Arena is a recurring tournament-style team deathmatch mode where eight teams of two fight in a 2v2v2v2v2v2v2v2 format. You play repeated rounds, grow stronger through Augments and Arena-only systems, and try to be the last duo standing. Matches take place across six different battlefields with unique layouts and interactive features.
Arena supports Champion Mastery progress and lets players earn Battle Pass XP through missions (some exclusive to Arena, some not). The maximum party size for matchmade games is 8, and you always need an even number of players to form duos. Parties of 9 to 15 cannot queue, while 16 players can create a private lobby that does not grant progression rewards.
1) Core Structure of an Arena Match
Arena is built around rounds that alternate between:
- Shop Phase
- Combat Phase
Additionally, there is a Vote Phase before the Shop Phase of rounds 2 and 8.
At the start and end of each phase, champions fully reset: cooldowns refresh, health and resources restore, and lingering buffs or debuffs are removed. During Shop and Vote phases, champions are invulnerable to other teams and treated as allied, so negative effects cannot be applied until combat begins.
Champion levels per round
All champions start at level 3 and gain levels each round (round-based leveling is the main source of levels).
- Round 1: 3
- Round 2: 5
- Round 3: 7
- Round 4: 9
- Round 5: 11
- Round 6: 12
- Round 7: 13
- Round 8: 14
- Round 9: 15
- Round 10: 16
- Round 11: 17
- Round 12+: 18
Battlefields & environment features
There are six battlefields in Arena where Combat between teams takes place. Each one features a unique theme and terrain layout, and many different elements that players can interact with to affect the progression of the round.
- Ancestral Woods
- Desert Oasis
- Frostbite Thicket
- Koi Pond
- Magma Chamber
- Reckoner Arena
2) Elimination and Placement
Every team starts with 100 Team Health. Losing a combat round deals Team Health damage. When Team Health reaches 0, the team is eliminated.
Damage increases over time:
- Rounds 1 to 4: 15
- Rounds 5 to 8: 20
- Rounds 9 to 12: 30
- Rounds 13 to 16: 35
- Round 17: 100
Placement is based on remaining Team Health after deductions. If two teams tie on Team Health at elimination, the tiebreaker is time alive in that elimination round (teams eliminated earlier place lower).
In Arena terms:
- 1st to 4th is considered a victory
- 5th to 8th is considered a defeat
3) Champion Select and Draft
Arena uses a 16 player blind-ban, blind pick format.
- Pick intent phase: teammates can show intent
- Ban phase: each player bans one champion (two bans per team)
- Pick phase: everyone picks simultaneously
- Finalization phase: short prep before the game starts
A static pool of champions is always available in Arena (your notes list examples like Ahri, Alistar, Annie, Brand, ChoGath, Darius, Dr Mundo, Ekko, Ezreal, Ivern, Lee Sin, Leona, Lucian, Lux, Malphite, Master Yi, Mordekaiser, Naafiri, Nami, Sett, Sona, Veigar, Vi, Volibear, Warwick, Xin Zhao, Yuumi, Zed).
Crowd Favorites and Bravery
Champion select can offer two special options that reward variety:
- Crowd Favorites: up to five champions are marked per player. Locking one grants +10 Fame and an Anvil Voucher that can be consumed in shop for a free Stat Bonus Anvil.
- Bravery: selects a fully random non-banned champion, hidden until the game starts. Locking it grants +50 Fame and a Bravery Voucher that provides multiple bonuses (free Stat Bonus Anvil, extra rerolls, and later gold bonuses tied to item rounds).
Important note from your text: the regular Random button is not the same as Bravery and does not grant bonuses.
4) Loadout Rules (How Arena Differs)
- Runes are disabled. Some keystones can appear through Augments with small differences.
- Summoner spells: Flash is permanent in one slot, the other defaults to Flee.
- Flee gives movement speed, scaling higher when running away from enemies.
- Flash does not work on a normal cooldown. After using it in a round, it becomes available again in the round after next.
- Flash availability is visible to all players in the scoreboard.
- Trinket slot: permanently Arcane Sweeper, which reveals an area and traps for a short duration (disabled early in the game per your notes).
5) Shop Phase, Rewards, and Selection Screens
The Shop Phase happens on a shared shop platform, lasts 45 seconds, and gives access to shop only while on the platform. A target dummy spawns shortly after the phase begins for testing damage, but it cannot be used to generate permanent stacks or gold.
