Changing the Appearance Rate of 2-Cost Champions
If you remember, in patch 11.11, Riot increased the appearance rate of 2-cost champions at level 6 to a whopping 40%. This is an extremely high rate in the mid-game and completely changed the meta of Teamfight Tactics at that time. From a meta that favored late-game strategies, Riot forced everyone to chase a reroll playstyle centered around 2-cost carry champions. Even some champions that seemed to only have a supporting role, like Brand and Soraka, suddenly became powerful carries.
The consequence of this adjustment was that Teamfight Tactics suddenly became a game highly dependent on “luck.” This is because players had to find ways to upgrade many champions in their lineup to 3 stars. If successful, they would have a great chance of securing the top spot, but in unlucky cases, they could be eliminated very quickly. Even after nerfing many 2-cost carries post 11.11, Riot Games kept the aforementioned appearance rate, allowing some reroll compositions to occasionally re-emerge in the meta.
Reworking the Shield Value of the Warrior Trait
If we need an example of a rework that completely eliminated a team composition, we must mention the rework of the shield value of the Warrior trait. Initially, the shield provided by the Warrior trait had a fixed value of 300/600, making this composition very strong in the mid-game. However, when this shield value was changed to interact with 20/40% of the champion’s maximum health, the resilience of many Warrior champions significantly decreased.
Riot’s change almost “killed” the 6 Warrior composition for a long time, as this team comp was no longer overwhelmingly strong in the mid-game. Moreover, with too many melee champions, the Warrior team became too easy to control in the late game. From being a strong composition in the meta, Riot’s change reduced the Warrior trait to only provide a bit of durability in the early and mid-game with a threshold of 3 champions.
Reducing Base Critical Damage
It can be said that this decision by Riot stemmed from another wrong adjustment, which was the change in the appearance rate of 2-cost champions mentioned earlier. With too many 2-cost champions being pushed up as carries, players had to find ways to optimize items for them to have a stable damage source. The easiest and most effective way, of course, was to use critical items like Infinity Edge and Guardian Angel. Therefore, Riot nerfed the base critical damage in the 11.12 update.
However, this move by Riot did not weaken the reroll playstyle at all. In fact, this playstyle became even stronger as players shifted to using 3-cost carries like Riven or Yasuo. Meanwhile, the nerf to base critical damage inadvertently weakened other carries and caused traits that provided pure defensive stats, such as Armor and Mystic, to become overwhelmingly popular.
