Naafiri has not had a good time in League of Legends since the release in 2023. The assassin for beginners had been struggling for quite some time and was rarely played. With the last patch, Riot aimed to address this, but it evidently worked a little too well. Shortly after the patch, she was nerfed as a hotfix.
What kind of champion is Naafiri? Naafiri was released as an assassin for beginners in 2023. Instead of complex abilities, she has a simple kit that can be used without much practice. However, she had not been particularly popular for quite a while. She was rarely played for a long time, and things were going pretty poorly for her in the jungle.
With patch 25.06 on March 19, 2025, that should change. She received a rework, her ultimate and W abilities were swapped and adjusted, and she also received improvements for the jungle. The rework fulfilled its purpose, probably better than expected, because just one day later, she was nerfed in a hotfix.
The switch to the jungle has worked wonders for Naafiri
How is Naafiri doing now? While her pick rate in the midlane across all ranks was 1.8% and in the jungle 0.3% at the beginning of March, it has improved significantly according to U.GG (as of: March 22, 2025, 1:45 PM)
- In the midlane, she has a pick rate of 3.7% across all ranks.
- Her win rate in the midlane is currently 52.96%, making Naafiri the 3rd most successful midlaner of this patch.
- The biggest change is in the jungle. There, she currently has a pick rate of 7.0%.
- Her win rate in the jungle stands at 52.98%. Thus, she is currently the most successful jungler in the game across all ranks.
What her improvements look like in a graph has been shown by the LoL coach Thomas Yuen on x.com .
Both win rates are very high and indicate that her new kit is quite strong. The current statistics are also impressive because Naafiri was nerfed shortly after the patch release. Through a hotfix (via League of Legends Wiki), her base AD and life regeneration were slightly weakened.
However, this seems not to affect her success, as the statistics show. The streamer and professional jungler Lucas Larson even recommends on x.com that one should play Naafiri if they want to rank up before she gets nerfed more heavily.
What is the likelihood of a nerf? With a relatively high pick rate and such a good win rate in two positions, one can expect that Naafiri will receive more nerfs. However, since the patch only came out a few days ago, we will have to wait and see how the numbers develop. If you want to play an easy champion in the jungle, you should currently resort to Naafiri. Things are going pretty well for LoL on Twitch right now: LoL is the number 1 game on Twitch, sacrificing competitive integrity to stay that way
