League of Legends: Which new Elemental Dragon is strongest? – Preseason 2020 breakdown
Cloud Dragon
"Cloud Rift: If the third dragon of the game is of the Cloud variety, it will add movement speed buffs to the jungle and dragon pit. Cloudbringer’s Grace: Upon defeating a Cloud Dragon, your team will gain cooldown reduction for their ultimate abilities, stacking with every Cloud Dragon killed. Cloud Dragon Soul: If Cloud is the dominant element when your team defeats their fourth dragon of the game, allied champions’ cooldowns are reduced whenever they damage an enemy with abilities or attacks."
The movement speed aspect of Cloud Dragon has been shifted to small areas of the map and accessible to both teams. While this is a nerf to Cloud-lovers on the Rift, it’ll provide an escape route or chasing tool in the jungle, but since both teams can utilise the buff, it sort of balances out. Nonetheless, the Cloud Rift adds variation to our otherwise monotonous Summoner’s Rift map experience.
Going from a passive movement speed buff to ultimate ability cooldown reduction is a huge change for the Cloud Drake, but could be considered an upgrade for those of us in solo queue who weren’t attuned to utilising the large increase in movement speed provided by three stacks of Cloud. Depending on the numbers, you’ll want champions with impactful, team fight ultimates on your line-up if Cloud is the dominant dragon spawning on the Rift to take advantage of the lower cooldowns.
The Cloud Dragon Soul along with Cloudbringer’s Grace could be an overpowered combination, depending on the numbers. Cooldown reduction on top of cooldown reduction for a team already in the lead could create an unstoppable force, particularly with high impact ultimate abilities.
Infernal Dragon
"Infernal Rift: If the third dragon of the game is of the Infernal variety, it will destroy certain areas of terrain, adding routes through buff camps, and removing all brushes in the area. It will also destroy a section of the dragon pit wall. Infernal Might: Upon defeating an Infernal Dragon, your team will gain a percentage increase of Attack Damage and Ability Power. Infernal Dragon Soul: If Infernal is the dominant element when your team defeats their fourth dragon of the game, every 3 seconds, the next damaging attack or ability from an allied champion will create a small AoE explosion, dealing adaptive damage, scaling with bonus attack damage, ability power, and bonus health."
The Infernal Rift is certainly the most exciting of the four Elemental Rifts as it is the only one to distort the current shape of Summoner’s Rift by removing terrain. Our map as we know it will not be the same for one quarter of games as the walls removed could have a huge impact on gameplay in all four corners of the map. As of right now it’s hard to tell whether this benefits the team in the lead or the team playing from behind more, but it’ll be interesting to watch how it develops throughout preseason.
No change in terms of the buff provided by taking down Infernal Dragon, we’ll still be getting bonus Attack Damage and Ability Power for slaying the epic monster.
As for the Infernal Dragon Soul, it’s the perfect close quarters team fight modifier. Force all five enemies close together and instantly destroy them with the high damage AoE explosions, this could lead to some fancy combos and deletions in the later stages of the game.
Mountain Dragon
"Mountainous Rift: If the third dragon of the game is of the Mountain variety, it will add terrain in certain areas of the map, creating choke points and tight spaces for some spicy AoE combos. This terrain will spawn near the dragon pit and in the jungle. Mountainous Vigor: Upon defeating a Mountain Dragon, your team will gain a percentage increase of Armor and Magic Resistance. Mountain Dragon Soul: If Mountain is the dominant element when your team defeats their fourth dragon of the game, allied champions will receive a shield after not taking damage for 5 seconds. This shield scales with bonus attack damage, ability power, and bonus health."
Mountainous Rift is the opposite of Infernal Rift; instead of destroying terrain on Summoner’s Rift, if the Mountain Dragon is the third to spawn it will add terrain to the Rift, particularly in the jungle and around the dragon pit. Qiyana, Gnar, Vayne, they all love this change as it provides more opportunities to slam enemies against the wall, stunning, and applying damage to win a team fight.
The title for most improved dragon buff definitely goes to Mountain as the annoying, overpowered amplified damage to structures and epic monsters has finally been removed and replaced by bonus Armor and Magic Resistance. As it’s a percentage increase, maybe it’s time for tanks to return to the meta and hope that three Mountain Dragons spawn for a fat resistance multiplier.
And if the resistances provided by slaying the dragon wasn’t annoying enough, how about a huge shield scaling with bonus health if your team slays the fourth dragon of the game? The Mountain Dragon Soul might be the scariest of the four souls due to the potential for massive shields making it impossible to win a team fight in the late game.