Purple buff?: Upgraded red, blue buffs among jungle camps to transform mid-game next LoL season

Changes are coming to LoL's jungle monsters.

Vi fights the blue buff in League of Legends
Image via Riot Games

Plenty of changes are coming to Summoner’s Rift during the 2024 League of Legends season—and among them will be updates to many of the jungle monsters found throughout the map.

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Most notably, the iconic red and blue buffs will be getting evolutionary forms, changing their appearances and rewards midway through games next season, Riot Games announced today. 

When a League game reaches the 20-minute mark next year, the red buff and blue buff will automatically respawn, making way for evolved versions of themselves: the Voidborn Brambleback (red) and the Voidborn Sentinel (blue). These Void versions of the red and blue buffs will take on new purple appearances and will be harder to kill. But their increased difficulty also comes with stronger rewards as their buffs will be handed out to all players on the team who are alive when they’re killed, similar to how the Baron buff is rewarded. 

The Rift Scuttler will also be one of the jungle camps to undergo a similar transformation. Twenty minutes into each game, the crab will transform into a Voidborn Scuttler that emits an effect similar to the Scryer’s Bloom when killed. The evolved Scuttle Crab will reveal all enemy champions and wards in the area near where it dies, giving your team even more of a vision advantage. 

These new jungle monsters are part of the biggest update that Summoner’s Rift has received in 10 seasons. The map hasn’t gotten a massive overhaul like this since visual updates to it were implemented in the 2014-15 preseason.

In recent years, though, Riot hasn’t been shy to add effects to League that change the way Summoner’s Rift evolves on a game-by-game basis. Similar to elemental dragons, the Void monsters that will stalk the Rift starting next year have the potential to change each League game you play, turning every match into a fresh experience across all levels of the game. 

These changes and additions to Summoner’s Rift will be available to test today, Nov. 20, and they’ll hit the live servers when the 2024 ranked season begins next January. 

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Michael Kelly
Staff Writer covering World of Warcraft and League of Legends, among others. Mike's been with Dot since 2020, and has been covering esports since 2018.