[New Map] The Horseshoe Rift, featuring a demon lord, a dragon tower, a swamp, and cowboys!

The horseshoe rift is a new 5v5 League of Legends map that focuses on creating intense fights around neutral objectives that are easy to “steal.”

While the Summoner's Rift map is balanced along the diagonal river, the Horseshoe rift is split vertically, with access lanes curving upwards from the bottom center, to each base. At the center is the swamp, where the Demon Lord will appear. Swamp camps are spread out across the map, creating a “Swamp” experience that is different from the “Jungle” experience of Summoner's Rift without being so different that players would be lost. Experienced players of Summoner's Rift should find the map an enjoyable and refreshing experience that doesn't feel like a flavor of the month short term thing.

There are three victory conditions.

1. You can win the game by destroying the enemy nexus.
2. You can win the game by slaying the Demon Lord three times.
3. You can win the game by getting an ACE on the enemy team 5 times.

In addition to being a victory condition on his own, the Demon Lord will also grant the “baron buff” (something similar) to the champions who kill him, or the minion that lands the killing blow. AND its death will open up a new lane into the enemy base, guarded by a fresh set of mystical towers.

There will also be a Dragon Tower in the lowest lane, midway between both bases, and hostile to both teams and their minions. The team that gets the kill on the dragon tower (the killing blow) gains the (now old) stacking dragon buff from Summoner's Rift (to be adjusted as needed later on)

While Summoner's Rift teams field two solo laners, two duo laners, and a jungler, this map will require other roles.

Players will have the ability to “Cowboy” minions into the upper lane, or deep into the swamp, where a minion wave will build up at the Demon Lord's spawn location and await its arrival. Managing the team's minion waves will be a very valuable skill in the game that all players must contribute to eventually. The cowboy will be a powerful tool of denial, sending minions where it will be hard to CS. By default all minions will walk along the outer path, crashing into the Dragon Tower.

Another player will need to act as the “Swamper,” keeping a regular patrol across the median of their area of the map, and clearing out the Bandits or Assassins (depending on their team) to prevent those swamp creeps from destroying entire minion waves and feeding the gold to the enemy team. If the swamper is killed, players will feel extremely pressured, having to pull back and play much more defensively.

The Dragon Tower

In the center of the outer lane at the bottom of the map, the Dragon Tower awaits, hostile to all. Depending on how many minions approach, and the timing of their approach (which can change due to the Cowboys of both teams), the Dragon Tower will change the way that it attacks targets.

The primary attack is a rapid fire version of a typical turret. This will happen when minions from both teams enter range at the same time or close enough to be considered identical timing. The Dragon Tower will fire in two streams of cannon shots, rotating around the cannon and locking on to targets after only a second of flight. Every third shot will prefer to target a champion in range if one is attacking the tower or another champion. Other shots will only target champions if no minions are in range. The two streams of cannon shots will act as different AI's, and will target champions from both teams at once if they can. It will be possible for the tower to fire on a single champion from both ends. This will hopefully be rare, but messy. The second form of the Dragon Tower's attacks is chain lightning. If minions come in from one direction before another, or far apart enough that the Dragon Tower sees the threat as only coming from one side, then it will fire at the nearest minion and chain a lightning damage spell along the path to hit up to 3 other targets, preferring champions if at all possible but latching on to the nearest target to the last one hit. The third form of the Dragon Tower's attacks is reserved for when a champion is the first to enter its range. The Dragon Tower will enrage, and its range will increase significantly. It will then cause meteors to crash down into clustered targets, dealing aoe damage to groups of champions or minions who are within range. These meteors will be hard to dodge. Clever players will look to trigger this when they see a low health champion on the other side of the tower just outside of its normal range, to get that champion killed. It will, however, be a dangerous and costly move. Minions will, of course, attack the Dragon Tower by default, and if one gets the killing blow on the Dragon Tower, that minion will level up, doubling its base hp and putting a feather in its hat.

The Demon Lord

In the center top of the map, surrounded by swamp traps and creep spawns, is a large area of brush that is marked in the center by a demonic seal. This is where a demon has been imprisoned, and when the game hits an in-game counter of total minions + champions killed, the Demon Lord will spawn in the center of the brush, igniting it, burning away a large swath of brush that spreads out across the map. Some pockets of brush will remain behind afterward but the absence will be noteworthy. Any players caught in the ignited brush will be subject to a summoner spell ignite courtesy of the Demon Lord (who can level up if it kills a player, granting it a crown of fire and blood).

