League of Legends patch 13.23, much like the patch before it, is compact but mighty. With changes to tower gold leaving the community confused, continued nerfs to Briar, and skins that will have you buzzing, there’s a lot to love (and hate) in this upcoming patch.
Patch 13.23 won’t knock your socks off (it’s relatively slim compared to the usual League of Legends patches), but the conversation around it has been anything but small. While the MOBA is beloved by many, recent comments and decisions made by Riot’s David ‘Phreak’ Turley, design lead on Summoner’s Rift, have left some scratching their heads, and others raising pitch forks. Whether it be Vel’Koz receiving buffs no one asked for while ignoring bugs, Riven possibly getting buffs because of a Reddit post, or the most controversial of all, tower gold being adjusted, there’s lots to discuss.
League of Legends Patch 13.23 – Tower Gold Adjustment
Phreak explained that Riot is reducing global tower gold gained by destroying Tower Two and Inhibitor Towers, while increasing local gold gained in turn. The objective of this change is to create player agency, specifically for the top and bottom lane.
When discussing the change, Phreak explained “If you are winning, you can feel better about things you are achieving for yourself.” This rather stark change in attitude has been welcomed by a lot of players – naturally, if you are a successful player and can outperform the competition, why should you not be rewarded for it? However, this comment seems at odds with League of Legends patch 13.20‘s stance on “anti-snowballing measures.”
Whether these changes are what you wanted or not, I can safely predict that split pushing top and bot lanes that require items to activate will like these changes.
League of Legends Patch 13.23 – Riven Buffs
Riven will see her Q ability AD ratio increased, alongside her R ability AD amp being increased as well. These buffs are a flat buff for all Riven players; Iron to Challenger, but have specifically been implemented to make Riven less reliant on her fast Q combo and more accessible to lower skill players.
Some community members have pointed to a Reddit post that discussed the difficulty of executing fast Q combos, and blamed this for the “unnecessary simplification” of Riven as a champion. Whether this change was implemented because of a Reddit post or from Riot Games’ internal analysis of the champion will always be a mystery, but it will be interesting to see how Riven’s win rate changes in low elo as a result.
Several other champions have also been buffed and nerfed in this patch, but other than the ‘Impregnator Gragas’ strat being made impossible now with his ability haste adjustment, we don’t expect to see much change in win rates.
League of Legends 13.23 skins
In addition to the changes coming in this patch, we will be getting our annual bee-themed skins, there may not be a lot of them, but you can bet they are as sweet as can bee (sorry).
Beezcrank, King Beegar, and Bee’Koz will be available on November 22, 2023 at 1pm PST / 4pm EST / 9pm GMT / 10pm CEST.
As I dive head first into ranked with 13.23 now live, I’ll be using our LoL tier list to give me the competitive edge I definitely need. What I find most difficult, though, is not buying a new skin every time I open the League client – and the League of Legends Mythic shop skins are looking mighty tempting right now.