How One Item Broke League of Legends

[@JustAViewer44]

I see you as the League historian.

[@myth-leagueoflegends]

i ponder the ancient tomes 🧙‍♂

[@oliver1784]

except this one hopefully doesnt steal his content x) iykyk

[@deirasjankauskas3381]

​​@myth-leagueoflegends was yummi in this tournament rushing ardent censor? Since W heal on hit and ardent heal hit stacking? I realise yummi was not in the game yet xd

[@marboXD]

the funny thing is before the Ardent Meta the item was already nerved, it was even stronger some patches before

[@myth-leagueoflegends]

yep, i think it was 7.17 where they changed it to be flat 25% instead of scaling to 35%. but it also started off stronger, used to scale from 20% instead of starting at 25%. so it was buffed early and a bit weaker later

[@babiniu]

@@myth-leagueoflegends was it not 20-35 but scaling from lvl 1? So in theory it was stronger all the time bcs u wont buy full item pre lvl 7 anyway

[@FrenzFkn]

wrong

[@cathyqt9911]

@@babiniu based on level of target ally btw

[@EVERYTYME]

I think what broke the camel's back was relic sheild ADC. Once that was figured out it was doomed. I remember watching old Imaqtpie videos from that time

[@niklas9848]

Oh the good old 5.0 Attack Speed Kog Maw Luli Combo. Stand still machine gun

[@Nako3]

Luli

[@einjharrelraca]

Miss it. Still has more counterplay than almost every champion released after 2020. XD

[@amiablereaper]

I still remember seeing pros STILL somehow stutter stepping with him

[@einjharrelraca]

@amiablereaper i can 100% assure you that they were using a target champion only toggle keybind paired with a attack move keybind. Its the ONLY way i ever found to do that consistently.

[@RealLukifer]

​@@einjharrelraca target champ toggle doesn't affect A clicks

[@qq1933]

Oh yes, I was there during the dark ages, where every single game of league you can hear the casters say “Ardent Censer meta”

[@einjharrelraca]

@qq1933 id rather that than the mythic worlds where every game you hear "and x has completed his divine sunderer/goredrinker!!" 4 times every game again. XD

[@TheVicho1029]

The fact that Alistar had a viable healer build (when his e was the aoe heal) with 45% cdr just because of ardent was crazy, iirc the healer build was way better than the tank one.

[@Slaking_]

People were running it on Nidalee jng, it was so heinous

[@lonestardreadpirate]

i was still pretty new to the game and i've always been a top laner so i never paid attention to what was happening bot lane. this meta literally just came and went without me ever even realizing but i did play through it lmao.

[@o.osmoketheheaven1387]

Yup, and I was playing bot 😂. Granted, I was bronze and blessed by 0 game sense. I actually miss those days when I thought Zed had a kill button and nothing made sense to me

[@arigatameiwaku]

i was new player too but i was always a meta slave. When people banned lulu or janna i just picked kayle support max W and first item ardent censor. It even became better when it started working on it's user,so it's like i got myself a nashor tooth and gave it to my adc as well

[@i0kiVids]

These documentary videos are so unbelievably good. Never stop making them.

[@hellNo116]

I remember abusing this and getting platinum in like 100 games from silver 4 or something with 60 plus win rate with Janna. No one seemed to notice in solo queue till June that year. You could play any shielding support and as long you had one fed member in your whole team you had a chance to win by following them or forcing them to go mid and force fights when you got advantage. Insane item. I am so happy they nerfed it and the fact that I got out of gold 1 without playing support just to prove myself it wasn't the item. However the item made it so easy.

[@federicosimkus7979]

based

[@mid-dinero7869]

I abused it too at the time. I was just playing my typical Sona then Ardent Censer was one of the recommended items. I read the whole thing and thought this might be a good build. I love how pretty much no one dies in my team on a TF when I was playing Sona since her W can proc it the the whole team. Pushing towers with it was also insane. You'd prolly save about 20 seconds of pushing both T2 and T3 turrets

[@turnermd1302]

Ardent, ZZrot, and banner of command metas gave me PTSD

[@kjonkey1]

banner of command was a fkin mistake

[@turnermd1302]

@@kjonkey1 As an udyr main I had a love hate relationship with Banner and ZZRot but I definitely don't miss them

[@superskrem]

me a support main: this was the best season ever

[@AlejandroAlvarado-g6v]

As an adc at first I enjoyed it cause I felt the care of my supp, but then I realized I liked a more aggressive all in Nauti/Leona type of lane. Scaling every game didn't feel exciting

[@MsSupernipple]

I got to diamond because of it 😂

[@phyrexian_dude4645]

Same, it was the season when we all supports said "Our time, has come!"

