good, but unfortunately attacking a lot was the only thing that really mattered, and if you happened to get hit by a snowball stun in the uptime, it meant her ability was partially wasted. By swapping her ability to be a set amount of attacks, we make AS is less critical to stack, opening up more builds like the occasional Sword, and making that snowball that you totally positioned around, less punishing.Alright, let’s talk Morgana. Never has a fallen angel felt like such a guardian angel for your board with her rework that’s swapped her from a 5-cost Magic Fighter to a 4-cost Magic Tank. She’s still going to be just as flexible (maybe more), which is important, as she’ll fill the need for a late-game tank that many of us have been looking for. With her teamwide Durability passive, she can be played without items, with utility items as a secondary tank, or she can be itemized with things like Crownguard, Warmog’s, Spirit Visage, or whatever leftover tank items you get.

Everyone wants to build HP on Shen and play him like a bruiser, but he was designed to be a higher damage fighter. Instead of fighting momentum, we’re shifting his ability and stats to make HP much better on him, so you can play him like a tanky version of Riven, or just throw that spare Warmog’s on him to work in a pinch.Sona’s been struggling to make an impact even as a secondary carry. She’s getting a damage buff to make her a better itemized carry, while also getting a quality of life update to her ability so she doesn’t occasionally prioritize backliners.Zed’s been unlocking LP with optimized builds and an odd interaction with Bruiser Emblem. We’re fixing the Bruiser Emblem interaction, but even then we’re reducing his clone health a bit more at two and three stars.

New trait-linked Augments are joining the roster that’ll add unique twists to playing a vertical or a splash. Concentration and Timestream look to make a splash trait the center-focus of your comp, while Loot Singularity turns Dark Star into an econ trait! Heart of the Swarm is also back after a bug had us temporarily disabled it upon its release–it also activates at level 9 now so Apex Primordian fans rejoice! There’s a lot to explore with comp building here so enjoy the fresh Augments!

Our new (and old) Champion Augments have not been able to keep pace with the set. We’re buffing most of them, some that need just a tiny bit of love (Bonk!) and others that could use a lot more power to reach the stellar tier.Since we’re past the fourth of May, we’re able to safely nerf May the Fours Be With You, which may in fact be a buff since there’s one more 4 in the tooltip…Vampiric Vitality was never an exciting Augment to pick unless you were trying to make an epic comeback with Anima, but even then you’re better off with an Augment that you can spike hard and fast with.

Currently, Edge of Night is just a bit over budget. Between its stats, its aggro-drop, and the missing health heal, it’s trespassing on Sterak’s Gage’s survivability while having even stronger utility/survivability and decent offensive stats. A small nerf on the survivability aspect of the item should keep it off the edge of OP.

With our relatively recent design philosophy around Artifacts, as sharper (but not too sharp) items that lie between Core items and Radiant in power, we’ve accepted that not every Artifact should be in every set, and that rotating them in and out based upon the set’s needs, or sometimes thematic provides a fresher experience. For Space Gods, we likely should have rotated Horizon Focus out on release, as its performance with champions like (Mountain) Lulu, and to a lesser extent, Maokai, proved to be too sharp for our power framework. So stuck between a Mountain and tree, we’ve cast Horizon Focus off to see it again with a future set on the horizon.Sometimes, disabling an interaction is enough to keep an Aritfact in the right place for the set.

Sometimes buried things rise to the surface on their own. Like that one cringe childhood memory that won’t leave you alone. Everyone knows.Exclusive Customization has been more of an econ-light Augment than an item Augment. With many of our econ Augments nerfed, Exclusive Customization was left out, but as with it’s Gamba Augment cousin, now’s the time to continue to deflate our Augment economy.

Previously Star Level linked Cause and Effects for Arbiter from (2) to (3) didn’t actually improve the trait’s effect. This was originally designed with the idea that the improvement is in the Arbiter being starred up themselves, but that didn’t encourage comps with 3 Arbiters and LeBlanc often felt left out 8(.