League of Legends has finally added its much desired, much requested and much tested practice tool to the game, letting players of all skill levels tweak characters, the map, their gold, items and just about any aspect of the in-game world in a way to try out different aspects of the game. No longer will teams need to engineer specific scenarios to test out combinations, nor earn the gold necessary to build certain items to see what they do.
Now anyone can find out what it's like to be a max level character with all the gold in the world and learn to play with that, without having to run through full games just to do so.
"At its core, Practice Tool is a place where you can train your mechanics. It’s the training gym where you can go to brush up on your Lv1 last hitting, that early jungle gank route or your Riven mechanics," Riot Games said in a statement. "A simple, straight forward, single-player environment that lets you test out things like checking wall flash points or if you can solo dragon with a certain item build, without wasting hours in Custom Games. As League gains more and more similarities to a sport, it makes sense that there be a place where you can go to shoot hoops!"
The release of this tool has already lead to some interesting scenarios posted online. Like Disco Heat's video all about "minion abuse," sending hundreds of the poor little fellas to their doom.
Although much of what he's doing couldn't be replicated in a full game, it will be interesting to see if being able to practice like this leads to any new and interesting strategies among pro players.