League of Legends Announces Season 1 with Changes to Summoner's Rift

The latest Riot Games video and multiple dev blogs delve into what players have been waiting to learn about for a long time now: Seasons. Confusingly named the same as a yearly Season, League of Legends will be changing the way they handle the year entirely.

Instead of having one major gameplay element released throughout the year, Seasons will instead be split into three, each themed around a specific theme, gameplay, and even regions. The first, of course, is none other than Noxus, after the way Arcane introduced a few Noxians into the narrative (with Ambessa and Mel Medarda).

Noxus being the first chapter means that Summoner's Rift will be receiving an overall Noxian Invasion overhaul, but more than that, Atakhan (from Legends of Runeterra) will be making his appearance as well. Replacing the Baron spawn at 20:00, either Ruinous or Voracious Atakhan will spawn on the side of the map (top or bot) that has received the most champion damage and kills by 14 minutes. Depending on the amount of total damage dealt in the game, either of the two versions of Atakhan will spawn, each with its different buffs and benefits.

Ruinous Atakhan happens in higher-action games and once defeated, he'll give permanently increased Epic monster rewards and a field of Blood Roses, which are a new collectable that gives you EXP (which will also be spawned where enemies are killed). Contrariwise, Voracious Atakhan will appear in lower-action games, and the team that defeats him will earn a one-time rebirth buff and a permanent increase to gold from champion takedowns.

Feats of Strength are also making their appearance in the Noxian-invaded Summoner's Rift. The first team to complete two of three objectives (First Blood, First Tower, and the first three Epic Jungle monsters) will immediately buff your tier-two boots with a unique upgrade. After buying two legendary items, you'll unlock the capability to purchase a Tier 3 upgrade (again, only for the winning side), which includes pretty substantial buffs that'll give an edge to the team that was winning in the early game.

Nexus Turrets will now respawn, similarly to Inhibitors. This highly-requested change gives the losing team with an exposed Nexus the capability to turn the game without having to worry about backdoors that will end the match. The Turrets will respawn after a set period of time, and once rebuilt, they'll return with full HP and the stats they had previously.

New Runes are arriving as well — Axiom Arcanist, Deep Ward, Sixth Sense, and Grisly Mementos will be making their appearance. Axiom Arcanist replaces Nullifying Orb, and it'll buff your ultimate's damage, healing, or shielding, and it'll refund a part of the cooldown on takedowns.

Deep Ward will reward players who place deep wards in enemy territory, giving them +HP and lasting 30–45 seconds long (or 30–120 seconds for the Yellow Trinket Stealth Wards). Once players reach level 11, Stealth Wards in the River will also be counted as Deep Wards, thus giving them the benefits outlined above.

Sixth Sense will automatically track nearby enemy wards whenever you cannot already see or track it. Melee champions will have a 300-second cooldown, while ranged users will have a 360-second cooldown, and beginning at level 11, it'll also reveal the ward for 10 seconds, giving you another venue to disable enemy vision.

Finally, Grisly Mementos will give players an infinitely stacking 5 Trinket Ability Haste upon champion takedown. In ARAM, where that doesn't make sense, you get 3 Ultimate Ability Haste instead (though whether that's stacking or not isn't actually specified).

These runes will all be replacing Eyeball Collector, Zombie Ward, and Ghost Poro.

The final change coming to Summoner's Rift is the Teleport overhaul. Instead of the current blink-focused method, champions will take longer to use their teleport, with a physical animation that takes them to the location they are teleporting to. With this change, players will be able to teleport to wards and minions at the beginning of the match (like it used to be), as it'll be a slower spell and give plenty of reaction time. Meanwhile, Unleashed Teleport will now, instead, increase the travel speed between the two locations.

To compensate, Homeguards will be available from the beginning of the game, just that at a weaker state. After 14 minutes, it'll return to its current state, but this is meant to reduce travel time throughout the early game.

These changes will go live at the start of Season 1 next year!