Lost Chapter users are underperforming right now, but mages aren't necessarily bad.

With the changes to Doran's Ring, Lost Chapter, and nerfs to Manaflow Band, champions that rely on large mana pools to relentlessly waveclear have fallen under the radar. However, the implications seen often are that mages are bad now, assassins are busted, and there's nothing you can do against as immobile mages now. This is simply not true.

If we look at the interactions between Lost Chapter mages, it's clear one or two are a huge cut above the rest (mainly Zoe). In their interactions with other roles, LC mages take the longest to reach a point in the game where their waveclear comes online. RoA mages get an 1100 gold spike, manaless mages usually just need to stall out to a specific level, and Protobelt/non-mana item mages generally only need 1050 gold. Assassins need 750 gold because they usually start Long Sword and bruisers almost always have priority pre-7/8 because of their dueling potential and how hard they abuse early-game items.

With Perfect csing, a Viktor can get his Hexcore-mk1 around 5:30-6:00, which is the wave before level 6. That's in pro play, and rarely happens in solo queue, meaning you're probably going to need a kill to get a Lost Chapter before level 6. This is important because at level 6 you've hit mid-game, and if mages aren't able to clear and roam they lose a lot of priority and have to stall out the mid-game before they come online.

In low elo, this has created a vacuum where assassins and bruisers dumpster LC mages due to spacing errors and lack of respect for burst combos. In high elo, LC mages have almost been completely phased out for supports and non-LC mages (again, aside from Zoe). You get an Irelia, Yasuo, and Talon occasionally but more often you'll see a roaming support or gold-funneling support and and bot lane . also has a 54% winrate right now which, I know he's almost exclusively played by mains, but still deserves looking into.

The state of power of a role is usually determined by what the top couple of champions can do, so by that definition no mages are not bad and immobile mages are not unplayable right now. However, champions that need LC are sorely underperforming compared to their peers, with the 2 remotely good LC users (Zoe and LB) only passing the bar because they put down kill pressure as early as levels 3 and 4. However, for the rest of LC users they're simply unable to punish strong non-LC users or establish any form of priority unless there's a massive outplay. Swain is almost always going to be able to survive to 3 items, TF has stronger items than you at level 6 and bone plating makes it nearly impossible to punish his first ult (maybe his second as well, but that usually constitutes poor play). And Vlad...? Vlad is gross, he needed some of the nerfs coming to him in 8.13.

So what can be done to fix this disparity? Meddler has said that he plans to buff a few specific LC users this patch, however I would definitely recommend reverting some of the cost of LC to 1100-1200. I would not mind if the mana or mana regen passive was lowered as a response, but I strongly feel like if I played the lane out and got 8-9 cs a minute I should be able to back just before 6 and get my big sustain item, because without it I can't really roam consistently. If Riot thinks I'm not supposed to roam as frequently because I'm playing a mage instead of an assassin, I'd like the mana to at least push, get vision, and make him lose a few minions without halving my mana pool.

TL;DR it's incredibly difficult to purchase a LC before level 6. This makes midlaners who need it lose steam vs. other champions who can gain priority and roam or even just shove you out of lane. I think that it's important to lower the cost to be something purchasable pre-6 because if, as a midlaner, your champoin don't have the ability to assert itself in lane by level 6, you're going to have a significantly diminished impact on the outcome of the game.