With the Mid-Year Mage Update and all of its associated tweaks and changes having finally arrived, including the reworking/buffing/nerfing/tweaking of nearly every mage in the game, the meta is in turmiol. It'll probably settle itself out, though.

Anyways, all of those changed mages fit into one of three categories for their changes: Buffs, Nerfs, and both.

For example, Brand has by and far only received buffs to his favored playstyle from his tweaks, gaining even more AOE magic damage as part of his kit and losing only half-a-second off of his stun and a small amount of base damage, whereas Syndra has lost a large portion of damage from her base kit due to an adjustment of her Q. Dark Sphere's Rank 5 passive, now requires over 500 AP to exceed the former bonus of 15% extra damage to champions, with no other buffs to damage in the rest of her kit. Viktor, on the other hand, gained a large amount of flat damage and ratio scalings on three of his abilities, but had his E - Death Ray and R - Chaos Storm changed to be 'slower' in their delivery of said damage.

Buffs

Malzahar

• Very powerful new passive
• Ult more relevant in teamfights
• Voidlings extremely strong in jungle, good in lane

The Prophet of the Void is undeniably one of the strongest changes to come out of the MYMU, with a hotfix reducing his power having already come out by the time this is published.

With his Passive - Void Shift granting a massive damage reduction and CC immunity when first taking champion damage, Malzahar has unsurpassed presence when it is active, effectively being untouchable for the few seconds it's up.

The combination of his Ultimate - Nether Grasp with his old W makes his teamfighting much more impactful, allowing him to not only lock down a target with almost no counterplay, but also deal percent max-health damage to his target and anyone near them, with the AoE lingering even after the Nether Grasp ends.

Lastly, Voidlings are absurd. Scaling well with either AD or AP, the ability to unleash a horde of beefy minions at your target, whether it's a champion or a camp, is scarily useful. Compared to pre-rework Malz, this new and improved Prophet is a ranged melee tanky DPS assassin mage tank support jungler.

Brand

• Massive teamfight damage
• Improved ultimate and passive

The Human Torch has gained a lot and lost almost nothing in his rework/update, with both QoL changes and additional sources of damage added to his kit.

With his Passive - Blaze now stacking up to three times then detonating in a very large AoE, and igniting other enemies for even more explosions and fire, a single well-placed Brand combo can kill entire teams with ease.

Additionally, his R - Pyroclasm has gained a slow and prioritizes champions over minions if casted on a target with Blaze.

While his stun duration on Sear has been reduced and some of the damage from his abilities have been shifted around, Brand has gained a lot of power.

Veigar

• Even more stacking
• Ult does much more damage

Our favorite diminuitive Dark Mage gained a very nice bonus to his stacking abilities - simply landing your skillshots on enemy champions rewards you with fat, juicy AP, funneling even more power into his reworked R - Primordial Burst, which no longer gains bonus damage based on enemy AP. Instead, it just scales off of missing health, allowing it to instakill ADCs, Fighters, and some Tanks assuming they're missing a quarter or so of their health.

However, Veigar does still take time to scale up, and must focus on farming for the early portion of most matches if he wishes to be relevant before the game ends, as he used to.

Fiddlesticks

• Extra mobility
• QoL changes

Scarecrow has received a comfortable set of QoL buffs, gaining a nice movespeed boost after standing still or channeling, as well as adjustments to his E - Dark Wind's targeting. Fiddlesticks' core items have also recieved significant amounts of CDR, helping him considerably.

Annie

• Tibbers now scary
• Better shield

Annie's bear Tibbers now hurts. A lot. Referred to by some as a 'mini Sion passive', respect it or fear being clawed to death by way too much damage. Her shield no longer grants flat armor and MR, and gives a percent damage reduction instead, which is much better for any Annies building their own resistance items, like Zhonya's or Abyssal.

Swain

• Buffed Ult
• Number buffs
• Better Q

While still weak, the walking Birdemic is now much more of a force to be reckoned with, having gained much more AoE damage rather than his former single-target focused basic kit. A change worth noting is that his E - Torment grants a free Deathfire Grasp active against its target, increasing Swain's damage to it by 20%.

