Riot admits mistake, reverts previous Kog’Maw update

Kog’Maw is going back to how he was before his update.

There are some champions that are simply busted whenever they are in a good place, and Kog’Maw is one of those champions.

The attack speed monster was pretty quiet for a long time, but he’s recently gained a lot of attention. However, not only has Kog’Maw been a strong ADC, but people are even playing him in the jungle with much success.

Jungle Kog’Maw sounds pretty stupid in theory, but that’s just how strong he is right now. Something clearly needs to be done.

Rather than hitting Kog’Maw with some nerfs, they have decided to do something completely unexpected — reverting him back to his previous state before he was ever updated in the preseason. This is pretty unprecedented, and it caught everyone by surprise.

Riot Axes (Game Systems Designer) made the announcement on the League of Legends boards yesterday: “His unique attack speed interactions undercut the core identity that we intended to reinforce. The items and masteries that scale best with his new direction provide early- and mid-game power rather than late-game power, warping his power curve. More importantly, the ability to move in between attacks is essential for him to serve as most of his team’s damage output. He needs to be able to keep up with a moving teamfight, or else his opponents simply avoid his range and his allies can’t rely on his damage output as the primary or potentially only major damage dealer on a team.”

More from News

• Bee’koz Vel’koz Skin: Splash Art, Price, Release, How to Get
• King Beegar Skin: Splash Art, Price, Release, How to Get
• EMENES retires following leave from Cloud9, cites military service
• EMENES Donezo Manifesto: Former Cloud9 Midlaner airs out grievances
• Team Heretics Perkz: European legend reportedly playing for TH

One thing he said is definitely true, and that’s the fact that Kog’Maw is currently strong at all times of the game. It was fine whenever he would mow you down late-game, but having a jungle Kog’Maw melt your health away at 20 minutes isn’t fun at all. He synergizes way too good with a lot of things in the game.

So, his insane W is having a lot of its power taken away, but Riot Axes doesn’t think Kog’Maw will lose too much power overall: “Some of it is actually going back on the W. He’s likely also getting his passive attack speed per rank back on Q. If that’s not enough, we’ll of course be looking for buffs.”

Buffs probably won’t be necessary as Kog’Maw in his previous state was just fine.

Speaking of that, Meddler (Lead Gameplay Designer) explained Kog’Maw’s previous state is why his update is getting reverted, “The big factor in reverting Kog was that he was in a pretty healthy, pretty unique state before hand. We thought we could improve that further. That didn’t work out, so we’re going back to things that have been demonstrated to work appropriately. There are certainly other updates that haven’t hit the mark as hoped, Morde in particular. The difference there though is that old Morde also had a bunch of issues, some of which the update did improve even if it added some others.”

That makes complete sense, and there’s nothing to really argue there.

Kog’Maw will return back to how he once was in patch 6.19, so enjoy him in his current form while you still can.

Visit our News section to stay up-to-date with everything in the game. Also, follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.