New new Black Cleaver
Patch 5.9
tl;dr Everyone is buying more Black Cleavers; not everyone is winning more.
In patch 5.8 The Black Cleaver underwent serious changes again for the first time since preseason 3. What I remember from back then was that after those changes the item was terribly overpowered. That was before I started this blog, sadly. But, now that the new new Black Cleaver has been around for a few weeks it is time to see how the most recent changes changed the landscape of cleaving.
The data used to generate the tables in this post comes from 1,159,191 recent ranked NA solo-queue matches played on patches 5.3-5.9 by players of all skill levels. Last week we learned that after the change players were certainly buying more Black Cleavers. Now we can dig a bit deeper and see how that worked out for them.
This first table shows who is buying the most Black Cleavers now, together with the rate they were buying them before. These percentages are calculated by taking the number of games where each champion had The Black Cleaver in their inventory at the end of the game and dividing by the total number of times that champion was picked.
| Champion | Before 5.8 | After 5.8 |
|---|---|---|
Garen | 35.4% | 60.3% |
Wukong | 34.4% | 58.1% |
Pantheon | 34.5% | 53.1% |
Urgot | 50.7% | 51.3% |
Renekton | 18.0% | 47.3% |
Jayce | 40.8% | 40.2% |
Riven | 28.6% | 37.4% |
Vi | 10.1% | 36.8% |
Darius | 17.5% | 36.4% |
Kha'Zix | 20.5% | 35.0% |
Jarvan IV | 11.0% | 34.9% |
Gnar | 5.9% | 33.5% |
Xin Zhao | 8.1% | 33.4% |
Rek'Sai | 2.0% | 30.2% |
Lee Sin | 8.4% | 27.6% |
Talon | 23.2% | 26.6% |
Zed | 16.9% | 24.2% |
Nocturne | 2.8% | 23.2% |
Miss Fortune | 9.4% | 23.0% |
Olaf | 3.0% | 20.0% |
As we saw last week, many champions are buying more Black Cleavers now, after the recent change. Garen is buying them most frequently. The actual specific order near the top of this list is a bit sketchy, since some of these champions are a lot more popular than others. The item is clearly being bought most frequently on melee top laners, but it also seeing increased use by assassin type champions. Jayce and Urgot are an anomaly on this list, their rate of Black Cleaver use did not change much at all.
Olaf is buying Black Cleaver much more often since the change. This next table brings out that difference.
Here we have, of champions that were buying The Black Cleaver at least 1 out of 50 games, the champions that are buying relatively more Black Cleavers since the change. The table is sorted by how much more:
| Champion | Before 5.8 | After 5.8 |
|---|---|---|
Nocturne | 2.8% | 23.2% |
Olaf | 3.0% | 20.0% |
Sion | 2.9% | 16.9% |
Gnar | 5.9% | 33.5% |
Hecarim | 3.0% | 14.6% |
Xin Zhao | 8.1% | 33.4% |
Vi | 10.1% | 36.8% |
Lee Sin | 8.4% | 27.6% |
Jarvan IV | 11.0% | 34.9% |
Renekton | 18.0% | 47.3% |
Miss Fortune | 9.4% | 23.0% |
Quinn | 4.0% | 9.7% |
Rengar | 6.8% | 16.3% |
Fiora | 7.9% | 17.1% |
Darius | 17.5% | 36.4% |
Kha'Zix | 20.5% | 35.0% |
Garen | 35.4% | 60.3% |
Wukong | 34.4% | 58.1% |
Pantheon | 34.5% | 53.1% |
Zed | 16.9% | 24.2% |
Olaf is indeed near the top, but Nocturne is buying The Black Cleaver even more often since the rework. Miss Fortune and Quinn seem to be the only marksmen (ADC) showing up in these lists. They are currently two of the least popular marksmen (markswomen?), and typical builds in that role are fairly well established with the tradeoffs being between Statikk Shiv/Phantom Dancer and Blade of the Ruined King/The Bloodthirster.
Buy rates are sort of interesting, but we can go a bit further and look at win rates.
