Like, they said that they wanted to avoid giving units too many things in their toolkit, then release Olaf who has three abilities which if he had only one of them would be in of itself strong and yet he doesn't get just one strong ability, he gets three, so he's basically almost an instant wincondition/instant shift in comp in that if you get him early and shift to glacial/berserkers you're basically invincible especially once you get him to T2 (since admittedly T1 Olaf can be killed easily enough, even post-ragnarok).
And they said that they wanted to avoid creating generically strong comps whose only counters are generically strong comps, and yet with their balance changes, they've...encouraged precisely that. They've repeatedly nerfed Ionic Spark, so Ocean/Mage/Warden/Mountain has gotten stronger. They gave a mild nerf to the Woodland comp, which was one of the biggest problems Predators had. To their credit, they did slightly nerf Glacial 4 (and since Glacial 6 is nigh-impossible to obtain, that's the main nerf to implement), but 5% less chance to stun doesn't do much to change the strength of the comp.
A particularly ridiculous change--they did what they thought was a small change to Veigar. Turning his 'instakill lower star level units' ability from "insane damage that is basically an instakill", into instakill proper--they also made it so that it instantly kills summoned units, meaning that Veigar is now able to hard-counter Summoners as a comp, AND, one of THE best counters to him (crystal), no longer counters him at all.
I mean, that's I suppose an indirect nerf to Predators as a comp, because it means Scarner can be instantly deleted if he's a lower star level, though frankly that's not a problem when I am running predators because I hard-reroll until my four predators are all T3 anyway. But against most players who get to T2 and then try to focus on leveling up, they are in for the nasty surprise of "wtf I built crystal and Veigar instantly deleted them".
And it's kinda ridiculous. Mage 6 isn't too hard to get. Mage 6 has built-in Ocean 2, with an easy in to Ocean 4. This comp also goes into an easy Warden 4, with Mountain 2 as well. Make Veigar a Warden to give him some tankiness so that he survives being burst, give him a Seraph's Embrace to get a third of his mana cost back instantly which Ocean 2/4 quickly replenishes so that he's spamming spells, give him, sayyy, Luden's Echo so that he starts combat at full mana, launches two spells thanks to Mage 6, and deals insane damage even if his opponents aren't instantly deleted...
...Well, if you get him to T3 it's an instant win, and even if you don't, T2 is still devastating enough to delete most units.
Plus I mean...the comp is still strong even if Veigar is somehow killed. Vladimir can heal to full HP with the right items and spams the spell to do so, making him basically a pseudo-tank that is nigh-unkillable unless you get him bursted down. (Incidentally, giving Vladimir Mountain with, sayyy, double deathcap? Well, get him to T3 and screw Veigar as a carry, Vlad carries plenty on his own.)
Taliyah and LeBlanc both have CC abilities; Malphite has a CC ability; Nautilus has a CC ability; the comp has incredible CC which ocean helps spam and mage helps spread/apply damage. (Particular favorite; mage Malphite. Also effective: mage Thresh, to apply his shield twice, giving an utterly ridiculous shield.) Brand's damage was good enough to apparently require a nerf.
And over half the mages (Taliyah, Vladimir, Syndra, LeBlanc) are easy to get to T3, even if someone else is is competing for your comp. (There's enough champions in the pool to get two T3s of a 1g unit, without Neeko's Help!) All in all, the comp is strong even if you don't get your Veigar online, and if you're not running into competition on the comp (or if the competition is focused on Woodland and/or Ocean rather than on Mages), then it's rather easy to do precisely that, and tears of the goddess are not a high-priority item on the carousel. (People have begun to grab sparring gloves slightly less, but they're still a generically good grab; people will still grab spatulas, large rods, and recurved bows, well before they grab tears, most of the time.)
And if you have a spatula and warden 1/3, then the chain vest to get warden 2/4 is fairly easy as well because nobody grabs chain vests for the chain vests, pretty much. (And most grabs for tears are for the champion the tear is on.)
So like. If you don't have competition, you can just...decimate using it, and it has no counterplay because they nerfed ionic spark and things which were designed to be counters to it (sayyy, poison) are woefully inadequate at actually countering it. (Poison's pretty bad as a synergy, by the way. If you get Kog'maw, you want to focus on predators; if you get Dr. Mundo, you want to focus on Berserkers. If you get Twitch, well honestly, Twitch is a unit whose ability sounds broken but I've yet to see him used effectively in any comp so really he's not good. And the strength of Singed is mostly that stupid AI on the parts of his opponent's units will cause them to chase him and ignore units they should be aggroing instead of him, which is to say, not something Riot intended to be his strength and is a pure accident of coding. Basically, every poison unit is just...better used in other ways.)
Like. If I am aiming to have fun I'll run any comp I want. If I am on a Mountain map then whatever first unit I get, I build a comp around because I am stubborn in refusing to let so much as 30 HP go to waste. But in most circumstances, playing seriously.
I don't have much reason other than to run one of four comps.
Summoner 6, though I tend to avoid this one.
Berserker 6 Glacial 4/Glacial 6 Berserker 3 focusing on Olaf/Volibear as carry units that chain-cc the entire enemy team (qss is pretty worthless at countering nonstop glacial stuns by the way).
Predator 4 building into Crystal/Steel/Glacial to augment Rek'sai, Scarner, and give the chain-CC.
And Mage 6 Ocean 2/4/Mage 3 Ocean 4, with Warden 2/4 and Mountain 2.
Summoner 6 is generically strong especially Zed.
Olaf is broken and Volibear can be made really strong with help.
Every Predator is strong--Kog'maw with Runaan's can proc Predator on two units at once, and give him a rageblade to build up speed (preferably augmented by either a second Runaan's or a second Rageblade, but Ionic Spark on him is also decent since most units can't get to him on the backline if you position your board correctly); Scarner with qss (the best unit to have qss) + a healing item and then something else like attack speed or health or spell spam (fire buff, ocean buff, mountain buff, cloud buff, rageblade, spear of shojin, etc.) is nigh-unkillable; Rek'sai can use almost every item (spamming bites, healing items, whatever); Warwick is really good at using Thieve's Gloves; Nocturne doesn't have the instant deletion but can use most items well; Taric can help keep your units alive; if you run Volibear, his bite makes him an honorary glacial and he can use most items (spam bite, build crit items, build tank volibear, etc.), and you can alternatively run Olaf if you so fancy.
Like.
I can run other comps if I want to and do well with them, and on occasion I will do precisely that especially if I so fancy. But these comps are just...strong, and Riot hasn't nerfed them, and has indirectly buffed them.