Players Will Get To Vote On New League Of Legends Champion

Riot Games will once again open a vote for fans to decide which League of Legends character is in need of a rework.

Following the success of the previous Champion Update Poll in League of Legends, Riot Games has decided to repeat the exercise and ask players to once again vote on which champion they would prefer to see reworked in the following year. Although much of the decision making on things pertaining to balance and reworks comes from meticulous analysis of internal data, the Champion Update Poll is one of the best ways that Riot Games listens to its community of dedicated players, putting significant time and resources into making adjustments based on these votes.

The vote from last year was close, tasking players to vote for their preferred champion to rework from a list that included Dr. Mundo, Fiddlesticks, Nocturne, Shyvana, and Volibear. With less than one hundred votes separating the top two spots between champions Fiddlesticks and Volibear, both were selected to receive reworks.

The list of champions that will appear on the next vote has yet to be revealed, and players should expect it later this year. It would be surprising however if Shyvana were not a candidate because she came in a close third place in last year’s voting and is a popular character in the Chinese market, often seeing play at high levels of competitive matches.

Whether or not the champion wins the popular vote needed to secure a rework is another matter, because now that there are almost one hundred and fifty champions to choose from, there are many who are fan favorites that could use some love and a proper rework of their toolkits.

Interestingly, the reason that Shyvana is considered a prime candidate for a rework is one that is shared among many champions, especially older ones. At her core, Shyvana is a melee champion with little crowd control and is often forced into AP burst mage builds, especially because both Flame Breath (E) and Dragon’s Descent (R) scale with that type of a build. By today’s standards much of her kit is stale, and since she has so little mobility compared to alternative champions, she simply cannot keep up.

This effect of a champion toolkit becoming stale, which is to say, improved upon by recent champions, is to be expected. Since Shyvana was released in late 2011, almost a decade has passed where new heroes have been released that do her job in a more efficient way, or simply counter and punish her weaknesses.

For this reason, League of Legends may soon hit a point where the primary focus of the development team falls upon reworking nearly decade-old champions instead of releasing new ones. Heroes of the Storm often saw this approach taken to great effect, reworking older heroes to keep them relevant with the new and ever-increasing toolkits of newer characters.

In any case, players should keep an eye out to cast their votes for the champion they consider most in need of a rework!