[@PotatoMussab]

Not really because it meant that as a support you had to at least pick someone who can use ardent censer and literally just stick to the ADC forever.

[@perroperruno3616]

me too

[@pierrot-1-800]

i can imagine this item with new champs like seraphine,millio senna(enchanter build) this could potentially break banrate chart having multiple highest banrate

[@M0ONCommander]

oh, new champs would absolutely be permabanned if this item was still that powerful. Imagine 5.0 attack speed akshan. Kai'sa being a plasma stacking machine gun. APHELIOS!!

[@PotatoMussab]

Milio would be a really good user of it but Im not sure about Seraphine. Remember that it was about stacking as big of a shield as possible on one single ADC. That's why Janna and Lulu were the most popular and not Sona (AoE shield) or Soraka, although Sona and Soraka were still in the high tiers

[@Ewahls]

I was a part of the community that tried pointing out how absurd this item was before worlds that year. I'm glad you brought up that AF vs SKT match in particular because I distinctly remember commenting in a reddit thread for game 1 something like "If this doesnt show how broken Ardent is i dont know what will" and getting dog piled for it because afreeca lost. I felt pretty vindicated in my belief when worlds came along but it didn't make the matches any less boring :( Good video!

[@Skaypegote]

The Jugg meta was 2015??? Nearly 10 years ago... What happened... Where did time go???

[@grifentaunton9610]

This video was an awesome blast from the past. Not just the PTSD of ardent meta. But seeing the morde ghost dragon, old art, the champion picks being on the side of screen, first year of 10 bans, hearing Phreak, Riv, papa smithy casting, huni on SKT. I miss old league

[@Skaypegote]

@@grifentaunton9610 hearing about quints and seals was nostalgic. I didn't realize they were still around in 2017.

[@grifentaunton9610]

@@Skaypegote yes! the old runes system, having to buy rune pages! Thank God i was always a one/two trick and only needed 2 pages

[@denzelgeneroso3103]

it was also long range poke meta because a lot of assassins got nerfed around that tie too

[@SKsuprakirby]

Me, a Leona OTP during 2017. Living, only to suffer

[@dankmemes8254]

Any supp tank really

[@Treecake1]

It's not like Fervor Leona was a beast and a huge upset at worlds 2017, it was like THE support to counter the Ardent Meta.

[@OlafJorigson]

@@Treecake1 You realize, that Ignar and his team had another ardent champ in that game aswell? They played with Ivern jungle, who bought Ardent first. Like Myth said in his video about Game 3 of SSG vs SKT. You can go Leona bot lane, as it is a counter, but you still get an Ardent on another champ in the team. I agree it was a counter to gold stacking on supports, but it wasn't a counter to the Ardent meta. You had to go Ardent, if you didn't you just lose the game by 20 mins.

[@miguelperdigon5871]

I'd just go ardent + redemp with leona. Less tanky but with good team buff

[@basementhomie2674]

​@@miguelperdigon5871I was main Swain during that time , suffering consumed me

[@RB-xc9wg]

fervor leona was actuallly a strat misfits used to nearly eliminate skt in quarters; they thought they could replicate it, but coulldnt finish the game quickly enough.

[@Joshuwaaa]

Was going to say this. Was such a good series

[@tilsenkyron6194]

As a support main (who loves using enchanters), this was my era.

[@mcELINER]

Supports been paying the price in soloq since

[@RinReforged]

As an adc main i personally had no issue with this meta :)

[@hidennarror3952]

i was recommended this channel randomly by YT. and as a League player for about 12 years now i will say all your videos are good!!! one patch i would suggest you do a video on is patch 4.20 aka the warwick meta in post season 4/pre season 5

[@rarigate]

I remember playing around this time, and everyone was already complaining how OP it was and riot was like... nah we don't believe you and the stats FOR MONTHS. It was worse than 5.16 patch.