Kennen

• Lower energy costs
• More frequent stuns
• No more RNG

Pikachu's cousin has recieved across-the-board slashes to his energy costs, and his ultimate has been reworked to hit every target in range instead of randomly-selected ones, as well as increased damage overall. Don't clump or he'll kill everyone.

traitor Xerath

• Stronger Arcane Barrage
• Longer stun

While the width of his Q - Arcanopulse's hitbox has been marginally reduced, Xerath has recieved buffs to his ult's scaling, AoE, and number of shots. His stun can now reach two seconds at max range, though he is somewhat weaker to dives, with a .25 second reduction to duration at point blank.

Nerfs

Syndra

• Lower Q damage until lategame
• Slightly more accessible ultimate

With Syndra's passive for reaching Rank 5 with her Q - Dark Sphere having changed from 15% bonus damage to champions to an extended lifespan on her spheres, she's lost a considerable chunk of damage in trades and teamfights. While her AP ratio has been boosted to .75, it's still less until she breaks over 500 AP. However, don't disregard the fact that her seven-sphere ultimate, one of the highest damage single-target nukes in the game, can now be reached almost effortlessly.

Anivia

• Ult takes too long to scale
• Lost combos and damage

While Riot's aim for Anivia was to reduce her clunkiness with missile speed buffs and AA modifactions, she's ended up in a much worse spot. With her ultimate losing its attack speed slow and taking three seconds to reach a large enough size to contain a mobile enemy, as well as her Q losing .1 AP scaling, she's generally weaker in trades and shorter fights.

Something to note is that an advanced Anivia combo of casting her Q and E simultaneously and relying on your superior aim to land the Q's stun is now impossible, as her E's buffed missile speed outpaces her Q.

Both

Zyra

• More plants, but weaker
• Easier to spawn plants

Poison Ivy's maintained a fairly similar zoning playstyle, with all of her previous combos intact. Thanks to her new passive, her side of a lane gradually becomes very difficult to fight in for the enemy team, as a single spellcast unleashes an army of vegetable death. However, this comes at the cost of much squishier plants in the early game, as their health is now tied with her W rank. Her plants also have lower AP scaling with a slightly higher base damage.

Viktor

• Stronger teamfights
• Better early game
• More overall damage, but easier to avoid

Viktor, who I feel slightly more qualified to talk about than the others because I main him, is only in the 'Both' section because the majority of his damage can be avoided by walking half a dozen pixels to the side. Said damage is much higher now, and a buffed Q makes for easier survival against difficult lanes, granting access to said damage. There's only so many Champions that can boast about a single ability doing enough damage to kill and entire team, but Viktor's one of them. His ultimate does 1300 damage. With 0 AP.

Granted, that damage is dealth over 6.5 seconds in a fairly small AoE, but Riot has finally given Viktor back the most valuable part of his identity - absurd numbers.

Vladimir

• Extra situational healing
• Buffed passive

With the removal of all Spell Vamp items from the game of League of Legends, most would expect Vladimir to be in a worse spot than he was before. But don't worry! Vlad's gained healing on his ult, and a situational % missing-health heal on his Q on top of its normal healing. Unfortunately, even with the extra healing, massive health costs on some of his abilities leave most Vladimirs watching teamfights through a grey screen.

Cassiopeia

• Lower skill floor
• Grounded mechanic very good
• Lower skill ceiling

Cass is in a difficult situation. One on hand, she has two of the situationally most powerful abilities in the game, capable of locking down an entire enemy team in the blink of an eye. On the other hand, her overall DPS is considerably lower than it used to be, with her E - Twin Fang being on nearly two times her previous cooldown. Cassiopeia players have also complained of a slew of bugs and clunkiness that Cassiopeia currently suffers from. Remember the old teleporting Nidalee thing? Cass does that now.

Ziggs

• Strong pushing
• New W passive very strong
• Ult no longer good for waveclearing

Ziggs now has one of the best siege kits in the game - with a potent long-range poke on his Q, deterrent to engaging on his E, a 'get out of the way or you will die' in his R, and the ability to instantly kill towers with low health on his W, he'd be a one-man demolition team if League of Legends didn't rely on team-based combat for the most part.

Too bad, then, that the Ziggs of CLG.eu days is now completely dead, with his Ult's double damage to minion waves removed entirely.

If you have any questions, I can be reached on Twitter @dProthean