This table shows the measured conditional probability of winning after patch 5.8. The conditioning is done based on whether or not each of these champions had The Black Cleaver in their inventory at the end of the game. That is, only games where these champions used the Black Cleaver are shown here. Also shown is the post patch 5.8 buy rate of The Black Cleaver for each champion.
| Champion | w/ Cleaver | Without | Buy Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
Fiora | 61.0% | 50.8% | 17.1% |
Talon | 59.7% | 49.5% | 26.6% |
Riven | 59.5% | 49.9% | 37.4% |
Sion | 59.0% | 48.7% | 16.9% |
Wukong | 58.8% | 46.2% | 58.1% |
Xin Zhao | 58.6% | 47.8% | 33.4% |
Zed | 58.4% | 46.2% | 24.2% |
Rengar | 58.3% | 46.3% | 16.3% |
Hecarim | 57.9% | 49.7% | 14.6% |
Miss Fortune | 57.8% | 51.1% | 23.0% |
Urgot | 56.8% | 40.1% | 51.3% |
Nocturne | 56.6% | 46.3% | 23.2% |
Quinn | 56.4% | 47.9% | 9.7% |
Vi | 55.8% | 45.0% | 36.8% |
Jarvan IV | 55.5% | 43.8% | 34.9% |
Kha'Zix | 55.4% | 40.9% | 35.0% |
Renekton | 55.2% | 42.4% | 47.3% |
Gnar | 54.4% | 44.2% | 33.5% |
Pantheon | 54.3% | 43.9% | 53.1% |
Darius | 53.8% | 46.9% | 36.4% |
Fiora wins a lot when she is able to buy The Black Cleaver. This is not too surprising, because Black Cleaver is a fairly expensive item, and buying expensive items is correlated with winning. Perhaps more interesting is that Fiora does not even appear in the top 20 for the most frequent to buy a Black Cleaver (first table above); though, when she does end a game with The Black Cleaver in her inventory, she is quite a bit more likely to win.
Urgot seems to benefit tremendously from the item, and players know it. He has a Black Cleaver in his inventory at the end of about half the games he is picked in, and that was true both before and after patch 5.8. We saw above that players were trying out Black Cleaver on Miss Fortune, but the benefits of doing so (at least in terms of this admittedly terrible measure of team-win-rate) are not as good as some of the other champions on this list.
The real question is, who is benefiting the most from the change to this item? With this data we can take a stab at that question now.
This final table is filtered for champions that buy lots of Black Cleavers, conditioned on games where the champion did in fact buy The Black Cleaver, and then sorted by change in win rate before and after patch 5.8. Also shown is the post 5.8 buy rate, for interest.
| Champion | Before 5.8 | After 5.8 | Buy Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
Zed | 54.9% | 58.4% | 24.2% |
Urgot | 55.3% | 56.8% | 51.3% |
Riven | 57.9% | 59.5% | 37.4% |
Fiora | 59.6% | 61.0% | 17.1% |
Miss Fortune | 56.7% | 57.8% | 23.0% |
Talon | 58.6% | 59.7% | 26.6% |
Xin Zhao | 58.6% | 58.6% | 33.4% |
Jayce | 51.4% | 50.4% | 40.2% |
Kha'Zix | 57.2% | 55.4% | 35.0% |
Sion | 60.9% | 59.0% | 16.9% |
Quinn | 58.4% | 56.4% | 9.7% |
Wukong | 61.5% | 58.8% | 58.1% |
Darius | 56.4% | 53.8% | 36.4% |
Garen | 56.6% | 53.8% | 60.3% |
Lee Sin | 56.1% | 53.2% | 27.6% |
Olaf | 52.9% | 50.0% | 20.0% |
Pantheon | 57.5% | 54.3% | 53.1% |
Renekton | 58.5% | 55.2% | 47.3% |
Nocturne | 60.2% | 56.6% | 23.2% |
Jarvan IV | 60.9% | 55.5% | 34.9% |
All of these win rates are over 50%; again, buying expensive items correlates well with winning. However, not all of these win rates are going up after the changes. In fact, only the first six champions on this list seem to be doing better when buying Black Cleavers since patch 5.8. Zed, Talon, Riven, and Fiora... These are the more assassin style champions. The bruiser solo top-lane champions seem to be struggling. Or, well, at least are not going buck wild like they did in preseason 3.
I do not know what Riot's aim was in making these most recent changes to The Black Cleaver. It is possible that they were just seeing low buy rates for the item, and so decided to spice things up by shifting its power around. It is also possible that they were aiming at some super-specific targeted balance shift with the rework. It is tough to say from these simple measures exactly what the lasting effects will be. It does seem that Zed and Talon benefited from the change, however.
Welcome, once again, to the bottom of the post. Did you see anything interesting in these tables that I missed? Do you have any questions, related or not? Just need a friend? Well, tweet. I always like discussing these kinds of things.
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I love the spring time, perfect for playing League of Legends, and perfect for thinking about math. Thus, perfect for LeagueMath.com.
No Renekton Black Cleaver rushes were harmed in the making of this article.
Peace.
