The behavior of the League of Legends community is still one of the most interesting elements of Riot Games’ title. Players have a changing attitude and, unsurprisingly, are also affected by different psychological phenomena. Several of them have even been demonstrated throughout history — like the scientific study that proved that picking a certain champion can change our attitude in-game. With the Udyr rework coming our way, we have the opportunity to see live an equally interesting effect.
The Last Farewell to League of Legends Champions
The theory is simple and goes as follows: In the patches leading up to a major overhaul, even less-loved champions see a big spike in popularity. This is a common phenomenon, which only occurs when full visual and gameplay updates arrive and which Riot Games has even dubbed “The Last Hurray”. A special farewell that brings together players who want to say goodbye to the character before its changes, or for those who do not fully understand the reasons for this redesign.
The imminent arrival of the revamp of Udyr, which will land in the game with the next patch 12.16, allows us to observe this phenomenon in real time. Riot Games has only just formalized the arrival of the revamp in League of Legends, but in the days that have passed since then, we can already see a big spike in popularity. The champion went from having a 1.7% presence of ranked games to having a presence of around 2.5%. The increase is quite remarkable in percentage terms, representing an improvement of almost 50%, and shows an upward trend that should continue as we get closer to the release of the revamp.
Also, if we want to focus on Udyr’s case, we have to take into account that there haven’t been any major changes for him in the last patches. The champion was present alongside all League of Legends characters in the durability patch, but his last upgrade before these changes came in version 11.20 which was only released in 2021. In this regard, there is no other factor to highlight. Moreover, his performances are still quite poor, failing to achieve victory in even half of the matches he is picked in.
While this is an interesting phenomenon, it’s also one of the most predictable in League of Legends. Champions that receive a rework are usually characters that have been with us for years. We may not have paid attention to them lately, but they have probably been important to us. Udyr, for example, is one of the junglers that was recommended for players who wanted to start in this position in the early seasons of League of Legends. An old friend who will be renewed and who we won’t miss that much. It is good to remember that its update was very continuist and respects the whole identity of the character.
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