Kha'zix, the upcoming champion, brings with him the latest in secret passives. If Kha'zix and Rengar are in a match together and Rengar possesses his Bonetooth Necklace, then shortly after Kha'zix hits level 16 a special buff appears on both of them indicating "The Hunt is On". Whoever first kills or assists a kill on the other receives a reward. Rengar's Bonetooth Necklace becomes the Head of Kha'zix, granting Rengar permanent full trophy stacks. Kha'zix gains a fourth evolution point. This new feature has caused quite a stir.
My own thoughts are divided. I see reasons both for and against this special interaction, and at any given time I lean one way or the other. It's a complicated issue that treads new ground, and it can be very hard to predict how these issues might affect the game in the long run.
A large number of players assert that the advantage conferred by this interaction is overpowering, but I contend that the advantage is both irrelevant to the vast majority of games and marginal even in games where it plays a role. Most games won't feature both Rengar and Kha'zix; assuming each champion appears in 25% of all games (a very high rate of play) only 6.25% of all games will have both. The majority of those remaining games will have been decided well before Kha'zix ever hits 16 and some will not even feature the Bonetooth Necklace (e.g. any game with AP Rengar), leaving only 1% of all games or fewer where the advantage even plays a role. In those few remaining games only a very small fraction will be determined by that advantage. At worst maybe 0.001% of all games will see an outcome changed by this feature.
Part of this is the lackluster nature of the advantages themselves. Rengar is practically guaranteed to have full stacks on his Bonetooth Necklace in a reasonably close game so long as he doesn't constantly run into the enemy team on his own and die without any assists; the advantage conferred by gaining the head of Kha'zix only applies when Rengar is very far behind (at which point it is unlikely to swing the game, its bonuses are good but not that good). Similarly, Kha'zix has two evolutions which are interesting but extremely situational, his W and R. Both are largely countered by wards and Oracle's, and even when they aren't they require very specific situations to make a big difference. While it's fun to have permanent stacks and that fourth evolution, they simply don't have the impact many players assume.
All of that said, there are some strong points to be made against this design decision. This secret passive is different from all others in that it confers a tangible advantage, however rarely it will actually determine a game. Players who are not aware of the special interaction will actually have a measurable disadvantage against those who are. This is unprecedented in the history of the game, and skirts the lines of what is an acceptable burden of knowledge.
The magnitude of this new secret passive is also many times greater than all its predecessors. All previous secret passives were either pure fluff or so mathematically unlikely to change an outcome that perhaps one game in the entire history of League of Legends will ever be determined by them. With hundreds of thousands of games being played daily, even small percentages can become meaningful. The "worst case" I outlined before could easily lead to hundreds of games every day where this interaction plays a significant role (though the chance of you being in that game is obviously very small).
It's a neat interaction, and it tickles my obsessive-compulsive tendencies to be able to get all four evolutions in a single game on Kha'zix. At the same time, it sets a dangerous precedent for secret passives. Were I in Riot's position I wouldn't even think of implementing further interactions for at least a half-year or more as the effects of this are sorted out.
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