Zyra has been delayed, but the Mid-July patch still has many major changes to discuss. Three champion remakes in one patch is unprecedented, and many other champions have seen substantial buffs, nerfs, or quality of life changes.
The Eve changes make her viable as a jungler again. While she can no longer approach completely unnoticed, the ability to bypass wards remains one of the strongest abilities in a ganker's kit. Even without crowd control a jungler can terrorize lanes, and there's always Exhaust to help guarantee Eve's gank effectiveness. Later her ultimate does a ridiculous amount of damage and grants Eve the strongest shield in the game, 1500 health. Expect to see a lot of her in solo queue.
Twitch makes his return as a ranged AD carry, massive cleaving ultimate and all. While not as overpowered as it was in his heyday, Twitch can still decimate tightly clustered foes when he has a lead. The short duration of his stealth may impede his ability to roam or gank, but as a tool for repositioning in team fights or escaping ganks it's unparalleled. He'll still be harder to play than many other AD carries, but in the right hands he'll be frightening.
Be afraid of Xin Zhao. While his abuse case of infinite knockups is gone, everything else about him has been buffed to compensate. He now has the ability to split up a team while isolating a single opponent, and can stick to a target better than ever. Capping CDR on him gives him an infinite Q->E combo unless a strong peeling champion intervenes, and even then all Xin has to do is attack the nearest target to bring his E back up again. Of the three remakes, Xin is the most likely to be overpowered.
Gangplank's Parrrley change seems innocuous but has huge effects on both his jungling and laning. It may only cost 50-70 mana, but with its low cooldown and gold return Parrley easily sapped his mana dry. With a mana return effect Gangplank can now farm without worrying about becoming too vulnerable in the process. That said, this change reflects the continuing game-wide shift from mana being an important resource to being forgettable unless you are completely careless.
Malphite's changes force him to choose between tankiness and damage, while also eliminating his potential to permanently slow the attack speed of an enemy carry. He'll likely remain on the ban list for some time as his damage will be hardly affected so long as he builds Abyssal, and 3 seconds of slowed attack speed is still brutal.
Malzahar's changes are largely quality of life, but have the potential to make him frightening. His Voidlings really stick to opponents now, enhancing his Malefic Visions harass. That he can now pull off his combo consistently should also scare opponents.
The nerfs to Morgana target her safety in the lane. It's practically impossible to gank or harass her unless she's overextended, as her Black Shield blocks all crowd control effects until it fades. With a 50% longer wait time between casts at rank 1, Morgana will be very vulnerable every time she's forced to use her shield.
In line with previous nerfs to global ultimates and the champions who possess them, Nocturne has received a couple small nerfs. These will have an effect on his game presence and defenses, but not enough to make him unviable. At this point he's not worth banning unless your team is particularly weak against him.
Sona's changes are likely to give her new life as a support. While a methodical player was capable of planning out her Power Chords, being caught off guard could easily result in being locked out from the one you truly wanted. With the shorter global cooldown between abilities switching between auras will now be far easier. Sadly, it's now impossible for Sona to permanently maintain two auras at once, even with maximum CDR.
Urgot has been very thoroughly nerfed. The changes completely alter his ability to function as a tanky anti-AD, and likely will cause him to completely disappear from competitive play.
All in all this patch has a huge swatch of changes. Be ready for some curve balls as we see the return of stealth champions and everyone's favorite Dynasty Warrior.
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