When we first introduced Arena we set out to create a version of League that let you truly explore all the endless possibilities you couldn’t in a normal game of Summoner’s Rift. Now, almost three years after the mode’s release, we’re taking our next big swing at Arena with Events, the addition of Augment Levels, and a brand new map!

Introducing Events

Starting with the main event, events are limited time, well… events that let you experience Arena in new and exciting ways. Each one will introduce a unique variation of Arena’s gameplay in a way that we hope will keep the entire season entertaining, naturally create meta shifts, and help players feel like there’s always something to look forward to.

Without further ado, here’s the events we’ll have throughout Season 2! Small note, your usual eight teams of two will be replaced by each event.

• No Event
• 3x6
• Bravery
• Swift Arena

Starting things off we have… no event. While we are excited for you all to get into the fun of events we also want to leave one patch for everyone to learn the new map, augments, and Guests of Honor. More on those later, but now let’s chat about our first event: 3x6.

3x6 is exactly what it sounds like, three players on each team with a total of six teams. 

In a game with 170+ champions built with Summoner’s Rift in mind, there are quite a few that have fallen by the wayside when forced into 2v2 gladiatorial combat. Our goal with introducing 3x6 is to bring even more champion diversity into the Arena by allowing for a wider variety of team comps. 

No longer are the days of Kog’Maw and his singular Janna to protect him, what if you added a nice, tanky Cho’Gath in front of them to frontline? Or maybe you and your friends just want to deathball and run into the enemy team to really send your opponent a message. Well you could play Kled, Riven, and Galio to lock someone down provided their teammates don’t get in the way.

We’re very excited about 3x6 and we hope many of you are as well, and we can’t wait to see what crazy comps all of you cook up!

Moving onto our next event, for the bravest among us, we have Bravery! 

Ever since the dawn of Arena we’ve heard many of you want a version where everyone in your lobby opts to roll the dice and leave their games in the hands of Lady Luck. Well Bravery Arena is (almost) just that. 

When you load in to champ select you’ll notice a significantly smaller number of options. You’ll have the good ‘ol random champion button which we hope you’ll pick, but if true random isn’t your cup of tea we’ve still got a few crowd favorites for you to pick from.

Our goal with Bravery is primarily to give many players a version of Arena they’ve been asking for, but we also wanted to find a way to support players that want to overcome any obstacles the Arena throws at them with their adaptability and ability to flex into many different champions. 

Our last Event coming in Season 2 will be Swift Arena!

As you can imagine, this will be a swifter version of Arena. With this event we’ll be going back to our roots of two teams of four for those looking to get the full Arena experience without the full Arena time commitment.

Additionally, for those of you able to remember your opponents playstyles and weaknesses this should give you the edge as you’ll be fighting the same teams more consistently.

New Arena: Petricite Grove

In addition to Events, we’ve also got a brand new map coming to the Arena rotation in Season 2: the Petricite Grove. This grove is located on the outskirts of Demacia. With larger walls the grove has plenty of places to hide. But be careful, there are also mining bombs, used to help mine the Petricite, scattered around the map. 

These mining bombs are the main gameplay feature of this map and can be knocked around and into your opponents (and unlucky plants) to deal some serious damage. If you strike them with an immobilizing effect they’ll explode instantly, allowing you to blast your opponents to pieces in a way that would make even Ziggs proud.

Reworked Arena: Ancestral Woods

The Ancestral Woods is a unique map; it is both our smallest arena and only arena with a single Power Flower. The smaller arena is an element we want to keep, but we don’t think that a single Power Flower you’re forced to fight over is a great feature.

This update adjusts the layout of the map and adds a set of Power Flowers on the outskirts of the arena, with the brand new Bulwark Blossom sitting in the center of the map. When you last hit it, you’ll get a large heal and shield, which is increased when outnumbered allowing for some pretty exciting comebacks.

The changes are aimed at keeping the control point aspect, while lessening the blow of falling behind. We’ve also added a series of brush and terrain around the sides, which allows players to engage in a “cat vs. mouse” playstyle so you can buy some time as you wait for your teammate to get ready to respawn. Or if you’re a Rengar and want to hunt a Twitch. 

