Riven's ani-cancel changes and Renek's/Graves' cancel removals are 100% UNRELATED AND INCOMPARABLE.
Riven's animation cancels were originally a bug. However, it was determined it fit her theme and entire character better than the original plan. It was rewoven into her kit entirely with specific changes made to both balance and accommodate the new playstyle. Also, she has been subsequently continually balanced throughout the patches now and then for any other necessary changes. Her being able to animation cancel is core to and perfectly fits her entire identity and is also the reason she is playable, instead of being garbage-tier trash. So what changes did she get? Making it so her kit doesn't literally rely on the server latency for success of cancelling. Wow, Riot must be such terrible, biased people. What else did they change? They removed her emote cancel.
Renekton is an extremely strong earlygame bully with a lower skill floor and ceiling than Riven. He isn't braindead nor is he simplistic in his cap. Good Renekton players can achieve massive differences. He also isn't as hard to pickup or learn to an average/decent level. In addition, he can build tankier than Riven and still function better, whereas Riven usually needs more damage to be relevant, even if she gets 1-2 tank items (as opposed to potentially 3-4 on Renekton). Now, I am not for or against the changes to Renekton. However, he could cancel autoattacks up to three times in a row, and up to four once he got Tiamat/Hydra. This is faster than any other champion in the entire game in pure AA canceling. Yes, champions like Riven can cancel almost everything, but not 3-4 AAs solely in a row. BUT GUESS WHAT? This ISN'T even what they removed! You heard me right. They did not touch a single part of his animation canceling! So what DID they remove? An unintended bug where an auto happened the same time he Q'd (a regular AoE ability) and a bug where his ultimate accidentally did a tick at the first instant of use. Guess what other bugs they ALSO fixed? His auto from passive not properly giving the full Fury, his E not hitting targets, AND his Q not properly hitting targets or scaling in model size. In addition, Renekton was given a QoL change so he could properly queue abilities. THEY DID NOT EVEN REMOVE ONE ANIMATION CANCEL ABILITY FROM HIM. IN CONTRAST, THEY FIXED MULTIPLE NEGATIVELY IMPACTING BUGS AND MADE HIM FEEL EVEN BETTER TO PLAY WITHOUT BUFFING HIM.
Now, Graves' case. All around strong, tanky, ranged, Burst/DPS duo, mobile, AoE champion who benefited greatly off lifesteal. What did they remove? Animation canceling? Sure. This time it was. But guess what? It was an unintended bug Riot themselves specifically and explicitly called out saying they needed to fix. So what specifically was changed? Oh, just someone being able to use an extremely long range ultimate with a low cooldown and high damage. In a way that literally goes against the entire design point. His ultimate is designed to knock him back as standard of recoil. This gives a chance for people to escape if he misses for instance or doesn't get the kill. However, by canceling it with E, he could both cancel the animation of the preparation and stay in his attack range by canceling the self-knockback. Wow, I sure wonder why this was removed!
Before you decide to make another post about how it's supposedly unfair or biased or bullshit or double standards about how Riven gets changes while Renekton's got "removed" and Graves' was removed, please learn the actual context of the changes and significance.
Funnily enough, Riven was the one who got a cancel she didn't need removed, while Renekton (one of the two champions people are complaining about getting a cancel removed) didn't get a single intentional cancel removed.
and
probably impacts it more than the animation cancel.
's endless hogging of the jg spotlight anyway.