LeBlanc’s upcoming update will give her more ‘deception’ tools, slow her burst

League of Legends is getting an assassin update soon, and slowly the details of who is being changed and how are coming out. Previously, Riot released details about Rengar’s update direction and Talon’s. Wednesday, another name was added to the list: LeBlanc, as Rioter 20thCenturyFaux posted on the boards.

In her current iteration, LeBlanc can be very frustrating to play against because she is able to do burst damage from a distance with only a tiny time window for counterplay. The plan is to dial back on that, extending the window of time in which LeBlanc does her burst damage while stile preserving her mobility.

LeBlanc’s signature double snapback serves as escape--any self-respecting mastermind keeps a little something up her sleeve--but using it means giving up her position and her kill. Even if she intends to snap back instantly, going in to poke with W/RW should give the opponent time to retaliate with an ability. A Zed-style tiny delay between W dash end and W snapback enabled is pretty likely to show up.

LeBlanc will also be given more deception tools to lean into her identity as “the Deceiver.” Examples given by 20thCenturyFaux include giving false information to the enemy — kind of like her passive, which creates a clone of herself, but something you could control (instead of automatically triggering at a certain percentage of health).

LeBlanc’s tricky nature has lots of opportunity for really cool plays, and while her passive is awesome it’s also automatic and unreliable. We’re trying things like concealing information about LeBlanc or giving false information about her to the enemy. It should also allow her to specifically make plays centered around it -- whether using it to cover herself as she assassinates a target or the threat of assassination as a bluff.

This update likely won’t hit until around January, so there’s still plenty of time between now and then. LeBlanc currently sits at 42nd out of 48 mid laners on Champion.gg’s 6.15 win rates for ranked games Platinum and above, at 48.29 percent.

At the competitive level, she’s been the fourth-most popular mid laner among the five major regions this Summer and by far the most popular assassin. She’s been picked in 13.8 percent of games and banned in 26.5 percent, sporting a 53.3 percent win rate and a 3.6 K/D/A across those regions.