New League For The Legends
In Patch 3.01 Riot introduce a new league system and nerf health items.
The ever changing League of Legends has once again been updated. This update, known as the Season 3 patch – Season 3 starting on February 7 – introduces a new league system, similar to that of StarCraft II, and nerfs across the board.
Players will be sorted into one of six leagues, each containing 250 players. Each of those leagues will have five divisions. To advance in your league you need to gain 100 points in your division which will trigger a best of 5 event, if you win three of the next five games you will advance to a higher division, or a higher league if you are in the top division of your league. The highest tier of competition is known as the Challenger tier, if you're on a top 5v5 team, you'll have a chance to go pro in the League of Legends Championship Series.
Let's take a look at the Patch Preview video:
The stand-outs of this patch are changes to health items such as Giant's Belt, Warmog's Armor and Sunfire Cape, Riot say this is to counter the current metagame of stacking health. They have also changed Shaco, to reduce his strength in jungle, Voyboy's Olaf to make him less powerful and Master Yi's Meditate to make it less tanky while stacking Ability Power and more useful for Attack Damage Yi players. Notably, they have increased the price of Sightstone to reduce the amount of early game vision.
For the full Patch 3.01 Notes checkout the official League of Legends site.