Introduction
Today we are going to discuss about the Mid Lane Changes For Season 12 – LoL. The new year means a brand-new League of Legends season with all kinds of changes that will shake up the meta to keep us hooked for another year! Like every year, there are tons of changes that could be discussed over tens of thousands of words, but today we are only going to discuss what these changes mean for the mid lane, and what the mid lane will look like going into the 2022 League of Legends season! Staying on top of the meta (and even ahead of it) can keep you knowledgeable about the tricks your enemies may try to pull on you and help you pull out the tricks first for some free wins and a faster climb!
What Changed For Mid Lane in Season 12
New Items
Of course, new items always mean there is a lot to consider during the preseason, and even more experimentation to be had! This year, Riot has added a new Mythic Item for the mid lane which is Crown of the Shattered Queen. This item was specially designed for mage Champions that struggled throughout the last year and couldn’t possibly hope to get any priority throughout the game against their assassin counterparts. The addition of this item plays off the strengths of what Zhonya’s Hourglass has always provided, but also covers some of the item’s weaknesses to make for an incredible option that doesn’t feel like a tax for playing against attack-damaged assassin Champions! Crown of the Shattered Queen is an item that helps with achieving a build path with appropriate power spikes in the early stages of the game where the mage-v-assassin disparity is greatest!
On the other hand, to account for some of the power that was given to the mages to help them successfully scale to their mid-to-late game power, assassins have been given a Legendary Item to help them compete with the scaling power of the mages! They have been given Axiom Arc. Axiom Arc takes out the feeling of playing assassins being a ‘one-and-done’ mentality where the goal is to kill the enemies best carry (and try not to die in the meantime). To do this was to be successful as an assassin. While this is evidently a part of the name, the strategy and intent should be more complex and all-encompassing of the team’s goal to win the game together. With Axiom Arc, not only will assassins be able to continue assassinating, but they will be rewarded for doing so by making them more impactful in the remainder of the fight that takes place.Â
The final addition that greatly effects the mid lane is the new Legendary Item Shadowflame. Shadowflame further assists with the much-needed attention for mages after a miserable 2021 while also providing some equity to ability-powered Champions needing to get through the insanely tanky and heavily shielded metas that occasionally arise. By creating an item that not only helps mages penetrate magic resistance from the tankiest Champions, but also increasing that penetration against those that are also shielded is a ‘two-birds-with-one-stone’ solution! Shadowflame is practically a mixture of Serpent’s Fang, Liandry’s Anguish, and Void Staff!
New Runes
While there are certainly changes to runes like Lethal Tempo which are putting Kayle into the mid lane spotlight again, most of the changes aren’t too significant in the grand scheme of things where it can be highlighted as something that will transcend most of the patches in 2022. The only exception to this is the new Rune in the Inspiration tree, First Strike. First Strike grants the user bonus gold and extra damage against Champions for a few seconds after any attacks or abilities against an enemy champion are within 0.25 seconds of entering Champion combat. Additionally, the rune will also provide bonus gold to the user for every additional damage dealt because of the First Strike bonus (if melee, otherwise 70%)! The cooldown of this rune makes it available with every minion wave and makes poke Champions in lane that can abuse this to scale faster even more unbearable than players could have possibly imagined! Champions like Kassadin, Viktor, Jayce, and Corki can really use this to their advantage and scale to their late-game power spikes with ease!
New Priorities
Jungle Changes
The only jungle change that was added to throw a curveball in the season was to Scuttle Crab! The first spawned Scuttle Crabs have reduced health and grant significantly less experience! Many junglers would take that as a small nerf and thank Riot’s balance team for not making more of a fuss of the jungle, but this change implies a lot (and arguably even more for the mid lane)! In the 2021 season, junglers would typically look to do a five-camp clear then proceed to the Scuttle Crab to achieve level four. However, that strategy will no longer work because of this experience nerf! Additionally, for more advanced junglers, this meant that the four-camp clear into a gank and then going to the Scuttle Crab would also not help in achieving level four. Usually, this route would result in enough soaked experience from the lane that you gank that when taking the Scuttle Crab, you would level up to level four, but again, this will not be feasible in the 2022 season.Â
Overall, these two features mean one important thing. Now it’s much more appropriate to act as an aggressive jungler and looking for route like a three-camp clear, or an incredibly passive, farm-heavy jungler that will just look to full clear. This dynamic creates a meta where there will primarily be aggressive junglers ganking early and often, and passive junglers, not likely to gank before level 6. The impact of this small change will greatly impact the mid lane because mid laners will have to compensate for what their jungler needs much more than what was required previously. Mid laners must now intensely consider how they will play the first three to four waves because it can make or break the priority you have and therefore generate or lose jungle priority at the same time. In champion select, this should mean that mid laners and junglers should communicate and decide how they want to play the early game together because a simple change like this will make the two roles much more dependent on each other than they ever have been previously!