There’s Levels to these Augments

Next up we have our newest addition to Arena: Augment Levels.

Augment levels allow you to amplify and build around your favorite augments. As you level an augment it’ll grow strong, with some even gaining new effects, such as Fan the Hammer firing more missiles each time it’s triggered in a round. 

After selecting 2 levelable augments, future augment offerings will also offer you the ability to level an existing augment instead of taking a new one. 

While you can still only have 4 augments (most of the time), Augments will be offered much more frequently allowing you to to select a new augment, level an existing one, or replace one of your augments with another a tier higher. Speaking of replacing Augments…

We’re adding the ability to replace Augments! Now, when you’ve filled your augment slots, future augments will give you the ability to level an augment or replace one of your existing augments. 

Round 8 also introduces a new “Crafting Round” where you can shape your larger build by gaining an additional augment slot or removing an augment to level one of your remaining augments.

Our goal with adding these was to allow players to pivot off of augments that are no longer serving their purpose, or adjust as the game plays out.

We’re excited to see how you all take your favorite builds to new heights and we can’t wait to see the clips.

New Augments

Now what would an Arena update be without new Augments? For this update we’ve got over 30 new-to-Arena augments with some coming over from ARAM: Mayhem and others designed just for Arena. 

Overall our goal was to really lean into the new features coming this season like Augment Levels, but also add some fun, flashy ones to keep things fun and lively in the Arena.

We won’t spoil all of them here because discovering them is half the fun, but we’ll give you a sneak peak of a few.

Transmute: Silver: When selected fill your remaining augment slots with Silver augments. Taking this in the first round is great for taking advantage of the new augment leveling system by getting a head start with a bunch of augments and then leveling them while others are still hunting for their builds.

Wild Fire: Autocast fling a fireball at a nearby that will bounce between enemy champions, as this is leveled the number of bounces will increase, and at max level it can bounce endlessly. Functioning as both a burn and auto cast, Wild Fire bridges the gap between the two, opening the door for builds and augments that amplify either or both.

Scavenger: For those looking to show off their trophies, Scavenger is for you. Each time you defeat an opponent you’ll gain one of their augments, but this comes at the cost of augment offerings only offering augment level ups.

Magical Girl: Each combat has a falling star. Catching this star knocks back enemies as they dance during your magical transformation, afterwards you’re empowered and stars rain down on your opponents. While this season has plenty of demons thematically, we don’t want to miss out on the fun that can come with just letting your hair down and going all out. 

As we mentioned a bit earlier, we’re happy to bring over many augments that we feel make sense in the context of Arena. And then we’re cranking it up a notch by adding Augment Levels to them, so don’t be surprised if you see a Poro king bouncing around, enjoying themselves for a little longer than you’re used to. 

More Guests, More Honor

Much like Augments, Guests of Honor is a quintessential part of the Arena experience that helps keep each game unique and different from the last. 

For this update, we worked hard to recruit a full suite of Guests of Honor ranging from champions of Demacia, to demons and demon hunters, to Arena staples. We’ve got over 20 brand new guests coming to the Arena this season and we can’t wait for you to discover them all! 

As a quick note, in order to make sure everyone is able to meet our new guests we’ve temporarily disabled our older guests, but you can expect for them to make a triumphant return in the future.

Alright, sneak peak time!

Kayle - Divine Ascent: Gain a shield that prevents your team from losing health on your next loss. When this shield breaks, gain a reward based on how long your shield lasted.

Fiddlesticks - A Harmless Scarecrow: Augments are offered with attached blessings and curses.

Yone - Inner Demon: Vote for your team to ally with Demons or Demon Hunters.

Ornn - The Forge God: Unlock the rotating prismatic item shop.

Nocturne - Darkness: Creates zones of darkness, enemies outside of the darkness can't see you.

Alright, so that’s it from us on the Arena team! We’re very excited for our veteran Gladiators to continue to craft builds that blow us away and, for those of you that may have taken a break from Arena, we hope you’ll drop in to check out all of the fun updates we’ve been working on. 

We’re looking forward to seeing you in the Arena!