Emergency Nerfs: Ruin Runner, Merciless Hunter, Shaped Stone, Flurry of Fists, Irelia

Today, Legends of Runeterra official Twitter has announced that in the upcoming days developers will be shipping emergency balance changes to address the power level of the most dominant meta decks.

The staple cards in Sivir decks – Ruin Runner, Merciless Hunter, Shaped Stone, Flurry of Fists, as well as Irelia‘s generated spell Flawless Duet will all see nerfs this week.

As of now, we don’t know when exactly the changes will go live. We expect the hotfix to take effect sometime soon over the next 1-2 days, since the Worlds Qualifiers begin on 4th September, and the competitors need enough of a window to prepare in the new environment.

Check out the full list of changes below, as well as the official message from Riot that accompanied the announcement.

Card Name	Before	After
Ruin Runner	6/4	6/3
Merciless Hunter	4/3	4/2
Shaped Stone	If a landmark has been played, give a unit +3/+1	If a landmark has been played, give a unit +2/+1
Flurry of Fists	3 mana	4 mana
Flawless Duet	1 mana	2 mana

Additionally, the new Shurima card The Arsenal will be hotfixed, and the bug that allowed it to have a permanent Spellshield and a Stunned status will be addressed.

Legends of Runeterra official Twitter released an update regarding these changes:

“With Worlds around the corner, we’re releasing a hotfix targeting some of the most dominant decks disrupting the meta that have persisted through the release of Beyond the Bandlewood. These updates aim to encourage deck diversity and address a high-impact bug fix.

“Barring any emergencies, this will be the patch version that Worlds is played on. We’ll be sharing additional context and details on balance updates moving forward in the 2.15 patch notes next week.”

The last set of balance changes to LoR was introduced in Patch 2.11, on June 30. It contained more than 40 buffs and nerfs, and was shipped as a response to a massive community outcry about the lack of balance treatment.

Since then, the developers promised that they will be reevaluating their Live Design philosophy and will be proposing a new long-term plan and an updated approach as to how they will be handling regular balance patches.

Patch 2.11 revitalized the meta, but since June 30 we saw the rise of two Sivir archetypes – Sivir Ionia and Sivir Demacia. By the time Beyond the Bandlewood had been released on August 25, these two decks have been dominant for several weeks.

The new expansion introduced more than 120 new cards and 9 champions, but no balance changes were announced alongside it. In Patch 2.14 notes, the developers have stated that their next scheduled balance update is planned for October 20. This was also supposed to be the date when they intended to share their new balance philosophy.

The LoR community reacted negatively to the Patch 2.14 notes – even though the Beyond the Bandlewood expansion has been a huge success, the players still want regular nerfs and buffs to existing cards to go alongside the new card releases.

What do you think about the news? Are you happy with the emergency hotfix, do you think it will solve some of the problems in the current meta?

What do you think is the best approach when it comes to balance updates? How regularly would you want to see changes to existing cards in LoR?