Patch 10.15- the release of the most anime protagonist skin line League of Legends has ever seen, along with the half-deer, half-girl, all cutie Lilia, the Bashful Bloom. Lilia’s release will mark the first official jungler released in League of Legends since 2017, and is the first of two big champion releases slated for Summer 2020. Alongside Lilia’s maiden voyage, 10.15 will bring significant buffs for Swain and Skarner, and some long-awaited nerfs for everyone’s most hated AD Carry, Aphelios.
Lilia Release
Hailing from the promised land of Ionia, Lilia is a ‘mid-range skirmisher’ who utilises the sleep mechanic previously only seen in Zoe’s kit. With her character design revolving around her birth from the blooms of Ionia’s ‘Dreaming Tree’, her passive is aptly named ‘Dreaming Dust’- anyone hit by her skills is affected by this dust, causing them to take a percentage of their maximum health as magic damage over three seconds.
Her ultimate, possibly the most controversial part of her kit, also utilises this ‘Dreaming Dust’- when activated, her ultimate causes all champions marked by her passive to become ‘drowsy’, an increasing slow that ends in champions being ‘slept’ for a short period of time. The sleep mechanic has only previously been seen on one of the game’s most hated champions, the magical messenger Zoe, and community responses to Lilia’s kit have been lukewarm at best. With the rest of her abilities centering on short-range magic damage and stacking her passive, Lilia will be a definite shakeup in the jungle role.
Aphelios Nerfs
This latest round of Aphelios nerfs take direct shots at his Crescendum and Infernum guns- with the number of Infernum’s missiles on both the basic and Runaan’s Hurricane enhanced forms seeing a significant decrease. One of Aphelios’s main issues is his ability to seemingly blow up an entire team out of nowhere, and this particular nerf focuses on removing some of his area of effect strength, with their decreased range also allowing him a little less safety in teamfights. The range of his Crescendum turrets also takes a hit of 75 total range- not a huge change, but one whose effects will hopefully be felt in professional play.
Swain Buffs
The changes to Swain are mainly focused around some MASSIVE buffs to his Vision of Empire, with the range and mana cost both receiving significant changes. However, there are some drawbacks to this new style of ultimate sniper no-scope Swain; in exchange for buffs to his Vision of Empire and Nevermove, his base move speed is being decreased by ten and his Ravenous Flock no longer restores mana. However, these nerfs are pretty insignificant in comparison to the injection of power the champion is about to receive- the focus on buffing his utility over his damage may suggest an attempt to shoehorn him into a more supportive role.
Spirit Blossom Releases
As if the Battle Academia and Star Guardian skins weren’t enough for the anime fans in the League of Legends community, Riot announced their feudal Japanese inspired ‘Spirit Blossom’ skin line’s release in conjunction with Lilia. Lilia’s release skin will be a Spirit Blossom skin, and the line will include Yasuo, Teemo, Vayne and Thresh- with more skins to come in a summer event teased on the client. The skins are an aesthetic dream of cherry blossoms and clouds (possibly the first time ‘aesthetically pleasing’ and ‘Teemo’ have appeared in the same sentence). Although not slated for release in 10.15, there are also rumours of a cherry blossom themed nexus blitz map for this new event, and new missions centred around the anime theme of the skins.
Although 10.15 is far from perfect- with many questioning a lack of Volibear nerfs despite his incredibly dominating presence in professional play. The Aphelios nerfs will go a long way in removing some of his globally oppressive presence on the pro stage, but whether they will remove him completely is yet to be seen. We’re placing bets on how long it will take for Lilia to enter the competitive meta- send us your guesses via Twitter!
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