Something I really dont undertand about Riot's logic about Athene's Unholy Grail.

The challenge with Athene's Unholy Grail is that it's an item basically designed for passive play. Defensive stats, tons of mana regeneration (and, in previous iterations, mana regen that ramped up the more mana you used), cooldown reduction - you get the deal. Because of this, we're a little reticent to just outright bring this bad boy back onto the scene. That said, there's also (currently) a world where Morellonomicon is the default mana regeneration item, which skews certain stats (healing, health regeneration) in different ways as well. We're trying hard not to make this a patch note about Morellonomicon (too late), but can at least afford to bring some parity between mana regeneration items

The challenge with Athene's Unholy Grail is that it's an item basically designed for passive play.

That is really... weird. I mean, yes, Athenes has Magic Resistance, but its hardly a factor since it has been nerfed, and its only there because chalice is part of its buildpath.

But under no situation it is a passive or defensive item. Tear upgrades can be considered passive or defensive since they more or less need constant charging. But not Athenes, which promotes mana hungry character being aggressive thanks to increased mana regen.

I remember back before Athene's (or any chalice upgrade) was introduced, and how passive manahungry champions had to play in the early/midgame to charge their tears or simply not going OoM after a couple of spells rotations.

When Mana Regen, and thus Athene's was recently nerfed, all that happened was a decline of several champion that were reliant on it, specially on midlane were the pushing and poking game is strong and vicious with manaless champions with equal, or better(!), waveclear that mana heavy champions. Special mentions to Zed and Katarina having powerful waveclear and pushing for basically no cost, and in Zed's case, ranged.

Riot's logic contradicts itself with the affirmation that an item that allows manahungry champions to be agressive in lane , intead of being fearful of going OoM for daring to trade or afk farming to get stacks, its considered a passive item.

The only way Athene's can be considered, in my opinion, a passive item is because it gives you mana regen. But is that were so, then every item in the game without an active or ''on hit'' effect its a passive item. Which means every ''stat stick'' item in the game, ranging from to to to every upgrade is a passive item?