In League of Legends (LoL), new champions are regularly released and older ones are adjusted and changed. In the last patch 10.9, the champion Neeko received a rework and along with it, a unique form of camouflage.
What kind of champion is Neeko? Neeko is primarily a mid-laner, who, with a pick rate of 1.5% and a ban rate of 0.7% in the previous patch, receives little attention from the player base. After extensive planning, Riot adjusts Neeko in the latest 10.9 patch and grants her a rework.
The new abilities, especially the new passive, increase her pick rate. But above all, her rework provides a tremendous boost to her ban rate.
Neeko’s new abilities
What makes Neeko so special now? While her Q and E have lost base damage, they become stronger later on due to increased AP scaling, her other abilities are more interesting.
The biggest highlight of her rework is her new passive. Previously, she could disguise herself as one of her teammates to try to deceive opponents. With her new passive ability, her camouflage repertoire is expanded, and she can also transform into anything neutral and into allies.
Her own minions, jungle creatures, and jungle plants, as well as allied wards and placeable items and minions from allied champions, are available to Neeko as camouflage tools. Accordingly, she can also be a mushroom from Teemo or a spider from Elise.
Her W ability has also been adjusted, and she can now have her clone play animations and sounds of her abilities and emotes.
A new role for Neeko: While the efficiency of her camouflage is limited on the lanes, the jungle allows for nearly unlimited camouflage strategies. Riot is aware of this and has significantly improved the jungle efficiency of her ability.
Champions are regularly played outside their regular role. A 23-year-old Dane popularizes an unusual champ in a completely different role single-handedly.
Players ban the new Neeko
As is usual for a rework, many players want to test the new abilities and play styles. Besides the pick rate, the ban rate, in particular, increases enormously.
Neeko’s pick and ban rates in comparison
- Pick rate in patch 10.8: 1.5%
- Pick rate in patch 10.9: 3.2%
- Ban rate in patch 10.8: 0.7%
- Ban rate in patch 10.9: 23.2%
Although her pick rate only increases by 1.7%, her ban rate is now 33 times higher in the new patch. This catapults her from way down into the top 5 of the currently most banned champions.
This time she is also played in the jungle, but has a catastrophic win rate of 41.48%. This might also be due to the fact that many players still do not know how to handle their new abilities.
Alongside abilities, items in League of Legends are an essential part of the game. Sometimes players forget which to buy at the beginning of the game. In rare cases, even pros forget to buy items.
If you have always wanted to know how MMR, rank placement, and LP relate to each other, Riot offers a simple explanatory video:
Players test Neeko’s new ability
How to outsmart the other team as a harmless opponent is shown by Reddit user MellowShriek in a video. While his teammate failed at destroying the nexus, MellowShriek disguises himself as a minion and sneaks past the defending opponent. He quickly transforms back and destroys the enemy nexus with a few attacks.
On Reddit, many poke fun at the unsuspecting opponents but also share their own funny stories about the Neeko update.
Aizen_Myo recounts: My brother was ganked by her and he was incredibly upset that he forgot to count the minions.
Also superp2222 thinks that Neeko’s ability to transform into minions is the most paranoia-inducing thing of all time
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Alongside the high ban rate and fear of being surprised by Neeko, the community views the new passive positively and enjoys funny stories. To make the game friendlier for beginners, Riot is also planning a revision of the coop vs AI mode.
