Riot Phroxzon ‘happy’ with lane swap, Atakhan changes, eyes potential nerfs for ‘too effective’ LoL champ

Now that the League of Legends First Stand 2025 tournament has officially concluded, the game’s lead champion designer, Matt “Phroxzon” Leung-Harrison, is sharing his thoughts about all the changes made throughout the tournament.

Following reports that Fearless Draft is now a permanent feature within League’s esports scene, Phroxzon posted a lengthy response to the entire tournament on his official X account (formerly Twitter). Phroxzon broke down his feelings towards important gameplay features like the new lane-swap mechanics, and hinted at which champions will be adjusted in the following balance patches.

Overall, it looks like Phroxzon was “pretty happy” with the changes to lane-swapping and the jungle monster Atakhan. Currently, players who swap lanes before the three-minute mark face steep reductions in gold and XP and empower enemy towers to deal increased damage. These changes were originally launched as a temporary fix to the rampant lane-swapping meta before the start of this year’s First Stand tournament, so expect more changes coming in the near future.

Atakhan, the newest jungle monster, also faced some balancing adjustments before the tournament began. While Phroxzon doesn’t have the exact numbers, he is certain that the Ruinous version of the beast spawned in most games. The more powerful Voracious Atakhan only spawned in games where “it made sense,” and none of the players swapped lanes during the start of each match.

In terms of the champions picked throughout the tournament, the new Fearless Draft system forces players to select a wide variety of champions that typically aren’t seen, such as off-meta characters. Overall, Phroxzon thinks the Fearless Draft system allows teams to treat champion selection like a large game of chess. The Rioter is hopeful that teams will start developing strategies around the Fearless Draft, such as picking a champion after ensuring that their biggest counter was already used in a previous game.

When it comes to balancing specific champions, Phroxzon identified two characters that stood out amongst the entire roster. “Skarner and Kalista were the outliers on priority,” the Rioter shared after watching all the tournament games and playing his own solo-queue matches. Phroxzon noted that no one seemed particularly effective on Kalista, while Skarner had the exact opposite issue.

Phroxzon shared that he thinks Skarner is “too effective at too many things,” but falls flat when piloted by regular players. This means that everyone’s favorite scorpion will be getting yet another mini-rework in the future, but there is currently no information on which changes the team will be bringing to the character. Most likely, Skarner will receive both buffs and nerfs that make him more effective in casual play while curbing his jack-of-all-trades playstyle in professional settings.

While Phroxzon didn’t share any additional information about future champion balance, he did note how different the game feels when played on another country’s server. In particular, he pointed out that Korean players are simply better at using characters like Lee Sin, making his NA-centric buffs inflate the character even more in South Korea.

The Rioter didn’t divulge any more details about his findings, so it’s unclear if his personal gameplay experience will inspire server-specific changes, or is merely being shared for fun.