Patch 8.11 Early Look

Two patches from now, we're releasing a bunch of changes to marksman items, runes, and stats. While we aren't shipping any champion ability overhauls, these changes add up to a significant shift in item and rune builds. Once everything's live, you'll see more marksman playstyles that aren't "late-game crits or bust".

The past six months have been a lot to keep up with for you (and a lot to follow up on for us). Last preseason brought us Runes Reforged, the largest update to League gameplay we've ever released in one go. Since then, we've also packed big changes into even-numbered patches—think the AP item overhaul in 8.4 and the Conqueror keystone rune in 8.6—changes that would've normally had to wait for midseason.

Launching a big, flashy feature like Rift Herald or Elemental Drakes on top of all that felt like overkill, so 2018 won't have an uppercase-M Midseason patch. The lowercase-m midseason timeframe will still have big changes like the marksman work we're talking about here, but 8.11 is as big as patches will be until preseason toward the end of the year.

How to Jungle in League of Legends

In League of Legends the "Jungler" is the player who does not match up with an opponent in a minion lane (Top, Middle, or Bottom), but rather gets his gold and experience from killing neutral monsters, found in the "Jungle" area of Summoner's Rift. While this role is not requiredto play or win a match, it is a standard part of the Summoner's Rift team strategy. The total gold and experience gained by the team is maximized through jungling, and the ability to ambush, or "gank" opponents in lanes is paramount to high level matches.

Pick a champion. In League of Legends one of the most important parts of jungling is, picking the correct champion. Pick a champion who has skills which allow them to keep themselves alive in the jungle, like built in life lifesteal, shields, and/or health regen. You must also look for champions with gap closers so that you can assist, or "gank", your teammates' lanes. Some junglers include Warwick, Master Yi, Vi, Lee Sin, Rek'sai, Cho'Gath, Pantheon, Xin Zhao, Kha'Zix, Graves, and many more.

Obtain jungle Items. With every jungler, you should begin with hunter's machete or hunter's talisman, as many health potions as you can buy or a 150 health canteen, which allows you to heal many times before returning to base to refill, and a warding trinket. You should probably buy the yellow one (standard ward) first and then get the red one (sweeping lens) later. (The raptors give you an ability to see enemy wards, so you won't need the red one unless the enemy keeps killing the raptors.) Pick one that most suits both your style of play and the champion you are playing. You should enchant your jungle item as soon as you can, depending on your champion and desired stats (see item build section).

The "Tracker's Knife" allows you to place "wards" on the map to increase vision for your team.

The "Stalkers blade" allows you to cast smite on an enemy champion and applies a slow, which is useful for ganking and chasing enemies.

The "Skirmisher's Sabre" also allows you to smite an enemy champion and "marks" them for 4 seconds. The mark grants vision of the champion and makes you deal extra true damage from your basic attacks.

Your item build. The items you purchase should be dependent on three things: the champion you are playing, the enemy team's composition, and your team's composition.

Your champion:

For junglers who are meant to do large amounts of physical damage (for example Master Yi), build items with attack damage.

Junglers who do more magic damage (like Fiddlesticks) should build ability power.

Olaf Lore

Most men would say that death is a thing to be feared; none of those men would be Olaf. The Berserker lives only for the roar of a battle cry and the clash of steel. Spurred on by his hunger for glory and the looming curse of a forgettable death, Olaf throws himself into every fight with reckless abandon. Surrendering to the bloodlust deep within his being, Olaf is only truly alive when grappling with the jaws of death.

The coastal peninsula of Lokfar is among the most brutal places in the Freljord. There, rage is the only fire to warm frozen bones, blood is the only liquid that flows freely, and there is no worse fate than to grow old, frail, and forgotten. Olaf was a warrior of Lokfar with no shortage of glories and no hesitation to share them. While boasting one evening with his clansmen over the burning embers of a razed village, one of the elder warriors grew tired of Olaf's bluster. The old fighter goaded Olaf to read the omens and see if Olaf's fortunes matched his gloating. Emboldened by the challenge, Olaf mocked the aged raider's envy and tossed the knuckle bones of a long-dead beast to predict the heights of glory he'd achieve in death. All mirth left the gathering as the clansmen read the portents: the bones spoke of a long life and a quiet passing.

