League caster Azael says he’s ‘pretty nervous’ about changes coming to game in 2023 preseason

The literal world champion compared League's potential trajectory to WoW.
Photo by Michal Konkol via Riot Games

Riot Games revealed its expansive plans for the upcoming League of Legends preseason earlier today. And one professional League shoutcaster, Isaac “Azael” Cummings-Bentley, criticized the game developer in a thread on Twitter for making the game less rewarding for players who put in the hours to learn more about League. Azael specifically said he’s “pretty nervous about the direction of added information in [the] LoL preseason.”

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The main goal of League’s 2023 preseason changes is to make the game more streamlined and more easily accessible for players. This goal should come to pass through the addition of in-game jungle pathing recommendations, pre-game rune page suggestions, and other quality-of-life changes. 

Azael’s main concern is that the addition of more information to make the game easier could lead League down a treacherous path—one that takes a competitive advantage away from players who put in the hours to improve their general knowledge and game sense. 

“It always feels like changes such as this open the door for more and more info to be handed to the players removing some of the advantage of knowledge about the game from you,” Azael said. “How far are we from being given ability CDs for our enemies? Timers in when they arrive back to lane?”

Related: Here is every new, returning, and updated item in the 2023 League of Legends preseason

Azael compared League’s current gameplay trends to World of Warcraft, a game he used to be a professional player in during the mid-2000s and early 2010s. He mentioned that WoW “went this direction” when more add-ons and Weak Auras became so evolved that high-level players relied on them more so than their own knowledge, skill, and instinct. 

“It actually made the game at the highest level less skilled … because everyone is armed with perfect information,” Azael said of WoW

Overall, Azael said he believes that the changes coming to League in the 2023 preseason “don’t break the game,” although there should be more rewards and incentives for the players who put in work to learn all they can about the game’s systems. “Players should have advantages for learning and studying the game etc and the more knowledge that’s just given with no effort to the player the less that side is rewarded,” Azael said. 

League’s preseason changes will go live later this year. 


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Michael Kelly
Staff Writer covering World of Warcraft and League of Legends, among others. Mike's been with Dot since 2020, and has been covering esports since 2018.