Ivern’s passive doesn’t work on Nexus Blitz

When Riot Games released Ivern in 2016, it was a bold move to mix up a stagnant jungle position in League of Legends. The defining characteristic of Ivern as a jungler was that he’s friends with the jungle monsters — so when he farms the jungle, he doesn’t attack them, he ... well, I’ll let Riot’s ability description take it from here.

Friend of the Forest: Ivern cannot attack or be attacked by non-epic monsters. Ivern can create magical groves on jungle camps which grow over time. When the grove is fully grown, Ivern may free the monsters to receive gold and experience. After level 5 Ivern can share jungle buffs with allies.

So yeah, being a friend of the jungle isn’t just his entire identity as a character, it’s a core concept of his kit.

I’ve been playing a lot of Nexus Blitz with friends recently, because it’s fast, fun and new. It’s been a great time figuring out innovative double jungle strats, and a pal and me wanted to try out Ivern-Rakan as an unconventional, CC-heavy supportive jungler duo.

To my surprise (because I don’t scrounge around the forums and subreddit every day anymore), Ivern’s passive straight up does not work on Nexus Blitz. Instead of creating a grove, he attacks the jungle monsters like any other jungler.

This is how it’s supposed to work, per a response on the official forum earlier this month.

Our current plan for is to allow him to deal damage to the NB jungle camps. They’re a bunch of grumps and hate friendship. The way he interacts with the jungle on SR isn’t all the doable on NB, we want people fighting camps and working together to clear them. It’s especially problematic in regards to Red and Blue buff (since they’re objectives that are meant to be fought over).

There is a potential Nexus Blitz buff heading for him in the future, per that same forum post.

we’re thinking about letting him share buffs with a 3rd person and letting that happen from level 1. He’ll have half a passive. Not ideal, but better than disabling him altogether.

I completely understand Nexus Blitz’s design makes Ivern’s passive problematic, but it still bummed me out to turn Ivern on his friends in battle. I, uh, don’t have any solutions here, but I wish for a way to keep his thematic identity intact without breaking this game mode.