How the most outdated champion broke League in season 11

We are in the middle of preseason 12, which has brought us some notable changes in terms of gameplay. But if we compare this preseason, with the number of changes that happened last year, it’s not even close.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, because too much turmoil can scare away players. Nobody wants to dedicate all their time just to relearn the game every year. But one of the many good things these preseason changes bring are the unexpected results.

Preseason 11 changed League

Sure champions like Ryze, Anivia, Kassadin, Cassiopea lost Rod of Ages and thus their playstyle had to be changed. But most of the time, new things emerged that were viable and created a perfect situation for some champions. Galeforce and Collector on Jhin, Goredrinker on Olaf, Aatrox, and all other bruisers, as well as the “Moonstaff” combo on any AP champ that has utility, were all positive results of those changes.

Maybe most notably and the best example of this is the champion we’re going to discuss today. How Udyr went from being voted the champion most deserving of a rework to one of the most banned champions both in Solo Queue and Pro play in a span of two months. If we take a look at season 11 in general, Udyr’s rise just gets more and more spectacular.

Nowadays when new champions like Samira and Aphelios among others have more words in their passive than Udyr’s entire kit, even thinking about him being on their level seems unreasonable. But he wasn’t on their level, some would argue that he was even better. To put it in perspective how crazy Udyr was at the start of season 11 we need to take a look at his statistics. From the start of 2016 to the start of 2021, Udyr was picked in competitive play just four times, and that was mostly in the minor leagues.

And this is how dominant he was in season 11, overlapping champions that by all metrics should have been better designed and overall more useful than him. So let’s take a look at how this happened.

Understanding Udyr’s problems

Throughout his history and especially the early days, Udyr has had multiple playstyles that have been viable. In the farming jungle meta’s like when Feral Flare was overpowered, an on-hit full damage build with Botrk, Wits End and Rageblade was the norm. He would be impossible to beat one versus one but outside of farming and split pushing, he would be pretty useless when team fights would start.

Full tank builds have also been popular but they arguably scale even worse because all the utility Udyr has is a point and click stun. And as time has gone by, every new champion Riot has designed has even more and more tools to kite and get away from Udyr. But all of this only meant that Udyr would get buffed. And so it happened, for the last five years Udyr was only getting buffs. Most notably on patch 7.08, he received a mini rework that changed his Q and W(Tiger and Turtle stance) which helped his full damage playstyle but the same issues remained.

Although they were small, over time they eventually stacked up. The last buff on patch 10.19 that buffed his R (Phoenix Stance) with the increased damage and AP scaling was probably the one that sealed the deal. And with the item changes in preseason 11, the perfect storm was ready.

How Udyr broke the meta in season 11

Udyr’s issue has always been that he has no spells or range whatsoever. All of his spells are modifiers to his auto attacks, and since he’s a melee champion, it’s kind of hard for him to be able to use them. Build full damage and you die before you reach the enemy team in teamfights. Build full tank and you’re just a useless punching bag that can’t engage on the enemy carries.

But with the introduction of Chemtank, Force of Nature, and the changes to Deadman’s Plate and Lich Bane, Udyr’s weaknesses would be made non-existent. The new Mythic called Chemtank was the old Sunfire Cape passive combined with the Righteous Glory active. With one item he got more damage that also helped his clear, he got tanky due to the mix of resistances and the active was even better than before because it slowed after he hit his target. This item alone made up for his lack of true mobility. He didn’t have a dash, but this item made him really fast.

And all of his other items only helped his cause. Force of Nature and Deadman’s Plate are both tank items that give him 5% movement speed, and Lich Bane gave him another 10%!! With the new Phoenix Stance max that scaled of AP, Udyr constantly activating Lich Bane with his autos, and many champions building Staff of the Flowing Water which also increased his total ability power, Udyr finally had enough damage to not be ignored as a threat while being super tanky and mobile. His rune page also reflected on his playstyle.

The days of Conqueror, PTA, Grasp and Aftershock Udyr were gone and his entire rune page was dedicated to mobility. With all of this mobility based on percentages, even the most modern champs couldn’t run away from Udyr. With his buffed Phoenix stance and brand new Mythic item he had enough damage to chunk them to half their health with only one spell. And after he would proc Phase Rush he would run around them, wait for his cooldowns and stun them again.

Shaped the meta for the next six months

On patch 11.3 Udyr would get his Phoenix Stance damage nerfed at higher ranks after five years of consecutive buffs, so I guess we came a full circle. Many were wondering how this playstyle was different from the days when Predator was overpowered. After that rune was introduced, it basically served the same purpose as this Udyr build. You press a button and you run really fast at the enemy. Soon pro players realized that they could do the same they did with Udyr on other champions who turned out to be much more useful.

And that’s how we got the 2021 Spring meta of things like full tank Skarner, Udyr, Hecarim running at carries, one shotting them before they can react and going out of the fight in less than two seconds. I’m sure it wasn’t fun for mages and marksmen but the mains of these champions that were forgotten for so long finally had a period where they felt impactful.