Macro Changes
The other change to the jungle that is directed at influencing the entire map more than just the junglers is the addition of two new dragon souls and how they influence the map if they are that game’s soul. The Hextech Dragon adds in six Hextech gates that open in fixed locations around Summoner’s Rift. This soul provides each team with two one-way gates to get out of their base faster and into each of their respective sides of the jungle. The final two are two-way Hextech gates that bring players from the blue buff to behind the Dragon pit or Baron/Herald pit respectively. The benefit this provides mid laners is their ability to influence the map faster after recalling. Compounding with the nerf to Teleport, mid lane Champions will struggle to influence the map immediately if they do not have priority in their lane. With this addition, once the soul takes over the Rift, mid laners can easily choose one of their two base gates to commit to either top or bot side to roam and influence other lanes. Even better, straight from base, Champions can even travel all the way to the enemy blue buff with ease and help their jungler invading or even join a teamfight!Â
The other dragon soul added is Chemtech. When taking over the Rift, it will apply Chemfog around the jungle. These fixed areas provide camouflage to a Champions inside them while out of combat. Furthermore, this change also saves you from being spotted on trinkets and instead can only be spotted by control wards and scryers blooms. Like the Hextech gates, this will also help with mid lane champions that intend on roaming to influence the map, however providing more of an emphasis to the assassinating playstyle where mid laners can lie in wait for the enemy jungler to pass them on their clear unknowingly. Either way, these changes will make for an interesting shift in the meta towards more creative roaming paths and strategies and less teleport fiestas!
What Changed for Mid Lane Champions in Season 12
Mages Are Back
So, what have all these changes combined to? Well, one thing’s for sure, mages are certainly better! When looking at statistics taken from patch 11.22 before the preseason path went live, the list of top ten mid lane Champions in Platinum+ in win rate included Pyke, Kayle, Aurelion Sol, Corki, Rumble, Aakshan, Annie, Anivia, Zilean, and Lux. Now, in patch 11.24, that list is Anivia, Pyke, Kassadin, Pantheon, Lux, Kayle, Rumble, Aakshan, Zilean, and Viktor. Essentially, the difference is Champions like Anivia, Kassadin, Lux, and Viktor became much stronger, and Champions like Pyke, Kayle, Rumble, Aakshan, and Zilean have stayed strong. The added boost to Pantheon’s strength is a bit of surprise but can mostly be boiled down to his overall validity into many of the more popular and stronger picks of the patch. Nevertheless, it’s safe to say, mages are back!
AD Assassins Are Amazing
Interestingly, while mages have certainly increased their market share of both games played and win rate, assassins haven’t been punished drastically. In fact, they are still exceptionally powerful as you’d expect them to be! Champions like Pyke, Qiyana, Zed, and Talon still support strong win rates and play rates in this season! While they have certainly been indirectly nerfed by the mage buffs and item changes, they still hold a place and serve a purpose in the meta and can certainly be played. The main problem AD assassin players will encounter in this new season is making sure they are adapting to the flow of the game in both playstyle and build path. Previously, the main goal of an assassin was to get out on the map and create as much chaos and havoc as possible to gain a lead and abuse it to snowball your lead to victory. While this is certainly still the case, the boost to the mages early game progressions will mean assassins will have to make better decisions on timing and roaming instead of just going whenever possible.
What’s Good Now?
With all of that out of the way, what’s actually good in the new season for mid lane? To get a good idea of what is good now, let’s first highlight what isn’t good! Primarily, the Champions that require a lot of skill are still not performing extraordinarily (Ryze, Irelia, Akali, Yasuo, Azir, etc.). However, aside from that grouping, the main pool of Champions that is struggling are the ability-powered mages that have needed the extra bit of damage from Luden’s Tempest to have the early-to-mid game damage that makes them powerful (Orianna, Syndra, LeBlanc, Azir, etc.). Unfortunately, these Champions are walking the tightrope of needing an item change that will help their unique situation, or individual Champion buffs that will help them because they just don’t have the same potency at any point in the game compared to alternative options. Mages are scaling better and more consistently into the mid game, and assassins still have potent early game advantages that when considered in combination with the jungle meta changes will inhibit these Champions greatly. As a result, the best Champions are surely the Mages that take advantage of Crown of the Shattered Queen and/or Shadowflame, and the AD assassins that can capitalize on the partially refunded cooldown from Axiom Arc.Â
Conclusion
Overall, the number of changes may not be as high as years past, but the implications of these changes have been heavy so far. The trends seen in the play rates and alterations in playstyles is reflecting a meta where mid-jungle synergy is imperative to the team’s success, and playing complimentary pairs will make the world of a difference loading into each game on Summoner’s Rift!
If you enjoyed Mid Lane Changes For Season 12 – LoL there’s more Season 12 articles that we wrote that you can find below: