After the release of Teamfight Tactics Season 7, we can clearly see the dominance of several 1-cost carries like Ezreal, Sett, and Nidalee. Of course, they don’t completely dominate the meta, but these units are proving to be too strong compared to their low cost. With their beautiful traits and simple abilities that provide a lot of damage, the three champions mentioned above are becoming top-tier carries in the current meta.
Clearly, Riot Games is not too pleased with this as they are aiming for a diverse and balanced meta as much as possible. Therefore, in the video explaining the new patch, the Project Director of Teamfight Tactics – Riot Mortdog announced a series of adjustments targeting the aforementioned 1-cost champions. Additionally, Riot is also making adjustments to the 3-cost champions who are a bit out of control, such as Olaf and Ryze, and fixing issues with Talon and Corki to prevent them from wasting damage anymore.
Specifically, in the upcoming patch, both Ezreal and Sett will have their skill damage reduced, while Nidalee will lose a significant amount of health due to the shapeshifter trait being nerfed. This means that Ezreal and Sett will rely more on items and won’t be able to “carry the map” with just one item anymore. The nerf targeting Nidalee will mean that this unit will need to reach 4-6 Shapeshifters to have enough health to withstand damage, and rolling this unit to 3 stars will no longer guarantee a 100% win like before.
As for Olaf and Ryze, both of these units will receive a considerable damage nerf in the upcoming patch 12.12. This will force players to calculate better when positioning Olaf so that this unit can be taken down appropriately to gain stacks of attack damage. For Ryze, this damage nerf will mean that the 5 Sorcerer composition will no longer deal overwhelming damage in the mid-game.
On the buff side, both Talon and Corki will likely be the happiest characters as the bugs causing them to lose damage have been fixed. With Talon, his daggers will surely deal damage starting from the next patch instead of losing all damage like before. Corki will be adjusted so that his big missiles will no longer fly off the map if the target is taken down; instead, they will explode at the exact position of the fallen enemy and deal substantial damage.
In summary, patch 12.12 will be a major update aimed at reducing the strength of 1-cost reroll compositions and buffing the 4-cost carries. This change may help elevate level 8 compositions to be a bit more favored rather than being too underwhelming as they are right now.