By Chris Padilla
The San Jose State University Esports Club’s League of Legends team is currently standing at 2-1 in the Mountain West Conference despite the drastic changes brought to the game in 2020.
League of Legends’ 10th season brought all sorts of changes when released on Jan. 10. With the addition of the Dragon Soul mechanic, side lane alcoves and a second Rift Herald spawn, the landscape of Summoner’s Rift, the map in which the game resides is now fraught with new possibilities.
The changes to Summoner’s Rift probably had the most effect on biology freshman Coel Horsfall, screen name “Ceol” and the club team’s “jungler.”
The jungler stays out of lanes, except to initiate ambushes to help their teammates get kills. As such, junglers gain most of their power from farming monsters that are in the jungle and ganking for their laners.
The jungle is also where the powerful buff-granting dragons, Rift Herald and Baron Nashor spawn, making them important objectives to capture, especially in
season 10.
“Objectives are the big thing in season 10 and it’s where most of the changes were implemented,” Horsfall said.
The power gained from killing five dragons and acquiring a dragon soul cannot be understated, which Horsfall said means both teams’ junglers have to play the bottom half of the map or risk their opponents gaining valuable dragon buffs.
However, having multiple Rift Herald spawns also means that the top side should not be neglected.
Horsfall also said that because of changes to experience gain and jungle timers, junglers have to balance farming the jungle and ganking.
Too much of the farming can leave the jungler not making an impact in their teammates’ lanes, however too much of the ganking can leave the jungler falling behind from lack of gold and experience.
This, in contrast to last season’s gank-heavy meta, which Horsfall said he was better suited to.
Indeed, his top three champions Lee Sin, Kha’zix and Sejuani reflect his preference to ganking.
For sophomore computer science major Johnson Hsiung, screen name “Camp Out”, the team’s mid-laner, the game remains largely the same, except in the mid-game when mid-laners often have the power to one-shot enemy champions and minion waves alike.
“If it’s your team’s third dragon, it can put a lot of pressure on the other team. If it’s your first, it can buy a lot of time to scale,” Hsiung said.
Hsiung indeed favors high-pressure and high-damage champions, with his favorites being Zoe and Akali.
The season’s changes are a mixed bag for the bottom-laners.
For senior communications major Jimmy Phan the changes to shared experience has made bot lane a more perilous place.
“It’s not easy getting out of lane facing other laners that are 1.5 or two levels ahead of you. So it’s hard for me to carry with my full potential since I just get one-shotted every time,” he said.
Phan prefers to play the new meta with his champion picks: Miss Fortune, Aphelios and Senna, the latter two being the newest marksmen to hit the Rift.
Computer science junior Michael Newman and computer engineering junior Patrick Lu share support duties. Both switching off duties depending on whose champion pool is more effective against whoever their opponent is.
Similar to Phan, Lu is concerned about the changes to shared experience in bot lane and is practicing his roaming to give Phan the solo lane experience he needs to keep up with the enemy bot lane.
Roaming may suit him just fine though, because according to Lu, his champion pool is suited for it because of the pressure they can apply.
Lu said he is also adjusting to the support item changes, since his previous standby item, Ancient Coin, has fallen by the wayside in favor of other items that make farming or harassing easier.
Newman acknowledges the importance of the jungler with the objective-heavy direction League of Legends has gone, and to the support roles due to the impact it has on vision control and team-fighting elements, both of which are important when capturing an objective.
However, Newman’s biggest concerns about the game lay outside of it.
“As a team we have to polish our communication and focus on our movement as a unit even more so than ever before,” Newman said. “Which is pretty challenging to do with the little amount of time we have to practice due to homework, work, etc.”
Neither of the supports thought much of the side lane alcoves, both saying that aside from cheese plays, they don’t really affect much.
Newman even said that because of the free wards from the support item quests, the alcoves are useless since champions are often seen entering them, negating the element of surprise they give.
Newman plays Soraka, Karma and Nautilus.
The team’s top laner Danny Le declined to comment because of privacy concerns, said Alan Ignacio, president of the Esports Club.
