LoL Patch 14.9: Riot Wants To Make Annoying Champion Easier To Play

In LoL Patch 14.9, one champion was sadly nerfed. But it seems like Riot are intent on making even more changes in the future, so that he can become an "easy" champion once again.

Master Yi Debonair Skin
LoL Patch 14.9: He is getting nerfed, but who knows for how long. | © Riot Games

Riot is making some major changes in LoL Patch 14.9, with easy to play champions receiving some buffs to help them along, while others that have been too strong are getting nerfed. But one champion in particular was singled out by Lead Gameplay Designer, Riot Phroxzon when he went over the upcoming changes.

Not too long ago, Riot made some changes to one particularly annoying jungler, and it seems that the devs are thinking of simplifying the champ once more in an upcoming update.

LoL Patch 14.9: Master Yi Shifted Away From Target Audience

Master Yi is one of the simplest champions in the game. He's a great late game pick for low elo junglers who is able to solo carry games with ease. Low MMR players don't know how to counter him, and that gives him an insane advantage.

Blood Moon Master Yi
This champion is every low elo players nightmare. | © Riot Games

A while ago, Riot decided to give him a few tweaks and adjustments to make the champion more viable in higher MMR queues as well, but it seems that he might have shifted away from his target audience — new League of Legends players. So, riot might make even more changes in the future.

We did some work to Master Yi many patches ago to flatten his performance skew by MMR. Some of this is great! But if we go too far, it can mean that Master Yi is not able to function properly for his target audience.

One of the problems currently is that he seems to have become a medium mastery champion. In the long term, Riot wants to make Master Yi a low mastery champion and therefore might have to simplify a few things on his kit.

Jungler Master Yi
Just get some hard CC to counter him. | © Riot Games

Riot Phroxzon does acknowledge that the "he just clicks on me" style of play Master Yi offers could feel bad to play against, there is a need in the game for these types of champions, so that new players can get used to the rest of the mechanics in League of Legends.

While Master Yi is frustrating to play against, it does make sense to have extremely simple champions in the game like that. So it'll be interesting to see when and how Riot decides to change Master Yi in the future.

Sabrina Ahn

Sabrina Ahn is the League of Legends and Riftfeed Lead. During her time at Concordia University in 2014 she fell in love with LoL and is playing it since – how she hasn't lost her sanity is still unclear....