In Patch 14.9 we launched 20 new artifacts and 5 new support items in the middle of the set, which of course had some risks to it. Now that they are in players hands, I have to say I am EXTREMELY proud of everyone involved for how they landed!

First, lets get the one miss out of the way first. 24 of 25 of them landed in a great spot, with the one miss being Talisman. There was a change at the last minute from 100% HP (which meant additive with things like Bruiser) to actually double HP that made the fantasy more fun, but didn’t end up tuned right, and was too strong and easy to use. Post B patch, seems like it’s where it should be now, which is great.

Other than that though, the rest of them landed very close to where they need to be, and have met the goal of opening up fun new fantasies for various champions! When they work, they have exciting ceiling cases that are fun and exciting, without being auto picks and insta winning the game, or without being so bad that you should never take them.

“But Mort, a bunch of these have lower than 4.5 on the stats sites. That means they’re bad right?” Nope, and this is actually best case scenario for us. With items like these, it’s going to take a while for everyone to learn the situations where they work , and during that process people are going to do it wrong and lower those stats. Even over the past 72 hours, if you’ve been tracking the stats on them, they’re all slowly rising. Ones that started day 1 as 5.0 are closer to 4.7 today, and I only expect that to rise.

This isn’t me claiming everything is perfect, but for the size and scope of a project like this, I really couldn’t have asked for a much better start. I’m sure we’ll spend a patch or two making tiny adjustments to a few of them, but that’s just it…any changes look VERY small now. A simple +10 AP on an item that may need help, instead of having to drastically rework any of the effects.

Now the million dollar question that will take time to answer, and requires all of you to answer. “Are they fun?” Cause balance is one thing, but did they make TFT more enjoyable? That will take months to figure out. As they settle in, how they fair in a set transition, stuff like that that can’t be answered in a day. But I look forward to seeing how that plays out!

That’s it for me this week. Hope y’all have a great Friday. This weekend I’m finally going to grind ranked on my main, which I’ve been putting off due to other stuff. Will be nice to get a deep taste of the meta. Have a great weekend, and take it easy 🙂