Welcome to patch 6.15, the one with our first mention of Worlds (man, where has the time gone?). With regional playoffs fast approaching, we’re looking to get the meta as close to Worlds-ready as we can, so teams are qualifying under similar conditions to what Worlds itself will present.

This time around, our focus is on the early game, taking a deep look at the professional scene’s laneswap-by-default meta. The gist of our changes is that we’re reducing symmetry between structure defenses so top and bot aren’t perfect mirrors of one another. Toss in a first blood mechanic for turrets, and trading outers is no longer an equivalent exchange. We’ll tune these changes as warranted in the patches to come, but these’ll be the last major changes you see until the season ends.

Early game aside, we’re also taking stock of today’s champion diversity, reining in a few of the outliers (Hecarim) and bringing up a few old friends who’ve been collecting dust (Kassadin?!). In case you were wondering, that does in fact include Corki buffs. Some memes never die.

That’s it for us today! Go first-blood a turret, and we’ll see you on the Rift.