State of League, Season 8, 9 and Nerfplz Going Forward

New Beginnings
Now that Season 8 is officially over, it's time to look back and reflect on the state of League as a whole, the weirdness of the Season meta, and the outlook for Nerfplz going forward into the new year ~

The State of League
Always in flux, people declare League dead almost every year. It's easy to see games like Overwatch and Fortnite pop up as major contenders for time and attention, and League's certainly lost steam. On the other hand, League is also one of those games that once you pick up is tough to put away. Some players lose interest in ranked, but still play casual ARAMs with friends every day.

Each year Riot speeds up the game and reduces the time commitment per game, and the new early surrender on disconnects has been absolutely game-changing. Meanwhile, say what you will about "unfair bans", but generally speaking most banned players I meet look at their chat logs and agree that yeah, they were pretty toxic.



Overall, I think League's definitely maturing, but it's aged well. Most players would agree that the game has improved year after year...except for one controversial change:

New Beginnings 

Now that Season 8 is officially over, it's time to look back and reflect on the state of League as a whole, the weirdness of the Season meta, and the outlook for Nerfplz going forward into the new year ~

The State of League

Always in flux, people declare League dead almost every year. It's easy to see games like Overwatch and Fortnite pop up as major contenders for time and attention, and League's certainly lost steam. On the other hand, League is also one of those games that once you pick up is tough to put away. Some players lose interest in ranked, but still play casual ARAMs with friends every day.

Each year Riot speeds up the game and reduces the time commitment per game, and the new early surrender on disconnects has been absolutely game-changing. Meanwhile, say what you will about "unfair bans", but generally speaking most banned players I meet look at their chat logs and agree that yeah, they were pretty toxic.

Overall, I think League's definitely maturing, but it's aged well. Most players would agree that the game has improved year after year...except for one controversial change:

Season 8 Insanity 

This year players were treated or cursed (depending on how you look at it) with massive nerfs on marksmen and all their items. Afterwards, players discovered zany meta carries like Yasuo and Swain bot.

If that wasn't awesome/terrible enough, Taric mid funneling Master Yi jungle also became meta, and we all realized why nobody plays Twisted Treeline. Nobody likes the funneling meta except the people playing it.

We also ended up with champion picks that would have been outrageously troll in Season 7 like Taliyah jungle and Fiddlesticks support, both of which have ended up in God Tier for at least a period in time.

All-in-all there was certainly a lot of complaining and definitely a lot of trolling, but we finished off Season 8 with something that resembled the old meta. But if you feel like there's a strange flavor to the brew you're not wrong...

Season 9 Changes 

In effect are two major changes that will impact everyone's ranked experience. The first is the release of the Iron and Grandmaster Tiers, which is something that will certainly increase the competition on the top and bottom range of the spectrum.

As a hardstuck D5, (sometimes D4) this is definitely something to look forward to. Most seasons, getting to higher Diamond divisions simply isn't worth the trouble unless you can get to Master Tier AND avoid the potential 100 LP decay.

The second and certainly crazier change is the introduction of five individual tiers for each role. While I'm personally still skeptical on how this is going to play out in practice, we'll see if this massive change is enough to reignite passion for League.

Nerfplz Year In Review

Lastly, I just wanted to connect with the fans of the site and if you're still reading up to this point thank for your support!!!

As many of you know, I run this site by myself and deal with all the coding, content, and business side of it all while simultaneously working 60 hours a week year-round at a full time job. I don't always get all the content out when I want to, and motivation is tough to come by on late nights.

Thanks for being patient with the slowdown in posts. Some weeks might be slower than others, but I don't plan on stopping anytime soon and will be ramping up into the year close.

I've also made a few big changes on the back-end that you may have noticed including:

• New advertiser - The old ads were getting gritty. These new ones should be more pleasant to look at and reduce the server load. Advertising revenue certainly isn't anything to live off of right now, but it does help pay for the cost of the site.
• Major back-end infrastructure updates - This will be most apparent to our friends who aren't in North America. I've made some huge changes to the way our server operates, and you should all see some major load time improvements overseas. Some of you may have noticed issues connecting the last two days, and this is the reason why as our servers migrate.
• I'm aiming for 0.5 - 1.5 sec loads for everyone, please let me know if we're falling short of that and your geographic location!

Thanks again for your support! 

- SSJSuntastic

What did you think about Season 8? Excited for Season 9? How long have you been following the site? Comment below!