There were a lot of changes to the Dragon Objective in League of Legends for Season 10, and it has become a huge focus for many games with the introduction to Dragon Souls. Some even consider the new Dragon to be a win condition. A win condition is a specific means or strategy which can achieve victory. We are going to be covering everything to do with the new Dragon objectives and the best way to play around them.

First off we will go over each type of Dragon, what buffs they provide, and Dragon spawns. Then once we have a good understanding of what the dragons provide, we’ll go over the best ways to strategize and secure those Dragons.

Fighting Dragons

All Dragons will start a fight by taking flight. This will knockback all nearby champions. Dragons are also equipped with 30% armor penetration and their basic attacks deal bonus physical damage equal to 7% of the target’s current health. These attacks are treated as spells, so they can be blocked by spell shields, but things such as Ninja Tabi’s passive and other basic attack blocking abilities will be ineffective!

There is also a unique passive Elemental Drakes possess known as Ancient Grudge, which will grant them a buff of 20% bonus damage and 7% damage reduction against champions with Dragon Slayer stacks (based on how many dragons have been slain). So the more dragons you have slain, the tougher they will be!

The Elemental Drakes

 Cloud Drake:

Slaying the Cloud Drake will provide you with Cloudbringer’s Grace, providing you and your team with 10/20/30/40% ultimate cooldown reduction, ignoring the regular cooldown reduction cap.

The Cloud Drake Soul will provide your entire team with 10% movement speed, moving up to 50% movement speed when casting your ultimate.

 Mountain Drake:

Slaying the Mountain Drake will give you Mountainous Vigor, giving you and your team 6/12/18/24% armor and magic resistance.

The Mountain Drake Soul provides a shield for 200 (+0.2 bonus attack damage) (+0.15 ability power) (+0.15 bonus health) after not being in combat for 5 seconds.

 Infernal Drake:

Slaying the Infernal Drake will grant your team with Infernal Might, giving 4/8/12/16% attack damage and ability power

The Infernal Drake Soul will make damaging abilities and attacks create an explosion that deals 80 (+0.25 bonus attack damage) (+0.15 ability power) (+0.03 bonus health) damage to the target and nearby enemies

 Ocean Drake:

Slaying the Ocean drake will provide your team with Oceanic Will, restoring 2.5/5/7.5/10% of missing health every 5 seconds

The Ocean Drake Soul entails that dealing damage to enemies heals you for 160 (+0.4 bonus attack damage) (+0.25 ability power) (+0.1 bonus health) and restores 80 (+0.04 maximum mana) mana over 3 seconds (reduced to 30% vs monsters and minions)

Dragon Spawns

First Drake: At the 5:00 minute mark, a random elemental drake will spawn.

Second Drake: Once the first Drake has been slain, an elemental drake that is different from the first one spawns 5 minutes after.

Rift Changes: After the second Drake is slain, an element is chosen and the Rift is changed based on that element. From that point on, only the Drake of that element will spawn. Here are the different elemental rifts and what changes occur.

Cloud Rift: Air currents are placed through the area of Blue and Red buffs, giving a speed boost. The Dragon pit also has a speed boost within it as well. The speed zones grant 20% bonus movement speed

Infernal Rift: Brush and pathways are changed around Red and Blue buff, and the Dragon pit widens

Mountainous Rift: Two pieces of rock are put into each jungle quadrant, and a rock formation rises in front of the Dragon pit.

Ocean Rift: Most brush within the jungle will grow much larger and there will be new Honeyfruit spawns near Red and Blue buff. There will also be newly added puddles to the jungle, which can trigger the functions of the Waterwalking rune and even Qiyana’s Terrashape. There is also new brush patches around the Dragon pit.

Rift Drake: Once the 2nd Drake has been slain, another drake will spawn in the form of the element of the rift. This will continue to repeat every 5 minutes until one team has secured their fourth drake and acquired the respective Dragon Soul.

Elder Dragon: Once a team has killed their 4th drake and secured their Dragon Soul, no more elemental drakes will spawn and will be replaced with the Elder Dragon, which will spawn 6 minutes after the last drake was slain. This will continually repeat from this point on.

Elder Dragon buff: Slaying the Elder Dragon providing a buff where damaging enemies causes them to burn for true damage (based on game duration) over 3 seconds. Damaging an enemy champion below 20% health blasts them with Dragonfire, dealing 100% of their maximum HP as true damage.