The Demon Lord's attacks are magical in nature, and it will create explosions of fire and blood that erupt from the ground upwards. The Demon Lord recoils at the idea of entering melee combat or touching one of the filthy creatures of the realm, so all of its attacks are ranged and it is empowered somewhat if there are no champions or minions in melee range. When not in combat, the Demon Lord charges up an initial strike, and its first attack on targets that enter its range has a slightly longer warmup (and is thus easier to dodge), but deals more damage. This should end up causing champions to have to commit a full wave of minions and at least a few champions to taking out the demon Lord, one of which might have to be melee in case the melee minions are taken out in the initial volley.

The Demon Lord's death should be spectacular, with its body dying in the direction of the enemy nexus, and its bony finger pointing towards the enemy base, opening up the “Demon Lane” and enabling the winning team to siege the base more easily now that they have a third lane. The second time that the Demon Lord is killed by that team, in addition to opening up the Demon Lane again, the celestial tower defending the nexus will be destroyed, making the siege even easier. The third Demon Lord kill will destroy the Nexus outright, with a demonic fissure that will erupt along the ground, condemning that realm to an eternity of torment as the Demon Lord escapes its prison and heads to their land.

Swamp Creeps

There are numerous different camps of swamp creeps that span the map, but unlike Summoner's Rift, these creeps will interact with your minion waves, destroying them or stalling them, affecting the pace of the game in very subtle ways that will grant advantages to players who know more about the map.

The Bandits and the Assassins

On the Gold team's side (the left of the map), there is a group of Assassins that will ambush and attack the first minion wave. Gold team will receive a warning at the beginning of the game that ASSASSINS are striking, with a large ping on the minimap and in the game itself. It will be impossible to stop the entire wave from killing at least one minion, because at least two of the assassins will spawn in mid-finishing strike. For each minion killed by the assassins, a larger-than-normal gold reward for that creep will be put on a stagecoach that rides off in the distance, warping to the enemy base and delivering a payout to the enemy team.

For the Royal team (purple side, on the right), the enemies that strike the minion wave are Bandits, not assassins. This reflects the difference between the two teams. The royals hire assassins, the king of thieves hires bandits. These swamp creeps are tied to their respective teams, and you can't invade the enemy side of the map and kill them to deny the enemy team the gold from their kill.

The Horses

On the gold team's side, in the southwest, there is a small mountainous hill range where a group of horses ride clockwise around the hills. This swamp camp doesn't get killed in the way that a normal camp would in Summoner's Rift. Instead, to claim the camp, one must wait for the horses to begin their run across the near side of the hill. Simply outrun the horses to gain the buff from them, which grants a 2 minute boost to movement speed in the swamp. This buff is intended to give Gold team the ability to extend into the royal side early in the game to potentially break an early game stalemate if there is one. It also serves as an important objective late game, when the movement speed can allow you to cover an extra important objective, but also pushes you to overextend, and can endanger an ace victory. Cassiopeia may want to avoid them, as horses hate snakes. It is noteworthy that in the late game, the Horses will be a mini objective that the teams will fight over, and it will be unique.

The Sirens

On the royal team's side, in the southeast, but north of the outer lane road, there is a group of sirens lounging in a pool. They are not attackable. The sirens will tease champions that stray too close, stunning that player for 1 second and granting a small amount of gold. Players who dive into the pool expecting a quick clear will find that the sirens will chain-cc them, keeping them stunned for up to 7 seconds (but granting the gold). This makes this camp the easiest to “counter-swamp” and the sirens will undoubtedly be the demise of many players who think they can simply walk over for free gold and experience. Once the 7th siren has used her stun and granted her gold and experience, the champion that benefited from the most number of sirens (the most recent if in the event of a tie) will be granted the “wisdom” of the sirens, and their next autoattack or single target spell on an enemy champion will stun for 2 seconds. This makes the siren buff incredibly valuable for punishing players who overextend, especially if they do so because of the Horses buff. Like the Horses buff, the siren buff is intended to be a unique buff that teams fight over in the late game.

