Riot Games Gets Rid of the New “No-CS Strat” In Recent Hotfix

Developer Riot Games recently sent out a hotfix to League of Legends in order to get rid of a no-CS strategy recently implemented by Clutch Gaming’s prolific top laner Huni in week 3 of the LCS. Playing into Ssumday’s Urgot, top laner of 100 Thieves, Huni used Zilean and literally did not farm (at least actively) for a majority of the game letting Ssumday take at least a 90+ CS lead. Strange right? Well here’s the strategy behind it.

The no-CS strategy involves the Kleptomancy rune and to complete a support item, like Spellthief’s Edge. Because of the way support items in League of Legends works, all you really have to do is continually harass to gain gold. Now you have a lane where the one implementing this strategy would have maybe two or three CS while keeping up in gold amount with their opponent while continually harassing them. Add the random items you receive with Kleptomancy procs, and you’re basically playing the game without actually playing.

While an admittedly hilarious idea, League of Legends product lead Richard “MapleNectar” Henkel and Riot Games weren’t to keen on the noninteractive style of play, especially in the professional scene. They changed the way champions with these support items acquire gold, essentially making them support champion only item. But don’t worry support mains! The change is pretty much designed to grant more gold to you the longer you stay with your AD carry.

The only way that some folks have joked (or were being serious) about how these new changes would impact the game at both the normal and professional level is that we would be seeing double top lane matchups. At this point, the community is no stranger to seeing odd strategies be used in the game as shown by the recent “funnel Master Yi” composition where you literally give a majority of the gold to your Master Yi player. We’ll see how the changes play out, but with Huni being the master of unorthodox playstyles in the League of Legends pro scene, I don’t think it’s out of the question that we’ll see something like… a Lux full attack speed build in the top lane.