Wherein the space dragon you’ve been waiting for finally arrives.
Riot released patch notes for soon-to-hit Patch 6.6 for League of Legends today. Lots of small changes around, especially some notable nerfs to champions dominating the pro and amateur scenes. Also, there’s a badass space dragon coming. Consider yourself warned.
You can read the full notes here, but here’s the important stuff:
1. Jungle nerfs!
Last patch, we saw buffs to some rarely played junglers like Vi, Hecarim and Jarvan IV. This week, some solo queue and pro play terrors have been taken down a notch.
The big one for solo queue players is Shyvana, who occupied the top spot among junglers as far as win rate is concerned in Patch 6.5. The attack damage ratio on Twin Bite (her “Q" ability) has been reduced significantly in the early game, and Titanic Hydra, one of her core items, received an attack damage nerf.
On the professional side, Nidalee has been one of the top contested picks in recent weeks. This patch nerfed her a little bit as well, removing the root on monsters from her Hunt mechanic and removing the auto attack reset on Pounce (her "W"). Runic Echoes, a core item on Nidalee, also saw a damage reduction, so you’re less likely to see that item on tanky junglers now.
2. Aurelion Sol is arriving
Yesssss! Read more about the new champion here, or just watch this video over and over again in anticipation (some NSFW language, so mute if you’re not into that).

3. Kalista is more support-dependent
As Scarizard pointed out in the patch notes, Kalista was in a strange place as a marksman of being very strong in both 2 vs. 2 and 1 vs. 1 situations. With her passive and ult making her literally tied to another champion, it makes a bunch of sense to try and sway her more towards being a strong 2 vs. 2 champion.
As a result, there are some general nerfs to Kalista’s kit (most notably her base attack speed). But now Kalista passively gains attack speed when her buddy is nearby.

4. Nerfs to top-tier supports
Alistar is seemingly always present in the pro scene and Janna’s been on top of the support win rate chart for some time now. Now, they’re each a little more focused on their specialties — for Alistar, his peel and engage; for Janna, her disengage.
Alistar’s Triumphant Roar (his "E") heals allies for significantly less now. Janna’s Eye of the Storm (her "E") gives less bonus attack damage to shielded allies, while Monsoon (her ultimate) disables for less time.
5. Buffs to some old friends
Despite the proliferation of tanky top laners in Season 6, ultra tanky Maokai has been absent. His base magic resistance has been buffed and he now has scaling magic resistance (he was the last tank in the game without it, per the patch notes). His saplings also last longer.
Elsewhere, Cho’Gath now gets more health each time he Feasts, Kha’Zix has reduced cooldowns on Taste Their Fear ("Q") and Void Spike ("W") and Karma’s Mantra’d Defiance is just a flat out stronger shield.
League of Legends Patch 6.5 should be live either later today or later this week.

Lynch on the big screen David Lynch is hard at work creating his new Twin Peaks series for Showtime, but the network’s CEO said fans may have a couple of different viewing options.
In an interview with Bloomberg, David Nevins said that he believed movies and television were going to blur as the mediums became on par with one another. In an attempt to bridge film and television, Nevins said that a series like Twin Peaks was the perfect place to start exploring those options.
“You’re going to see television shows produced primarily for television that’s going to play in theaters for an occasional out-of-home collective experience," Nevins told Bloomberg. "So I guarantee you when we put Twin Peaks out people are gonna want to put that in theaters. So I see those lines blurring."
Nevins also said that when the show does premiere, it will be on a traditional week-to-week basis instead of the current Netflix trend of releasing all of the episodes at once. Nevins said they want to turn Twin Peaks into an event and part of that is exploring the realm cinema may play.
Lynch is still in the midst of production on the series. It was originally supposed to premiere this year, but was pushed back after creative differences between Lynch and the studio arose. It’s now slated to premiere early 2017.

“Think we should ask that kid to play ball?" On the eve of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, it seems fitting that we should remember that the reason why we care that Batman and Superman have come to blows is that the two characters have such a long history of being friends. And the best story about Batman and Superman’s friendship is one about how two short, quiet comics published ten years apart said something profound about the DC Universe.
It’s a story about how a single moment can change two lives, and when those lives belong to Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne, it can change a whole universe.

