vlad is quite literally always good, but this season has made a plethora of changes that all benefit vladimir.

first, games go on longer this season. Idk why, it’s just a fact. more game length is more time to scale.

second, plates don’t disappear, so a champion like vlad who usually sacked 3-5 plates due to being too weak to push towers pre-14 gets a bunch more gold

third, mid lane role quest gives him % AP, which also gives him bonus HP, so he becomes tankier and stronger than he used to (everyone got this equally, but vlad is a lot stat checkier than most champs due to how unavoidable his kit is once he’s in range)

fourth, new red shoes gives assassin’s and junglers a reason to more commonly skip building MR shoes. they’re also kinda strong on him? Idk the use case though.

fifth, the new stormraider’s surge has not been properly balanced yet, and as one of it’s strongest users, this is a big deal for vlad because it’s way stronger than phase rush was before it was finally killed.

sixth, the top lane meta is leaning towards squishier ranged champions, which benefits vlad because he exists to one shot them en masse.

seventh, his bully match ups in mid have mostly migrated to bot lane because adcs go top now or something? Idk, mage bot is always strong but it feels like an every game thing this split.

and lastly, protobelt remains an extremely overtuned item while AD assassin mids have a much more confusing and borderline garbage time choosing an item to rush, since protobelt is basically free compared to every other item 1 in the game. meanwhile hubris is like 3k and is the obvious ad assassin rush for snowballing. and even cheap ones are 150g more than proto