The Mid Year Mage Update for League of Legends has brought a whole new list of power picks into the game and has made some champions viable who weren't in previous patches. A lot has changed in this update so in this article I will only talk about the Champions that got major changes in this patch.

The first champ we will look at is Malzahar, in this patch Malzahar got huge changes to his W and Passive. His new W is Void Swarm and it allows him to spawn a Voidling that acts as his old passive does. His new passive however is completely different from his old one. His new passive gives Malzahar 90% damage reduction and makes him immune to crowd control after he is out of combat for a period of time. With his new W, Void Swarm, Malzahar can very effectively jungle and even solo Dragon and Rift Herald very early.

Another very strong Champion that got changed during the update was Vel'Koz. Vel'Koz got his Passive, Organic Destruction, changed so that it scales with 0.4 of your Ability Power. His Q, Plasma Fission, so it refunds 50% of its mana cost for each unit killed by Plasma Fission. His W, Void Rift, took a pretty big nerf in scaling dropping the first hit ratio from 0.25 Ability Power to 0.15 Ability Power, and the second hit ratio from 0.375 Ability Power to 0.25 Ability Power. His E, Tectonic Disruption, took a similar nerf going from 0.5 Ability Power to 0.3 Ability Power scaling. The real change that Vel'Koz got this patch though was his R, Life Form Disintegration Ray, it got buffs all across the board that increased his R scaling, base damage, and lowered the cooldown. The huge buff his R got though was it doing true damage instead of magic damage. Vel'Koz is now a great tank buster and is super strong in teamfights.

Zyra also got some major changes this patch which involves a completely new Passive, changes to her Q, and buffs to her W. Let's start by looking at her new Passive, Garden of Thorns, this new Passive periodically spawns seeds around Zyra that when hit with abilities turn into plants. The plants take 4 hits to die, do 19-127 damage based on Zyra's level, and the damage scales with 0.15 ability power. Zyra's Q, Deadly Spines, got some damage nerfs going from 70/105/140/175/210 damage based on level to 60/90/120/150/180 damage. The scaling was also nerfed from 0.65 Ability Power to 0.55 Ability Power. Zyra's Q also has increased size and is no longer in the shape of a circle but now in the shape of a rectangle. Zyra's W, Rampant Growth, is pretty much the same it just has increased seed lifetime, no longer grants cooldown reduction, and if she spawns a plant using one of her W seeds it gains bonus health. Her R, Stranglethorns, stayed the same, so that wraps up the Zyra changes.

Brand's main changes involved his Passive, Blaze, so that is what we will go over first. His Passive used to be that when Brand dealt damage to an enemy with an ability they would take 8% of their maximum health as damage over time over the next 4 seconds, but his new Passive completely changes that. His new Passive does 2% of the targets maximum health as damage over time but it stacks 3 times doing up to 6% of their maximum health. Also, when you reach 3 stacks with his passive the target detonates doing 12-16% of the targets maximum health (at levels 1-9). His Passive also scales so that it does a bonus 1.5% of the targets max health for every 100 Ability Power you have. The rest of Brand's changes involved simple things like ability damage nerfs and scalings.

Now we will go over an often forgotten champion: Cassiopeia. Cassiopeia got some changes to her W, Miasma, and she got an all new Passive called Serpentine Grace. Her Passive giver her 4 movement speed per level, but she cannot purchase any boot items. Her new W doesn't just create a circle of poison. It creates an arc of poison that does continuous damage to enemies that stand in the poison and it also Grounds them. Grounding is a new form of Crowd Control this patch that prevents the use of movement abilities. Cassiopeia's E, Twin Fang, got changed a little bit so it doesn't go on a 0.5 second cooldown when it hits a poisoned enemy and has a flat 0.9 second cooldown.

Vladimir is the last Mage that got major changes this patch and the changes involve a new updated E, Tides of Blood, and some changes to his Q, Transfusion. His E got major changes so we will go over those changes first. The first change is that Vladimir now charges his E and it does damage based on how long he charges it instead of being a flat damage amount. The cost also goes from 2.5% of Vladimir's maximum health up to 10% of his maximum health. Also when Vladimir is at full charge for his E he slows enemies hit by Tides of Blood by 40% for 0.5 seconds. His Q changes involve a new Q passive called Crimson Rush. Crimson Rush activates when Transfusion comes off cooldown after Vladimir has casted Transfusion. While Crimson Rush is active Vladimir gains movement speed and and heals for a percentage of his missing health.

Conclusion

Now that we have gone over all of the major champion updates for this patch we can look at who is going to be stronger because of these changes. I personally think that Malzahar and Vel'Koz are two of the best picks right now in Solo Queue because of how effective they are at their roles. Malzahar can clear jungle very fast and has strong ganks once he hits level 6, and Vel'Koz is a very good pick against tanks because of his true damage ult. I also think that Brand is a strong support pick against tanks right now, because his passive does a lot of percent maximum health damage, though overall his abilites got some reduced scaling and base damage. Zyra is also a very strong for support because her plants are harder to kill now and they are very annoying to deal with in early laning phase.

Some of the weaker picks after these changes are Vladimir and Cassiopeia. Vladimir's only reliable waveclear is his E, Tides of Blood, and now that it cost a percentage of his maximum health it is very had to sustain in lane phase without getting shoved in to your tower all the time. Cassiopeia is weak now because of her E, Twin Fang, having a flat 0.9 second cooldown instead of the reduced cooldown when hitting a poisoned target. Overall I think that the best picks after this are Vel'Koz and Malzahar, some good picks are Zyra and Brand, and some weaker picks are Vladimir, and Cassiopeia.

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