League of Legends Patch 13.18: The Biggest Winners and Losers

LoL Winners and Losers are few and far between, however both the buffs and the nerfs – especially the nerfs – were well deserved.

League of Legends Patch 13.18 dropped last week, and with these few days past we finally have enough data to talk about which champions benefited the most from the changes – and which of them got hit the hardest.

Patch 13.18 brought a number of changes, such as buffing some weaker toplaners and supports, nerfing some of the best junglers in the game – as well as shaving a bit off the buffs that Tryndamere received for his Attack range (which seems even weirder than when he got the buffs). Riot Games also tried to deal with the issue Statikk Shiv still presents, but so far, they still couldn’t destroy the monstrosity they brought into this world. Bard also got some adjustments, but his win rate improved after 13.18, so now we can safely say that his changes were buffs. Briar was also added with this patch, and while her win rate is still abysmal, her hotfix helped, and as players start to figure her out, she should become a very strong jungler! But now, let’s get into the winners and losers!

League of Legends Patch 13.18: The Biggest Winners and Losers

The Winners

Kennen

Kennen is the absolute winner of Patch 13.18, as the Heart of the Storm’s win rate improved by almost 2% according to stats site Lolalytics. Kennen got some needed buffs in the last update, as the balance team decreased his E’s Energy Cost from 100-80 to 80 at all ranks, which means that he can engage and disengage much more frequently thanks to the way energy works. They also showed some love to Slicing Maelstrom, his Ultimate, which now has a decreasing cooldown with each rank, going down to 80 seconds at level 16. Pair that up with Ability Haste, and you can stun the whole enemy team every 40-something seconds!

While the buffs certainly helped Kennen, he’s still barely above 50% in terms of win rate, so you don’t have to fear facing Kennen’s every game in your Solo Queue matches. However, with Worlds around the corner, Kennen could come back to the professional meta, as he has been an off-meta pick in the Summer Split as well.

Bard

Even though Riot Games classified the changes to Bard as “Adjustments” instead of Buffs, the Cosmic Traveller liked the changes very much. The developers increased his maximum Chime stacks to 10 from 5, while increasing each Stack’s duration to a whopping 20 seconds from 7 seconds, which let’s Bard zoom around the map much easier. They also made some changes to his W, Caretaker’s Shrine: it now has 2 charges, the shrines reach their Full Heal point in 5 seconds instead of 10, while the movement speed they give scales with level and AP now. Even though they nerfed the ability’s cooldown from 14 to 18 seconds, they 2 charges and the decrease in charge time still makes this a buff.

Bard has been a fairly unpopular champion due to his difficulty, but after the Patch, his pick rate nears 6%, while his win rate is close to 53%. Bard will always be something to whip out even at the top levels of the game, but even if you’re not adept at the champion, the W changes should make you more useful without flashy R plays!

Senna

Even though champions like Thresh and Gwen saw a bigger increase in win rate, the changes to Senna were much more meaningful, which means that in the long run, she could become a bigger winner of Patch 13.18 than the aforementioned characters. Riot Games finally removed the restriction which reduced Senna’s Critical Strike damage from her Passive, Absolution, while her W afflicts everyone with Mist that it snares, not just he initial target, which should make stacking for her much easier.

These changes mean that her crit builds should be a bit stronger, as well as her returning to the ADC role – most likely as fasting Senna – instead of being a support. While her build didn’t change that much yet, there’s always the possibility of Riot Games changing crit items or the champion herself more in order to bring her back for Worlds! However, Senna players can’t complain, is with her biffs, she now sits comfortably above a 53% win rate in Emerald+, which is not a bad spot to be in.

The Losers

Jarvan IV

Ever since Spear of Shojin returned to the meta, the Exemplar of Demacia was a menace to face in Summoner’s Rift. The counterplay to Jarvan IV was to bait out and dodge his E-Q combo, but with the amount of Ability Haste his build and Spear of Shojin gives, even if you dodged, you got hit with the flag-and-drag again in mere seconds. This put Jarvan IV at an astonishing 55% win rate, which is extremely high when you take into account his high play rate.

The balance team tried to bring him down back to Earth to us by reducing the damage it deals from 8% of the target’s current health to 6%. This, combined with the nerf to Spear of Shojin, which had it’s AD reduced from 60 to 55 hit Jarvan hard, as his win rate went down more than 2% – however, 52% is still fairly strong. Also, these changes don’t address the issue above, and while J4 doesn’t kill you in 2 combos, his CC should be enough to lock down one to three targets if he can land a good Cataclysm, which is more than enough to win teamfights, so there’s still work to be done.

Rell

The Iron Maiden has been a staple in the meta for quite some time, even getting flexed between Support in Jungle at the highest level of play (mainly by Martin “Yike” Sundelin, the jungler of G2 Esports in the LEC). Her mid-scope update has been highly successful, as she has been hovering around a 52-53% win rate for a while now even outside of coordinated play.

League of Legends’ balance team felt it was time to tune Rell down a bit, nerfing her E this time around. Full Tilt now gives less movement speed away from enemies as well as towards enemies, going down from 15-25% to 12-20% during the former, and from 30-50% to 24-40% during the latter. This is quite a big nerf, but Rell has been a very oppressive pick in the Support – where her win rate went down by more than 1%. However, this change didn’t really affect her Jungle performance, as her win rate even increased a bit when played on her secondary role! Rell is here to stay, but she might be a bit easier to face now.

Xayah

Another staple of the professional and casual meta, Xayah got some changes as well. The Vastayan rebel has 30 less Base Health but 5 more Health Growth, and her E’s cooldown has been increased early to make her less oppressive in the laning phase. Xayah has always been regarded as a lane bully, but in the current game, she scales extremely well too, so she doesn’t really have a weak point in the game. Pair that up with her ultimate, and she is extremely hard to shut down in the hands of a capable player.

The balance team tried to turn her early game down, and they somewhat succeeded, as both Xayah’s pick and win rate went down – although not by a lot, so if they want her out of the meta before the 2023 League of Legends World Championship, they will have to hit her again directly, maybe with some more cooldown nerfs to counteract the Ability Hast running rampant.

While Patch 13.18 hasn’t been that impactful, it completed its job in being the last update before the Worlds Patches start rolling out – which are supposed to be much more significant. Don’t forget to follow ESTNN for the latest news regarding Worlds and League of Legends!