[@laersonverissimo1715]

Actually it was to opposite. The playerbase claimed that gold coin start was bad, it got a bunch of buffs, and people still insisted the item sucked. Ardent was way stronger, and got a few small nerfs before people realized how stupid broken the item was. Even with the item being OP, there was a line of thought that enchanters were subpar compared to engage supports. When enchanters started dominating the meta, PEOPLE STILL DID NOT BLAME THE ITEM, they said that the culprit was the shield/heal mastery. The Phreak clip shows how the players were delusional on how strong coin and ardent censer were. And the most infuriating part: When the playerbase finally realized on how strong Janna was, they weren’t worried about the meta being around botlane, that how the game has ever been. What made people mad, was because they felt people with no skill were climbing ranks with Janna without really deserving it (and also, engage support players who felt that it was unjust that skill expression didn’t matter). I swear to god, if wasn’t the fact that the item could only be used by braindead champions, it could be even more broken, and the playerbase wouldn’t care at all.

[@pheonixfire667]

The worst part of this meta was before this when you queued for support you got support, after this meta you weren't guaranteed support and now jungle is the more likely role to get

[@killermurad5933]

I'm surprised they didn't hold a meeting with pro teams to discuss just banning the item. Something similar happened in recent memory with an ADC item I believe

[@shaunhudson5214]

The balance team at Riot Games must be a room full of wet sacks of flour. That's the only explanation.

[@vivian-alexandrarivers897]

Talking about Ardent Censor and skipping right to SKT1 in the finals is doing a great disservice to the SKT1 vs Misfits series, which is where the Leona pick originated.

[@myth-leagueoflegends]

It was in the initial draft, but I unfortunately had to cut it. Where they lost the series and a similar situation unfolded in the final match of the entire tournament, it felt disrespectful of the viewers time to cover the same ground twice. If they had won it would have fit very well, but it really just felt anticlimactic and as if the video was intentionally padded. Definitely one of the most interesting innovations that I'd like to talk about in a future video though

[@vivian-alexandrarivers897]

@@myth-leagueoflegends It goes so much deeper than that single series, as it was a rookie team during their first year, one of the few where the support player was their star, but also hated Ardent Censor more than arguably anyone. XD

[@OlafJorigson]

@@vivian-alexandrarivers897 But then it would go beyond the thematic of the video. The focus of the video is Ardent Censer, not Misfits.

[@vivian-alexandrarivers897]

@@OlafJorigson SKT1 vs Misfits was a showcase of breaking botlane inside of the Ardent Meta. Not only did Misfits make use of Leona, which SKT1 later used themselves, they also made use of Blitzcrank, specifically to make a kill lane bot to shut down a supportive Ardent Censor champion while having their own Ardent Censor user be either mid lane or even jungle.

[@OlafJorigson]

@@vivian-alexandrarivers897 Leona was a counter to Ardent Censer, gold stacking support bot lane, but not to Ardent Censer Meta. S6, Rox Tigers vs SKT, semifinals. Miss Fortune picked as support against Zyra Support (which was the dominant support at the time). It was a miraculous counter pick that noone thought about before. And it even worked out. Just like with Misfits vs SKT, they didn't win the series, but they established a counterpick to a dominant bot lane play. Did it change the meta? No, not the slightest. Its the same with Leona and Blitzcrank. Ignar hated these enchanter gold waiting supports with Ardent Rush. It wasn't his playstyle at all. He came up with ideas and champs that could be played against Janna or Lulu, short, Enchanter on bot lane AND fit his playstyle. Yes it worked out aswell, but it didn't change the meta at all. Ardent Censer was still hard meta. They had to build it on other champs (Karma with SKT or Ivern with Misfits). If you didn't buy Ardent Censer, you were just inting at that time. Same would have gone with not picking Kalista (she was banned in every game, but you get the point). Again, you are establishing a different tactic to play out your game, but you don't change the meta. To give a current example: People are playing ADCs on every lane right now. Top, jgl, mid, ADC, Supp. Picking a counter mid to Ezreal mid lane, won't change that meta. Its still meta to go for these kind of strats and picks. Regarding Items: We had the same with Warmogs not too long ago. Every champion on supp that could build warmogs first effectively was pretty broken (or still is). Picking different champions or counters doesn't change role or item metas. Only Riot can change that. You can change champion metas (coming up with counters to very specific and dominant champions in a specific lane).

[@jayyoucouldsay]

new league player, love your content getting me caught up with all the lore

[@bshr1nk3yk1d]

Hot take, I liked ardent meta, I don’t like how everyone follows Korea and won’t ever try to innovate because the patches are too common

[@sergio.h1985]

Great video. Make one about the insanity that was Ezreal mid couple of years ago, I don't remember which season.

