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Riot Games has been hard at work in Season 12 to ensure that League of Legends champions stay relevant in the current meta by way of mini-reworks and by introducing tweaks to their ability kits. For the recent LoL Patch 12.6, Riot released the Rengar rework on the live servers. Interestingly, the company is looking at “mid-scope updates” for champions Taliyah and Olaf, in an attempt to revive them and bring them back into play on Summoner’s Rift. This comes after a slew of changes made to other champions in the past including Ahri and Janna.
Mid-scope updates announced on social media
Late on 29th March, Riot Games’ Principal Champion Designer August “August” Browning wrote on Twitter, “We're beginning to ramp up work on ‘mid-scope updates’. These are larger sets of changes for champions that can take a couple of months to lock down. The recent Ahri and Janna adjustments are examples of work in this space. Mid-scopes for Taliyah and Olaf are currently in flight.”
Browning also added that Riot’s other past updates in the same vein were champions like Xin Zhao, Sona, and Lucian. He explained that these changes are attempts to revitalize characters that have lost their luster over time and that “ideally they're something the players of those champs can be excited about!”
These “mid-scope updates” are not full-fledged champion reworks but are just smaller adjustments made to the champions’ kits to make them viable again. As per the Rioter’s announcement, the League of Legends community will learn more about this in the future.
As we all know, Ahri’s new kit was well received by the community, and soon after it got released on the live servers, she hopped back to being a meta pick. Her win rates soared across different ranks in Solo Queue and she is now also prioritized as a mid-lane pick in the League of Legends pro scene.
Taliyah and Olaf stats
According to U.GG in LoL Patch 12.5, Taliyah and Olaf are sitting on a win rate of 50.58% and 47.49%, respectively, in Platinum and higher ranks. Interestingly, both the champions are predominantly picked as a jungler in Solo Queue games. Additionally, Taliyah and Olaf share the same pick and ban rates. Their ban rate is 0%, meaning that no player sees them as a threat in the game, and on top of that, their pick rate is only 1% in over 27K games analyzed.
Interestingly, Taliyah was introduced to the game as a mid-lane mage, and her Q - Threaded Volley and her passive Rock Surfing were also subject to reworks in the past. She was eventually picked as a jungler and in the current meta, she is not as strong in the jungle as well. Olaf, however, is a champion that can cast his R - Ragnarok and run down enemies instantaneously. Unfortunately, players have not been picking him in the current meta since the priority picks are champions like Hecarim in the jungle.
Looks like the mid-scope updates slated for both Taliyah and Olaf might bring them back up to potential and players might start seeing the Stoneweaver back on the mid-lane again. The exact dates for when these changes will be shipped out are still unknown.
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