League of Legends champion updates start with Neeko and Rell

Neeko and Rell mains will shortly see their League of Legends champions of choice get tweaked, updated, and transformed as Riot Games confirms that the Curious Chameleon and the Iron Maiden are next in line for midscope updates. With League of Legends recently bringing reworks to Yuumi, the makers of the MOBA game are now ready to focus on our favourite metalancer, and overhaul Rell’s mounted and dismounted abilities.

Though she doesn’t quite make the cut of our League of Legends tier list, with a bit of love, Rell could be a formidable bottom-lane support. Her Ferromancy: Crash Down ability risks leaving her a little exposed right now, and her Attract and Repel feels kind of limited. Fortunately, Riot plans to change all of this in Rell’s coming midscope update.

“We think Rell has an exciting fantasy and playstyle around swapping between mounted and unmounted forms,” explains Rell midscope designer Stephen ‘Riot Rapter’ Auker. “While she is a strong champion, she feels overly punished when she misses W. She also doesn’t quite match expectations for what a mounted lancer might do. This means that she didn’t fully capture the audience that might’ve been interested in her.

“The design team has taken a few stabs at a Rell midscope before, but nothing really stuck, except for her new E. That’s right, Rell’s getting a completely new E which was inspired by one of the earlier explorations from Rell’s original designer.” Riot shares some additional details in its latest dev diary:

Alongside  giving her a new E, Auker outlines a three-point plan for Rell’s coming midscope:

“Lean into the Mounted/Dismounted fantasy: Let Rell feel fast – like she can charge enemies down while mounted – and let her feel like a formidable fighter while dismounted.

“Increase Play Pattern Variance: Give Rell more options in lane and teamfights besides landing W, and make sure that while she’s dismounted, there are useful things she can do.

“Sand off some QoL issues: We’ve heard your feedback on some of the more frustrating parts of Rell’s kit, so we wanted to help alleviate some of them. We want to smooth out things like poor ward clearing, not being able to use E while alone, and Q having reduced power on subsequent enemies.”

Auker says Riot is still working on the finishing touches for Rell’s midscope, and does not yet have a release date in mind for when she will be unleashed back into the Rift. However, with Yuumi’s reworks complete in League of Legends patch 13.5, Riot is turning its attention to Neeko, with a midscope also planned for the shapeshifter in the near future.

“We heard players’ concerns and frustrations about the state of Yuumi, and after the decision to hand her some sizable nerfs, we also bumped her up to the top of our update priority list,” explains Summor Rift Team producer Terra ‘Riot Yasuna’ Ray. “The tradeoff was that champion midscopes like Neeko and Rell – who we announced quite a while ago – haven’t made their way to you yet.

“While our favourite shapeshifter has been kit and art locked for some time, she needs a little extra time for some technical tender love and care,” Ray continues. “Neeko has had a problem for a long time of unfortunately having many more bugs than her fellow champs (due to the cool things she can do) . One of our secondary goals with her is to update her tech and sustainability, that way we can squash a lot of her existing bugs and address new bugs more easily as they appear in the future.”

Though Riot has no “exact timeline” for the Rell and Neeko midscopes, they are next on the list, alongside an update for Ivern which will focus mostly on Daisy. Riot says it will share more about this closer to the time.

After fourteen years, you might want to know ‘how much have I spent on League of Legends?’ You might also want to check out our guide to League of Legends ranks, or the LoL champion pricing changes coming to Riot’s MOBA.