[@lifeiaskedfor]

i remember the ardent censer meta. i also remember playing brand to counter the ardent censer meta, it was surprisingly effective

[@Canadian_Teemo]

As a guy who played Janna, I liked the Ardent :) I began to built Banner of Command when the new Baron update came out and it was so fun seeing cannon minions destroy turrets from across the map. Sad they removed it :(

[@Slaking_]

In retrospect Ardent Meta was so funny. Janna/Lulu lanes every game, the same 5 ADCs always picked, Cho'Gath was simultaneously the best tank and the only viable assassin. God, what a disaster

[@pekk2331]

Thank you for reminding me of these easier times! I’ve been support main in this specific meta and I’ve used to build Ardent Censer every game,lol.

[@shanehoover7895]

I know someone who's been a top lane main for years, harstuck silver. during ardent censor meta, he swapped to support, and made it to plat. after, he swapped back to top, and is back to being hardstuck silver.

[@mekklord]

Thankfully the LoL balancing team learned from this monumental blunder never made gigantic, game-breaking changes to the game ever again, right? ... right?

[@nanashialfarr]

Kayn and Aatrox laughts in overhealing 180% of their HP.

[@falscher2]

they decided everyone should get one (Mythics)

[@markopusic8258]

Oh yeah Moonstaff meta definitely didn't happen with the mythic overhaul, Riot would never allow something like that to rise again !

[@turnermd1302]

ZZrot and banner of command would like to have a word with you

[@Slaking_]

In fairness for all the Incidents that have happened since, nothing has been even as remotely bad as Ardent and at least usually gets nerfed fast like the Banner Incident and AP Galio Incident

[@BVRNERMVSIC]

What's hilarious is that it took months for Ardent to get picked up. That piece of garbage item was ruining soloQ in January-February of 2017 yet pros were convinved tank/engage supports were the meta. It was a horrible time to play adc because you were completely at the mercy of your supp

[@jamiechatman62]

I swear that LCK was all the teams holding their big card for the real show.

[@grayguy69]

9:00 phreak before he became hated by everyone😂😂

[@CKWong-sp3oe]

Why is he hated?

[@ryangraf2542]

I still love him 😢

[@kaybay5210]

14:02 the communi-lly had even point-itled out

[@AlejandroAlvarado-g6v]

Such a great video. I remember that was my second season maining adc and it was fun for a moment to feel like my team actually played for my role, but then it became so repetitive and it really killed the mood for worlds making it boring and quite predictable :(. I only disagree with you in 15:20. I think the series I most enjoyed that tournament was MSF vs SKT, ignar was the one to came up with the Leona with AD mastery page to counter lulu, and then he picked a blitz that actually made it difficult to faker to play the game. Watching a LEC team take to game 5 the then (and now 'cause 2024 lol) current world champion revitalized my hope to see more diversity of picks in the rest of the playoff, sadly it wasn't that way

[@Dulkh4n]

worst part is nobody used sona with ardent and that was even more broken

[@skrattaoppar9753]

Janna has more safety net, if you caught a sona, it's pretty much over

[@Dulkh4n]

@@skrattaoppar9753 I know, but giving your whole team permanent Ardent buffs was brutal, also considering the meta at that time, playing sona was as safe as it will ever be, because the other team will be playing another enchanter, and she outscale them all, and the early wouldn't be as much of a problem

[@laersonverissimo1715]

No it was not

[@M0ONCommander]

it was a matter of value. lulu gave attack speed and Janna bonus ad and their shields made it so you could not itemize against them. That was the key factor. This was before serpents fang was a thing. Sona and soraka lost their value with anti-heal. Lulu and Janna only got stronger

[@laersonverissimo1715]

@@M0ONCommander on top of that, Janna and Lulu have strong disengage, and anti-dive tools. They could afford to pick weak early game champions and not be permadived, Soraka and Sona couldn’t. And who else would benefit from the Ardent buff? Top was some tank frontline, and mid a control mage (or even another tank like Galio), and Jungle was also a tank. Aside from Janna and Lulu, we also had Rakan, Taric, and Karma, all who were way superior than Sonna and Soraka

[@Tutajkk50]

The 2017 Star Guardian event was basically Ardent Censer: The Movie: The Game. I also remember I was building literally any champion that had a slow with Stoneborn Pact + Ardent Censer on ARAM back then, and it was so good.

