League of Legends 9.23 patch notes: the pre-season is here

Patch 9.21 Highlights - YouTube Patch 9.21 Highlights - YouTube
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9.21 Champion Changes

Garen

Nerfing Garen after his changes in 9.20. While this change might look large, we've kept the ratios the same, so it shouldn’t feel like a huge nerf.

R - Judgment

  • Base damage per spin: 8/12/16/20/24 ⇒ 4/8/12/16/20
  • Damage ratio per spin: 0-8.2 (levels 1-18) (+32/34/36/38/40% attack damage) (unchanged)

Kayne

Both of Kayn's forms are underperforming right now, so we're adjusting his damage to give him a bit more oomph against champions, regardless of which form you choose.

Q - Reaping Slash

  • Damage: 60/80/100/120/140 ⇒ 75/95/115/135/155
  • Rhaast modified damage: 0.5 total attack damage ⇒ 0.55 total attack damage
  • Bonus damage to monsters: 55 ⇒ 40

Kog'Maw

Right now, Kog'Maw's E does not feel rewarding to cast, even when it lands successfully. Rather than decreasing the costs on his E's or other abilities' early ranks, we're upping their value so that Kog'Maw’s kit still has a risk vs reward element.

Base Stats

  • Mana: 322.22 ⇒ 325
  • Mana regen: 8.676 ⇒ 8.75

Q - Caustic Spittle

  • Base damage: 80/130/180/230/280 ⇒ 90/140/190/240/290

E - Void Ooze

  • Base damage: 60/105/150/195/240 ⇒ 75/120/165/210/255

Lulu

Lulu's transition into the mid-game could be better. We want Pix to offer more to fights and for players to make choices that are more worthwhile as Lulu scales.

E - Help, Pix!

  • Shield: 80/115/150/185/220 ⇒ 80/120/160/200/240
  • Damage: 80/110/140/170/200 ⇒ 80/120/160/200/240

Maokai

Maokai is underperforming across all levels of play and needs some help to keep up with his would-be lumberjacks.

Q - Bramble Smash

  • Bugfix: Maokai will no longer damage nearby targets if he's begun casting Q - Bramble Smash right before dying

W - Twisted Advance

  • Cost: 60/65/70/75/80 ⇒ 60 at all levels
  • Damage: 50/75/100/125/150 ⇒ 70/95/120/145/170

R - Nature's Grasp

  • Root duration: 0.6-2.4 seconds (based on distance traveled) ⇒ 0.8-2.6 seconds (based on distance traveled)

Master Yi

Phantom Hits now proc Double Strike and apply Double Strike stacks.

Passive - Double Strike

  • Phantom hit bugfix: Master Yi's Phantom Hits (from Guinsoo's Rageblade) will now properly proc Double Strike and apply Double Strike stacks

Pyke

When Pyke gets ahead, he takes advantage of the situation without any real risk, killing off folks left and right and becoming near-impossible to take down. He should still have trouble escaping after an assassination, even if he's doing very well. And if he makes a second pass at a kill, he shouldn't be at near full life.

Base Stats

  • Health growth: 100 ⇒ 90

Passive - Gift of the Drowned Ones

  • Grey Health: 30-81% (levels 1-18) of the damage he takes from enemy champions ⇒ 25-50% (levels 1-18) of the damage he takes from enemy champions

Shaco

Shaco landed in a strong spot after 9.20, so we're doing some light touch-ups to address specific concerns about his lane presence and early jungle power.

W - Jack In The Box

  • Box duration: 60 seconds ⇒ 40 seconds

Sona

Follow-up QoL change and passive bugfix for the adult woman.

General

  • Resource bar: When her Passive - Power Chord is ready, Sona's resource bar will now change color based on her current active aura
  • Passive bugfix: Sona's abilities no longer fail to generate Passive - Power Chord stacks immediately after an empowered attack

Viktor

Viktor is a little weaker than we expected after the changes last patch. We're going light on the follow-up, since we know people are still getting accustomed to him. We're also including a bugfix that already happened in a mid-patch update in 9.20, since we weren't able to widely message it out at the time!

Base Stats

  • Health: 528.04 ⇒ 530
  • Attack damage: 52.04 ⇒ 53
  • Armor: 22.72 ⇒ 23

Q - Siphon Power

  • Damage: 50/65/80/95/110 ⇒ 60/75/90/105/120
  • Bugfix: Now properly buffs Viktor's shield when augmented

W - Gravity Field

  • SFX bugfix: Gravity Field's SFX is no longer noticeably louder when using it against more than one enemy

Warwick

Warwick is falling behind the pack, especially when he maxes his Q before his W. We want him to still have the option of maxing out one over the other based on the situation, but they should both be on a more equal footing.

Q - Jaws of the Beast

  • Damage ratio: 6/6.5/7/7.5/8% of the target's maximum health ⇒ 6/7/8/9/10% of the target's maximum health

W - Blood Hunt

  • Bonus attack speed: 50/65/80/95/110% upon attacking a Blood Hunted target or an enemy unit below 50% of their maximum health ⇒ 70/80/90/100/110% upon attacking a Blood Hunted target or an enemy unit below 50% of their maximum health

9.21 Bug fixes

  • When Kindred casts W - Wolf's Frenzy, Wolf now properly attacks enemies in range when she is not attacking anything
  • When walking over a Rift Scuttler Speed Shrine, champions will now have a Revealed Eyes marker over them
  • Enemies spotted by Ashe's E - Hawkshot will no longer have the vision Eyes above their heads until the end of the game
  • Qiyana's R - Supreme Display of Talent VFX no longer desynchronize with its effects and they properly follow the outline around terrain all the way through from the enemies' perspective if it is cast in Fog of War
  • Heimerdinger's R - UPGRADE!!!'s tooltip no longer mentions that his E - CH-3X Lightning Grenade's slow is improved to 80%
  • Only champions can pick up Eye of the Herald. Dashing as Yasuo through it with R - Last Breath or having the living shadow from Shadow Assassin Kayn's W - Blade's Reach stand on it will no longer have those non-champion entities pick it up
  • When Sylas Hijacks Nidalee's ultimate and uses her Q - Takedown, he'll now properly do damage with it
  • Aurelion Sol's R - Voice of Light's VFX are no longer globally visible in Fog of War
  • Neeko can once again select herself to deactivate her disguise, putting it on a 2-second cooldown
  • Kled will no longer lose his untargetable status when dismounting near turrets/walls

9.21 Upcoming Skins and Chromas

Skins

Chromas

Witch's Brew Blitzcrank

League of Legends chromas

(Image credit: Riot Games)

Count Kassadin

League of Legends chromas

(Image credit: Riot Games)
Sarah Richter
Contributor

Sarah is a contributor for PC Gamer, formerly of TechRadar Gaming. With five years of experience writing freelance for several publications, she's covered every genre imaginable and probably a few she made up. She has a passion for diversity and the way different genres can be sandboxes for creativity and emergent storytelling, and loves worldbuilding. With thousands of hours in League of Legends, Overwatch, Minecraft, and countless survival, strategy, roguelike, and RPG entries, she still finds time for offline hobbies like tabletop RPGs, wargaming, miniatures painting, and hockey.