Vainglory 5v5 Teasers

What can we expect?

Vainglory’s 5v5 has been keeping fans holding their breath for the past couple of weeks leading up to worlds. 5v5 is suppose to be the break through that Super Evil Megacorp (SEMC) needs to continue growing as a top mobile esport title. Some think this new game mode will have the chance to reach levels of PC Moba titles such as League of Legends and Dota 2. I can only hope that will be the case.

SEMC has been slowly teasing items, locations, and objectives on social media, building the speculation for what we can expect from 5v5. I figured I would put out a write up with a whole bunch of pictures (YAY PICTURE BOOKS) just breaking down the teasers! Let’s start with a few simple locations.

The “Blackclaw Rush” sets the scene for where insane battles to the death are bound to take place. Lore is extremely important for many fans and Vainglory does a fantastic job at story telling. The Halcyon Fold has been our home for the past three years and we will miss it dearly, but our new home is looking fun. This was an early tease with the first confirmation that dragons will play a part of this new world. We have seen new lore appearing from heroes like Lorelai that discuss things like dragon eggs. I will get into more dragon talk later on.

Hey look….dragons!! Dragonfall is the next location on the 5v5 map that was teased with more emphasis on the “energy flowing” river. I wonder if you are standing in the water, you gain energy back. That would be an interesting part of the map! It does say it effects the citizens of Mont Lille. I cannot wait for the lore to find out all of the details behind the new map!

New home base is looking good! I wonder if our friend who sells shiny things on the Halcyon Fold will be there. He could probably make a lot of money. Not to much was revealed in this teaser besides some awesome art work and details of the map. I love the name “Sanctuary” with it being a place of safety. It will also be a place where heroes will heal up and rejuvenate while staying safe. Now, instead of saying a player is going back home, the casters can say “DNzio is going back to the Sanctuary!”

My last location is going to be the river shops. I am not sure how this one will work out yet. I am considering it a location, because these seem to be replacing the jungle shop. It does not sound like it will be a normal shop to where you can buy anything in the market. These maybe more expensive, tier three items, that a player may need. So many questions when it comes to this tease. How many times during a game will a magical parachute appear? Is it by chance or does it appear when you have enough gold to buy the next item. These river shops will be crucial to keeping the game moving quickly. The less time a player spends porting back, the better. The jungle shop is a location where teams fight around quite often. I am curious if these parachutes will be a contested objective. Speaking of objectives, lets breakdown the many objectives that SEMC have released so far.

One interesting objective they teased are the Captain Minions. Really glad to see the minions getting some love. As you can see, Mr. Captain Minion is carrying what looks like a grenade launcher, while his front man is carrying a possible uzi. I need some solid lore about where these tough guys picked up their armory. I was expecting the minions to maybe get a rework for the 5v5 scene. We still could see the buffed minions in the late stages of a game become different like we see in other mobas. A little rude for the big guy keeping the chicken away from the little guys. A big bully like that needs to appreciate the hard work those little guys do.

The first jungle camp is called the “Goldoak”, which will be a similar objective as the gold miner on the Halcyon Fold. The minions are a bunch of thieves! First withholding chicken, now hiding money in a tree? SAVAGES! Well I am not sure what the final form of this camp will be. In the tweet originally released, Vainglory said that the tree is on a lillypad, because the final form will be a toad. Which is cool and all, but why is the name GoldOAK, like oak tree? Or does the tree just transform into a toad late game? I do not care as long as the toad does not look like Gromp, a jungle camp in League of Legends.

This was something I was hoping we would get to see in Vainglory 5v5. These treants will be key as the game progresses. Teams will have to have rotations down and a lot of strategy to make sure the proper character is getting the buff. I have seen some conversations about these treants actually replacing the traditional weapon and crystal infusion, which could add an interesting element. The location of these will also be important in deciding where your crystal carry may be compared to the weapon carry. They will want to pick these buffs up in order to have an advantage over their opponent. In the early game, these treants may be to strong and the carry may need a captain to tank for them!

Our first group of minions that need to be captured! Nothing to special about this tease. We having a healing treant in 3v3, but it is cool giving the treant a companion to keep him company. As always, whoever gets the last hit, gets the heal! I am curious seeing how many of these will be scattered throughout the jungle!

This is one of the latest teasers we have received and I get to talk about dragons one more time. This is the first look at a major objective on the map that will be highly contested over. This particular dragon is called “Ghostwing” but the description hints at other dragons being in 5v5. I clearly have to relate this to the elder dragon in League of Legends. Do I wish Vainglory picked another creature to have as their main objective? Probably, but one positive thing is that Vainglory has lore to explain where these dragons are coming from. This seems to be a team buff that could help the team push to win a game. I cannot wait to see dragons live during worlds! How about we switch to some structures?

Only the best for the queen! The turrets got a nice make over for the new game mode. I absolutely love them and think they look super slick. They look a little small and not very intimidating, but it is hard to see the scale of them! The turrets will be the first of many objectives standing in your way of destroying the Vain Crystal!

New objective alert!! 5v5 will bring Vainglory’s first “armories”. These are a part of the Vain Crystal’s defenses and will play an interesting role of how the game proceeds. In other mobas like League, if you destroy the enemies inhibitors, you get buffed minions. In this description, it makes it sound like if you destroy an armory of your enemy, then their minions will be weaker. Aka, Captain Minion and his hitchmen lose their uzis and grenade launchers.