LoL Preseason 2020 brings changes to dragons, jungling, and more

William Davis Published 16/10/2019

Riot Games celebrated League of Legends’ 10th anniversary with a special edition of Riot Pls.

League of Legends has become one of the most popular games in the world with millions of players logging in on a weekly basis. The game has a worldwide competitive scene supported by fans that are willing to travel anywhere to cheer for their teams.

On the 10th anniversary of League of Legends, Riot Games made a series of announcements that will make a huge impact on the future of the game.

In-game rewards, events, and more coming after Riot Pls

October 17 will kick off a 10-day stretch where players can receive exclusive commemorative rewards by logging in. Your Shop will be back and this time there is a chance it will include legendary skins.

The Urf mode will be back in the game for one last time in 2019 and because it’s a celebration, it will have full champion selection enabled. The game mode will run from October 28 through November 8.

The developer also announced the Riot Social Impact Fund, an initiative that will continue to support charities around the world. Players from every region will get to vote for the charities they want to support.

To celebrate the new fund, League of Legends will release a Dawnbringer Karma skin with 100% of the proceeds going to the fund.

2020 Preseason: Rise of the Elements revealed in Riot Pls

The preseason will kick off with patch 9.23 in November and will completely change League of Legends as we know it. In addition to granting permanent stat boosts, dragons will now change the terrain of Summoner’s Rift, making every game unique and different.

The Infernal Drake will burn brushes and destroy walls. The flattened map will create new opportunities for flanks or escapes.

The Ocean Drake floods the map with life, expanding the existing brushes and creating new patches to hide in. Honeyfruit plants will also sprout in the jungle, not only in the river.

The Cloud Drake creates air currents that run through the jungle increasing the movement speed of champions.

The Mountain Drake causes rocks to erupt across the map, changing the pathways around the map.

The drakes still grant permanent stats, but those bonuses have been altered as well.

Cloud now grants cooldown reduction on the champion’s ultimate and Mountain increases the armor and magic resistance. When a team gets its fourth elemental drake of the game, they will get a “Dragon Soul” that lasts for the entire game.

Infernal Soul: Every three seconds, when the champion attacks it will create an AoE explosion that deals adaptive damage. It scales with other damage bonuses.
Ocean Dragon Soul: Dealing damage grants health and resources regeneration for three seconds.
Cloud Dragon Soul: Using the abilities to attack the enemies reduces the cooldown of the abilities.
Mountain Dragon Soul: If the champion doesn’t take damage for five seconds, it receives a shield that lasts until destroyed. The shield scales with the different bonuses.

The type of Dragon Soul is based on the dominant dragons for the team. For example, if the team has two Ocean Drakes and one Mountain Drake, they will receive an Ocean Dragon Soul.

The game only allows one Dragon Soul on the map, once a team claims the Dragon Soul, the Elder Dragon will spawn next. The Elder Dragon is also receiving a major shakeup.

Champions that are powered up by the Elder will have a new execution ability that activates automatically.

Markers will appear on enemy health bars, and once an enemy champion’s health drops below that threshold, they will be killed on the spot by Elder Immolation. The immolation can be avoided through the usual abilities and spells like a Stopwatch or Taric’s protective ultimate. If players get burned a second time, the immolation is guaranteed to take them.

Map changes and new gameplay arriving in LoL Preseason 2020

The map will change once patch 9.23 rolls around with two identical alcoves in the top and bottom lanes. These alcoves create a new space for players to fight and hide depending on the situation.

Two new patches of brush will be added opposite the Baron and dragon pits. These new brushes will increase playmaking possibilities. Players can hide there and catch enemies mid-transition or on their way to an invade. The patches also make for new spaces to place vision in enemy territory.

The jungle is also changing, with Krugs being the hardest hit. Starting on patch 9.23, the XP value of the Krugs camp will decrease, while Gromp’s value will increase. As a result, the junglers will get different pathing options and can quickly reach level three with different jungle camp combinations. This should even out jungle clearing regardless of whether players begin on the red or blue sides of the map.

The update will also include a respawn icon for all of the camps so the junglers can plan their pathing better.

Top laners live on an island in the early game and winning lane is not as significant or relevant as it is in the other two lanes. In order to increase the solo lane’s influence on the game, the base minion XP will go up so they can level up faster. On the flip side, the shared XP will go down, so the bottom lanne players will level up more slowly.

Lanes will function differently after LoL Preseason 2020

The new gameplay will motivate teams to play through the bottom lane to get control of the dragons. To tempt the players to play through the top, the Rift Herald will spawn sooner with a possibility of a respawn if the teams get it early in the game.

Support items are also getting a major change in the preseason. Supports can purchase one item that will upgrade itself once the champion reaches the established milestones. The items are losing some stats, but as a result players can start completing their other items earlier.

The Ancient Coin will not return on Patch 9.23, the idea is to motivate supports to play a more aggressive style. Supports can now get gold through some items even if they don’t have allies nearby.

Spear of Shojin will also be removed from the game. The lethality items will change to give more build options to the game’s AD assassins and fighters.

The developer didn’t share specific numbers for these changes, instead saying that these would come to the PBE soon. Rise of the Elements comes with Patch 9.23 scheduled to drop in November, it will be the beginning of a new era in League of Legends.

William Davis

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