League of Legends news » Magical: AP item changes with the Unicorns of Love

Patch 5.13 has hit Summoner's Rift, and the world of magic has changed. AP items have seen huge shifts across the board, with everything from Liandry's Torment to Rabadon's Deathcap seeing huge reworks. With stats swapping around, new powerful passives, and intriguing build paths, it can all be a bit overwhelming.

Thankfully, we've got a pair of experts in the way of magic to help us out: Unicorns of Love top laner Tamas "Vizicsacsi" Kiss and mid laner Tristan "PowerOfEvil" Schrage.

Keeping current

To understand the power of the polished up AP items, it's helpful to take a look at champions that are already powerful in the meta and what they'll gain from the patch.

When asked about just that, PowerOfEvil wasted no time in talking about one of his favorite mid lane champions. "Kog'Maw is getting a huge buff from the new Liandry's [Torment]. It has more AP, which is really a passive buff for him. Most of the time, you were building it anyway. And more damage is always good," he laughs.

But the biggest buff comes from Rylai's Crystal Scepter. According to POE, it turns Kog'Maw from an immobile artillery champion to a mobile artillery champion that can also make picks happen. "Rylai's giving him more slows on his ultimate is really strong. With all that slow, you hit one ultimate, and you can consistently ultimate targets. You can slow them for your team, or even kill them alone."

Vizicsacsi however pointed towards a certain Rogue Mage as his favorite buff recipient. "The Luden's change that gives more movement speed but less AP, is pretty good when you want to kite around. Let's say I'm playing Ryze top lane. I just want to kite [the enemy team] around. New Luden's is perfect for that."

Going more general about the AP changes, he says "The Rabadon's buff just buffs AP champions in general. I think it benefits mostly for top lane champions like Rumble or Ryze, maybe Lulu... Vladimir, even."

Under control

But what about new champions coming into the meta? Vizicsacsi believes that the biggest benefactors of 5.13 will be control mages, like Orianna. "In the next two to three weeks, I can imagine that it will change from poke mages to more control mages," he says.

As if to prove his teammate's point, PowerOfEvil pulled out the Lady of Clockwork during UoL's Week 8 match against Gambit Gaming. The power of the new Liandry's and Nashor's Tooth, combined with the strength of Runeglaive, provided him with enough damage and slows to dance around Gambit on his way to a pentakill and a victory.

If there's one item combination that UOL (and everyone else) seems to be talking about though, it's Rylai's Crystal Scepter and Liandry's Torment. With just the Liandry's under a champion's belt, any damage-over-time effects deal their normal damage plus 2% of a target's current health per second. But when that target is under a movement-impairing effect, that damage is doubled. Can you guess what grants all area of effect spells the ability to impair movement? That's right, Rylai's Crystal Scepter.

The combination of the two is downright brutal on just about any mage with big AOE spells that happen to apply a DoT. Vizicsacsi expects that the pair of items will cause us to see some old school mages the to make their appearances, like Brand or Anivia. Fire or ice -- make your choice.

With a slight nervous laugh, he tacks on one last champion, as if he's unsure that he wants to let the cat out of the bag. "I would consider maybe a Swain," says Vizicsacsi. "I haven't tried it yet, but I will definitely look towards it. The champion, if you build a Rylai's on him, can stand in the middle of the enemy team and slow everyone insanely well. In theory, it sounds really good."

New paths to victory

The Unicorns were careful to point out that you can't boil down the entirety of the patch to a just the power levels of a few items -- it's much bigger than that.

"The biggest change isn't one item specifically," clarifies PowerOfEvil. "It's that you can nearly build everything [with smaller items] and have a lot of diversity with build paths."

Referring back to Kog'maw, he says, "A big weakness for him is if he got behind in the early game, it was really hard to get to the 1600 gold for a Needlessly Large Rod, which is a really important item for Luden's Echo. Now, you can base earlier and get it for 1250 gold."

With the price cuts for Needlessly Large Rod and Blasting Wand, combined with the reworked build paths of the vast majority of items, there are simply more options for AP players to build their basic items into. It makes adapting on the fly and getting their build exactly right much easier to accomplish.

Overall, Vizicsacsi is a huge fan of Patch 5.13. As our conversation drew to a close, he stated, "Whichever angle I look at it, it seems really strong right now."

What sort of impact will the new AP items have on the meta as Patch 5.13 takes hold? Keep your eye on Lolesports to find out.