Riot changing League of Legends’ jungle meta again with Pantheon & Qiyana buffs

Riot is once again shaking up the jungle meta, with League of Legends patch 12.14 potentially sparking the return of jungle Pantheon and Qiyana — two champions who have historically found success in the role.

The jungle in League of Legends shifts its meta more often than any other role in the game. Riot has done everything in its power to get players to pick up the notoriously difficult position.

Everything from increasing champion diversity with jungle Morgana and even jungle Zed to more beginner-friendly mechanics have been tried. More recently, a rework to Wukong’s W saw him shoot up in priority.

In League of Legends patch 12.14, more jungle changes are incoming — specifically allowing Pantheon and Qiyana secure their places in the jungle.

In LoL patch 12.13, Pantheon jungle only has a 44.95% win rate with an abysmal 0.35% pick rate across all ranks. The Unbreakable Spear was pretty popular in the role when his rework dropped in Season 9, but not since then.

His excellent ganking ability with a point-and-click stun and a near-global ultimate was detracted by a horrendously slow clear speed that quickly fell behind contemporaries. Buffs in LoL patch 12.14 will target this weakness with extra damage to monsters added onto his Q.

Qiyana is also receiving a similar buff, with her Q monster damage increasing from 150% to 180%. This pick hasn’t been suffering nearly as much as Pantheon, but definitely fell far from its original glory.

The burst damage assassin hasn’t had a positive win rate in ages. Throughout the entire season, she’s sat at 45-48% win rate, never breaking the 50% barrier.

Qiyana jungle relies on building up items to stack enough AD to burst down enemies. But she’s been struggling to do so, since she can’t snowball very well early on while also lacking the clear speed to scale effectively.

The jungle buff helps claw her way into the game. By farming more effectively, jungle Qiyana gains more map control and can have a better chance at scaling into the game.

Both of these changes will be shipped live as part of July 31’s LoL patch 12.14, along with jungle changes that should shift priority on early game objectives such as Dragons and Rift Herald.