[@multiream]

I still remember getting 11 straight wins in rank playing utility nunu with zzrot portal and banner of command. Zero kills per game. Games end in less than 15 minutes. No tower plates yet. I just straight up push 2 lanes at the same time and watch their inhibitors melt

[@acube771]

Fun fact we had the same issue in dota 2 with the solar crest rework. Not becaus it would buff teammates. But it could buff yourself. Basically the item gave movement speed, armor, attack speed, physical damge shield. And a bit of the same in stats pasifly. . The biggest chance they made is that it only gives you the shield and the stats overall were reduced. Item now no longer is a core rushed item after the chance. Still good but not meta.

[@aaleex012]

I was a hardstuck low silver player at the time. I went from Silver 5 to Gold 2 by abusing this item. Still to this day my largest winstreak. 19 games in a row playing only Soraka support.

[@marlz99]

oh man, I remember running Ardent Censer on Karma before Worlds with max CDR and hella mana and just spamming the big shields during teamfights

[@federicosimkus7979]

The Myth, the Legend, has done it again.

[@Sunsetradi0]

In 2017 I was just starting to play this game so I'm really glad I was throwing games with my friends in blind pick matches instead of worrying about meta strategies and stuff, this whole meta sounds like it was hell to deal with for everyone involved

[@Imita0903]

Actually for me, I was really noob back in 2017 and it was just in that meta with OP ardent that I finally reach gold for the first time spaming my main in that moment Janna, so I actually have good memories of that time. Not sure how would I react to playing that meta today.

[@george6397]

You could ve shown the MSF series, where the Blitz/Leona actually worked and forced skt to change their drafts as well (IK they still had Ardent in other lanes)

[@wizza1]

yeah i remember this meta, any support who didn't build ardent sensor was reported for inting.

[@SteveB-nx2uo]

don't forget wriggles lantern! jungle forever at 100% HP as warwick, or trade blows top lane as teemo then auto attack a minion two times to heal to full hp

[@Lancelot2000Lps]

I loved it because i am support main and at that time it was not often that we supports had so much present in game.

[@alexzhang1548]

all these clips are so perfect - great video keep it up!

[@d4rk50ul5]

I remember the countless times I stood in awe while typing "ardent cancer" every single game

[@Elvy3358]

18:52 What happened in worlds 2015 LMAO, Im curious now.

[@stefanverweij1684]

They reworked Mordekaiser right before worlds, but this was not just a rework like any other. This was a rework that was designed to shift the meta, for the first time ever they designed a champion to 'innovate' on the standard lane assignments. Bruiser/Tank top, Carry/Bruiser jungle, Mage/Assassin mid, Marksman bot, Enchanter/Tank CC sup was the standard. Mordekaiser was a melee midlaner to counter assassins as he was kinda tanky, but got reworked to be the first functioning melee botlaner. W gave passive bonus exp to the ally you put it on, to ensure you were higher level than your lane opponent (the idea was that this exp advantage would counter the range disadvantage). He did crazy damage with his Q that was "next 3 auto attacks are empowered and especially the 3rd was essentially a tactical nuke, with triforce this 3rd Q would oneshot squishies). AND THEN his passive of his R was that whenever you killed dragon you got a phantom pet dragon that you could control like Tibbers but was as tanky as the dragon you killed. This resulted in a botlane that was always ahead, would always have bottom prio, therefore always killed dragon, would get a pet dragon to either push with or simply click to attack the enemy botlaner who had to run back to their T2 tower because they would just get killed by phantom dragon under T1 tower if they 'ignored' it. In worlds this translated to: The team with mordekaiser would win the game, TSM went 1-5 in groups I think, the 1 game they won was vs the best in their group (korean team i dont remember which) and the only reason they won that game was because that Korean team was pretty much locked and left mordekaiser open either as disrespect or to get some practice against mordekaiser piloted by a lesser team I started playing at the end of season 3 so it has been a while, but this is what I remember from 2015 worlds meta if I missed anything or am wrong about something somebody please correct me haha

[@ta9891]

I just had a PTSD flashback, thanks.

