Ryze has a new update out on the PBE, replacing his explosive machine gun damage with a bunch of ordered combos. I might not be a fan of Riot’s trend to add minigames to all of its League of Legends champions, though I love weird, new ultimate abilities. Ryze’s old ultimate that gave his abilities massively short cooldowns and Magic Resistance is gone, replaced by a team-wide teleport new to League .
For a few seconds, Ryze channels an area around him and brings along any friendly minions and champions for the ride. Channeled abilities keep going even when Ryze moves you with his ultimate. That means Nunu and Galio both get to keep their AOE ultimates going through a Ryze teleport. Imagine sitting in a bush and a full channeled Nunu ultimate pops on top of you with no warning. No need to imagine though, Vandiril on YouTube has already tried it and it’s glorious.
Ryze’s ultimate transports anything that’s on your team. A Fiddlesticks channeling his ultimate can be brought even closer to the enemy, showing up in the middle of a team fight with a surprise crow storm. Pretty much if you can think of it, Ryze can teleport it. Sion, that mean old zombie with an axe, can even be transported in the middle of his ultimate. Here’s Vandiril’s video of Sion charging in with a full ultimate in a tiny choke point.
My personal favorite Ryze interaction has to be with Urgot and Skarner. If Skarner or Urgot use their Suppression ultimates on an enemy, Ryze takes everyone with him. Pulling off a combo like this isn’t easy, you need perfect timing. Still, when you do, it’s a glorious sight to behold. Start a teamfight by dragging an enemy by Skarner’s tail into Ryze’s ultimate and laugh as the enemy watches one of their own dragged a lane away. Who else but Vandiril could capture such a beautiful scene?
I’m sure that Ryze is not going to be able to do these things once he goes live next patch. Riot tests on the PBE so they can spot all the weird interactions and bugs they never thought to try. Still, it’s fun to think what might happen if this does go live. If LCS players could master LCK levels of CC chaining, Nunu and Ryze might become the new sleeper OPs.
