My thoughts after few games in preaseason.

At first I would like to discuss about dragons, and rift changes.

Wouldn't it be better if dragons were totally random all the time, and after every dragon the map changes will occur ? or it's impossible to do. Just one change of map feels a bit clunky, if map would change all the time with dragons it would be more fun, and there would be more tactic to use, also make an option to off red screen from an infernal dragon, it gives eyes cancer :P.

Mountain dragon change feels good, it gives resists, but cloud dragon change on the other hand feels awful. There is already so much cdr in the game, and also a rune that gives 25% of ultimate cdr that this dragon should not exist. It will turn to urf, when karthus have ult every 20 s, while ekko every 5 s, ultimate turns into a basic skill. It's ULTIMATE, it should be critical ability to use, a game changer, while since the new rune it's becoming common, while u can just cut 65% cdr of your ultimate, + some ult cdr from dragon WHICH ignores the CDR CAP.

The 3 dragon buffs ( soul) are way too strong, except cloud drake. I understand that there is purpose to fight for 3 dragons, but if someone get's this buff, it's almost one sided beatdown. I feel like it would be better to have rng dragons, so this buff would be rare, but it's not right now. If 1 team wins the lanes, then they usually get almost all drakes and stomps even harder with 3 dragons buff.

The elder dragon execute feels like, buff for no hands players. I would give a 1 year baby, soraka to play, he would toss a banana into a 20% hp target and kill. Even if old dragon gave a burn effect and other stats, still other team had more opportunity to counterplay in a teamfight, U still could do something with low hp, while now u just get deleted. In my opinion the burn effect should replace execute, and the rest may be the same. Anyway will have fun lmao.

Now, going to runes.

Aftershock hands down, Riot finally listened to the players and changed it after 1 year or even more, this change was so easy to do, but I don't know what held riot, anyway it's good right now, and enchance tanks, not mages.

Nimbus cloak change, It's not bad and not good, it certainly buffs , but on the other hand nerfs r r r

And now to a bad part.

Conqueror true dmg was cancer, good that it's deleted, but 2 stacks per ability, more adaptive force and more sustain just to replace true dmg eh. The worst thing about it is, that it's not divided for bruisers and mages. I feel like and who knows who, will be broken due to the changes of 2 stacks per ability. I've played Azir already, and it's so easy to stack it, I felt like a raidboss when I could heal 15% of my dmg+ had a lot of free ap. It would be good rune if only bruisers would have acces to it, but meh it's impossible I guess.

Pressence of mind should be reverted. It gives too much mana resource( not to mention free bonus energy), and scale godlike for a champions i mentioned in conqueror theme. Mana band seems weak comparing to this rune now.

I don't know if conqueror changes were made on purpose to let mages actually use it, but it seems op, definetly nerf mage side if possible.

To summ up, I feel like, with these changes in preseason there will be even more things to balance. The worst thing about it is, that in previous season game was pretty unbalanced, and there are just new things added to the score. What are your thoughts about current game state?