In a hotfix issued today, League of Legends deactivated the Chemtech Dragon, as well as its accompanying Dragon Soul and map variant. League of Legends Season 12 saw the addition of two new dragons to the game, as well as a slew of other modifications. For the most part, previous dragon souls were highly powerful, but the modifications they made to Summoner’s Rift were relatively moderate.
The Mountain Dragon’s terrain introduced some new barriers, while the Infernal Dragon destroyed several and cleared brush from specific regions of the map. The 2 new dragons, the Hextech Dragon and the Chemtech Dragon, are far more daring and make more changes to the game than previous dragons, as well as having higher win percentages for teams that obtained their related dragon soul bonuses. The Hextech Dragon adds portals to this game that can transport players across the battlefield, and obtaining its dragon soul grants a boon that slows and damages adjacent adversaries when they are hit with an attack or ability.
The Chemtech Dragon, adds camouflage zones to Summoner’s Rift that conceal champions when they are within a specific distance of foes. The dragon soul enhancement linked with it allowed the receiving team to respawn as a zombie on the spot and fight again for a short time after death. These additions, however, have proven difficult to balance, causing controversy among the player base. The Chemtech Dragon, as well as its accompanying dragon soul and terrain, were disabled instantly, according to a League of Legends update. According to the announcement, the new dragons will have a greater impact than the four that were originally released as part of the Elemental Rift adjustments launched in Season 10.
Despite this, Riot admitted that the Chemtech rift was “extremely frustrating to play with.” The statement goes on to say that Riot will continue to work on the Chemtech dragon, particularly to improve the rift alterations it applies, but it may take some time to get it right, so it may not be returned for a while. The dragon system, as it now exists in League of Legends, has a significant impact on the game. While obtaining a dragon soul bonus does not ensure victory, it is an exceptionally potent win condition that determines the outcome of many games. The Chemtech Dragon wasn’t the most powerful of the game’s dragon soul boosts; that honour belongs to the Hextech Dragon.
However, it was not so much the dragon soul as it was the patches of concealment in each jungle quadrant that made it incredibly impossible for a losing team to contest any objectives or for their jungler to harvest any of their camps that caused problems in the game. This resulted in certain games where a team fell behind early seeming absolutely unplayable due to a random one-in-six dragon spawn, which is obviously not a healthy mechanic. The new dragons originally appeared in League of Legends around the time Riot Games’ popular Netflix show Arcane debuted.
Hextech and Chemtech were significant ideas in the show, and the introduction of the new drakes was a way for Riot to connect League of Legends and Arcane. Unfortunately, the chemfog proved to be as hazardous to League of Legends players as it is to the people of Zaun. So, while it may stay in Runeterra, it may not return to Summoner’s Rift for some time.