Brand now has the best win rate in the game and a fairly high ban rate

According to champion.gg, his winrate is 56.82%, with a 7.34% play rate, a 1.41% ban rate (this is NOT 'fairly high'), and a 'playerbase average games played' of 45

Mastery changes benefited him disproportionately to many other champions filling similar roles. Some champions who counter him are being played less. Some champions he counters are being played more. He fared relatively well with the item changes (not as well as some, or as well as he did with the masteries, but still). Many players may not have been used to facing him previously (he had been somewhat 'out of meta' for a while, being immobile and reliant on mid-range skillshots) meaning that they are less adept in exploiting his weaknesses.

He's always done alot of damage.

Now the new mastery just makes his damage incredibly retarded.

I would be fine with Brand nerfs.

Ever since his past few buffs, he has been too strong for too little effort/risk... would be nice if they chunked his absurdly high base movement speed instead of mana costs.

He was fairly strong before, and benefitted a lot from the preseason changes, as well.

• Deathfire Touch interaction with his passive
• Doran's Ring giving scaling mana regeneration
• Access to mana regen in Cunning
• Less access to CdR for other mages (he doesn't use CdR as well as others himself, so "weaker" other mages = stronger Brand).
• Less pesky AD casters going against you