The long-awaited tournament feature in League of Legends, Clash, arrives this week. But before you dive headfirst into this competitive game mode with your friends, you might want to read the fine print.
Riot released the official FAQ sheet for the mode today on the Riot Games support portal and, for the most part, it’s just the usual helpful bells and whistles, detailing what to expect with each tourney and interesting facets that are unique to the mode itself. Among those facets is the debut of Sudden Death, a feature that’s never been included in League before.
This Sudden Death will, at its core, force games to end before a specific time limit—70 minutes, which means all Clash games will have a fixed maximum duration. This is unheard of for League, but it’s necessary in this case to ensure that some tournaments don’t drag on forever. More importantly, it ensures that tournaments can stick to their respective schedules.
When you hit 60 minutes in any game, towers will become significantly more fragile and easier to take down. At 65 minutes, structures will begin to hurt themselves in order of importance—starting with towers, then onto inhibitors, and finally, the Nexus turrets and Nexus. By 70 minutes, if neither team destroyed a Nexus, at least one will fall, and a winner will be crowned.
This will almost never happen, according to the FAQ sheet, and is intended purely as a last resort to make sure the tournament moves along smoothly. As pleasant as that sounds, try being in a game where both teams’ Nexuses are decaying and everyone suddenly becomes desperate to force massive fights.
It’s a necessary and welcome feature, but it’s also definitely going to cause its fair share of craziness. League’s Clash mode arrives on May 25.
