From this next PreSeason 2021, since it would cost any Jungle Champions to spend extra 1500 – 1600 Gold to buy Enchantment for their Jungle Items, Riot decides they will make some adjustments.
As stated from the dev blog, from Pre-Season 2021, Riot will replace all the existed Jungle Items that are currently available in this Season to replace it with 2 brand new ones. They also shared their thoughts about their aim in the next Season: “We’re taking cues from last year’s update to support items which reduced support gold investment in their item to a one-time starter purchase. Junglers will pick one of two starter items which, after Smiting a few times, will disappear from their inventory to permanently grant its effects as a passive and upgrade Smite to Chilling or Challenging.”
Riot has already introduced tons of changes and balance for Old and New items in League of Legends, how can they forget the Jungle. Next year, Jungler Players will have 2 options: either Doran’s Forgeheart or Doran’s Hailseed, which only can be purchased once at the start of the Pre-Season 2021 match.
Doran’s Forgeheart
350 Gold
+10% Omnivamp vs. monsters
Tooth & Nail: Damaging monsters burns them for (2% Bonus Health) (+10% Ability Power) (+5% Bonus Attack Damage) magic damage over 5 seconds. Monsters who would die to the burn die immediately.
Ashen Path: Smiting 5 times consumes this item to upgrade your Smite to Challenging Smite and grant the effects of this item permanently.
Huntsman: Killing Large Monsters grants 60 bonus experience. The first Large Monster killed grants 150 bonus experience instead.
Leyline Walker: Regenerate up to 8-15 (lv 1-18) mana per second when in the Jungle or River, based on missing mana.
Doran’s Hailseed
350 gold
+10% Omnivamp vs. monsters
Tooth & Nail: Damaging monsters burns them for (2% Bonus Health) (+10% Ability Power) (+5% Bonus Attack Damage) magic damage over 5 seconds. Monsters who would die to the burn die immediately.
Frostworn Path: Smiting 5 times consumes this item to upgrade your Smite to Chilling Smite and grant the effects of this item permanently.
Huntsman: Killing Large Monsters grants 60 bonus experience. The first Large Monster killed grants 150 bonus experience instead.
Leyline Walker: Regenerate up to 8-15 (lv 1-18) mana per second when in the Jungle or River, based on missing mana.
Conclusion – Jungle PreSeason 2021
In the end, as these items only cost 350 Gold, these will not have many differences compared to the other. The one and only major difference between them belongs to the “Frostworn Path” passive. Forgeheart will grant you “Challenging Smite” and Hailseed gives you “Chilling Smite“. The other noticeable thing is that the Jungle Items will actually disappear and become passive after the 10th Smite.
This will open wider items choices for every Jungle Champions, allowing them to build their core as quickly as possible. With Mage champions such as Lillia, she only reaches her peak after the 3rd or 4th items, unlike Lillia, Bruiser champions like Lee Sin and Graves are able to destroy the mid-game with their 2nd items. As Mark “Scruffy” Yetter also posted a Tweet yesterday, with the Jungle changes in general and the Movement Speed changes to be specific from the next Pre-Season 2021, “Mutation” Jungle Champions such as Yasuo, Kaisa, etc will not become a good option anymore as kiting is hit fairly hard.
As all the exciment starting to unveil themselves, we are extremely hoping for all the changes Riot has made for Pre-Season 2021.