Strategizing around Dragon

Dragon is very clearly an important objective in Season 10. No matter which role you play, paying attention to Dragons is essential at all stages of the game. I will go over some tips you can apply to be better prepared for when it is time to secure Dragon. The images below will be showcasing where to place wards/control wards and where to sweep vision.

In the early game, the first drake is mostly the jungler’s main task. It is usually important for the bot lane as well because if they have lane priority (advantage in minion wave pushing/kill pressure), that is a 2 champion advantage if a fight around Dragon were to occur. Secure the 1st Dragon if your jungler is fast at killing dragon and can solo it (make sure the enemy team does not have vision), you get kills bottom and are healthy enough to do it safely as a team, or if you have a stronger early game teamfight composition and can force a fight and secure dragon after.

2nd and 3rd drakes can be crucial win conditions for each team. It can be the difference between being down two Dragons, evening up objective control, and setting a team up to have a Dragon Soul win condition in the palm of their hands. Usually by this part of the game, it is possible for Top laners to Teleport or even roam down to Dragon. Make sure to always pay attention to those timers! If there is a minute or minute and a half before the dragon, quickly push waves and back to prepare yourself for the upcoming Dragon. Buy control wards and roam with your team to secure vision before Dragon spawns. The earlier you get to Dragon, the higher chance you have to secure vision and maybe even get a free kill on someone trying to get vision for their team. Getting the Rift Scuttler can provide extra speed and vision which can be beneficial before a big dragon fight. As Dragons are more important now than they ever have been, it will likely be a 4 to 5 person teamfight, so remember to play your role in the fight and look for opportunities to start fights with your team!

Pay attention to Lane Priority! If your bot lane and mid are pushed to their tower and under pressure from the enemy team, starting a Dragon is a huge risk and you could potentially get collapsed on and even have Dragon stolen sometimes! That is why it is important to work as a team and realize the positions of all players on the map before making large objective decisions.

Preventing a team from their 4th drake can be as impactful as losing a Baron. Depending on the situation of the game, securing a 4th Dragon can give your team a massive teamfight buff, while Baron creates a lot more map pressure and is better for pushing as a team. Pay attention to what each team composition is better suited for, and set up for those objectives! If the enemy team is forcing a lot of teamfights and has a lot of engage, it may be wise to prioritize the Dragon Soul so your team can compete and possibly gain an advantage, but if your team struggles to gain turrets due to strong wave clear from the other team, prioritizing a Baron play can force them out of their lanes and if you do secure Baron, you will be in a good position to make a strong push!

Dragon as a Win Condition:

To put things simply, Dragon is a very powerful tool and makes you and your team extremely strong. Depending on which Elemental Drakes are present in your game, it can give different champions and compositions more significant advantages.

For example, if there are a lot of Infernal Drakes in the game, having champions such as Karthus and other late game scaling champions will take huge benefit to the Infernal Might buff as the game duration continues and the stats become more useful. This coupled with an Elder Dragon buff, can make a strong Karthus nearly one shot an enemy team, so a team can actually centre an entire game around securing dragons, and playing passive until those objectives are up.

If there are a lot of Cloud Drakes in a game, this can be incredibly useful for ultimate based champions and champions that have huge engages such as Rumble, Kennen, Leona, Nautilus, etc. Having their ultimate’s off cool down a lot faster as well as a speed buff (if the team acquires the Dragon Soul) can prove devastating if their team can create a team composition where they always have the threat of engaging a fight. If you are the type that likes to start fights, focus on those Cloud Drakes!

Ocean and Mountain Drakes can be quite similar as they benefit prolonged, longer fights. The longer a teamfight goes, the more benefit goes to the team with Ocean or Mountain. These dragons are very strong for team compositions that rely on peeling/kiting enemy teams. Play teamfights slower and focus on staying alive rather than quickly bursting and going all in. Mountain Soul comes up every 5 seconds of not being in combat, so if there is ever an opportunity in a teamfight to get it back, do it! It is a massive shield that can make the difference in a teamfight.

The Season 10 changes to dragon can seem quite daunting at first but they can actually be very fun and engaging to play around if you are coordinated with your team. I hope this gave you some guidance on the new Dragon objectives and how to play around it.

Good luck out there on the Rift!