LoL Season 12: The New Dragons Explained

Season 12 is going to be making some changes to the rift. Season 10 brought us the elemental rift, with a changing landscape, and now Riot has decided to take that aspect of the game and add even more new changes to the physical landscape of Summoner’s Rift.

How has Riot decided to do this? By introducing two new dragons to the game. In the theme of innovation which comes from Piltover and Zaun – where the upcoming Netflix series plays and the upcoming TFT set Gizmos and Gadgets, Riot has decided to modernize the rift.

• We are also getting a new progression system in Season 12! 

The two new dragons introduced to the game are going to be the Chemtech dragon and the Hextech Dragon. Do you see the parallels between Piltover and Zaun right there? Because we do.

What is the Chemtech Dragon?

The Chemtech dragon is one of the two dragons to be introduced in the upcoming Season 12 of League of Legends. Until this point, we’ve had four elemental drakes and with the addition of the Chemtech and Hextech, we will have six.

• Want to know more about upcoming Season 12 changes?

So what does the Chemtech dragon even do? Well, this is the standard Chemtech dragon buff after killing the neutral objective:

Grants bonus damage against enemies with more current health than you (up to a 5% increase in damage per stack)

So this is good for low health champions and will help you try to get back into a game when you’re down. Seems reasonable enough.

What does the Chemtech Dragon Soul do?

Basically, the developers at Riot looked at Sion, thought he had a neat passive and slapped it onto the Chemtech Dragon. Seriously, his soul is just Sion’s passive. You live a little longer, turn into a beast and try to get a kill.

Or as Riot describes:

When a team obtains the Chemtech Dragon Soul, they receive a buff that grants them a brief second life after they die.

What Does the Chemtech Rift Look Like?

This dragon basically pollutes the rift with chemtech clouds. This means that there are areas on the rift where normal wards offer no vision. You’ll have to use Scryer’s Bloom or a Control Ward to try and spot champions who are camouflaged within the chemtech zones.

• Champions like Viego are going to be awful in the Chemtech terrain. Counter him with our Amumu champion guide. 

What is the Hextech Dragon?

The other new dragon being added to the game is the Hextech Dragon. Its regular buff is:

Grants attack speed and ability haste to the team that delivers the killing blow (5 Ability Haste and 5% Attack Speed per stack)

This means that you can gain stacks by killing the dragon. Ability Haste can be crucial to any champion with longer cooldowns.

What does the Hextech Dragon Soul do?

This ability slows opponents. Of course, this is going to be on a cooldown, so you can’t perma slow champions. But I feel like Glacial Augment with a Hextech Soul can be very tilting for any opposing champion.

• Have you wondered which champions are going to be part of Arcane? We have a list right here! 

This is how Riot explained the soul:

When a team obtains the Hextech Dragon Soul, they gain a unique ability that adds a chain lightning slow to their basic attacks and abilities, with a moderate cooldown.

What Does the Hextech Rift Look Like?

The Hextech terrain will create pairs of Hextech gates that can teleport champions form one gate to the next. This action does take a few seconds to channel and can be interrupted by opposing champions.

So basically we have a Sion passive for the Chemtech soul and a Bard ultimate as the Hextech rift. Interesting things you’re doing there Riot.