The Red and Blue Demonic Seals

Inside the swamp, along the ledges to the east and west, there are symbols of the magic used to seal away the Demon Lord that have weakened to the point where it has escaped. Although these seals no longer keep the Demon Lord contained, you can draw upon their power to grant yourself temporary might or mana, though you must be careful to dodge some of the magical energy that remains behind. Walking onto the demonic seal will trigger an event where you must move to dodge as many of the stray energy flares as you can while walking over the smaller runes of protection. Think of it like a miniature DDR. Hit all the buttons you need, and you can even get the buff without taking damage. Champions with innate movement abilities will have an easier time, but need to be careful to avoid overshooting the target spots. These Demonic Seals grant gold and experience, same as any other swamp camp.

Swamp Wraiths

Two wraith camps exist along the outer road, one in the southwest, north of the road, in between the outer and inner lanes, and the other in the southeast, south of the outer road. This means that the horses, the sirens, and the wraiths all correspond to mirrored positions but are not symmetric. The wraiths will slow minions along the lanes that they correspond to, until they are killed. The Gold team's wraiths can slow minions in both the inner and outer lanes, but the Royal team's wraiths can only slow minions in the outer lane. This means that both teams have different options for how to proceed. The Gold wraiths will prefer to slow minions in the outer lane if there are any there, but if the Gold team prefers, they can cowboy minions into the inner lane and the swamp, ignoring the outer lane completely, and then, if the royal team funneled minions into the inner lane, those minions will end up crashing into each other closer to the Gold tower than the middle of the map, setting up strategic plays out of the gate and giving players the ability to control some more tactical elements of the game than they normally get.

Imps

Inside the swamp, there are imps that fire volleys of flares at travelers. While these imps would be lethal to normal unwary travelers, most champions will find them just a nuisance. The imps harass the path into the swamp for both teams, and there are two respective camps. If a team does not send any minions into the swamp, they run the risk of the other team clearing out the camp of imps on their side, and sneaking up from behind. Imp flares can be seen from the minimap, but do not reveal vision.

The ledges Along the east and west sides of the swamp there are one-way ledges that allow players to quickly escape a fight by leaping down, back towards the safety of the inner turrets at their base. However, nothing prevents the enemy from pursuing, so if the safety of a turret is not enough, or if the turret is down, this is just a way to delay the inevitable.

Cowboying At the point in the road where the lanes fork, there will be two spots on the ground marking directions for the minions to take. Each minion will pause for a split second at the point where the road forks, and if a champion is standing on one of the two markers, the minion will take the corresponding path. Players will want to move between the two markers to send each minion into the lane of their choice, and if two players are standing on both the inner lane marker and the swamp marker, minions will alternate between the two paths in a compromise. No player standing on a marker – the minion resumes its path in the outer lane (the bottom most lane). Player standing on inner lane marker – the minion walks along the inner lane (the lane above lowest). Player standing on swamp marker – the minion marches into the swamp, towards the Demon Lord. Players standing on both markers – minions alternate between heading into the inner lane and heading into the swamp. Minions heading into the outer lane will crash into the Dragon Tower, and the Dragon Tower's attacks change based on whether minions approach from both sides at the same time.

Summoner Spells

Flash and Ghost are disallowed. The map is intended to be more condensed, with most fighting objectives centralized, but with much more clear consequences of bad positioning. The ledges provide the ability to escape or pursue much like Flash would normally allow, and giving flash to players in addition to the ledges would give players the ability to “flash out” up to three times in short succession, which is obviously way more than would be healthy. Ghost is disallowed because it would be a mandatory mobility pick, and it is simply best to take the option away from all players rather than force players to use half their options on the one most necessary. Without Ghost, the Horses buff becomes more valuable and less dangerous (because it's one less stacking movement speed buff). Basically you move slower in the swamp. (Even if it doesn't really make sense. Sorry Rek'sai) Teleport will be a spell to keep an eye on. It might be extra powerful because of the focus on minions, or because of the lack of other mobility options. It is probably going to end up being the escape spell of choice.

Runes, Masteries, and Items

It is too early to tell if there will need to be changes made for runes and masteries.

Swamp Boots – Whereas in the Jungle you need a good Machete or Knife, in the Swamp your most trusted friend is a good solid pair of boots. Swampers will be focusing on mobility, and will need to cover a lot of ground while setting up plays across the map. Your choice of Swamp Boots will determine whether you will gain strength in cross-map visibility, objective clearing speed, or speed theft for ganking.

