Worlds are back, baby! Ahead of the 2023 World Championship, Riot Games have introduced another few pro-skewed patches to League of Legends. As usual, community feedback has lit up Reddit, and a Riot dev has now responded with an explanation on how they balance the game.
It is time for the most important tournament of the League of Legends season! The 2023 World Championship is coming soon, and while we will have to wait for another month, we can already test the first balance changes for this prestigious tournament for ourselves.
Patch 13.18 released on Wednesday morning and, alongside Briar, the Restrained Hunger, brought nerfs for pro play favorites alongside buffs for champions that have been out of the spotlight on the professional stage for a little longer than Riot wanted.
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On Reddit, it quickly became clear that not everybody can fully put their mind around the newest balancing changes. After a whole lot of questions from the community, a Riot dev tuned in to explain the current and upcoming balancing changes further.
Worlds 2023: More Balance Changes To Come Soon
Firstly, Rioter 'endstep' pointed towards Riot's balancing framework that has already been in place for multiple years now. This balancing framework outlines certain conditions that a champion in League of Legends has to meet to be considered over- or underpowered.
The balancing framework is as follows:
| Level of play | Overpowered | Underpowered |
| Average (Iron IV - Emerald III) | above 54% win rate; 52.5% if ban rate is 5x average | below 49% win rate |
| Skilled (Emerald II - Diamond II) | above 53.5% win rate; 52% if ban rate is 5x average | below 49% win rate |
| Elite (Diamond I - Challenger) | above 50% ban rate or above 54% win rate; 52.5% if ban rate is 5x average | below 7.5% pick/ban presence |
| Professional play - LCK, LPL, LEC, LCS | above 95% pick/ban presence (90% for Worlds/MSI) or 85%/80% over two patches | below 5% pick/ban presence |
For a champion to be considered overpowered, they need to meet overpowered status in one of the four skill tiers. For a champion to be considered underpowered, they need to meet underpowered status in all skill tiers.
Additionally, endstep also added context to previous seasons to explain why examples like last year's Heimerdinger nerfs were immediately applied. They also explained how changing a meta is usually not done by buffing a single champion, e.g. if there is a meta full of tank and AD junglers, a single AP jungler would most likely be banned away if it saw success in scrims.
The League of Legends World Championship 2023 takes place from October 10 to November 19 and will be played on patch 13.19. This means we have another two weeks ahead before we can tell for sure what the meta is going to look like.
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