Photo By Riot Games
Season five continues to explore new tricks and ways to build champions not seen previously. Our latest example comes in the form of another jungle item being played as a tool for laners, specifically Ezreal. The new Runeglaive enchantment has given this former AD marksman quite a bit of newfound firepower as an AP mid laner.
For years now, Ezreal’s primary role in League of Legends was a poke-heavy AD carry. His relatively simplistic playstyle of farming and poking, added with his mobility, made him a strong choice for the role, but he had trouble finding a place to fill in the game’s current meta. His poke was shrugged off by tanks and he could easily be locked down if caught. Thanks to Runeglaive’s introduction, Ezreal found himself shifting positions to better give him a leg up amongst the game’s current power picks.
Upon introduction in patch 5.12, Runeglaive was made to replace the then current AP jungle item: Magus. The new enchantment was meant to give AP carries a tool better meant for clear camps and sustaining the heavy mana usage that come with being a spellcaster. While damaging to niche picks like Fiddlesticks, the item succeeded in aiding junglers such as Evelynn and Nidalee. The item would give a sheen proc that converted the next player’s next basic attack to pure magic damage, scaling with base AD and a percentage of AP, synergizing well on champions with on-hit properties.
When Runeglaive was first brought to the PBE, players didn’t know what to expect out of it. Most felt as though Magus in its current state was perfectly fine, not needing to be completely removed and replaced by an item that took away from so many picks that didn’t make much use out of a sheen proc. In general, AP junglers have struggled to fit into any meta, being relegated due to their less than advantageous kits. With any luck, Runeglaive hoped to make more of them remotely viable.
It wasn't until Runeglaive found its way into the pros' hands that its power finally surfaced. Popular mid laners such as Isaac "PePiiNeRo" Flores of Giants Gaming, Soren "Bjergsen" Bjerg of Team SoloMid, and Wonseok "PaWN" Heo of Edward Gaming took a quick liking to AP Ezreal’s increased power with Runeglaive in his kit. In Team SoloMid’s game against Team Dragon Knight on day one of week six of the NA LCS, Bjergsen had chosen Runeglaive Ezreal and carried his team with an astounding score of 11/3/3.
The issue was Runeglaive’s power was not intentional. The item had a bug that gave it added power, allowing the AoE proc to activate spell effects such as Luden’s Echo or Rylai’s Crystal Scepter. In the following patch, Runeglaive received an overall damage buff with added AP and higher AD scaling, but the bug was fixed, making a decent blow to hybrid characters like Ezreal. An upcoming patch sees the item only allowing it to proc on neutral camps, hoping to fix the issue of champions such as Diana to continuing to use it in lane.
While unintended, Runeglaive’s power gave new life to champions that had been shelved from play for quite some time. The upcoming changes are sure to prevent the trend of jungle items used as a lane tool from happening, while still keeping AP junglers as a more viable option against their counterparts. Hopefully in the future a more balanced enchantment can be introduced to suit AP junglers of all kinds, rather than allowing a select few continue to outshine the competition.
