With the 2020 ranked season coming to a close November 9th, Riot Games has launched their players straight into the pre-season, launching Patch 10.23, which includes the incredibly expansive item update. Not even two days have passed since the pre-season went live and Riot is already updating the game, launching a hotfix to buff and nerf various items and champions that needed immediate tweaking. 

Riot themselves wrote 15,000 words on the item update before the launch, which is a good indicator of how complicated the whole update was. Of course, with that big of a change, there's always a big likelihood of balance issues, and they're already getting taken care of. Riot Dev, Mark Yetter, posted a tweet outlining what changes they're making tonight. 

First, they're nerfing four popular items, Eclipse, Liandry's Anguish, Lichbane, and Guinsoo's Rageblade. They also buffed AP junglers, adding more AP burn to the junglers' starting items, and they fixed a bug with Moonstone Renewer so that it works properly in combat.

Furthermore, they tweaked two champions immediately, Viktor and Kassadin. Viktor received a nerf to his E damage and Aftershock damage. Kassadin received a buff to his health per level and ult base mana cost. 

Mark also tweeted about a number of other bugfixes the team was shipping out as well that they caught quickly after the patch went live. 

So far it's just these changes announced, but there will be numerous changes made before the season begins next Spring, and Riot's quick action is a good indicator of how closely they're monitoring the system. They have not specifically outlined their plan for when or how often they will make changes to the game, but two days in, they've already begun. 

Be on the lookout here and on Mark Yetter's Twitter to see more updates on the preseason and all the new changes they will bring this winter. 

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