We begin in 2003, with the publication of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s "When Clark Met Bruce" in Superman/Batman Secret Files, a single issue tie-in to the recently begun ongoing series Superman/Batman. Superman/Batman was a team up title, but in the few pages of "When Clark Met Bruce" Loeb and Sale — who’d already showed their Batman and Superman chops in books like The Long Halloween and Superman for All Seasons — flaunted that theme. (You can also find the story printed in Solo: Tim Sale, if you’re interested.)
In their story, a pre-teen Clark Kent plays baseball with a friend in a Kansas field. Naturally, eventually, the ball gets hit a bit too far, and Clark dashes over the hill to get it. On the other side he sees an odd sight for Smallville: a huge black car, broken down in the shade of a tree. A slight man in a suit works on the engine, and in the shadowy back seat, a pale boy sits alone. Narration boxes in the voice of an adult Clark and Bruce explain the circumstances. "After my parents died, Alfred thought that I needed to get out of Gotham City. We drove to California."
Mark Chiarello’s colors underscore the two worlds that are colliding: Clark and Smallville are all lush green grass and vibrant blue sky. Under the tree, Alfred and the car are rendered in black and navy blues; Bruce himself is basically a greyscale watercolor.
Clark considers asking the strange kid to play ball with him and his friend, and the panel that results is devastating:

Clark and his friend run back to their field. In narration, Bruce muses that even if they’d asked him to play, by that point in his life he had no more time for games. Clark has always wondered if he should have asked Bruce to play. "If it would have made a difference."
In 2013, Greg Pak and Jae Lee’s Batman/Superman would pick up a ten year old, not-even-really-explicitly-canon story, and answer that question with an emphatic "yes."

The New 52, in one one of a plethora of changes that condensed 25 years of canon, reduced the number of parallel earths in the DC Multiverse from 52 to two. Earth 2 — named in homage to the DC Universe’s first parallel universe — was characterized by the absence of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman.
The three heroes had recently died saving the world from the forces of Darkseid, and so Earth 2 stories were generally about the remaining, not-entirely-the-same superheroes of that world, and their attempts to fill the void they’d left behind. However, in the first arc of Batman/Superman — the New 52’s Batman and Superman team up series — we find out what Earth 2 was like before all the tragedy. In it, Batman and Superman meet for the first time in the main DC Universe — and are transported seven years forward in time and into Earth 2 by a malevolent spirit, coming face to face with their more seasoned counterparts.
It’s a grand old adventure to be sure, but there’s another short story woven through its third issue that refreshes the reader’s memory of the events of "When Clark Met Bruce." And on Earth 2, young Clark asked young Bruce if he wanted to play.
The two boys bond immediately, as Alfred and Pa Kent share their experiences in caring for their lonely young charges. The butler winds up surreptitiously stalling his repair of the car, as "hours" turn into "overnight" and eventually a week of orphaned Bruce Wayne and Alfred Pennyworth as guests on the Kent farm. For Bruce, Clark is his first real friend. For Clark, Bruce is the first person, after his parents, who realizes he’s an immensely powerful alien — and isn’t the least bit frightened.

Batman/Superman is clearly saying that Earth 2’s differences can all be chalked up to this small moment. It’s a world where Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent have been friends since childhood — where they were friends throughout their journeys toward becoming Batman and Superman. Earth 2 Superman can heal flesh at the cellular level with his laser vision: Being friends with Bruce — and his ambitious, analytical mind — has guided the Man of Steel into a precision-like grasp over his powers.
In turn, Bruce’s friendship with Clark has crafted him into an adult who is actually capable of trust and emotional self-reflection, and Gotham is safer when the Dark Knight’s life contains less anger and loneliness. He’s still dark, calculating and driven — but he’s married to the love of his life, Selina Kyle, and has raised their daughter from birth to be the first Robin.
In fact, Clark is married to Lois Lane, as well. On the whole, Earth 2 is a more technologically advanced earth, thanks to Wayne Enterprises breakthroughs, and a more peaceful one. Most major supervillains are frozen in a cryogenic prison and even Gotham City has torn down Arkham Asylum to build an amusement park.
And it’s all because Clark Kent asked Bruce Wayne if he wanted to play baseball.