League of Legends: Kayn will dominate the jungle on Patch 10.9

Kayn is set to make a triumphant return to the League of Legends jungle meta! Two of the champion’s key abilities will be receiving big buffs on Patch 10.9!

Abandoned. Discarded. Forgotten. These are just three of the emotions Kayn players may have experienced over the last few months as their favorite champion remained in a sorry state incapable of impacting the jungle meta. But that’s set to change on Patch 10.9!

The Shadow Reaper’s release back in 2017 (yes it’s been that long) was met with excitement and intrigue as jungle mains were given the option to switch between an assassin and bruiser on the Rift, rather than in champion select, depending on the game state.

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Initially, Shadow Assassin was the dominant of the two forms due to its unmatched ability to one-shot enemy carries with the smallest of gold advantages. Then as players adjusted to the new champion, Rhaast became the more popular Kayn iteration as an unkillable healing machine with excellent team fight utility.

Almost three years later, the Darkin jungler is a shadow of his former self as neither version of the champion can make a mark on solo queue in Season 10.

In the current League of Legends meta, the jungle role is all about early activity and getting the edge over your counterpart through power farming, more effective ganking, or 1v1 dueling. Kayn fails to deliver in any of these three facets at present, but that could be about to change!

An underwhelming 5.2% pick rate and an alarming 47.46% win rate on Patch 10.8 has prompted action from the balance team with promising Kayn buffs set to reach heading to live servers over the next few days.

The Triumphant Return of Kayn

"Q – Reaping SlashCooldown: 7/6.5/6/5.5/5 seconds -> 6/5.5/5/4.5/4 seconds[New] Both instances of Reaping Slash deal 40 bonus damage against minions.W – Blade’s ReachSlow: 70% decaying over 1.5 seconds -> 90% decaying over 1.5 seconds"

According to Riot Scruffy’s fortnightly patch preview, Kayn is set to receive these two major buffs on Patch 10.9 in an attempt to boost the jungler’s play and win rates in the current meta.

Reaping Slash’s cooldown will fall by 1 second at all ranks and the 40 bonus damage the ability currently deals to jungle monsters will now also apply to lane minions. As for Blade’s Reach, the slow applied when hitting enemies is set to increase to 90%, still decaying over 1.5 seconds.

As a champion that wants to farm his jungle as quickly and efficiently as possible in the early levels in order to purchase key items and compete on the map, Kayn will benefit a huge amount from even the smallest of cooldown reductions on Q – Reaping Slash.

This is especially true during the Shadow Reaper’s first jungle clear as he is most vulnerable to enemy invades during this time.

Combine this with the fact that Kayn will be able to grab a few waves while his teammates return from base with the addition of 40 bonus damage to minions and his early game gold income just received a big boost.

When it comes to ganking during the laning phase, Kayn struggles due to the fact that he offers very little crowd control and damage before completing his transformation. A 20% slow increase on W – Blade’s Reach could be the perfect push towards more effective early game ganks as landing this ability will now most likely result in his enemy’s demise.

As a result of these two changes, Kayn is set to make a triumphant return to the jungle meta on Patch 10.9. Not only are his farming and ganking power set to improve, but his dueling potential will also benefit from the upcoming buffs.

It remains imperative that you pick Kayn situationally and ensure you have the right early game partners to set you up for success. Farm safely, pick your ganks wisely, and patiently wait for your transformation bar to fill up.

Whether you opt for Rhaast or Shadow Assassin depends on the team compositions, but once you’ve reached that point of the game with a gold advantage you’ll be in an excellent position to carry your team to victory.