Chemtech Drake and its effects have been causing havoc across the rift and in pro play since it was introduced in Preseason 2022.
The controversial Chemtech Drake has been disabled, the League of Legends team announced in a blog post today.
Chemtech Drake and it's effects have been causing havoc across Summoners' Rift ever since it's introduction in Preseason 2022. The announcement states that Riot intend to bring the drake back at some point in the future, but likely with a complete overhaul.
The current state of Chemtech
Chemtech Drake was introduced with the 2022 preseason changes. Ever since the Drake reworks in preseason 2020, they've had three components - the buff they grant upon being killed, the change they make on Summoners' Rift when chosen as the final drake, and the buff they give upon a team having killed four of them, their 'soul'. Chemtech Drake's passive buff was simple and fair - increased damage to champions with more current health than you. It was the rift and soul where things went off the rails.
The Chemtech rift created two zones of fog in each team's jungle. The fog camouflaged players inside it, unless they got within a certain range of their opponent. It made fighting in these jungle zones wild and unpredictable. And that wasn't even the worst of it.
Chemtech soul is what casual players and pros alike had a huge issue with. This soul allowed one team to become a zombie after they died, and fight on for a few more seconds. Since teams with soul are typically winning, this meant that, to come back against a Chemtech soul, a team would have to kill all players on the other team twice. It made comebacks next-to-impossible - if there was a Chemtech soul in the game, whichever team was ahead would win. It was unfun to play against and made professional games pointless after the soul was claimed.
The future
Chemtech Drake's disabling leaves the game with five drake types. It looks as if Riot will be reworking Chemtech Drake and reintroducing it later on. "While the Chemtech Drake and its corresponding systems are disabled, we'll be iterating on design changes to solve the issues with the current versions, while maintaining the spirit of what we were originally trying to achieve," they said in their blog post. "Our primary focus will be on the terrain. This may take time to do right, meaning there's a chance we won't bring the Chemtech Drake back for a while."
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