Well, dang. It looks like Sylas, the Unshackled is going to be shackled for some time after all. Owing to some unfortunate bugs the champion has been causing since his introduction, he’s been banned from competitive play until Riot can resolve the situation.
Success in the gaming industry is a tricky, unpredictable thing. Some titles hit the ground running with fantastic launches, only to quickly fizzle out and disappear. Sometimes, the reverse is true, and a game will recover from a questionable launch and prove the naysayers wrong (perhaps there’s still hope for Anthem, which did not set the gaming world alight when it finally arrived).
The trick is making a huge name for yourself and keeping that player base. Take Grand Theft Auto Online, for instance. Why was GTA V the 11th best-selling title of 2018, despite the fact that it’s over five years old now? Partly because its online component has been seeing a steady stream of updates ever since. You’ve got to keep things fresh, developers.
The same holds true with mighty MOBAs like League of Legends. We want new heroes, new unlockables, just about anything shiny and new. It’ll all be gratefully received. Well, usually. Sadly, the game’s latest champion has made completely the wrong sort of impact, causing all kinds of unfortunate glitches.
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Sylas, the Unshackled certainly sounds like a fearsome new opponent. Once a prisoner, he has escaped his bonds and plans to bring the fight to his one-time oppressors. To do this, he wields powerful abilities like Petricite Burst, his passive, which causes his next basic attack after casting a spell to have an additional whirling-chains effect. He can also nab hostages with Abduct, and even use Hijack to take opponents’ ultimates and use them as his own!
An interesting new kit for certain, but as recent events have shown, Sylas is a little broken at the moment. Not because he’s overpowered, but because he simply doesn’t work at times. As Dot eSports has stated, his W spell is bugged for starters. The health regen when using it is all kinds of shonky; in one encounter he healed for more than 1000 health with just one item. Elsewhere, a bug that prevented SDG’s Jiang “Changhong” Chang-Hong from stealing Yorick’s ultimate resulted in a remake with Sylas disabled.
The upshot of all of this? Sylas is currently globally disabled for competitive, until he’s been re-evaluated. As Maximilian Schmidt, League Operations Lead for EU eSports, reported on social media:
There it is, then. All players can do is wait to see what comes of patch 9.5.