[@Grampowaty]

you didn't talk about runes that were taken on leona. putting fervor on her was specifically to have stronger laning phase and dominate it

[@AngelOfDeathBG]

All I'm gonna say is that Gaben (not really him, but the Dota 2 devs) released massive patch, 2 hours before their The Internationals tournament start (like LoL Worlds).You need to have balls of steel to do something like that in Pro play. Throwing away all teams practices and meta strats. Kudos to him.

[@Matthew-gv5ok]

You should make a video on the meta where every single champion become a top lane tank rushing Bambi cinder/ice borne gauntlet. If I remember correctly this was season 5. Any champion could be an immortal tank that destroyed everything. The most common where ekko/fizz

[@TechnaPlays]

Okay but does anyone remember the old, self cast, ardent that created the monster we knew as Ardent Diana… then a few years later we had moonstone mord😐

[@ROBbYZ_Music]

I'm a new player, I did not understand like 90% of what was said here, but the main point is - item way too good to the point that 1 champ gets it, the other team is just screwed and although it seems amazing to know that you can gather up with your friends to play lol, and you have that 1 friend who is gonna build the OP item, it just ruins the fun for the other ppl and makes the game toxic, because everyone plays the OP item and nothing else.

[@MIKAEL212345]

Ardent was OP that whole year. Ardent on any enchanter literally printed LP for free that year. I can't really blame the pros when SoloQ took months to figure it out too

[@WolfmanluPurpleclaw]

There's never been a meta where my role as a jungler was worse and felt more useless. It was also the worst viewer experience I have ever experienced, 2017 will always be the worst year ever in league for me.

[@mrsKaTx]

That's some crazy gold efficiency, imagine what it is adjusted for inflation

[@darumanu9276]

You know what's funny? Trundle support was actually somewhat meta as he was building (surprise) ardent censor. There was a rune that gave healing to allies if you stunned someone so he could proc it

[@SillyGirlKisser74]

its crazy to see league ¨history¨ for new people when I lived through these metas (Feral Flare were my favorite because I was jungle lmao)

[@muggs105]

yeah, that coin was broken, even more because on those times you could sell and repurchase the object to keep on earning money; when cull came out, the same thing happened, you completed the mission and when you tried to buy ir again it would give you less minions to kill, but still would give you the passive.

[@dimmahendrikx1118]

i dont know exactly what the juggernaut update was, but i remember playing GP back then meant you would only need IE and stattik shiv to dominate with gp. You could 1 shot people with these 2 items afaik

[@MysticHydra]

This was my favoriye meta. on hit ad udyr with old rage blade was so food at bursting adc. And you were fast af. With an early ravenous hydra, you healed as you power farmed, with plenty of aoe and single target, and could pull off insane invades, tiger stance applying a dot, so if they flashed because of low hp, it still killed. But rushing an adc, and switching to tiger would shred

[@deerdren]

I remember when arden used to give the buff to yourself when you shielded yourself. It was used mainly on diana if I recall. I personally built it on skarner an you had pretty much pernament arden buff.

[@deathhazard7751]

Remember blackfire torch used to have an active ability like BOTR did? And you could first buy it on pre-rework swain and essentially just burn the enemy outta lane. The good ole days

[@KrillixKai]

Some meta champions become OP and unchecked for years. Some items become OP for multiple seasons. Supports were OP for one month, and Riot shut us down immediately.

[@hubertmiszuk6908]

damn, quality video keep up man!

[@marquistf1996]

Patches just shouldn’t happen two months before worlds in general. Riot completely destroyed multiple World championships. That level of incompetence should not be possible.

[@crackedeggs7407]

went from bronze 5 to gold in 2017 because of janna... im an emerald jungle main now. can't believe its been 7 years

[@thestoebz]

Oh I remember this meta. It made me wish the PD stack meta came back, or the feral flare meta

[@havyn88]

The moment the support have some time to shine, suddenly it's a huge problem.

[@Xtariz]

Can't wait to hear about the Fiora broken ult

[@-kaori]

You do you, as a support main, I loved that meta, the best meta though was the ZZ'Rot + Banner meta.

[@Arob4343]

If I remember correctly, this was the year that I started playing. I didn’t know about the Ardent meta. But I did theory craft running Relic on ADCs before it became popular, for a completely less impressive reason. I was like ‘the shield is great, it helps me last hit, and it generates gold’. Edit: actually after listening more, I think my Relic route was before this, it was in the early days of Relic. Before the nerfs. I must’ve started the year before

[@Aynshtaynn]

People might hate me for this, but Ardent Censer meta was my favorite. One of the reasons for that was what followed the Ardent meta. Bot lane was punished hard for being that strong on worlds when 8.11 rolled in and deleted ad carries for 5 whole years. Bot lane was too strong, so Riot tried to compensate by literally going to the other extreme. Teams brought their sub top laners and placed them bot it was horrible.

