Why the Veigar Changes are Discouraging

Here’s what I envision happening with Veigar.

There will be a few small changes made to Veigar’s abilities between now and when he’s finally released on the live client. He’ll suffer miserably against mobile champions on account of his kit. He’ll remain largely unplayable for nearly a year to a year and a half, and then a Riot designer will announce that he’s taking the reins and reworking the champion. After 6 months to another year, we’ll have a new “Veigar.” Except that it will be nothing like the old Veigar. The AP burst mage will be completely transformed, and even the character’s entire personality may be changed. We’ll receive 2-4 hastily worded sentences of lore that explain why Veigar isn’t Veigar anymore, and that explain why we should attempt to care about the character’s personal motivations for being on the fields of battle. The people that loved old Veigar’s evil laugh and voice lines are now attempting to like this new Veigar who doesn’t resemble the old character in any way. He’ll be some sort of hyper mobile champion that doesn’t even play like Veigar used to.

Champion cohesion feels like it’s at an all-time low. The meta is shifting faster than Riot can balance old champions to accommodate it, and these new reworks are essentially remakes, where so much of the old kit has to be discarded to enable to character to function in a new meta. This systemic cycle of champion neglect and subsequent remaking is incredibly discouraging. The meager amount of lore out there doesn’t really justify why champions are being discarded completely and remade anew with the same name but nothing else, and it’s a very grating experience. I’m saddened that Riot has completely shifted their attention away from the very soul of the game and poured so much energy into forcing the same 30 LCS champions to dominate the meta. Given that other MOBAs are capable of not only balancing the game at high level play but also imparting a sense of life and character into the game, it makes me question why I continue to play this game. In the end, it’s the small hope that Riot will return to its roots and restore the game to the vibrant, diverse battlefield that it used to be.