Alcove Idea

This coming season, many changes are being made to Summoner's Rift. One of the more interesting, albeit least impactful, is the addition of two areas on the top left and bottom right corners of the map. Called "alcoves," these small balconies are intended to offer side-laners a pinch of versatility when it comes to maneuvering around the lane. In theory, adding a bit of area to the map, (the dimensions of which have remained static for the past decade,) is a really good way to add some variety to the all but stagnant game. In practice, the alcoves only see meaningful use by champions which can traverse unpathable terrain when their opponent happens to somehow position around the alcove wall, or by sneaky junglers setting up lane ganks that might not have been possible otherwise. In order to deliver a little better on the objective of making things interesting, I have proposed three enhancements to these otherwise empty platforms.

First, the lightest proposal, Vegetation. We are all more than familiar with the vegetarian bounty that sprouts in our beloved rift. League's active players by now understand the mechanics of the blast cone, stand on one side, hit it, and fly in the direction of the side on which you are standing. Scrying orbs are similar, stand on one side, hit it, and an area on the other side will be swept. And honeyfruit could hardly be simpler, smack the plant for a delicious treat that restores health and resource. Suppose only honeyfruit were to sprout periodically in each of the alcoves, this would give a real reason to keep an eye on them. This would make outplays in them much more clutch, and would incentivize controlling them by rewarding extra sustain. Limiting the plants that spawn here to only honeyfruit would make alcoves always relevant to lane-phase without introducing much chaos. Control the alcove, get sustain. Lose the alcove, enemy gets some sustain, but there is counterplay to that. But maybe that's not fresh enough, so staying in line with season 10's theme of keeping things fresh, it isn't too crazy to propose that ANY of the wacky SR flora could spawn here. Getting ganked? Dip into the alcove and take the blastcone express to safety! Out of wards and think 6/1 Kat is making her way to stick up for those innocent minion's you have been slaughtering? A well-angled scryer's bloom might clear things up... But maybe that's too much rng. Of course only one could spawn at a time, and it would be up to your ingenuity to make the best use of the opportunity that rngesus has given you.

Next, a slightly crazier proposal, Vision Altars. If the name "altar" reminds you of a kind of boring mechanic from Twisted Treeline, then that's good. You already know how to capture the SR counterpart. Just like in TT, you stand on these circular platforms for an amount of time and then it's captured for you and your team. However instead of granting your team bonus xp and gold over time, or whatever other buffs they give in 3v3, they instead grant your team vision relics, similar to what scuttle does, placed in the bush between red buff and baron pit, the single bush in the river, and the new bush between blue buff and baron pit, but only on the side of the map corresponding with the captured altar. Unlike the 3v3 variant, you are not revealed to the enemy when you are capturing it, and you do not get vision of the altar if you have captured it. After capturing, the altar locks for an amount of time. The only award the altar gives to the captor is vision score, 3 points if it was captured alone, 2 points each if there were two captors, and 1 point each if there were more than two captors. If one of your teammates stands in the altar with you to capture it, it captures faster, like in TT. This would be a good way to tie the sidelanes in with the rest of the map in a way that wouldn't effect the actual stats of the players. This would free up your teammates wards, allowing them to place them in areas they might not get to otherwise, giving you a perfect way to translate your lane victory into a strategic benefit to the rest of your team. However, not being able to clear this vision while on the enemy team may feel too dominant as there are not many ways to counter this aside from sending everyone top/bot to wrest control of the pesky altar. But it would give a unique goal for supports during the midgame. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Finally, the heaviest proposal, Treasure Chests. This would function similarly to the altars mentioned previously, except they would appear as small metal chests. If you stand near them for an amount of time, they spring open and a loot bag pops out. The loot bag is pretty much a reskin of the Eye of the Herald in that it works the same, you walk over it to capture it. Only the team that opened the chest can capture the loot bag, but the enemy can still defend it to prevent the bonus from being acquired. If a champion captures the loot bag, they are granted a random item of the following: boots of speed (if not already in their inventory), cloth armor, dagger, amplifying tome, sapphire crystal, dark seal, longsword, ruby crystal, brawler's gloves, null-magic mantle, or any of the three doran's items (non-consumeable, non-gold income/jg items within the price range of 300g-450g.) If a champion's inventory is full, that champion will not be able to capture the loot bag, and so the bonus will need to be claimed by a different teammate. For the sake of stability the chests should be limited to spawning once every ten minutes or something like that. This would open up some really interesting scenarios. Obviously this would benefit champions that can make use of many different stats the most, but even if you're Riven top and you get granted an amp tome you could still cash it in on your next back to buy a bf sword a little easier. Or say that Riven gets a doran's ring, pretty useless right? Except that now she has 60 additional hp and 5 on-hit dmg toward minions that she didn't have before all on top of a little extra gold on her next back. Or maybe you're Nami support, and you find that you have out sustained both your adc and the enemy adc as well as the enemy supp, and you find yourself alone in lane twiddling your thumbs. Normally you might wander the map looking for clever places to ward or help out mid, but what's this? The treasure chest spawned in the alcove? You capture it and are gifted a dark seal. Full AP Nami rampage ensues. Or maybe you defend it with your life until daddy Draven arrives and he gets lucky and is granted a longsword. He was going to go infinity edge first but he decides to go essence reaver now that it's 350 gold cheaper. Is your 1/9 yasuo stinking up the mid lane again? Show him the compassion we have all come to expect from the league community and let him pick up that loot bag. Ya never know, he might roll a brawler's gloves. And ya never know, that brawler's gloves could be all he needed to go from 1/9 to 19/9 and win your promo game for you.

Of course, all of this might favor sustain-oriented champions a bit too much, as the more time you spend in lane, the more likely you will be to reap the rewards of each of these proposals. Or maybe the honeyfruit thing would push down the power of sustain champs because then anyone would be able to sustain provided they were aggressive enough. I really can't predict all of the implications that would stem from each of these ideas but I do know one thing: they would include the alcoves into the rest of the map. Because, right now, they're just kinda there. They're like awkward little earlobes on a massive square head. Vestigial earlobes, because they don't actually do anything and the rift can't hear things. And anyway, a dash of unpredictability is what made this game fun once upon a time, and that is something it has been lacking lately.