Since her release, Zeri has quickly proven to be one of the strongest Marksmen in League of Legends. With high mobility, agile movement, and excellent damage over time, Zeri has rapidly become a meta pick in the Bot Lane. Moreover, with a build leaning towards Bruiser, taking down Zeri is no easy feat.
With so many strengths, it’s no surprise that Zeri has quickly become an extremely strong choice in both solo queue and professional tournaments. For example, in the recently concluded LCK Spring 2022, Zeri was one of 5 champions with a 100% ban rate in the playoffs, being banned 19 times. In a rare match where she was picked, Zeri also secured victory with an overwhelming KDA of 5/0/8.
Clearly, Riot Games cannot allow a champion as strong, mobile, and extremely difficult to take down as Zeri to continue dominating. Therefore, in the upcoming patch 12.7, Zeri will face comprehensive nerfs across all of her four abilities. Specifically, the damage of Q – Static Shock and W – Spark Surge will be significantly reduced. Additionally, the cooldown of E – Lightning Dash will decrease when Q deals critical damage. As for the ultimate, the electric arcs will now be able to critically hit but will not apply on-hit effects.
With these changes, we can see Riot Games’ intention to heavily nerf the Bruiser build with Galeforce, Black Cleaver, and Blade of the Ruined King. Since Zeri’s ultimate will no longer interact with on-hit effects, this build becomes entirely useless for her. Instead, players will gain more powerful effects with a critical strike build.
However, as we know, critical strike items do not provide Zeri with any defensive stats, making her very easy to take down if not played carefully. This is a subtle nerf from Riot aimed at reducing the win rate and pick rate of this champion to a balanced level. Since her debut in patch 12.2, Zeri has undergone a total of 5 rounds of nerfs (including update 12.7) within just 3 months. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Zeri is becoming the second Akali with how frequently she’s being nerfed.