[@StarClay666]

Sad he didn't take about Ignar's FoB Leona though, that was the highlight of the tournament really.

[@nps1024]

I was a support main in 2017... and I was completely OBLIVIOUS to this whole OP support item thing... Probably saying a lot about my level.

[@PunCala]

Would be fun if you made a video of the terror of old Kassadin. The time when he had a 99% ban rate.

[@moonsx5146]

What I remember most about this meta was having to change lanes to win more games. I was (and am) a main adc, but because of smurfing and boosting I had to change from lane so bot lane was smurf against smurfs

[@leesasuki]

anything with on-hit effect is always strong af, and I'm happy to see LoL dev still making this newbie mistake after collectively 200 years of developing experience

[@vicvallery120]

to me it was a planned move to help LPL win with Uzi and RNG because it was a championship hosted in China. They made all the other lanes be useless and brought total attention to the bot lane. But Faker just decided to carry with Galio and take the championship to Korea once again (in the groups stage, RNG won every game against SSG, so I think RNG could've won if SSG happened to eliminate SKT earlier in the tournament).

[@YEUWYU]

So I did play back then and I remember my ADC friend that had been bronze forever (Back then Iron didn't exist) finally made it to gold rank. He then went back down to bronze after ardent censer domination was over.

[@danielmiu9142]

I was hardstuck Silver 2 in Season 7 and when this item was op I literally just spammed support Janna and I wasn't even a support main. It was what got me to Gold for the first time lol

[@HeavensBane53]

I remember the Ardent meta alright, but it would be wrong to say I was playing back then. Rather, I was deliberately not playing, and just vaguely following the content creators and pro scene. There were multiple reasons for that, and a big one was Ardent Censer.

[@BassBoostingBrony]

as a support main, this meta was horrible. every matchup was the same. and many/ me included didnt wanna play enchanters anymore... you got bullied for not picking them. i swapped to adc that year

[@P1Volvo850R]

As someone who started in 2015 and got decent around 2017 i remember playing support for my friends and theyd say if i didnt buy ardent censer i was trolling

[@VladSuperKat]

It wrecked the whole year maybe some a few parts of next seasons also :))

[@JfrogFun]

some time around this time was when i picked up playing Morg from watching one pro or another and the strat was to max Black Shield first for ardent, this also led into playing Font of Life Trundle Support, maxing pillar first to proc font, to proc ardent...

[@alexisauld7781]

Here was a degen one I played at the time: Font of Life Ashe supp, because it procced off slows at the time iirc...

[@desgracainferno]

​@@alexisauld7781 it still proccs from slows nowadays, but its a single small heal for you and lowest hp ally with a cd of 20 seconds instead of the debuff on enemy that let your allies heal themselves (proccing your on-healing items) like it used to be.. i miss it so much it feels so usseless now :(

[@doge99-ri4tl]

I remember when the challengers in my server are a bunch of utility supports users or players who Off-Role support just because of how busted it is back then lmao

[@vivianleenet]

I am offended that BoC and Zzrot were not included in that collection of items at 0:04 😠 As an enchanter support main I enjoyed Ardent Censer meta. It gave me a small taste of what it felt like to be the undisputed valued carry of the team :')

[@Hydraphobics]

As a support main. Ardent meta was my Favorite meta

[@shyumby]

that was the time i started to have people trying to take my support role in queue

[@frogguchi]

ngl, this meta was the funniest thing that ever happened to me in league, went kog one trick for a bit just because of how ridiculous things were

[@doncare8]

ok so from what i understand of the video, the juggernaut change was basically buffs for characters that really needed the buffs. the ardent censor was just flat out the strongest item in the game with what it provided, and they didnt do anything with it. im ngl its kinda seems like a slam dunk of just nerf/ ban it from worlds its was that warping. the juggs were buffs, not good leading into a huge event, nerfs ofr one item, if the teams going dont have backups for if items get nerfed thats on them

[@jeremymontel6010]

8:00 made me feel so old... I WANT MY QUINTS BACKKKK