League Of Legends Hexakill Mode Returning Soon

League of Legends will be added another experimental game mode soon. Developer Riot Games just added Hexakill: Twisted Treeline for public testing.

Hexakill boosts the player count up to six Champions per side. Twisted Treeline is normally a 3v3 map so things get awfully crowded. The shrines in the middle of the map give buffs to minions as well as champions in this mode now to make them even more crucial. Everyone gains experience quicker as well. The net result is a lot of killing right off the bat.

The reintroduction of Hexakill: Twisted Treeline will come with one major change, though.

"This time around we’ve included one important addition; BANS!" Riot designer 'L4T3NCY' said on the League of Legends forums. "We heard you guys last time, so we’ve gone and squeezed bans into our Hexakill champion select screen. This is also a good test for us to see how efficiently we can resurrect old modes (it varies wildly from mode-to-mode, but you gotta start somewhere)."

I'm sure that a lot of players will appreciate the introduction of bans to the mode. Certain champions like Katarina are notorious for multikills and this mode - with 6 enemies squeezed into narrow lanes - is an especially good place for them to pull one off. By allowing a team to ban her and a few other champions from being used, that could result in a more balanced match.

However, L4T3NCY said in the past that Katarina's not as powerful in this mode as players think:

We often saw comments that she was “crazy OP” and “needed to be banned”. So we know that some players certainly believed this, as she was ridiculously popular. I mean, Katarina had a comparable play rate to the 10 strongest Hexakill: TT champs all added together! o.O However, looking at a variety of metrics we use to consider champion strength in particular modes, she was actually somewhat average (even accounting for mirror matches). Substantially less effective by comparison than champions like Sona, Janna, Soraka or Fiddlesticks. We saw a similar pattern emerge during Ascension where perceived strong champs actually turned out to be fairly average (or even way below average).

It's possible, L4T3NCY said, that people simply pick assassins more because they're flashier. You notice when Katarina kills six enemies but you're less likely to notice when Leona blocks that from happening with a well-timed stun.

"The comparatively low key nature of supports like Sona, Soraka, et al, aren’t always directly attributed to the winning moments in games, even if they were the enablers."

Hexakill: Twisted Treeline is one of several Featured Game Modes Riot has added to League of Legends. These experimental game modes give the game some (temporary) variety and shake up the usual character balance. Past experimental modes have included Ultra Rapid Fire, One for All and Nemesis Draft.

If you have access to the Public Beta Environment, you can try out Hexakill: Twisted Treeline right now. The public beta also offers new champion Ekko along with skins for Lee Sin, Tryndamere and Irelia.