LoL Dragon Soul Guide (2026): Every Drake, Soul and the Elder

Rift wheel · soul race

Six elements. The second kill picks one. Four drakes claim it.

An example game: Cloud first, Infernal second, and the rift turns Ocean. Blue team now sits on three drakes — soul point.

Ocean Riftrevealed when the 2nd drake dies

Blue team

SOUL
next

Red team

—

—

—

Drake 1 · 5:00A random element.

Drake 2A different element.

Rift revealWhen drake 2 dies, drake 3's element becomes the rift.

Drake 3+Always the rift element — and the soul.

Blue now deals 45% less damage to the next drake (Dragon Vengeance); red deals full damage.

Example game. Element rules: official League of Legends wiki (Elemental drake). Dragon Vengeance 15 / 30 / 45%: Riot's patch 26.1 notes. Drake icons © Riot Games.

The dragon pit is the most fought-over place on Summoner's Rift. A new drake every 5:00, a permanent bonus for each one, a soul that lasts the whole game after four, and then the Elder Dragon, which can end it. Patch 26.1 changed the rewards for 2026 — drakes pay more gold, give more comeback experience and resist a team that already owns several of them — and nothing since has changed the dragons themselves, through patch 26.22. This guide explains how the element of the rift is chosen, what every drake and soul gives, what a drake is worth, how to set one up, when to trade it away, how to play soul point and how to use the Elder.

How the dragon pit works

The dragon pit sits in the bot-side river. According to the official wiki, the first drake spawns at 5:00 as a random element, and each new drake spawns 5:00 after the previous one dies, with an element not yet chosen. After the second drake dies, the map becomes an Elemental Rift of the third drake's element, which then stays fixed: every following drake is the same element. Each drake gives its team a permanent Dragon Slayer stack, and the fourth drake also grants the Dragon Soul of the rift's element. After a team's fourth drake, the Elder Dragon spawns in the pit instead, with a 6:00 respawn.

1. Drake 1 5:00 A random element — the first team stack of the game.
2. Drake 2 kill + 5:00 A different element. When it dies, the rift transforms.
3. Drake 3 and 4 kill + 5:00 Both the rift element. One team now usually has two or three.
4. Fourth drake for a team soul That team gets the soul; the drakes stop.
5. Elder Dragon kill + 6:00 Spawns 6:00 after the fourth drake, and 6:00 after every Elder kill.

The full timer list for every epic monster is in LoL objective timers.

The six elemental rifts

When the rift transforms, the jungle and river change shape for the rest of the game. These changes matter for pathing and fights around the pit, so read the rift the moment it's announced. From the official wiki:

Two worth planning around. A Hextech rift adds hex-gates that let a team move across the map fast, so rotations to the pit get quicker. A Mountain rift raises rock walls near the pit entrance and the buffs, which closes some paths and opens new chokepoints — ward the new corners. Ocean and Chemtech rifts add Honeyfruit and plants that change how long a team can stay in a fight around the pit.

Every drake's stack

Each drake your team kills adds one Dragon Slayer stack of that element to every player, permanently. Values per drake from the official wiki; four of a kind is only possible with the soul element, since drakes 1 and 2 are always different:

The six Dragon Souls

The fourth drake brings the soul of the rift's element. It lasts the rest of the game and you keep it through death. The effects, from the official wiki ("plus scaling" means the value grows with your bonus AD, AP and health):

What a drake is worth in 2026

Patch 26.1 reworked every epic monster's rewards. Riot's stated aim was to make objectives about 15% more durable, rebalance their rewards and give teams that are behind a better chance to come back. For elemental drakes that meant:

The practical effect: a team on two or three drakes needs more time on the pit than its opponent would. If you're behind on drakes, a contest is more realistic than it used to be — the leading team takes 30–45% longer to kill it, giving you time to arrive. If you're ahead, push waves and clear vision first so you have that time.

Setting up a drake

A drake is won before anyone hits it. The routine we teach:

1. Check the timer and the lanes. −1:30 Who has priority in bot and mid? Where was the enemy jungler last seen?
2. Push the waves. −1:00 Bot and mid crash their waves so the enemy laners have to stay or lose minions. Your lanes then walk to the river first.
3. Take vision. −0:45 Control Ward in or near the pit, Stealth Wards on the enemy's entrances, Oracle Lens on theirs.
4. Hold, don't start. 0:00 If the enemy shows, decide: fight in front of the pit, or let them start it and punish them while they hit the drake.
5. Start when they can't arrive. go Enemy jungler seen elsewhere or two enemies dead or recalled. Keep Smite for the last hit.
6. Leave with a plan. after Push a lane, take a plate, reset. The next drake is 5:00 away.

If your bot lane is losing, don't force it. A drake taken while your bot lane is dead or behind is fine; a drake contested by a losing bot lane is usually a teamfight on the enemy's terms. The teamfighting guide covers fighting around a pit.

Trading: drake against something else

You can't win every objective, so good teams trade. These are the trades we see most on patch 26.22:

The rule behind the table: drakes get more valuable the closer a team is to the soul. Giving up drake 1 for three Voidgrubs is often fine; giving up the drake that puts the enemy on soul point almost never is.

Soul point

"Soul point" means one team has three drakes and the next one gives them the soul. It's the single most important drake of most games, and both teams should treat its timer like a Baron:

When both teams sit on two or three drakes, the next drake can decide the game twice: a soul for one team and the Elder for whoever wins the fight after that. Recall about a minute before soul point, buy, and come back together.

The Elder Dragon

The execute is what makes the Elder decisive: every fight after it ends sooner, because anyone you bring below 20% is gone. Use the 150 seconds to force a fight or a siege — Elder plus a wave at an inhibitor turret is a common game-ender — and don't waste it farming. Because the buff is lost on death, the team without it should avoid fighting until it runs out, or pick off the buffed carry. Fighting for the Elder works like fighting for Baron, so the Baron guide's setup and steal sections apply here too.

Which soul suits your team

There's no best soul. This is how we think about it — our coaching view, not a statistic:

Dragon mistakes

For the other side of the map, read the Baron, Herald and Voidgrubs guide; for the jungler's route between pits, the pathing guide; and for the bigger picture, the macro guide.

Objective calls, coached or played. A Master+ coach reviews your drake setups, or a Solo/Duo booster (from $3.25 a division) plays your account and takes them for you.