Ten players, one champion: Riot introduce League of Legends’ One for All: Mirror Mode

Mirror Mode is the latest in a series of fleeting Featured Game Modes from Riot.

League of Legends is a game carefully tuned to a very particular set of specifications – which means there’s a lot of joy to be found in applying paperweights to its sacred scales once in a while.

Riot did that with One for All – a temporary, alternate game mode that let everybody on a team play as the same champion, if they liked. Mirror Mode is its logical, enforced conclusion: a Howling Abyss rule switch which casts all 10 players in the lanes as the same champion.

“We’ve moved the action to the Howling Abyss and changed the rules so players on both teams clash with the same champ,” write Riot. “Soon you’ll really play pinball with Monsoons, dodgeball with Dark Spheres or hide-and-seek with ten times the Noxious Traps.”

The champion is chosen during a pre-match vote. All players will nominate a character, and a strict majority will lead to an instant pick.

Given the range of LoL’s roster, though, a majority is unlikely. More likely is that four players will pick one champion, three will pick another, and the last three will all pick different champions.

In that scenario, Riot determine the winner using a weighted dice roll. So there’ll be a 40% chance everybody plays the most popular champion, a 30% chance they play the next, and 10% chance each for the remaining choices.

A pre-match tracker shows the nominated champions – allowing players to compromise and vote tactically for a likely winner.

Players will unlock a One for All icon after their first game in Mirror Mode – though it’ll take a few days to arrive in their accounts. They’ll also have the option to buy a team Battle Boost pre-match – which temporarily unlocks every alt skin for the chosen champion, and grants an 100 IP boost for one game.

Mirror Mode will be live from May 29 till June 8. It was inspired by “feedback from you guys”, we’re told. Do you like the sound of it?

Thanks, Reign of Gaming.