Riot appreciates the creativity of LoL players so much that it removes the possibility of playing this way for good

There were quite a few questions about this situation. Officially, Riot decided to take the first steps by making “system” changes.

We are talking about a way of playing that pushed Janna’s popularity abstractly high. Players chose supporting characters and taken them to the top lane. Riot said this is a malicious strategy that defies too much of LoL’s core principles. In the official description of the update, the developers write:

While we value creativity in League of Legends, we believe that this particular strategy transcends the boundaries of healthy wandering around the map in the early game.

Creativity was so appreciated that the possibility of playing in this way was removed. This was to be expected as it caused a lot of controversy.

To nie koniec zmian, ale tak się zaczyna

Riot pisze, że nie jest to ostateczne rozwiązanie, natomiast podjęto konkretne działania.

These issues definitely call for a more robust solution and we’re in the process of developing one. In the meantime, we’re adjusting a few systems to minimize the effects on other parts of the game.

These issues include being able to use gold income items in such a way as to increase your passive cash benefits by roaming across the map when exiting your lane. This was officially and unquestionably harmful.

In particular, both objective and CS bounties don’t yet account for unconventional income strategies, which can waterfall into unhealthy game states. We’re also increasing the minion farming penalty on these support gold income items during the first 5 minutes of the game so that laners can’t just farm as usual, then grab-and-go once the timers kick in. 

What’s changing?

Items:

Spellthief’s Edge, Relic Shield, Steel Shoulderguards, & Spectral Sickle

• GOLD VALUE BOUNTIES Gold value bounties (a.k.a. CS bounties) are now based on the number of support gold income items on each team, rather than assuming each team has one support gold income item
• OBJECTIVE BOUNTIES Enemy gold leads are now significantly less likely to lead to Objective Bounties activating if there are two or more support gold income items on your team
• TRIBUTE/SPOILS OF WAR (PASSIVE) – MINION FARMING PENALTY Receive diminishing gold from excessive (4 minions per minute) ⇒ (2 minions per minute until 5 minutes; 4 minions per minute thereafter) minion kills. This diminished gold penalty is now also more severe during the first 5 minutes of the game. (All else unchanged)

Will that stop players from roaming early while playing Janna, Lulu, or even Yuumi? Although the whole tactic was based on going to other lines, passive income was also a key factor. Now, after the changes, the support item is no longer usable on TOP, which eliminates this meta.

The effects can be seen clearly, it only took a few hours for Janna’s popularity and winrate to drop noticeably.