Riot Games did not skimp on announcements in its latest video presenting the changes coming to League of Legends in the coming months. The studio notably revealed the name of the next character to join the Summoner’s Rift, K’Sante, the famous tank top, but also gave the first clues about the new champions who will arrive in early 2023.
In addition to these new features, the studio also confided in medium-scale updates. There have been many in recent months, we can think of Janna, Ahri, Swain, Taliyah, Olaf or even more recently Sivir. As Riot Games releases new champions more slowly, the studio has more time to make smaller updates to champions that are no longer on the same level as others. And the developers are not going to stop there since two new characters have already been chosen to receive a medium-scale update.
Syndra and Neeko will receive major changes
Mid-size updates aren’t intended to redesign a champion’s look, theme, or gameplay — like VMGs (visual and gameplay updates). Instead, the studio wants to restore the image of champions who have not lived up to the expectations of the players who appreciate them. Riot Games tries to strengthen their universe rather than reinvent it.
For Swain for example, they made him an even more powerful frontline mage. For Ahri, they focused on her mobile mage side rather than the assassin she had become.
Syndra and Neeko are both champions who have been affected by the meta changes over the past few months. The Dark Sovereign’s mobility is more than mediocre and there are currently other mages doing a better job than her on the mid lane, like Ahri or even Taliyah. This partial shift in her abilities could be a great way for her to re-energize both in SoloQ and on the competitive circuit.
Neeko, on the other hand, is a champion who hasn’t been around as long as Syndra, but her fate is the same. She’s not a bad champion, but it’s true that she’s become very stagnant because it is too specific a choice to be effective in most games. We still don’t know how big the changes to these two champions will be, but looking at previous reworks, we pretty much know what to expect from Riot Games: mobility improvements, tweaks to damage and especially medium to large changes to some of their abilities.
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