Depending on the round, you receive bonuses such as gold or Augment selections. Key examples from your notes:
- Round 1: 500 gold + Augment selection (1 of 4)
- Round 3: free Prismatic Item Anvil
- Round 4: 2500 gold
- Round 5: Augment selection (2 of 4)
- Round 7 and 10: 500 gold + Lucky Dice + guaranteed Prismatic Stat Bonus Anvil
- Round 8: Augment selection (3 of 4)
- Round 11: Augment selection (4 of 4)
- Round 12+: 2250 gold
Rerolls
Many selection screens let you reroll one of the three options by spending 1 reroll. Rerolls are shared across selections. Players start with 4 by default and can gain more.
Selections cannot be undone. If you do not choose before the phase ends, the game picks randomly.
6) Augments
Augments are permanent upgrades beyond items. You normally receive four Augment choices from round rewards (rounds 1, 5, 8, 11) and can have up to six Augments total if special effects grant extra.
Augment rarities:
- Silver
- Gold
- Prismatic
Rerolling keeps the same tier. While the offered options can differ between players, everyone receives the same tier at the same selection moments, and a single Augment from those rounds cannot appear more than four times across the whole lobby.
Your notes also mention some champions cannot receive certain trait-based augments, and that spell-replacing augments are limited by default.
7) Items and Arena Economy
Arena shop categories include Starter Items, Anvils, Tier 2 Boots, Juices, Legendary Items, and Prismatic Items.
Key rules from your notes:
- Starter items and Tier 2 boots cost 500 gold.
- Legendary items cost 2500 gold and are bought whole (no recipe components).
- Prismatic items come from Prismatic Item Anvils (one is free on round 3).
- Anvils open selection screens:
- Stat Bonus Anvil gives stat shards and cannot be rerolled
- Legendary class-type anvils give legendary items
- Prismatic item anvils give prismatic items
- Juices are round-only buffs, cost 500, resell for full value, and auto-consume at round start.
- If you select an item beyond inventory space, it goes into an inventory queue until you free a slot.
8) Combat Phase and Winning a Round
After Shop Phase, teams are teleported to one of six battlefields to fight their matched duo. A round ends when both players on a team die. If combat lasts too long, the Ring of Fire begins closing in, forcing fights to finish. If the ring fully closes and the fight still does not end, the round can end in a tie and Team Health is deducted from both teams (per your notes).
Experience from kills and assists is reduced to 0. Summoned units are removed when combat ends. The first kill in a round grants 250 gold to both members of the killing team.
Revival
The first time a champion would die in a combat phase, they can enter a downed state and may be revived by their ally after a short delay by standing in a marked zone. Revival can occur once per team per round. Certain resurrection or zombie-state effects take precedence over the downed state.
9) Battlefields and Interactive Features
Arena has six battlefields: Ancestral Woods, Desert Oasis, Frostbite Thicket, Koi Pond, Magma Chamber, Reckoner Arena.
Common interactive features include:
- Ring of Fire: shrinking hazard that applies stacking damage and debuffs outside the safe zone.
- Gates: paired portals on opposite sides of the map, usable both ways, with shared cooldown after use.
- Power Flowers: spawn shortly after combat starts, can be attacked for healing, shielding, resource restore, and cooldown refund effects (strongly fight-defining).
- Blast Cones: activate early, knock back units when hit, and respawn on a timer (Koi Pond has none).
- Unique terrain: Deep Water and pillar rubble are impassable but do not block vision. Deep Water also counts as river for certain interactions.
- Bloom Bridge (Koi Pond): a central lily bridge that closes after use, temporarily blocking the middle and knocking units away when it shuts.
- Unsteady pillars (Reckoner Arena): destructible pillars that can fall, deal heavy true damage, knock enemies, and permanently become rubble terrain.
10) Vote Phase and Guests of Honor
Before rounds 2 and 8, all teams enter a Vote Phase on the Reckoner Arena. Three champion NPCs appear as Guests of Honor, each offering a permanent lobby-wide rule modifier. Players vote by standing in a section or selecting a card. One random player who voted is spotlighted, and their choice becomes the featured Guest for the rest of the game.
11) Surrender and AFK Rules
- Surrender is available from Shop Phase of round 4 onward and requires both players to agree.
- AFK detection escalates over time:
- warning at 100 seconds inactivity
- ally can surrender alone after 180 seconds inactivity
- client quits after 300 seconds inactivity
