New item makes a champion in LoL overly strong, dominates entire matches

The new patch introduced some changes in League of Legends. So many new items were added for the pre-season. A few champions sync particularly well with the changes. The Heartsteel item has led to a champion becoming particularly strong.

Which champion is it? The champion is about Shyvanna, the half-dragon. It is mainly played in the jungle and before patch 12.22 it had a pick rate of 2.37% (via LoLalytics).

Since patch 12.22, Shyvanna has suddenly been played more often and has a pick rate of 4.09%. This clear popularity is also reflected in their win rate. Before the patch, her win rate was 52.5%. And while she wins the majority of her games, since the patch it’s like giving the half-dragon a new pair of wings.

Her win rate skyrocketed to 54.65% and even 59.4% when paired with the Heartsteel item (via MGG France). This monstrous win rate is currently being exploited by many players. However, this is mainly due to the synergy with the new item for tanks.

K’Sante is a champion designed to be a tank on the top plane. He trades life for damage:

The champion who dominated the preseason

Where does the synergy come from? Shyvanna is generally a strong champion for the jungle. So far it has only been played very successfully with Frostfire Gauntlet or Night Harvest. Then Riot overhauled the jungle. The much too strong item Heartsteel from the test server fits her just as well.

With the new item combination, she manages to maximize her damage. Your Q ability benefits greatly from this. By counting Heartsteel’s damage as on-hit damage, her ability activates the effect, dealing significantly more damage over a short period of time.

There are also other items that you can use to get the most out of Shyvanna. The Titanic Hydra is one of them because it also scales with the max life you get from Heartsteel and activated by Shyvanna’s Q ability as well.

How does this affect the patch? Each year in League of Legends, the pre-season is the time when new game mechanics are tried out. This year, Riot Games has brought the problem dragon back into the rift, dedicated to the jungle again and made it more beginner-friendly.

But there is still a lot going on for the characters from the Rift. In addition to increased experience and gold on the top plane and the new items, the champions are the lesser evil. At the beginning, adjustments should be made away from the champions and then looked at again later.

However, we strongly assume that the item combination around Shyvanna will also suffer losses as a result of the patches. The pre-season is constantly changing and behaves very dynamically. What was good yesterday can no longer be strong or banished today. Feel free to try the Dragon Lady build.

Which is your favorite pre-season champion to play against and who is your first ban? Tell us in the comments.

If you want to read more about the new items, we have an article for you here: LoL permanently banned innocent players and caused panic – now Riot is rowing back