Sejuani lore

Sejuani was weaned on hardship and reared on barbarity. Where others succumbed to the harshness of the Freljord, she was tempered by it until pain became power, hunger an encouragement, and frost an ally in culling the weak. Through her ordeals, she learned that to thrive in the endless winter, one must become just as cold and unforgiving. In Sejuani's eyes, her followers either have the mettle to endure or the right to die. Once she has conquered the Freljord, she knows that those who survive will form a nation to be feared.

As a child, the leader of the Winter's Claw watched her tribe's numbers slowly dwindle. Cold and starvation took all but the most resilient. She was the only one of her siblings to survive to her tenth year, leaving Sejuani sure that she too would die in misery. In desperation, she sought spiritual counsel from her tribe's mystic. But the seer did not foretell Sejuani's death. Instead, she prophesized that Sejuani would one day conquer and unite the divided tribes of the Freljord.

Armored with absolute faith in her destiny, Sejuani pushed herself to extremes that would have killed anyone without her will to endure. She walked into blizzards without food or furs and trained while frigid winds raked her flesh. She clashed with the strongest warriors of her tribe, one after another, until her legs gave out beneath her. When she assumed leadership of her tribe, Sejuani commanded her warriors to follow her example. Under her rule, the tribe grew stronger than they had ever been.

In the end, it was an offer of peace - rather than an act of war - that began Sejuani's campaign of conquest. On the first day of winter, envoys from Ashe's tribe approached Sejuani's camp bearing a gift of Avarosan grain. Ashe's intent was clear: if Sejuani united with her tribe, the Winter's Claw would never go hungry again. To Sejuani, the gift was an insult. In Ashe's tribe, she saw men and women, slight and soft, who preferred to farm instead of fight. Her contempt for them was absolute.

Sejuani gathered her people and set the grain alight. She proclaimed that Ashe's offer of charity would bring only weakness. Stripping the envoys of their supplies, Sejuani sent them back with a message: the Winter's Claw would prove to the Avarosan that only the strong deserve to survive in the Freljord. As the grain burned behind them, Sejuani rode out with her warband to inflict the first of many painful lessons to come.

''I was cut from the ice, shaped in the storms, hardened in the cold.''
-- Sejuani

Jinx lore

Jinx lives to wreak havoc without a thought for the consequences, leaving a trail of mayhem and panic in her wake. A manic and impulsive criminal, she despises nothing more than boredom, and gleefully brings her own volatile brand of pandemonium to the one place she finds dullest: Piltover. With an arsenal of deadly toys, she unleashes the brightest explosions and loudest blasts - all the better to shock and surprise the hapless authorities. Always just out of the law's reach, Jinx's favorite game is to toy with Piltover's finest - especially Vi.

Piltover had long been known as the City of Progress, a place where peace and order reigned. That serenity was challenged when a new kind of criminal arrived, the likes of whom had never been seen. This mysterious outlaw unleashed a series of warped and destructive capers that endangered the entire city, and left its people reeling from the worst crime spree in Piltover's history.

As the string of crimes without rhyme or reason hit the city, sightings of the lawbreaker emerged. Though the young woman's origins were a mystery, some saw traces of Piltover hextech in her firearms, while others described the street fashions of Zaun in her dress. Because her arrival always brought trouble with it, those who crossed her path soon gave her a name: Jinx.

As Jinx's rampage escalated, Caitlyn - the sheriff of Piltover - responded by declaring a state of emergency and organizing a city-wide manhunt. In typical Jinx fashion, the criminal marked the Piltover treasury, the city's most secure building, with a direct challenge to its most abrasive officer. With a caricature of Vi's face splashed across the treasury's facade, and a scribbled time and date of her supposed raid, Jinx was openly daring the enforcer to stop her from robbing it.

