Turning a patch into a plan
Before your first game on a new patch: check what it did to the comps you play, then pick one to keep, one to drop and one to try.
Checked for patch 18.4. The numbers come from the live Set 18 data and follow every patch.
The idea
You do not need every line of the notes before your first game. You need to know what the patch did to the few comps you actually play, and to the ones you will fight: every lobby is 8 players, and what the patch did to their comps reaches you too.
Read each comp from the centre out. Its carry first, because that is where the items and the damage go. Then the traits it runs deep, then the items it builds on the carry, then everything else. A nerf to the carry outweighs a buff to a unit the comp only plays for one trait.
Then sort your comps three ways. Keep the ones the patch left alone or helped: what you know about them still holds. Drop the ones whose carry or main trait took a real hit, until the numbers say otherwise. Try one comp the patch pushed up, just one, so you learn it properly.
HexKey does the first pass on every patch page. The Meta Forecast sorts the comps into winners, the lines to keep, the ones to pivot out of and a watch list on the morning the patch lands, before any games are in. For HexKey Pro readers, What this patch means for you matches the changes against their own ranked games. A few days later, the comps page tells you how it all landed.
See it live
Pick a comp and read what patch 18.4 did to it, most central pieces first, with its numbers before and after.
The comp you play, most played first
Carried by Elder Dragon, a 5-cost
Patch 18.4: Cut both ways
- Buffed
- Draven and Spirit Visage
- Nerfed
- Kennen and Juggernaut
- Adjusted
- Ivern
Most central first: its carries and the traits it runs deep, then the rest.
- 4.55 → 4.50
- Average placement, 18.3 to 18.4
On the patch 18.4 page, the Meta Forecast sorts the comps before any games are in. For HexKey Pro readers, a section called What 18.4 means for you also matches the changes against their own ranked games.
The rule of thumb
Before your first game on a patch, read your comps from the carry out, then keep one, drop one and try one.
Check yourself
You open the notes for the comp you play most. Which change do you read first?
Pick an answer.