Riot hotfixing Mage exploit right after TFT Set 7 launch to stop Aurelion Sol meta

Riot have shipped a hotfix for a Mage trait exploit right after TFT Set 7 launched on live servers after the bug went unnoticed in PBE. The developers have also pushed an extra nerf for Aurelion Sol, who benefited most from the exploit with a Mage Emblem.

Throughout the TFT Set 7 PBE test, one comp was dominating lobbies when players could hit: Mage Aurelion Sol. The Astral Dragon could basically perma-cast his black holes to wipe boards thanks to constant mana generation from Evoker.

Its power was much higher than Riot was expecting ⁠— and that’s because the Mage trait was bugged. As TFT patch 12.11 and Dragonlands goes live though, the devs are tackling the exploit before it gets too big.

The bug went unnoticed for so long, according to Stephen ‘Mortdog’ Mortimer, because developers were focused on getting everything else ready for the June 8 launch.

“Mage Aurelion Sol has been a terror during PBE,” he said. “Everyone knew it. Live team (myself included) had a lot of things to juggle so we didn’t quite give it the full attention we probably should have.

“Upon closer inspection today, it was very off.”

The two bugs Riot uncovered affected both Aurelion Sol and the Mage trait as a whole. The first one was Aurelion Sol’s mana lock was shorter than his spell cast time, allowing him to gain mana before he should.

The Mage trait was also bugged in a similar way with all base units, and those with Mage Emblems, “not mana locked during their second cast”.

“The combo of these two bugs we found today means ASol would take 4.6 seconds to cast twice, but almost always gain enough mana through evoker and damage to instantly start his next cast,” Mortdog added. “[It is] stupid OP.”

• Read More: The best comps in TFT Set 7

However, Riot have shipped a hotfix to avoid a Day 1 meta of eight Aurelion Sol forcers in a lobby. This includes increasing his maximum mana while reducing his starting mana, and also bug fixing the mana lock.

“This is a major nerf and from what limited testing we could do [and] makes him much more manageable but still good.”

Further changes to the Mage trait and Aurelion Sol will need to wait until TFT patch 12.12 later in June though. Riot has warned that Mages will be “quite a bit better than base for now sadly”, but the compensation fix is the best they can do for now.

Dragonlands goes live across the world on June 8, 2022. Find out more about TFT Set 7 here.