One thing that makes Teamfight Tactics extremely special right now is that the project director – Riot Mortdog often appears on live streams to answer players’ questions. Not only about side stories, but Riot Mortdog also addresses hot issues in Teamfight Tactics such as balance status, which team compositions or champions are too strong…
This is incredibly rare given the busy nature of Mortdog’s job.
In the latest live stream, Riot Mortdog shared that Frozen Heart will be the next item he wants to rework, although not immediately in the next patch. The reason given by Riot Mortdog is that this item operates in a very frustrating way as it can only be effectively used on Assassin champions.
Meanwhile, the rate of players using Frozen Heart on Tank champions is extremely low, even though this item was designed for this class of characters.
The main reason leading to the situation where a tank item like Frozen Heart is best utilized by Assassins comes from the current meta being overly dependent on backline carries. Aside from SyFen (and partially Shi Oh Yu), most strong carries at this time are ranged champions capable of dealing damage safely from a distance, such as Xayah, Varus, Corki….
In a context where Fighters or Guardians can tank very well, equipping Frozen Heart on frontline champions will not be very effective as it does not influence the backline carries. As a result, players are forced to equip it on Assassins for it to be effective because this class already has the ability to jump into the backline. Moreover, Assassins inherently deal a lot of damage, so when holding a counter item like Frozen Heart, they become even stronger in battles against the opposing carries.
In reality, this situation has persisted for multiple seasons of Teamfight Tactics, but it has only truly worsened recently. In previous seasons, either Assassins weren’t strong enough to dominate or there weren’t many strong ranged carries, so Frozen Heart wasn’t an issue at all. However, at this point, a series of ranged carries dominating the meta has made Frozen Heart unexpectedly powerful.
It is unclear how Riot Mortdog will rework Frozen Heart to bring it back to its rightful place as a tank item. Perhaps Riot will make its slow effect stronger when targeted by multiple opponents, for example. Regardless, we will have to wait quite a long time, possibly until the mid-season update, to see the “new” Frozen Heart.