League of Legends 2024 Season will rework Baron & remove Mythics

Some key changes to the battlefield in League of Legends’ 2024 Season are looking like it’s going to make for a wild year at all levels of play. Players have long complained about Mythic items and Riot Games hasn’t been too thrilled with their state either, so that system is getting removed to sort that power among the rest of the items. Meanwhile, Baron Gnasher has been a key objective of League for years, but a rework of the nasty beast means not only a change in how you fight him, but where you fight him as well. We got to sit down to a roundtable with Riot about the changes, and they sound like they’re going to make the Season 2024 a very unique one.

The Mythic mishap

Mythic items have been in League of Legends for a few seasons now, introduced at the beginning of the 2021 season. They were the top tier of the in-match store, you can only have one per game, and they were meant to provide a stellar mid-to-late-game power boost that complimented your Champion depending on which one you picked. The problem is that these items became more important than the champions themselves. The community established pretty quickly which ones were best for a certain archetype of character. It stifled player creativity to a point where choosing a Mythic that wasn’t considered “the best” for your character could not only be a detriment, but was also a fast track to harassment and calls for a report on you for trolling. Even then, trying to experiment around these items has been difficult. They were just too good for one thing or another and allowed very little flexibility.

Riot Games has attempted to sort out Mythics and make them more fun throughout the years since they were introduced, but to little success. A lot of players don’t like them and Riot wasn’t happy with where they landed either, so they’re being scrapped altogether. With Mythics going away, their power will be somewhat distributed through the rest of the items in the store. The hope is that by removing Mythics, Champion choice and player decisions about how to work their champion best will become a meaningful conversation again.

Supplementing that conversation is the rework and addition items across the board. In general, Riot Games felt like some mage items, such as Shadowflame, weren’t clear enough in what they do and what their specific nuance and benefits were. With this in mind, a few items are also being reworked to better clarify their abilities and use cases. Additionally they are being joined by a few all-new items such as Sundered Sky (for physical damage crits and healing), Cinderbloom (for magic damage, defense penetration, and team healing), Hubris (physical damage amplification on kill), and Unending Despair (defense, AOE damage, and healing). Hopefully, with these changes, players should find opportunities to be creative with their kits again and develop new twists to their playstyle on their favorite Champion.

Gnasher’s got a brand-new pit (or two)

Baron Gnasher is maybe one of the most important targets in League of Legends. A giant worm-like beast that spawns 20 minutes into a match, defeating Baron and gaining its buff provides a whole team with increased physical and magic attack, faster recall to base, and empowering of minions when in proximity. Baron’s Buff isn’t changing (can you imagine?) but the Baron’s execution and appearance are getting a big overhaul.

The Baron encounter will still appear 20 minutes into the game, but the state and location of the Baron is what’s getting twisted. During 2024, you have a chance of seeing three forms of Baron Gnasher: the Hunting Baron, the Territorial Baron, and the All-Seeing Baron, each with their own pit around the Summoner’s Rift map. Each Baron not only has a different location, but also different visuals and spells associated with them. The terrain around the Baron also makes things more interesting as one of them has a wall in front of it that limits vision and another has a tunnel nearby in the river that can be used to peek at and ambush parties pushing for the Baron buff. Ultimately, the idea here is that Riot Games wants Baron to be more in line with the geographic and random changes that came to the Dragon spawns and mechanics in previous years.

Baron isn’t the only monster getting fresh treatment though. In an effort to make things more exciting up to that 20 minute mark, new monsters are being introduced. The first appearance of the Rift Herald is being swapped out in place of Voidgrubs that spawn Voidmites. These will mark early experience boosts and bonuses for players that can take them out. Meanwhile, the late game will change some of the usual camps. The Sentinel (blue buff), Brambleback (red buff), and Rift Scuttler (river vision) will now have Voidborn variants that are harder to kill and offer increased rewards once defeated.

With Baron having been fairly static for several years, that change is likely to be the most divisive and interesting, but Riot Games feels confident in the direction it’s going with all of these changes. That said, it’s also prepared to adjust as necessary if players really don’t like the way things are going as a whole. After all, those who control the Baron have historically controlled the game. We're excited to see how these new Baron reworks and the additional monsters affect overall play in Summoner’s Rift.

A wild 2024 season awaits

Recently, Riot Games revealed Hwei as the latest upcoming character for the game as a paint-themed mage. Alongside all of these changes coming to the 2024 Season, it’s looking like next year is going to be one of the most interesting seasons of League of Legends in a while. Whether you’re looking at Baron Gnasher and his new pits, the return of creativity to item kits with the removal of Mythics, or the new monsters that will offer key objectives throughout a match, we look forward to seeing how the game changes and the metas shift. At the very least, League of Legends Season 2024 will be exciting. As we watch to see how it plays out, stay tuned for more League of Legends coverage here at Shacknews.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.