5 reasons why we love Arena, League of Legends' newest game mode

The newest League of Legends game mode, Arena, is finally here, and most of you have probably seen videos of players and streamers testing this on the Public Beta Environment (PBE).

It’s been receiving a lot of praise from everyone in the LoL community, primarily because of its refreshing gameplay and mechanics.

After all, it’s been too long since the players have had anything than ARAM and Summoner’s Rift and the new game mode just brings something fresh to the table instead of the usual LoL grind.

If you haven’t jumped into it yet, or are iffy about returning to the LoL that you have nearly memorized in your sleep: maybe you need a bit more convincing.

Here are five reasons why we love Arena, LoL’s new 2v2v2v2 game mode.

It feels familiar, but it’s not your everyday League of Legends

In our LoL wish list last year, we included asking for a new game mode that players can enjoy.

Specifically, we said that “we’d like to see how else the game can be played in a fun and relaxing way.”

Arena is definitely that. It brings you into another world that feels familiar, yet it's not your everyday game of LoL.

While the champions you play mostly use the same skills, you don’t need to deal with defeating turrets and managing minion waves, and strategising too much to get that win.

Instead, you and your partner play against three other pairs in a round arena. There are augments, hazards, items, and different maps that keep you on your toes as the size of the Arena keeps shrinking until there’s only one champion standing.

You also play this in multiple rounds; each round is fairly short, so you don’t need to commit 30-45 minutes of your time playing only to be tilted or lose the game.

It kind of feels like a Battle Royale, but on a much smaller scale and with more variables in play that make the game really fun.

It’s wacky and unpredictable

Speaking of variables, that’s another reason why Arena is awesome. You’re not going to be bogged by the “balance” of the game because it can throw in something like Lux suddenly lighting up her Final Spark out of nowhere.

There are augments, which are basically power-ups you can equip during the beginning of each round. These are completely random, and it comes from a long list. '

In each round, the player is presented with three augments at a time, and the player only gets to choose one.

Some examples that Riot gave in earlier previews were Sylas, who can get a Lissandra W augment, or Ekko, with a 500-attack range. You can check out other streamers who’ve tried the game mode on PBE for more.

But there’s no “ideal” augment set that you can build every game so that each game can be so different. This mechanic reminds most of us of Teamfight Tactics augments.

There are also Hazards, which are again not under the control of any player. These are champions who randomly appear in the Arena and evoke chaos and throw you off your game.

And frankly, instead of getting annoyed with all these variables, it just becomes so much fun because it allows hilarious scenarios to ensue and cheese plays to get through.

Map variety

This is a huge win for the LoL devs because new maps have been on the community’s wish list for years now.

While the classic Summoner’s Rift with the green grass and grey cobblestones are great, they can get boring if you play the same game for years.

Arena introduces not just a different map configuration. It also gave players four different maps that could be assigned to them at random in any round.

Each map varies in size, spawning areas for plants, bush placements, hazards and more.

Each map also has a different style. One is dark, with grey and deep red hues, which kind of reminds me of Darkin, like Aatrox. Another has more of an orange sunset desert-like theme, and two more with other themes. It’s refreshing and exciting in the eyes of a regular LoL player.

The pressure to win isn’t there

Because the game mode is unpredictable, the mini-ranked system doesn’t really bear much weight.

On top of that, it’s only you and your partner, so it leaves little room for toxicity and blaming each other—because you can always carry the game hard (On the flip side, you’d know if you’re the one screwing up cause there’s only two of you).

Yes, people will always try to min-max the whole thing, but because of how random the augments and hazards are, you’re always guaranteed a chuckle or two out of some wacky incident or get lucky and cheese your way out of a round.

And because it’s four teams against each other, the scenario isn’t quite “all or nothing”, like usual LoL gameplay. You come in expecting to have a 75% chance of losing and just a 25% chance of winning.

You play for fun

And because it’s not “all or nothing”, most players come in just to have fun. It doesn’t matter if you’re good at a champion or not; you can play any champion since there’s so much variety in each game.

It’s also easier to queue with another player than four more, so it’s likely that most players queue in with a friend just for laughs or just to have pure fun.

We think some folks will come out with “Tier lists” eventually for Arena.

In fact, some, like popular streamer and former Cloud9 coach Nick “LS” De Cesare, have released an initial tier list for this game mode.

But if Riot continues to support this and add new hazards, new augments, or other twists to the game, all these lists will be out the window in no time.

We’re hoping that Riot doesn’t drop the ball on this game mode and continue to deliver because if they keep this up, they’ll retain their player base and attract new ones too.

Anna is a freelance writer and photographer. She is a gamer who loves RPGs and platformers, and is a League of Legends geek. She's also a food enthusiast who loves a good cup of black coffee.

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