Welcome to Facecheck’s Intro Guide on the Newest Game Mode Arena!
Riot Games has at long last blessed us with a fresh new game mode for us to play. In this Guide we will be covering everything that you need to know to get started playing the new 2v2v2v2 game mode!
We will explain the core mechanics that the mode features and we will cover what changes you should be aware of between Arena & Summoner’s Rift.
Rank System
Although made as a fun game mode, Arena has a built-in ranking system, which consists of 5 tiers:
Wood - Bronze - Silver - Gold - Gladiator
To win in Arena, you must finish in either 1st or 2nd place with 1st granting more rating than 2nd place. Inversely, 4th will lose more rating than 3rd place, and if two teams are eliminated in the same round the team who has the greater negative health will receive 4th place
Game Structure
Champion Select
The game begins with the Champion Select phase, which has 2 main parts:
- Ban phase - Every single player has 1 ban, and everyone is banning simultaneously while also seeing every other ban.
- Pick phase - Every player can pick a champion that hasn’t been banned. You can see your teammate’s pick, but you cannot see the opposing teams.
There are only 2 starting summoner spells, the well-known Flash, and a new summoner spell called “Flee” that allows you to get a temporary movement speed boost while running away from opponents. Flash has a one-round cooldown as does Guardian Angel but Flee can be used several times in a single round. You can also potentially exchange Flee for one of several other special new summoner spells through your augments.
It’s recommended that you try to communicate with your teammate so that you can align your champions together, whether you’re doing some crazy wombo-combo together or an unexpected pair like Ivern & Annie.
Several champions have also been adjusted for Arena, with either new effects added to their abilities or if the champion is a bit too strong they might be toned down just a bit, in addition to this any champion who involves some form of stacking mechanic will be given a set amount of stacks for each round
Rounds & Lives
Games of Arena are based on alternating battle and shop rounds. Each team starts with 20 starting health, and in each battle round the teams will face off against each other with the losing team(s) taking damage which increases from 2 to 8 as the game progresses.
The shop round is where you can buy items, choose which augment you want to take, scout your opponents’ builds and augments, and see your damage on a target dummy. After one team has been eliminated and there are only 3 teams left, in each round one team will be given a bye and not have to fight.
Item Changes
In Arena, you earn gold in fixed amounts of 1000 or 3000 during shop rounds unless you are being offered an Augment. Items have also been aligned with these gold values. Starting items and boots all cost 1000 gold to match the two times you receive 1000 gold and all legendaries and mythic items cost 3000 gold to match all following times you receive gold. You also receive 350 gold for your team’s first takedown each battle round.
Arena features several new and exciting items, and also many of the ones you know and love (or hate) have had their stats changed along with their effects to make them either more or in a few cases less powerful. There are also several items that have even obtained entirely new ratios to scale with stats they normally would not.
Augmenting Your Champion
Arena features powerful unique augments which are abilities or buffs that allow your champion to do insane and otherwise impossible things. Augments can be one of three rarities:
- Silver augments are the least powerful and provide modest power or effects.
- Gold augments are strong and sometimes have gameplay-defining effects.
- Prismatic are incredible and crazy effects that allow you to do things that are otherwise unobtainable.
There are over 100 augments in the game so choose yours wisely and be sure that you are aligning your choices with your itemization, or the other way around, and your itemization to your augments! Twice each game, you can choose to reroll your currently offered augments for 3 new ones of the same tier if you don’t see one you like.
Round Order
While the maps you will fight on during each round are random, the order of how much damage is dealt to the losing team or when you are offered your next augment is the same in every game:
Maps & Map Mechanics
After we buy our items and select our augments we finally can get into battle! You will fight on one of 4 maps with each map’s layout being defined by a core aspect of how it affects the way fights play out. Each team will start in a set location and fight until they have eliminated both members of the opposing team.
The Ring
After 30 seconds, a ring of fire will appear which will gradually get smaller and smaller until fully disappearing as it drives both teams closer towards each other. Players outside of the ring take heavy damage until they can reenter the ring.
Plants
One of the most defining features of how games in Arena play out is the new Power Flowers! These are plants that will spawn in set locations on each map that can be attacked up to 3 times with each attack granting the attacker health, a shield, and greatly refunding their cooldowns including their ultimate.
The number of Power Flowers available is based on the map with 2 maps having 3 Flowers, and the other 2 maps having 1 and 2 Flowers respectively. These plants also will respawn after they have been taken so be sure to look for them when they are reappearing. They also show on the map!
Map Hazards
There are also several new special round hazards that can be included in each combat round. These hazards affect both teams and can be lethal if you aren’t careful.
Wrapping It All Together
We hope this guide has given you everything you need to get yourself started in Arena, so go out and find a friend or dive in Solo to have fun in this unique and exciting game mode.
Do you know what it takes to reach Gladiator?
Stay tuned for our strategy guide which will give you the tools to help you do so.