The League of Legends patch 13.1b update brought with it a huge nerf to Yuumi, as Riot continues to wrestle with the magical cat to rework her into a healthier position. Summoner’s Rift team lead Matt ‘Phroxzon’ Leung-Harrison has now taken to Twitter to offer some extra transparency on why the studio is trying to get her out of the hands of pros, and into the hands of newer players.
“At time of writing, Yuumi is in top three most performant champions for true new players (not smurfs), while in top 20 most popular”, Phroxzon says. “Simultaneously, she’s a top pro support.”
According to Phroxzon, the team’s belief is Yuumi’s “best in class for letting new players play with friends and see if they even enjoy playing League to begin with.” Thanks to her unique attachment mechanic, new players can effectively piggyback (cattyback?) their pals, giving them less to worry about when assimilating the myriad elements of League’s core gameplay – at least that seems to be the studio’s thinking.
When it comes to competitive play, Phroxzon believes that one of the best paths to improvement is to play difficult champions that “teach tough lessons” – something Yuumi can circumvent to an extent. As such, Riot is trying to “move her out” of pro play as it believes she doesn’t improve the competitive experience.
As an aside, Phroxzon expresses the studio’s desire to create new methods of allowing new players to play with experienced friends “without getting turbostomped” – though this “will take some time”.