Crikeys – These boots look hideous and impractical but modify your Smite spell so that you can smite players to steal some of their movement speed for yourself. You also debuff their damage against you and gain bonus damage while attacking them (whether or not they are the only target).

Doc Marsh'ins – These boots grant movement speed when within range of an uncleared swamp camp, and slightly boosted health regeneration when attacked by a player while clearing a camp. Your smite can affect enemy champions, but is not as strong as the Gator Smite because it only does damage, not a debuff. They are also quite stylish.

Bogstroms – These tall boots will keep almost your entire leg dry in the swamp, and come with the ability to place wards as you travel the swamp, so that you can make sure everyone's paying attention to you. Even though the in-game price is the same, you can't shake the feeling these boots are a lot more expensive. The intended pacing of the game

Summoner's Rift is a map where there are clear objectives on several minute timers that teams fight over in a balanced arena, and Baron and Dragon and the enemy base are the three main objectives, with the enemy team's base being “the only objective.”

The horseshoe rift is intended to be another map for League of Legends to have in premium rotation, delivering an equally intense game experience that can more reliably end at or before a given time. (I've heard that the magic number is 25 minutes, so we should aim for that). Due to the multiple victory conditions, it will be very rare for a game not to be decided one way or the other (or the other) by then.

Right out of the gate both teams will have an immediate objective front and center. Gold team has to attack the Assassins that are attacking the opening minion wave, and Royal (purple) team has to attack the bandits that are attacking their opening minion wave. The game will tell the players how important these two objectives are, by putting a giant skull on the minimap at that camp's spawn location with giant red arrows pointing to it and its importance, and the word “ASSASSINS” or “BANDITS” will appear as well. It will be impossible to prevent the camps from killing at least one minion out of the wave. Both teams are trying to minimize the damage, not prevent it outright. For each minion that these camps kill, the enemy team gets fed gold, and it will be obvious to the team that performed poorly. This will probably best be done with a screen wide message that says “Enemy team received 50g from the assassins” or whatever amount of gold is most appropriate. Letting minions die to this camp is NOT to be cost efficient. The gold per kill on minions should be at least double.

After that first objective is settled, teams will be moving toward objectives in different respective areas of the map. There are three of note.

1. The Horses
2. The Dragon Tower
3. The Sirens

It is unlikely that a team would be able to get all three without mistakes being made by the other team. If one player is trying to get the sirens buff, the other team should be able to take the Horses with a numbers advantage. If a team is busy getting the horses, they are less likely to be able to harass the person taking the sirens.

Teams should at this point be focusing on dedicating just enough minions to the dragon tower to secure a kill, with the main goal being to get the last hit and letting the enemy waste as much as possible trying to secure it. If the dragon tower goes down, the lower lane becomes a laning experience with the possibility of a player in the upper lane being able to harass with long range down into that lane.

If players are confident in their ability to get opponents to back away, they can start building up a huge group of minions in the swamp, with the goal being to build up an army to take down the Demon Lord when it spawns.

At this point the game begins the main phase.

1. Teams must have a person to clear out the Bandits/Assassins every time they're about to spawn. Losing an entire wave to them is a horrible thing because it's like giving every member of the opposing team a free wave. Which means, each team needs a person dedicated to that (the swamper). Which means, killing that target is a high priority.

2. Swamp monsters are a contested source of income that forms most of the micro management of the game.

3. Forming a large army of minions and protecting it in the middle of the map is desired, but not expected.

4. Keeping track of the number of minion, monster, and player kills needed to summon the Demon Lord is going to be HARD to do, and being in the brush when it burns is dangerous. This means that players need to be hopping around from brush to brush in anticipation of the reveal.

5. The Dragon Tower is a huge stacking objective that will be difficult to safely secure. It's intended to be a contested objective that can be easily stolen, and will probably end up that way more often than not. Teams will want to have at least part of their roster there to contest, to make sure they don't accidentally give away a huge objective.

6. The Demon Lord is a massive objective that will hopefully force teams to make difficult decisions about how to split their forces and where they have to go and what they have to take.

Once a certain number of minions, swamp monsters, and players have been killed, the game moves into the next phase, which has slight changes to the focus of the game.

