It’s been three days since Riot officially confirmed the patch for this week – yes, I’m considering a sale on new content that ends this coming Sunday an official confirmation – and there’s still no word on when it will actually drop. Nothing. Nada. No post in the announcement forums, nothing in the server status forums. Not even an update to the sale announcement that pushes the dates back.

I’d like to say I’m not one to speculate but, frankly, I speculate often so here it goes. My guess is that there’s some trouble related to a widespread Twisted Treeline rollout. I still stand on the assumption that it’s coming in this patch. The matchmaking test on the Test Realm was so short that my guess is they got a quick confirmation that, yes, it will work. If it was a no, you can bet there would have been more testing to figure out why. It’s a pattern Riot has followed rigorously to this point. Hell, when it seems 80% of the population can’t connect or chronically crashes the servers are set to “busy” while the team attempts to sort things out.

It’s also safe to say that this is the biggest patch since launch, with the possible exception of the store. The Twisted Treeline update will change the game in a huge way, and will likely a whole new set of hardware. Add to it the major revamp the patch gave to Twisted Fate and the release of a new champ with completely new mechanic and you have the heaviest content patch we’ve seen.

I’m still convinced it won’t happen, though. Tomorrow’s Friday and there’s still no news.

A friend of mine was on a serious Zilean kick for a while. He loved most everything about the toon, except the fact that it could be difficult to target himself in the midst of a fight. Getting that ult off is crucial, especially when you’re getting nuked. His speed controls suffered from the same problems. Well, no more. The upcoming patch has a little known change coming to spell casts: smart casting.

Players will be able to define a set of “smart cast” hotkeys that allow for self casting or the targeted cast of a spell like Karthus’ Lay Waste. By default, the modifier will be “alt” for all of your spells. On Zilean, for example, this means by pressing “alt + r” you will cast your ultimate on yourself. Pressing just “r” will still bring up the targeting cursor for selecting your allies. If you want to get really fast, you will be able to select teammates with the F keys for even quicker casts on your allies.

The change was implemented with Ezreal in mind. Since all of his skills are skill shots, players needed a way to quickly cast, like the cursor cast for Karthus. This gives players that option, so you can just hotkey your spell straight to cast while you’re chasing down a target.