Last week in the LCS, we saw the rise of two of the most controversial tactics to come to professional League of Legends in recent memory. The Clutch Gaming vs. 100 Thieves match not only gave us the top lane Zilean Frostmancy strat, but also created quite an unexpected stir around minion blocking.
The LEC is one of the few regions where we haven’t yet seen the Frostmancy tactic. The strategy has caught the world by (ice) storm. Now, we’ll never see either strat in Europe. A quick hotfix from Riot Games was accepted by all 10 LCS and LEC teams. The LEC also decided as a group to ban all manner of minion manipulation, something that has yet to be adopted by any other region.
The Frostmancy nerf is simple: by requiring an ally within 2,000 units to receive the passive from Spellthief’s Edge or Frostfang, solo laners cannot use it as a gold generation item. That still doesn’t prevent bot laners like Ezreal from buying the items, but a more nuanced fix will have to wait.
The minion blocking rule is more complicated. After the controversy last weekend, Riot cleared the air by ruling that minion blocking is legal, but trapping a minion against terrain is not. Confused? It’s okay, we wrote a primer describing the rules in detail.
But the LEC decided to go a step further by outlawing all minion manipulation, including blocking. That means that players that try to walk in front of their minions to influence their pathing can cause their team to forfeit.
This is another example of the way Riot’s regional leagues get to decide on their own rules. In this case, both changes are probably for the best, but it will still be weird to switch between the LCK—where Frostmancy is alive and well—and the LEC this weekend.