1. The Demon Lord is probably the easiest victory condition and thus the most important. It can be stolen, and thus should always result in a fight. If the Demon Lord is on the map, all players must focus on that objective. When the Demon Lord is up, the rest of the map is faded out and all persons' minimaps should point to him. This even takes precedence over the things below. If the Demon Lord would be the third kill for the enemy team (which wins the game), then there should be a cackling skull on the minimap, at its location, denoting that YOU WILL LOSE if you don't kill it.

2. The Bandits/Assassins are huge objectives that need to be cleared as soon as they spawn. The swamper is the person entrusted with this, but anyone nearby should not hesitate to clear it. When they spawn, there will be large arrows on the map pointing to them and huge lettering denoting how important they are, along with audio feedback denoting when they're about to spawn because they're THAT SERIOUS.

3. Two players on each team are massive objectives. The swamper is a huge target because of their role in clearing out the bandits/assassins. If the swamper is taken out, it means a huge pile of cash is possibly about to fall into the enemy team's hands. Alongside that, the person designated as cowboy is also a huge target. Taking out the other team's cowboy forces that team to either put another person in the line of fire where they just lost someone, or have the entire minion waves crash into the dragon tower (which would presumably then be easy to steal the last hit on). This means that unlike summoner's rift which favors a carry-based meta (in which the teams have one major player on the team that is a huge objective), this map turns that into 2.

Also, in the event of an ACE, the entire defeated team will respawn at their base. This means that if a team kills all but 1 of the enemy team, they might face the very difficult decision of whether to kill that player and respawn the entire enemy team, or leave them alive and try to focus an objective. This drastically increases the intensity of fights even if they are very lopsided. Janna can steal barons! The Lore Gold versus Royal? Why not just say purple? Why separate Bandits on one side and Assassins on the other? WTF, man?

Well, there's a story. (Lore fans: “YAY!”)

Three eternities ago, there were two lands that wanted to open up trade, one was a land ruled by the “forest thieves” who had overthrown their corrupt prince and created a lucrative capitalist democratic republic. The other was a land ruled by the Shah, a powerful desert capital filled with riches from faraway lands and curiosity that would only be sated by gold.

These two lands existed in distrust of one another until they formed an alliance, creating a waypoint between the two lands that allowed free trade between each other. That waypoint was a place between worlds, a curved road around a swamp that became known as the most lucrative and safe of all paths to wealth. It even became home to a blacksmith who loved the horses of this small dimensional pocket land, and who invented shoes for them, creating a name for the rift. And for an eternity, there was peace.

In a bid for power, one of the lieutenants of the Bandit King kidnapped the oldest daughter of the Shah, and left evidence at the scene to implicate his own King. Although the Shah would not have acted on this information, for he was a cruel and uncaring person, his vassals and assistants fled, fearing retaliation. Facing such extreme levels of disrespect, the Shah ordered the assassination of the King. And for an eternity, there was war.

A rather brilliant member of the Bandits discovered something amazing: their two lands had come from different worlds. Although there was a land on their world that matched the Shah's land, it had not had contact with the bandits for so long that it was thought they were a myth. When this bandit found what would be the Shah's capitol city, there was a floating palace that hovered over the common folk, high in the sky. Although magic prevented anyone from using an arrow and rope from climbing up to the floating palace, the bandit discovered a way to pull it down. With the palace hitting the ground, the second eternity ended. Both portals were sealed shut forever, and the rift was lost. And for an eternity, the rift was forgotten.

Until an enterprising mage decided to use the forgotten rift to seal away a powerful demon that could not be destroyed. The demon, sensing the presence of powerful evil beings in the rift, communed with an order of assassins sworn to hunt down and destroy all of the bandits for their ancient misdeeds. The demon opened the portal to the world of the bandits and allowed one of the assassins through.

That brings us to the present. Just days ago, that unknown assassin killed every living being in the ancient palace, and it rose slowly back into the sky. The portals are open again, and we know what the demon plans.

One of these realms is Runeterra, and the other, someone unfortunate. We know that a team of warriors from that realm have been sent to chase the Demon into ours. You have to head there with a team of champions from our world. You have to stop them. If they push the demon out into our world, it's all over. You have to send it into theirs. It's a lot to ask, traveler, but your world needs you. Fail, and Runeterra is condemned to become hell for an eternity.

Pictures here: https://imgur.com/gallery/fCb8G