It seems Umbral Glaive isn’t playing nicely with the Rift’s jungle plants.
One League of Legends fan discovered a game-altering bug that stops jungle plants from respawning when hit by a champion wielding Umbral Glaive. The fan had their friend post it on Reddit yesterday in hopes that it gets fixed before the Worlds 2020 knockout stage. Dot Esports tried this bug out and found similar results.
Replicating the bug is simple: Buy Umbral Glaive, attack any of the jungle plants the Rift has to offer, and watch them not respawn for the remainder of the match. But it’s implications are a bit more complex.
Blast Cones are a great tool for repositioning, allowing junglers to steal a dragon or Baron with a well-timed hop over the wall. Players can also blast opponents away and flee to safety. If the plant doesn’t respawn, one team might be at a disadvantage when trying to contest an objective or run from a threat.
Graves is a popular jungle pick and Pantheon support has been a hit at Worlds. Both champions build Umbral Glaive as a scouting tool and for extra lethality. While this can certainly affect solo queue matches, it can also potentially impact games in the highest professional setting.
The League fan argues that this bug already surfaced in the Worlds group stage during a tiebreaker between Suning and G2 Esports. At the 30:25 minute mark of the match, you can see SofM’s Graves hit the Blast Cone on the mini-map near G2’s Gromp. The jungle plant didn’t respawn for the rest of the match, according to the fan, potentially influencing the final team fight where Bin’s Gangplank destroyed Caps and Perkz.
It’s unclear how long this bug has existed. Umbral Glaive was added in Patch 9.23 to give lethality champs more options. Since it wasn’t used too often and only by a small number of champs, this bug might’ve gone under the radar. And with everything players have to keep tabs on, it’s completely possible that this bug could’ve gone unnoticed.
This is reminiscent of a recent finding where red side cannon minions were discovered to have 20 less attack range than the blue side, something that may have been overlooked for the game’s 10-year lifespan.
Make sure to follow us on YouTube for more esports news and analysis.
