LoL Preseason 2022 reveals new dragons, items, and more

Nicholas James Published 07/10/2021

Riot Games isn’t sitting on its laurels in October, and the League of Legends developers have announced sweeping changes to the game heading into Preseason 2022. From new dragons and items to mastery changes, there are some wild changes in store for League of Legends players.

Riot’s “LoL Pls” series always promises an exciting preview of upcoming changes to Summoner’s Rift. The recently released preview seems to be more of the same.

The video opens with a discussion of recently released champions feeling overwhelming for some players, and Riot’s satisfaction with increased class diversity in solo lanes. The big changes come to items, runes and the Elemental Rift mechanic brought about by dragons.

New dragons roar in Preseason 2022

The Hextech dragon, one of two new elemental drakes

The elemental dragons are a central part of League of Legends’ gameplay, and two more are joining the rift. Coming alongside Arcane’s release, these dragons take a page from Piltover and Zaun. Hextech and Chemtech dragons look to join the rotation of possible dragons in 2022.

Hextech drakes will grant attack speed, and if its Elemental Soul is claimed, players will receive a chained slow that functions like Statikk Shiv’s passive. The Hextech drake’s elemental effect places teleportation portals throughout the rift which transport champions to predetermined locations.

Early concept art of the Hextech portals

Chemtech, on the other hand, channels darker energies. The Chemtech drake will give additional damage to a team while low on HP. The Elemental Soul gives a brief chance to continue the fight after death, very similar to Yorick’s ult before he was reworked. Its effect on the rift creates zones of camouflaging smoke that teams can hide in.

Items and runes widen their horizon in Preseason 2022

Riot wasn’t done with just adding new dragons to Summoner’s Rift. It’s also adding Mythic and Legendary items as well as tweaking the mastery system. The first mythic is a tank support item that increases damage in an AoE after disabling an enemy champion, while the second is a mage item that helps them survive dives.

New legendary items include an assassin-focused item that refunds ultimate cooldown for takedowns, and a new tank mythic meant to reward beefy champions for building mana. The tank item is likely Fimbulwinter from Wild Rift. Along with them will come a mage item meant to help pierce shields.

For runes, both Glacial Augment and Lethal Tempo will have their niche applicability increased, focusing even further on slows and attack speed respectively.

More changes incoming

Alongside the big adaptations coming to League of Legends, Riot also announced a few other features. New bounties will rewards teams that are falling behind for claiming objectives, not just kills. The out of lobby experience is getting a big upgrade, with the brand new Challenges system. Challenges will function like a slowly progressing achievement system, rewarding players with visual flairs to mark their in-game achievements.

Finally, Riot touched on the difficulty of maintaining rotating game modes, and the difficulty of bringing back old game modes. Right now, Riot believes that creating new modes is a more efficient use of its developers’ time. It looks like there’s lots to look forwards to heading into 2022 for League of Legends fans.

Nicholas James

About Nicholas James

Nicholas James is a gaming writer with a passion for all things geekdom, as well as live theater. Nicholas is best known for covering League of Legends and other top MOBA titles, but his expertise covers numerous games across multiple genres. When not watching the LCS or playing the latest new release, Nicholas can be found doing some tabletop gaming and painting his favorite miniatures. Nicholas has also published with Hotspawn, TheGamer, Dexerto, Esports.gg and other industry outlets.

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