What exactly put space cow on the competitive map? I would have thought if anything, it would have been the removal of the debuff if someone was being charged, but that was a few patches ago, not in the most recent patch.
6.78
Charge of Darkness will now also Greater Bash its target.
This 100%. This allows him to be played as a support and dish out lots of damage in early ganks at level 2-3 and even more at higher levels with greater bash maxxed. The guaranteed bash makes him a lot like HoN's rampage (who was an early game monster because of his guaranteed bash every 5-7s). Insane, great buff to SB at all levels of the game, but especially makes support SB viable (before this patch support SB wasn't viable, he'd need lots of attack speed to get bashes, now he gets one guaranteed).
All it took after that was a team with the balls and innovation to use him (same deal with clockwork 6 months ago).