Picture the scene: you’re a League of Legends TFT minion, and the Apex Legends ring is closing in around you. That’s it, that’s the pitch. Riot’s latest mode for the iconic MOBA, entitled Arena, thrusts you into a 2v2 battle against a host of other duos, transforming the League of Legends champions you know and love into tiny, rather adorable versions of themselves.
In your pair, you’ll face off against another duo in rotating combat. There’s a ban phase, then you’ll move into a Blind pick phase where you can’t see your enemies’ champions. Yes, you can in fact face mirror matchups of your own team and, yes, it sounds like chaos.
I’d by lying, though, if I said this didn’t sound like TFT, Riot’s League of Legends-inspired auto battler. There are powerful Augments, a shop phase, and then prescribed battle phases. Where it differs, however, is that Soul Fighter champions (Evelynn, Gwen, Jhin, Lux, Naafiri, Pyke, Samira, Sett, Shaco, and Viego) can intervene in your battles, but whether or not they have a positive or negative impact depends on the situation.
From round four onwards, you’ll start to see some familiar faces wreak havoc on your games. Evelynn, for example, grants all players camouflage, whereas Pyke will use his Phantom Undertow (E) on a random player. If Viego appears, then any player who dies will become Viego for a time, and Jhin may just bring down the curtain call, alternating his shots on his two victims.
That’s not all, though, as with every 40 seconds of combat, a huge fiery ring around the arena starts to close, shrinking every ten seconds and dealing ramping max percentage health true damage. It’s Apex Legends meets League of Legends meets TFT – try saying that fast.
To mitigate the damage from the ring, there are Power Flowers scattered across the arena (LoL meets TFT meets Apex meets Mario). These can grant significant healing, shielding, or cooldown refunds, so they’re worth fighting for.
There is a slew of different maps, numerous unique items and Augments to choose from and, in all honestly, it sounds like an absolute blast. As someone who has grown a little tired of 2v2s in the botlane that quickly snowball out of control, I’m excited to give this one a go. After all, I do love anything that involves Evelynn.
Ahead of the new event, make sure you check out our LoL tier list so that you can warm up in solo queue. We also have a rundown of all of the new and upcoming League of Legends skins, with our eyes firmly primed on Star Guardian Seraphine and Senna, as well as the new Soul Fighter cosmetics.