Just two weeks into the 2022 ranked League of Legends season, the Chemtech Drake—as well as its corresponding Dragon Soul and terrain—have been disabled on all of the game’s servers worldwide.
Riot has not yet given a timeframe as to when the Chemtech Drake will return to the game. The League developer cited feedback from social media and in-game surveys that the “Chemtech addition has just been too frustrating to play with—especially if you’re on the losing team,” according to an announcement made by the company earlier today.
The Chemtech Drake was added alongside the Hextech Drake ahead of the 2022 ranked League season, upping the number of Elemental Dragons presently available on Summoner’s Rift from four to six. Moving forward, only five drakes will be present in games on the map. The Hextech Drake is slated to remain in League while its Chemtech counterpart undergoes a heavy rework.
“While the Chemtech Drake and its corresponding systems are disabled, we’ll be iterating on design changes to solve the issues with the current versions, while maintaining the spirit of what we were originally trying to achieve,” Riot said. With this in mind, Riot put forth the initiative to overhaul the Chemtech Rift’s terrain but warned that it “may take time to do right,” essentially meaning that the Chemtech Drake will be out of the game’s regular dragon rotation for quite some time.
Riot has not yet confirmed when or if the Chemtech Drake will return to League. Earlier this month, the League balance team said on Reddit that if the developers “come to the conclusion something is bad, we assess the priority to change or remove it [as] with everything in League.”
It’s unclear if the Chemtech Drake will return to League, but for now, it won’t be available in ranked games. Additionally, competitive leagues around the world should expect to see the removal of the Chemtech Drake affect on-stage games moving forward.
