Hello, Summoners! Librarian Husky here, ready to guide you through the latest changes in patch 14.23. As the meta continues to shift and evolve, champions rise and fall in popularity, strategies adapt, and even low ELO gameplay is seeing incredible improvements. Whether you’re looking to master the top lane with Malai or wondering why Re has fallen from grace, this guide is here to help you stay ahead of the curve.

Challenges in Low ELO Gameplay

If you ask for help, you just keep getting the same outdated advice, or even worse, they give you tips that only work in high ELO, such as how you should sync up your wave crashes with your teammates in multiple lanes, set up invades, or prioritize objectives. The theoretically correct play is usually not what actually works in your own ELO. Oftentimes, it’s something that may seem out of the ordinary, like split pushing as an ADC, that will give you more agency.

Maokai’s Rising Popularity in Korea

Over in Korea, especially, Maokai has seen a huge spike in play with his play rate now sitting at around 9%. In contrast, Western regions have yet to catch on quite as much, as Maokai has around a 2% play rate in North America and Europe. Whenever we see a significant spike in play like this, win rates tend to decline as a result. However, Maokai’s win rate has literally increased this patch, despite more players picking him up. This is a clear indication of a really strong champion, as more players do not lead to lesser results.

Core Build for Maokai

The core build for Maokai is really what’s pushing him over the top right now. By utilizing Unending Despair along with Winter’s Approach and Spirit Visage, there is an impressive amount of added healing and shielding that provides Maokai with incredible extended fight strength. The build is also super versatile; if you are up against an AP top laner, you can simply swap the order in which you purchase Unending Despair and Spirit Visage.

Matchups to Avoid

Looking at Maokai’s matchups right now, there are two champions you will want to avoid picking him into: Mordekaiser and Fiora. Mordekaiser excels at playing against tankier champions like Maokai because he does a great job at outlasting opponents in extended fights. Fiora’s W makes it very difficult for Maokai to engage freely with his own W in lane. As the game drags out, Fiora’s percent health true damage will chip away at Maokai in the side lane.

Conclusion: Take Advantage of Maokai

Aside from these matchups, Maokai is faring incredibly well this patch. You’ll want to take full advantage of him while you can, as we are moving him up into the Top Lane OP tier. Maokai gaining popularity is the only significant trend shift in the Top Lane for this patch, meaning the tier list won’t be changing very much overall.

Adjustments to Ambessa’s Position

The other adjustment we’re making is moving Ambessa up into the top tier as she continues to excel with players becoming more accustomed to the pick. If you’re looking for a good answer to Ambessa in the case that you don’t want to play or ban her, Renekton is one of the better options. Ambessa can’t utilize her mobility to outplay as much in the Renekton matchup. Due to his point-and-click stun from W, and Renekton also has the shield-breaking mechanic built into his W, which negates the shield from Ambessa in a few matchups that we’re seeing her absolutely thrive against.

Matchup Analysis: Ambessa vs. Renekton

Right now, Aatrox, Kante, and Yone are unlike Renekton. Aatrox actually heavily relies on landing skill shots to deal his damage. So with Ambessa’s mobility, she can do a great job at dodging out on that and can outplay Aatrox much easier than Renekton.

Jungle Updates and Skill Order

Moving on to the jungle now, in our pre-patch tier list, we theorized that with the buff to Rammus’ Q, we could see a new optimal skill order emerge for this patch, and we now have some data to back that up. W max into E second and then Q last is actually what has been winning the most now on Rammus in patch 14.23, outclassing Q max by over 1%. Last patch, though prior to the Q buffs, this skill order of W first into E second and Q last had a 1% lower win rate than Q max first. So, due to the Q changes, it’s now looking like maxing the ability out last is actually quite strong after all. The main reason why maxing Q over W was so good in the past was due to how much the cooldown of Q dropped from the first rank to the last.

Changes in Champion Rankings

The time for the spell has decreased from 16 seconds all the way down to 6 seconds. Now that it is at 12 seconds at rank one, there is no longer as much incentive to max the spell first by going for the W max. Instead, players have a lot more early dueling threat, and their clear speed is significantly better. If you’re playing this new skill order on Rammus for patch 14.23, he is in a really solid spot for solo queue.

Rengar’s Performance Analysis

Despite being optimistic about the buffs in this patch leading to an increase in Rengar’s performance, we missed the mark. Rengar has unfortunately dropped to the C tier in the jungle. The buffs on the live service have not translated into any significant uptick in success for him. In fact, Rengar’s win rate has actually decreased this patch despite the buffs, which is quite unusual.

Current Jungle Tier List

Looking at the jungle tier list now, our pre-patch predictions were fairly accurate. We had moved Wukong and Nocturne up into the OP tier, and after a few days with the patch live, it seems that was indeed the correct decision, as both champions are excelling. Additionally, Graves will be moved back up into the OP tier mid-patch because the nerfs to Ghostblade and The Collector have proven insufficient to diminish his standing.

Other Champion Adjustments

A few other adjustments include Teemo and Zac being moved down one tier further from mid-patch, as their nerfs are proving to be a bit more impactful than we predicted. This patch saw some massive overhauls to Aurora, and she is definitely the champion who has benefited the most from those changes.

Aurora’s Performance Improvement

We have observed a win rate spike of just over 1% for Aurora, which is quite significant considering Riot intended for the changes to be power neutral. The big changes were made to Aurora’s passive and R. You no longer gain movement speed from the passive; instead, you only receive movement speed when using W. This adjustment makes Aurora a little easier to play, as refreshing her passive movement speed was something players had to be cognizant of.

Changes to Aurora’s Abilities

With these changes, you simply gain movement speed when using W, which lowers her skill floor a bit. Regarding the R change, even though you no longer trap enemies inside it, the duration of R increased by a whole second at rank one and by 1.5 seconds at max rank. This allows Aurora to be more agile, and if enemies try to escape her R, they are still slowed by 75% for 1.5 seconds. Overall, these changes have landed positively for Aurora.