As you may already know, League of Legends’ patch 5.16 has hit the rift as of August 5. With this came sweeping changes to items, champions, and the HUD. How have these changes affected the game? Let’s take a look and see.
First off let’s look at Skarner, the infamous scorpion jungler that was once the king back in season 3. This patch did great things for Skarner, bringing his winrate up to 64% overall and 75% in games under 25 minutes. Because of this great increase, Skarner’s banrate percentage is now the highest in the game: 63%.
Next is Mordekaiser. If you haven’t read the patch notes here is the quick summary: Mordekaiser now goes bottom as “adc” and gains full experience from the lane. He can use this to excessively bully the enemy laners and even use his ult to control dragon for a short time. Mordekaiser has a winrate of 56% as adc, with a staggering winrate of 68% for games under 25 minutes. He is generally permanently banned even in higher elos as there is not much room for counterplay — his banrate is 37%.
Perhaps the champion that received the largest gain is Fiora. Pre 5.16, Fiora was sitting at an abysmal 42% winrate. Her winrate has now shot up to 57% in games under 25 minutes, slowly decaying to 52% in games over 40 minutes. Her playrate has also increased 5% bringing her to 9% playrate as of this patch. Unfortunately for Fiora, her banrate has also increased to 24%.
Garen has also seen a great increase in play and winrate percentage. He has increased to 15% playrate from 5% and 55% winrate from 49%. He is banned in 19% of games, partly due to the fact that there are much bigger threats on the rift right now.
Shyvana and Elise are two champions that have seen a strange rise in banrates. For Shyvana, her winrate has decreased from 52% to 51%, a negligible difference. However her banrate is at 52%, a number unsupported by her winrate. Elise is at 50.63% winrate, but still maintains a 50% banrate. Even stranger, this patch nerfed Elise’s Q and did not directly change Shyvana’s kit whatsoever. These numbers should likely change as the patch matures.
Now for the items. A number of new items have hit the game this patch. These items include Dead Man’s Plate, Sterak’s Gage, and Titanic Hydra. Unfortunately, it is too early to see how these items have affected the rift so they will be listed instead below.
Dead Man’s Plate was an item that was in Black Market Brawlers but has since made its debut on the big rift. It costs 2750 gold and offers 600 health and 50 armor as well as two unique passives:
UNIQUE Passive – Dreadnought: You build Momentum stacks while moving up to 100, granting up to 60 bonus Movement Speed. Momentum rapidly decays while under immobilizing crowd control effects, and decays slowly while slowed.
UNIQUE Passive – Crushing Blow: Basic attacks discharge all Momentum, dealing 1 bonus physical damage for every 2 Momentum. If 100 stacks are discharged, the damage is doubled; if this attack is Melee, the target will also be slowed for 75% (decaying over 1 second).
This is a new item for bruisers that might be an alternative item to Sunfire Cape.
Sterak’s Gage is another item that will benefit the tanky bruisers of the game. This item costs 2550 gold and grants 500 health, 25% base AD as well as a unique passives: