Why Standing Mages Are Absolute Garbage

1. Riot's patches keep putting more emphasis on early-game skirmishes.

• They tell us to stop playing passive, then drop the 8-min Herald and buff its value, and now we have to worry about Voidgrubs at 5 minutes.

• The few standing mages that exist are usually weak at roaming (they're immobile) and strong in 1v1 laning, but even that advantage is fading because they nerfed the gold from plating, so roaming is better again.

2. Unbalanced items

• Since forever, the only item that could cleanse suppression was the AD-side item Quicksilver Sash.

• Mages' choices: Liandry's if there are tanks, Luden's if the team is squishy — both are pretty subpar right now.

• They removed Luden's magic pen, but AD lethality items still exist.

• They made it way harder for casters to get ability haste now. Meanwhile AD champs can at least auto-attack and deal damage because they have AD.

3. They have zero impact.

• In solo queue, mages that can't roam and have to scale are obviously weak early and strong mid-to-late game. Since there's no communication in solo queue, mages that can neither assassinate nor roam are inevitably the worst off. But Riot won't buff them because they're still used in pro play...

4. The champions themselves

• Look at the ratio of new AD vs AP champions lately:

Besides Hwei, have there even been any new mid lane AP champs?

2024 so far: Smolder

2023: Hwei, Briar, Naafiri, Milio

2022: K'Sante, Nilah, Bel'Veth, Renata, Zeri

In three years, we only got ONE new mid AP champion. ONE.

And Hwei is good at the same things Xerath is — siege and long-range poke — but with an even stronger laning phase.

How the hell are the old mid lane standing mages supposed to compete?

Mid lane mages are legitimately dogshit right now.