Determined to put the troublemaker behind bars, Vi watched and waited outside the treasury until Jinx's time had finally come. True to her scrawled promise, the smiling menace showed her face. Knowing this was her chance to capture the outlaw, Vi gave chase into the building's interior. She smashed through wall after wall to chase down Jinx, who giggled as she lit up the evacuated treasury with fiery explosions. Vi finally cornered the criminal inside the vault, but Jinx wasn't done just yet. With a maniacal laugh, she fired a barrage of rockets, bringing the entire building down upon them both.

When Vi finally crawled out of the ruins, the battered enforcer found no trace of Jinx. Adding insult to injury, not a single ounce of gold had been taken from the ruined vault. Instead, the criminal left a parting message to her favorite officer of the law - a challenge only now visible through the gaping opening in Piltover's skyline. The lights of the city spelled out a simple taunt: you'll never catch me. As Vi read the message, she heard the distant laughter of her new nemesis, and the city plunged into utter darkness for the very first time.

''Oh look - I'm opening my box of care! Oh wait - it's empty!''
-- Jinx

Annie lore

There have always been those within Noxus who did not agree with the evils perpetrated by the Noxian High Command. The High Command had just put down a coup attempt from the self-proclaimed Crown Prince Raschallion, and a crackdown on any form of dissent against the new government was underway. These political and social outcasts, known as the Gray Order, sought to leave their neighbors in peace as they pursued dark arcane knowledge.

The leaders of this outcast society were a married couple: Gregori Hastur, the Gray Warlock, and his wife Amoline, the Shadow Witch. Together they led an exodus of magicians and other intelligentsia from Noxus, resettling their followers beyond the Great Barrier to the northern reaches of the unforgiving Voodoo Lands. Though survival was a challenge at times, the Gray Order's colony managed to thrive in a land where so many others would have failed.

Years after the exodus, Gregori and Amoline had a child: Annie. Early on, Annie's parents knew there was something special about their daughter. At the age of two, Annie miraculously ensorcelled a shadow bear - a ferocious denizen of the petrified forests outside the colony - turning it into her pet. To this day she keeps her bear ''Tibbers'' by her side, often keeping him spellbound as a stuffed doll to be carried like a child's toy. The combination of Annie's lineage and the dark magic of her birthplace have given this little girl tremendous arcane power.

Anivia lore . bird

Anivia is a being of the coldest winter, a mystical embodiment of ice magic, and an ancient protector of the Freljord. She commands all the power and fury of the land itself, calling the snow and bitter wind to defend her home from those who would harm it. A benevolent but mysterious creature, Anivia is eternally bound to keep vigil over the Freljord through life, death, and rebirth.

Anivia is as much a part of the Freljord as the never-ending frost. Long before mortals had ever set foot on the land's frigid tundra, she had lived countless lifetimes and died as many deaths. The beginnings and ends of her eternal cycle always heralded great change, from the calming of raging storms to the ebb and flow of ice ages. It is said that when the cryophoenix dies, an era ends; and when she is reborn, a new era begins.

Though Anivia's past lifetimes have faded from her memory, she knows her purpose: she must protect the Freljord at all costs.

When she was last reborn, Anivia witnessed the rise of a mighty and united human tribe. She guarded their lands with pride as they prospered, but such unity could not last forever. The great tribe fractured into three, and after that upheaval, Anivia watched the people of the Freljord become embroiled in battle. As she strove to calm the turmoil tearing her home apart, Anivia began to sense a greater threat: an ancient evil growing deep within the earth. To her horror, she felt the pure magic of the ice itself become blackened and corrupt. Like blood in water, darkness crept into the Freljord. With her destiny so tied to the power of the land, Anivia knew if such evil took root in her home, that same darkness would find its way into her heart. She could no longer remain a mere guardian - the cryophoenix had to act.

Anivia soon discovered an ally in Ashe, the Frost Archer. Ashe too believed in unification as an end to the Freljord's perpetual strife, and Anivia offered the tribal leader her aid. Now, with war on the horizon, Anivia prepares to fight for peace, but she knows the inevitable truth of her destiny. One day, evil will rise from the ice, and she must destroy it - no matter the cost.

''I am the fury of the blizzard, the bite of the wind, and the cold of the ice. I am the Freljord.''
-- Anivia