Feels Bad, Bird Dad (New Swain)

Mastery 7 old-Swain here with the new Swain report:

Toplane fighters, your cries have been answered. Dance ye mightily upon the grave of the old, dominant Swain. Cancer bird is dead.

He is not the same champion at all - so little of him remains that it's scary. I hope to be proven wrong about him, but his new waveclear is terribad, and his new mana requirements are even more insane than the old ones - minus the passive to help restore it. This new Q mana proc just isn't as viable for sustain. And too much of his power seems concentrated in proc'ing his new passive. He wins lane if he hits his E and his passive with 90%+ precision, and not otherwise, and I predict he will have a brutally hard time against any champ with really good waveclear.

Maybe it's just because I'm so new on him. Maybe I'll learn to love this new version. I'll keep an open mind. But he certainly doesn't feel anything like the old one, this is an entirely different champion, super techy, and just an awful lane pusher. That part makes me sad, because any good general in Runeterra who plays in the League should understand how important minion push is - it's the first lesson in the tutorial for a reason.

Great voice acting though. Silver lining. A+ on the production values, at least, and I hope he's balanced into a place where I want to play him again. Great skins - I was going to buy one of the new amazing skins if I felt he was going to be good and viable but I do have doubts now. :( I wanted to love him, and I indeed love his new artwork, and I'm sure there's a good version of this champion possible with some tweaking, but right now if he doesn't get some more viable waveclear I predict he's not gonna be popular. His Q or W needs a buff versus minions, or else he needs some lower cooldowns.