League of Legends: How Patch 10.7 Will Affect Competitive Play

Patch 10.7 is live on League of Legends solo queue but hasn’t reached pro play yet. Here’s how the patch will impact the meta in competitive leagues.

Earlier in the week, League of Legends released the Patch 10.7 Notes which have since been added to live servers and started to shift the solo queue meta.

However, it will be some time before these changes reach competitive play, so we can assess how they’ll impact the pro play meta in the meantime.

Competitive play is entirely different from solo queue due to the level of coordination, communication, and practice pro teams have compared to your average ranked experience. Therefore, we can look solely at the champions that are popular within the pro meta and discuss how their buffs/nerfs could impact competitive play.

Champions

Akali

"R – Perfect ExecutionCooldown: 120/90/60 -> 100/80/60"

While the major nerfs Akali received on Patch 10.3 reduced her to one of the lowest win rate mid laners in the current meta, she continued to see play in competitive leagues, albeit on a much smaller scale (6% presence on Patch 10.4).

Therefore, we can expect to see the Rogue Assassin much more often in pro play after these buffs are live, especially considering how impactful a -20 second Perfect Execution cooldown can be during the early/mid game.

We won’t see Akali return to 100% pick/ban, but we will see her rise to the A/B tiers of mid lane as she becomes a high priority pick who can control the mid lane matchup and look to either side lane to make plays once reaching Level 6, no longer gated by a 2-minute ultimate cooldown.

Corki

"W – Special DeliveryDamage over Time Duration: 1.5 seconds -> 2 seconds"

It is incredibly rare that you’ll see a pro player use Corki’s W – Special Delivery for damage. Instead, it’s used as a tool to quickly navigate the map and close distance in order to set up a roam down in the bot lane.

However, if Corki happens to knock back an enemy with Special Delivery or an enemy accidentally walks on the fire trail, then the damage will now be increased by 33%, allowing the team to burst the opponent down slightly faster.

Fiddlesticks

After playoffs, the Fiddlesticks rework will be available in all competitive regions. Whether he’s utilized or not remains to be seen but considering his extremely fast jungle clear and fear from on all abilities fog of war it’s likely that pro teams will be looking to add the champion to their repertoire.

Galio

"R – Hero’s Entrance[New] Now grants allies in the area Galio’s E – Shield of Durand magic shield for 5 seconds."

Galio’s Hero’s Entrance buff is by far the biggest change of the patch when it comes to pro play as coordinated teams can easily gather in the Area of Effect before a team fight begins or during the skirmish.

The Colossus was already gathering steam as a niche support pick over recent patches (5% presence on Patch 10.5), so buffing him will undoubtedly lead to a higher play rate, possibly propelling him into the A/B tier of support champions.

This change could also shift the meta towards more physical damage champions as teams become afraid of drafting too much magic damage and being shut down by Galio in team fights as he’d make it impossible to burst down enemy carries.

Kai’Sa

"E – SuperchargeCooldown: 16/15.5/15/14.5/14 seconds -> 16/15/14/13/12 seconds"

This was a buff targeted at solo queue players who are struggling to pilot Kai’Sa in the current meta, but pro players were having no problems with her of recent as illustrated by her 29% presence on Patch 10.5.

Therefore, it goes without saying that we’ll be seeing plenty more of Kai’Sa in competitive on Patch 10.7 and beyond as her damage output and maneuverability in team fights have been increased through a pretty big Supercharge cooldown reduction.

Wukong

"Passive – Stone SkinArmor: 5-11 -> 5-9 (based on level)E – Nimbus StrikeDamage: 80/120/160/200/240 -> 80/105/140/175/200"

Mini-rework Wukong was a broken mess on release and will undoubtedly be played in competitive leagues in his current state.

Nevertheless, if nerfs like this keep hitting the Monkey King between now and the Summer Split it’s likely that he’ll sink towards the B/C tiers of mid lane rather than his present S tier state.

Runes

Conditioning

"Activation Time: 10 minutes -> 12 minutes"

Ultimately, these defenses aren’t game-changing and waiting 2 more minutes for them to activate makes very little difference to the average competitive game. All this change does is encourage players to opt for Second Wind or Bone Plating when creating their rune page in the future.

Phase Rush

"Melee Movement Speed: 30-50% -> 40-60%"

Melee champions already have an abundance of high-quality keystones to choose from including Conqueror, Electrocute, and Aftershock.

However, a 10% movement speed buff may be enough to push players to test it out in solo queue and potentially use it on the likes of Mordekaiser and Sett in certain matchups.

Do you think the reworked champions will be overpowered in competitive play? Will Fiddlesticks be the #1 jungler in the competitive meta?