So I played the dragon today...
, not
if you were wondering. I find that nothing much has changed. I was top laner, ended with the highest cs in the game, and I got 5 dragons by the time Elder spawned. You know what my reward was? A lousy 30 Armor and MR. Not that she isn't still a strong AF duelist but all that effort? I caught every single one as soon as they spawned, and the worse part is Elder dragon doesn't even count to the stacks.
Now this is a game that went VERY well. Now imagine those games where your bot lane goes 0/5 by 10 minutes, and both of them don't even dare to ward dragon. Congrats, you have no passive, and even if you did snag one or 2, that's like 15 Armor/MR.
My thoughts on this is that while the RnG stats from the random dragons were kind of too random, they're still worth more individually compared to this shitty new one. A single fire drake buff is already far better than my 5 stacks of 5x armor/MR, and definitely more rewarding to actually go after. Dragons are limited, and not something you can easily farm up like Garen's W. I'd HATE to compare 5 dragons to a mere 120 CS.
and still be tanky af with 5 damage/bruiser items.