Preseason 2022 has brought a ton of changes to League of Legends, and a few simple tips will help you navigate the new environment on Summoner’s Rift.
There are brand new dragons with the addition of Chemtech and Hextech drakes, new items, and a new bounty system. What’s working in the 2022 preseason, and how can you best use it to your advantage?
There are two new drakes floating into Summoner’s Rift as a part of this preseason, Hextech and Chemtech. Hextech grants attack speed and ability haste for an individual drake, and a chain-lightning proc that slows on auto-attacks or abilities for its soul. Hextech has been the more balanced of the two after a lot of initial excitement due to Hextech portals that its rift effect creates, allowing rapid teleportation across the map.
Chemtech has been the target of criticism for its niche benefit and its initially broken soul. While it’s still random when either of these drakes shows up, Chemtech usually leads to dragon-centered games once its soul becomes available. Paying attention to dragon spawns with vision and rotating as a team becomes paramount with a Chemtech soul on the line.
New itemization has done just as much to shake up the gameplay as the new drakes. New mage itemization has made assassins hard to play with Crown of the Shattered Queen adding massive durability to spell-slinging targets who previously lacked ways to keep themselves safe. Champions like Anivia, Viktor, Malzahar, and Annie have all found great uses for the new mage items. At higher ELO, champions like Kassadin, Galio, and Zilean are also seeing increases in popularity.
Burst damage isn’t gone entirely given that Qiyana, Katarina, and Ahri are all performing well during the preseason. The top lane continues to be a duelist’s lane with Dr. Mundo being the only tank to break that mold in a major way through December. Leveraging new systems is working well for champions who can access them in this preseason, while classes without new tech have been struggling.
Preseason 2022 has increased the need for team coordination with its radically powerful new drakes and the addition of objective bounties. Teams need to be able to coordinate to manage vision in Chemtech’s smog zones, monitor Hextech gate movement, and find fights or objectives to claim available bounties.
At the same time, many champions’ difficult early and middle games have been shored up by new items and runes. Crown of the Shattered Queen has emerged as the premier option for scaling mages. Lethal Tempo has enabled champions like Vayne and Trundle to excel, with a serious stat boost just for playing the way they already were. Winter’s Approach, which transforms into Fimbulwinter, has allowed casting-focused tanks and mages with significant crowd control to radically increase their durability.
Certain champions have distinguished themselves as being the best champions in the 2022 preseason compared to their peers. Riven, Irelia, and Fiora continue to pulverize top with powerful dueling. Zac, Fiddlesticks, and Xin Zhao have all done well, and more AP junglers might join the top performers with the powerful mage items now available.
In the mid lane, Kassadin, Anivia, Qiyana, and Viktor reign supreme. Enchanters seem to be faring best at the support position, but not without competition from engage supports when paired with popular hyper-carries like Jinx and Vayne.
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