Shadow Dragon Gemstone
In patch 12.19, Shadow Dragon Gemstone was considered the strongest composition. Essentially, this composition leveraged the incredible resilience of Shi Oh Yu and SyFen to enhance its power with the effect of 2 Dragon Gods increasing armor/magic resistance. Combined with the healing and attack speed boost from the Dragon Gem statue, these two carries proved to be extremely difficult to take down.
However, in patch 12.20, Shadow Dragon Gemstone has been heavily nerfed. Specifically, the attack speed boost from the Dragon Gem statue has been reduced, and even SyFen has been nerfed in its energy stat. This has severely affected the damage output of this composition.
Daeja – Guild
“Comprehensive nerf” is the phrase that best describes the state of the Daeja – Guild composition in patch 12.20. Specifically, the Guild stat increase effect has been significantly reduced in both its base value and the scaling ratio upon activation. Additionally, Daeja itself has also received a nerf to its skill damage.
In fact, this is a reasonable power reduction by Riot as Daeja – Guild was proving to be too “easy to play and rewarding.” Sometimes you didn’t even need to care about what the Dragon Illusion effect was because the amount of stats Daeja received from Guild champions was too high. This nerf will require players to rely more on the Illusion effect if they wish to use Daeja.
Rengar – Assassin
Similar to the case of Daeja – Guild, Rengar – Assassin has also been nerfed in many aspects. First of all, Rengar himself has seen a reduction in both the base damage of his skill and the energy cost to cast it. Next, the Assassin class has reduced the additional crit chance, indirectly causing Rengar to deal less damage.
Furthermore, this composition also suffered another indirect nerf when the Silencing Core was removed. This was the best tool for Assassins to counter strong meta compositions such as Dragon Gods, Mages, or Dragon Warriors. The removal of this core has left Assassins only able to “endure” against those aforementioned compositions.