Nexus Blitz Finally Returns to the Rift
In case you missed Riot Games’ announcement a few weeks ago— Nexus Blitz is coming back for the summer as the game mode accompanying the newest champion Lillia’s release.
Nexus Blitz Details
To refresh one’s memory, Nexus Blitz was once a more experimental game mode where the map featured a single lane that splits into two, where the top of the map has jungle camps. There are also some untargetable turrets in the jungle. Each game of Nexus Blitz last approximately 15 minutes, and at 18 minutes, an event is triggered that forces games to end soon thereafter.
Before loading into the game, players can choose either to lane or to jungle— choosing to be a laner makes one unable to pick Smite as their summoner spell, and picking jungle automatically assigns Smite as one of their summoner spells. There are two junglers per team. Each player also gets to ban a champion of their choice.
While Nexus Blitz is a game mode meant to be played for a shorter amount of time, its main difference from ARAM is the existence of events in the game designed to grant rewards, which would be sure tospeed up the gameplay and keep players on their toes. It’s the chaotic and action-packed nature of Nexus Blitz that sets it apart from every other game mode that has ever existed in League of Legends.
Nexus Blitz is coming back, but in a different and most likely better form. First off, the Nexus Blitz map will be sporting Ionian Spirit Blossom forest visuals, more events, and more rewards.
Nexus Blitz Events
Here is a list of the different events that are going to be in Nexus Blitz:
Bardle Royale- a fight for survival in a flaming circle of death that closes in somewhere in the map. Of course, the last surviving team wins. There are three variations of the Bardle Royale event: Classic, where it is just as I described, Paranoia, where everyone is nearsighted (think about a Nocturne ultimate affecting everyone in the map), and Juggernaut, where one random member of each team gets the On Fire! buff, gaining bonus attack speed, adaptive power, mana/energy regen, but becomes more vulnerable to damage.
URF Deathmatch- each player goes into URF mode, and you win when you defeat the enemy team in a best of three.
Loot Teemo – as the name implies, a Teemo spawns in a random location, granting gold to whoever hits it. The team that lands the last hit on Teemo wins.
Loot Veigar – mostly the same as the Loot Teemo, but this time Veigar uses Dark Matter and event Horizon while running around the map.
Push the cart – escort a cart by standing near it to move it to a nearby structure and destroy it. There are two variants of this event: classic, where it’s just as I just previously detailed, and Attack or Defend, where the two teams race for who can blow up an enemy structure the fastest. Both teams get a cart each for the second variant.
Prize Fight – an event where both teams face off in a series of rounds, both in 2v2s and 1v1s
King of the Hill – an area of the map is designated as “the hill” and both teams will have to fight for the position.
Scuttle Racing – two Rift Scuttlers are walking down a track, where one Rift Scuttler is assigned per team. The first one to reach the finish line wins for their team. They can be slowed by reducing their health or CCing them.
Protect the Soraka – two Sorakas appear on the map, and the goal here is to kill the enemy team’s Soraka. The Soraka that spawns is capable of autoattacking and healing.
DPS Check – two dummies spawn on the map, and each team has to out-damage the other team attacking the practice dummy.
Rewards for Winning Nexus Blitz Events
Here is a list of the event rewards, which are given randomly for winning an event:
Catapult of Champions – you get a cannon that launches your champion anywhere on the map, like in URF. When you land, you deal damage and push nearby enemies away. Pretty sweet.
Blessing of Blitzcrank – allied turrets, siege inions, and super minions have the ability to Rocket Grab nearby enemies for the rest of the game. Very annoying to deal with.
Poro King – the Poro King spawns to help your team in pushing forward and sieging enemy turrets, breathing fire on enemies and healing nearby allies. Reliable ally, and also very cute.
Battle Sled – players can jump aboard a sled from base to anywhere on the map. The first person on the sled is in charge of the movement.
Guardian Angels – you get a Guardian Angel buff that lasts for 90 seconds. It activates only once.
Statikk Shock – each player gets the Statikk Shock passive from Statikk Shiv for three minutes.
B.F. Shields – each member gain shields that last until they are broken.
Cloud Soul – the team gains out-of-combat movement speed and cooldown reduction on their ultimate for three minutes.
Ocean Soul – restore health and mana/energy when dealing damage for three minutes.
Elder Dragon – you can execute enemies under a specific health threshold, very much like the Elder Dragon buff in Summoner’s Rift.
Final Thoughts
Nexus Blitz has always been a fun game mode to try some champions and some unconventional builds around. In addition, it does not burn so much time, which means that if a game ends up not going well, people would not get held up in it. Nexus Blitz allows for a great amount of experimentation, while also allowing players to practice their team play and team fighting. It’s also a great place to blow off steam from your ranked matches!
As is the case with other game modes, there will be Nexus Blitz-specific balance changes while the game mode is active, which means that hopefully nothing will be severely overpowered in the duration of the event.
Have fun playing Nexus Blitz while it is around!