Esports News
As another year draws to a close, you know what's on the horizon - a brand-new LoL season. League of Legends Season 14 is shaking up the meta with some of the most significant changes Summoner’s Rift has seen in years. Get ready for a complete game-changer with the removal of Mythic Items and updates to the legendary Baron Nashor.
For 2024, Riot Games is overhauling the beloved MOBA to freshen up the gameplay, injecting new energy into the game with new items, the Void sweeping the map, and a sprinkle of map updates. Dive into the details and discover everything that's coming in League of Legends Season 14, including the highly-anticipated release date.
The last patch came out on December 6, 2023. However, Season 13 will now end on January 3, 2024. This small change means that the League of Legends Season 14 release date will be January 9, 2024, lining up with Riot’s patch schedule with the release of patch 14.1.
Switching things up, Riot Games has announced changes to the League of Legends ranked system. Rather than doing the “single competitive season” per year format, the ranked year will be broken down into three individual splits. This change aims to accommodate players returning to the game or even newbies joining halfway through the ranked season.
Summoner's Rift rarely sees significant changes added to the classic map. Usually, updates are limited to small visual tweaks, like new terrain or shader updates, adding a dash of eye candy.
However, League of Legends Season 14 is breaking the mold already. Riot Games is stepping up the game with adjustments to gank pathways for each lane. Brace yourselves to relearn the map again from scratch, with new walls added, extra stealth brushes, and more!
For Top Lane in the new season, the Red Side wall has been extended, throwing a curveball at any Junglers looking to gank, unless they have mobility to traverse terrain like Kayn. Additionally, there's also the fresh addition of a smaller pixel brush. Expect these changes to have a huge effect when you play ranked, especially if you're on the Red Side.
For Mid Lane, Riot Games have pushed the river bushes further out as Riot Games attempt to discourage Junglers and roaming enemy Supports from camping Mid 24/7, which is a familiar sight in the current ranked environment. New roaming pathways closer to each Mid Turret have been added, making it harder for surprise ganks.
In contrast to the other two main lanes, Bot Lane will be more vulnerable in League of Legends Season 14. On turret side, the majority of the safety-net wall is being removed, making the whole area more exposed and easy to access. In it's place is a tri-brush, shaking up the dynamic of safety near a Turret. The new additional a small pixel brush in the river near the Bot Lane opening also sets the stage for unexpected ganks or roaming surprises.
The Jungle saw plenty of changes in Season 13, so Riot Games is being more lowkey for LoL Season 14. The main change to the Jungle is the evanescent Void will be taking over Summoner's Rift.
Kicking things off, the undisputed King of the Rift, Baron Nashor, is getting a graphical facelift with all-new visuals, making it look scarier than ever before. His two buffs: Resistant Skin and Void Corruption, remain the same.
Alongside this new makeover, Baron is getting three new forms: Hunting Baron, Territorial Baron, and All-Seeing Baron, each with different effects. Players can tell each Baron type apart with its new visuals; for example, the All-Seeing Baron has a bright purple eye at the front to make its presence known.
One new creature added to the Nashor Pit will be namely Void Grubs. These bouncing bugs spawn at the five-minute mark, replacing the first Rift Herald, and despawn at fourteen minutes.
When aggro'ed, Void Grums unleashed a swarm of Voidmites to attack enemies. Any players who slay Void Grubs gain the Hunger of the Void buff, which gives the user a damage-over-time bonus to structures like Turrets. This buff can stack depending on how many grubs are slain.
Slaying five or six Void Grubs lets the player summon one of two Voidmites that can help nibble down structures.
At the twenty-minute mark in the game, the next spawning Blue Sentinels and Red Bramblebacks will rise as a Voidborn Sentinel and Voidborn Brambleback. This transformation cranks up their tankiness, making them harder to take down.
Additionally, upon being slain, their respective buffs are granted to allies of the player that takes them down, excluding any allies that were dead at the time of claiming the buff. These two buffs will become high-priority Jungle objectives to nail down, slightly changing the dynamic of the game after the 20-minute-mark.
At 20 minutes, the Rift Scuttler will respawn as a Voidborn Scuttler instead. When slain, a massive Scryer's Bloom effect will happen, providing vision and revealing all champions and wards in a large area. Any wards, whether they're Control Wards or Vision, will be reduced to 1 HP.
As mentioned in the 13.24 patch notes, Riot Games is giving League of Legends a huge shake-up for next season, pushing players out of their comfort zone by removing numerous items, replacing them with shiny newer models. The Support Item system is also getting a huge overhaul, but we'll go over than in a seperate article.
Take a look below to see a rundown of some of the new items hitting the Rift in League of Legends Season 14.
Total cost: 3,000 gold
Stats
Unique Passive: Load
Total cost: 2,850 gold
Stats
Unique Passive: Life From Death
Total cost: 2,700 gold
Stats
Unique Passive: First Light
Unique Passive: Radiance
Total cost: 2,800 gold
Stats
Unique Passive: Immolate
Unique Passive: Desolate
Total cost: 2,900 gold
Stats
Unique Passive: Magebane
Total cost: 2,400 gold
Stats
Unique Passive: Lead the Way
Total cost: 2,800 gold
Stats
Unique Passive: Anguish
Total cost: 2,900 gold
Stats
Passive: Energized
Passive: Firmament
Total cost: 900 gold
Stats
Total cost: 1,337 gold
Stats
Cost: 250 gold
Stats
Total cost: 1,200 gold
Stats
That's everything we know about the huge changes for League of Legends Season 14. Brace yourselves a massive learning curve, whether you're a seasoned player or logging onto the Rift for the first time for new players and returning. With the sheer amount of new items, map changes, and Jungle creatures, it's basically a whole new game to conquer!
If you want more League of Legends content, check out our guides to the best Lux runes, all champions by their release dates, the rarest skins, Summoner Spells, champion tier lists, and more League content on our blog!