Will Nidalee & Syndra return to pro play with LoL patch 11.15?

League of Legends patch 11.15 is already underway and might be bringing a shake-up to the meta for the professional scene especially. 

In the most recent update shared by lead game designer Jeevun Sidhu, it was discovered that the upcoming patch will have a lot of focus on buffing or nerfing certain champions. According to Sidhu, this patch will have a lot of “pro-facing shakeups” before the biggest leagues in the world enter the summer playoffs stage. It seems that Riot wants to bring the best and most entertaining meta as possible for when teams all over the world are going to fight for spots at the 2021 World Championship. 

Even though this patch puts a lot of emphasis on professional play, there will also be changes to some of the high-performing solo queue champions.  

Nidalee and Syndra could return to pro LoL meta

A few of the champions that Riot will be giving some love are two that might also be back at the professional LoL meta. After being set behind in the meta, Riot will be buffing both Nidalee and Syndra. The two burst-heavy champions haven’t been prioritized by the best players as of late, due to other picks being stronger. 

For Nidalee, Riot will be increasing her base health from 545 to 570. This will make Nidalee even stronger in the early game, where she has previously been considered one of the scariest junglers. Not only will the extra health help her in the early jungle clear but also make her more viable in early ganks and skirmishes. Nidalee will also see an increase in health per level, which will help her scale better as well.  

In the case of Syndra, Riot is lowering the mana cost of her primary damage spell Dark Sphere (Q). When in meta, Syndra was always a safe pick for the mid lane because of her power to push the lane while her late game was solid with all her burst. The biggest problem was often her mana sustain in the early game, where Dark Sphere often ate up all the mana. 

Riot will lower the base mana cost with 20 mana in the first level, which will automatically boost Syndra in the early levels. Even though her damage won’t change, the fact that she is more capable in the early laning phase will make her reach items faster. 

Riot targeting Aurelion Sol after dominant solo queue stats

While this latest batch of LoL patch notes was announced to focus on professional play, Riot hasn’t overlooked the solo queue performances. A champion that will be nerfed directly based on solo queue performance is Aurelion Sol, who has been sitting at the highest win rate by far recently. With a win rate at a whopping 54.14% in Platinum ranks and higher, it’s clearly time that the mid laner gets a nerf or two. 

Riot is approaching this by nerfing the flight distance on Aurelion Sol’s Comet of Legend (E) from 5500-7500 based on level to a flat 5000. This nerf might sound minor to some but in the grand picture it will definitely impact Aurelion Sol’s priority. Right now, the Star Forger is scary in solo queue because of his potential to roam around the map. This is done with Comet of Legend, especially in the latter stages of the game. 

With a much shorter range in the late game, Aurelion Sol will no longer be able to fly in from the side with a Starsurge (Q) that was built up in size over a long distance. Instead, Aurelion Sol players will have to play more calculated to pull off big flanks. 

When will LoL patch 11.15 be released? 

League of Legends patch 11.15 will be available for testing on the Public Beta Environment (PBE) until the scheduled release date on Wednesday, July 21. The patch will be on the live servers from that day but will still need a bit more time before the professional leagues start to play on it.