Just three months after its introduction, Riot Games has disabled the Chemtech drake, soul and terrain from League of Legends. The disabling comes after months of feedback of the drake being overpowered.
The elemental drake will also be disabled in the League of Legends European Champion Series.
#LEC Update:
The only thing Chemtech Rift could not revive was itself 😞
The disable will also affect #LEC Week 3. pic.twitter.com/uS3lMDDydY
— Maximilian Peter Schmidt (@RiotMAXtheX) January 24, 2022
With the Chemtech Drake disabled, Riot said it plans to iterate on design changes to solve the issues with current versions in a post about the change. The developer’s focus will be on the terrain to make sure that the team return with a better and playable drake.
The Chemtech drake was introduced back in October with the 2022 Preseason changes. The drake was introduced alongside its brother, Hextech drake, to further change the meta for the new season. The Chemtech drake gave bonus damage to teams who slew it and created camouflaged zones among other benefits.
The disabling of the drake is no shock given that Riot already admitted that the new dragons may be more powerful and they would continue to monitor them. Additionally, in a recent Quick GamePlay Thoughts, Riot stated that it heard the “frustration’s around” the Chemtech Rift and the Chemtech soul and were working on solutions with Patch 12.2.
The Chemtech Rift makes it hard for players to contest their own jungle. Also, players could not adjust to the new default warding positions on the edges of the fog zones.
Pro backlash on Chemtech drake
When Riot made the Chemtech drake available, there were complaints about how annoying and overpowered it was. In a Twitch stream, former TSM player, Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng said that the Chemtech dragon should not exist because of how broken the camouflage was. Also in a report by Upcomer’s E.G Kant, several LEC pro players expressed their disdain for the Chemtech rift and soul.
Riot did not confirm a timeline for the drake’s return, but stated that it won’t be “back for a while.”
