Riot Games has kicked off a new patch notes preview series for League of Legends, and the inaugural video focuses on the first patch of 2011. Tamat and Phreak of the community team sat down with Lead Champion Designer Ryan “Morello” Scott to find out what the patch will add to the game when it launches tomorrow, Jan. 4.

Scott says that the theme of this patch is all about buffing things. The last few patches have included some nerfs and other game fixes, so the team decided to implement some long-awaited buffs in this week's patch. Check out the video after the jump to find out what's happening to Exhaust, Cassiopeia, Garen, Zhonya's Ring and more.

We already reported that three League of the Legends skins will be 50% off this weekend, but Riot Games is planning ahead for next weekend! The following skins will be 50% off from Jan. 4-7:

• Chrome Rammus skin (regularly 975 RP) will be only 487 RP!
• Dryad Soraka skin (regularly 520 RP) will be only 260 RP!
• Enchanted Galio skin (regularly 520 RP) will be only 260 RP!

To celebrate the New Year, Riot Games is hosting a 50% off sale on three skins in League of Legends this weekend:

• Emumu skin (regularly 975 RP) will be only 487 RP!
• Imperial Xin Zhao skin (regularly 520 RP) will be only 260 RP!
• Waterloo Miss Fortune skin (regularly 520 RP) will be only 260 RP!

The sale begins Friday, Dec. 31 and ends Monday, Jan. 3. Enjoy the savings!

Riot Games has released a short video to wish all League of Legends players a happy holiday season. While the video is mainly just for fun, it does end with an intriguing comment: "In 2011, expect the unexpected." What does the team have in store for the game next year? We'll just have to wait and see! You can watch the video after the jump.

Do you plan on getting in some extra League of Legends time during the holidays? If you do, be sure to check out Chris "Pwyff" Tom's regular Buyer's Guide for his commentary on various champions. His newest entry focuses on Trundle, the Cursed Troll.

Over the past few weeks, I've hit a rather rough patch of League of Legends games, but this is mostly due to my choice of teammates. I've been pulling a lot of random casual gaming acquaintances into LoL, and the problem that comes when you combine a high-ELO player with a lot of his low-ELO friends (add in the premade ELO team bonus when queuing in a group) is that you end up playing against mid-ELO players who stomp all over your newbie friends. I remain quite determined, however, to leave no man or woman behind and, as part of my intense training curriculum, I've moved away from my standard carry-focused champions (Le Blanc, Annie, Miss Fortune) and begun playing more 'tanky' champions (Singed, Udyr, Cho'gath) more suited to letting my teammates learn the basic mechanics of team combat.

Of course, since Riot Games is keeping a close eye on my champion selection trends (obviously!), you can trust them to introduce a brand new 'tanky' carry champion, Trundle the Cursed Troll, who pretty much fulfills all of my newbie training needs: a physically and defensively strong champion with solid support skills you can use to protect your squishier teammates.

For the past two champions now, Riot Games has been behaving rather oddly. While it's not to say that they've completely lost their senses or that I believe myself to be more qualified than them, I just find it rather baffling that Riot is trying so hard to move away from the community's current focus on ranged DPS carries in competitive League of Legends games, but instead of making improvements to fix the older melee DPS champions, Riot has chosen to, instead, release a few new champions that are much better equipped to thrive. Thus, one of their latest champion releases, Irelia, the Will of the Blades, is a great example of Riot Games trying to introduce more viable melee DPS champions into the competitive League of Legends scene. Whether or not they've succeeded currently remains to be seen.

Admittedly, this isn't such an amazing occurence, as Riot Games regularly has champion and skin sales almost every week, but this Black Friday will be slightly special, as Riot has just announced that their Leapord Nidalee, Highland Tryndamere, Galactic Nasus and Grungy Nunu skins will all be a whopping 75% off! Not only that, but there will be a 50% off sale for Kennen, Malphite, Blitzcrank and Urgot for those who want to make the purchase this weekend.

So if you were planning to get your League of Legends on this Turkey weekend and you were thinking about picking up a new champion or a skin, consider one of the four going on sale this weekend!

It's only been about two weeks now since Riot Games released one of their newest champions, LeBlanc, the Deceiver but, in that short space of time, a new champion has already been released (Irelia, the Will of the Blades) and a shiny new patch has made its way into the game. Talk about moving fast, Riot! Regardless of any new things coming down the line, however, I'm still quite excited to talk about this week's Buyer's Guide to League of Legends, because LeBlanc the Deceiver is probably my favorite caster champion of them all! Let's get right into this week's Buyer's Guide to League of Legends.

As a longtime gamer who has played something from every gaming genre out there, there are some game genres that are quite easy to pick up and run with; like first-person shooters with their aim and shoot mentality. While others are just so deep, like EVE Online and Final Fantasy XI, that first-time gamers can feel overwhelmed in even trying to play. Nothing, however, prepared me for the sheer amount of confusion I experienced when I first attempted to play DotA Allstars. Consider the facts: DotA Allstars literally defined its own genre, because it featured game mechanics that no other game used (minions, lanes, towers, denying, a unique per-game leveling system and so on). Because of this, and given DotA's immense 75+ champion pool selection in addition to over four dozen different items and recipes, when I decided to try being competitive at DotA, it took me well over three months of reading and playing to get to a decent level of skill.

When I first heard about the mechanics behind League of Legends' latest champion, Lux, the Lady of Luminosity, I'll admit that I was more excited to play her than what warrants my normal response to a champion release. A week prior to Lux's arrival, I had managed to convince a former competitive gaming partner of mine to play League of Legends, and so we were going through the process of finding a solid champion duo to play. He prefers to play strong physical DPS champions, so I advised him to start out with Tristana, a powerful ranged carry who, with a little bit of support from her team, remains effective at all stages of the game. Now, like any of the defensively squishy ranged DPS champions, Tristana synergizes best with someone who can protect her back with stuns or snares so that she can maintain her offensive positioning. Originally, I had been playing Morgana as my complimentary support champion, but since I've been a consistent Morgana player since closed beta, for well over a year now, I was really craving a new champion who played similar to my favorite fallen angel.