Almost everything in League of Legends can be changed. With each new patch, changes are made to items or champions, if not outright additions. However, there is a whole set of tools that Riot Games only modifies in particular situations. We’re talking about Summoner Spells, which haven’t received a new permanent addition since Season 5., when the developers introduced the now legendary ARAM snowball into the rotation. However, the studio made another attempt which ended in total failure.
The Worst Summoner Spell to Happen to League of Legends
During events, Riot Games often includes certain items in the game for testing. This happened with many of the items that appeared in the Black Market Brawlers mode or with the Snowball spell itself, which was first introduced in an ARAM-centric event. Something the company wanted to reiterate in the first half of 2019. It was precisely in patch 9.7 that they added a new summoner spell called Reverse Marchwhich had a very curious effect that quickly caught the attention of gamers.
In truth, just reading the summoning spell, Backtrack seems to be one of the best summoner spells in League of Legends. However, in practice it was not very useful. Although it allowed for completely dodging abilities like Zed’s or Vladimir’s ultimate, it was too clunky and unfun. Players only used it for a few tests and realized it didn’t have much to contribute.
As for the reasons for the failure, forced displacement to base was the obvious problem. There was no way to cancel or activate it in advance, so it often came too late or ruined an interesting move. In that regard, the community stopped using Reverse Long before Riot Games took it down, which is no small feat considering it was only active for two weeks.
Between the summoner spell that never returned to League of Legends and players who barely used it when it was available, this novelty fell into total oblivion. The same is not true for the other new features available at the event that showcased Reverse. For instance, Riot Games introduced an item that offered a temporary resurrection passive that they later recycled for Ultimate Grimoire mode and Tech-Chemical Dragon.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be much room for League of Legends to add new summoner spells. The developer hasn’t tested any others for a long time, as he feels the current ones are more than enough in terms of usefulness and fun.