Riot Games reveals huge map and gameplay changes for next League season

If you have been keeping up with the big updates that Riot Games will be sending to League of Legends, you’ll know that the game will be undergoing some massive changes ahead of the 2020 season.

One big change Riot has introduced is that the next preseason will be called Rise of the Elementals, and with it comes huge sweeping changes to the Summoner’s Rift.

The new Elemental Rift system will alter how every player will traverse the map as their team takes down the various dragons in the game. As teams take down elemental dragons, one element will begin to take over the Rift and permanently alter the map as a result.

Each Elemental Rift will impact teamfights, rotations, vision, health and more—for example, infernal dragon takeovers will destroy certain walls and burn certain brushes around the map.

Mountain dragons will create new terrain around the map to play around, while ocean dragons will make brushes grow larger and honeyfruit plants will spawn more fruits to eat. Cloud dragons will turn certain pathways into wind tunnels, which will allow players to move quickly across the map.

Lastly, Elder Dragon will give a ton of late-game power to a team that manages to take it down. For example, the dragon now grants an execute to the empowered team that will kill any enemies under a certain health threshold.

Smaller additions to the map include new alcoves in the top and bottom lanes, while there are some new brushes near the blue buff river entrances. Look out for Riot’s newest developer’s blog post to see all the details surrounding the map changes for 2020.