League of Legends is most famous for its 5v5 games on Summoner’s Rift, but the game actually has more than the one game mode. Twisted Treeline has given a 3v3 game mode for a long time, and with the recent reworking, it is actually a completely different type of game. Riot also made such a big deal about launching their Dominion game type a while back they ended up with disappointed fans, but the game mode has stayed around and sees regular play still.
What has been around even longer and gotten less direct attention are the game modes players have come up with for the custom games. Perhaps the most popular of these games modes has always been ARAM, which is short for All-Random All-Mid. Everyone lets their champion be randomly selected, and no one is allowed to leave mid lane, not even to return back to the shop. It provides for fast, immediate team-fighting fun and the random element helps keep it from being too serious.
Riot made the tutorial stage, Proving Ground, available in custom games primarily for ARAM games, and when they announced they were looking into incorporating actual matchmaking into ARAM-style games. The less obvious benefit of this would be applying an actual penalty to leaving games, as the main problem with getting an ARAM started was people leaving on seeing what champion they were going to be forced to play. Now those players will not be able to just jump back in.
Now there is another map for ARAM games: the Howling Abyss. The map has a lot of fun new effects as well as a completely new look. Lore-wise it is in the northern regions of the Freljord, implied to be above Lissandra’s seat of power.
On the mechanical side of things, ARAM will actually be getting a few new things with Howling Abyss. First will be rerolls, giving players who play ARAM regularly the chance to reroll their random champion if they get a bad matchup. This is something a player can only do a limited number of times, based on how many ARAM games they have played, so it is not a free pass every game. Second are some new items, one of which designed to make it easier for melee characters to engage against a much longer-range team composition.
I’ll be trying out the new map shortly, see you around, Summoners!
