I just about jumped out of my chair this morning when I read that Rumble was slated for a nerf. In my mind he’s been overdue for one since the day he was released. He just does too much damage for how much he can tank and how well he can survive/escape damage. He embodies the Tanky DPS metagame while benefiting from an insanely strong early game, thanks to the lack of minion aggro against spells.

Here’s the quote from Phreak:

We are probably going to nerf Rumble, though not due to bigfatlp streaming him.

We had nerfed his cooldown on Q last patch because he was dominating lanes too easily.

Like with Gragas, Galio, Nunu, Malzahar, Janna, and many others, the European server is generally ahead of the curve on the real “OP” champions. Rumble has been a tournament-ban and tournament-pick champion since his release, he’s a bit too strong, and we’re probably going to nerf him.

I’m curious to see how Dreamhack plays out and what champions are considered OP. During the Dreamhack qualifiers, Phreak called Rumble the most balanced champion in a long time. I’m not sure if that’s simply based on the order of magnitude by which other champions or OP or UP on release, or whether he’s seen some games that have made him change his mind. In any case, I find it extremely interesting that different regions of the world have different understandings of who is and isn’t OP.