Welcome to the Jungle

Preseason for League players inspires equal measures of excitement and dread.  Excitement because this is when Riot introduces the most sweeping changes and dread for exactly the same reason.  

We as gamers can be a pretty conservative lot and change is scary.  We all wonder the same things: “will my favorite champion get nerfed?”, “will my favorite strategies still be viable?” but it all boils down to one, simple question.  

Will the game still be fun?

Anyone who has even casually surfed the League’s General Discussion forum or the patch note comments will have read or written answers to this question, in one form or another. Often an hour after said changes are announced.  While my own gut reaction is to answer yes emphatically, I’m not going to try and convince you to change your mind one way or another - just to keep it open.  

Junglers will definitely feel they have been most affected (whether it be benefited most or hit the hardest depends on your viewpoint) as a lot of the new objectives are based in this area of the game.  And it’s true they are the most obvious, with the new river crab, the new buffs for defeating the dragon and Baron Nashor and most interestingly, the new applications of the smite summoner spell.  

Before now, junglers followed the same route through the jungle and their champions may as well have been on rails (leash blue, take wolves, gank mid at level 6, etc.). Pro-gamer Stephen "Snoopeh" Ellis' comments in the Patch Rundown: Part 2 video starting at 2:51 "I thought I would return to the old ways, starting at red buff, then you move on to the next camp. That doesn't happen anymore." Teams will be forced to develop new strategies if they want to win consistently. The fact that a professional jungler is thrown off his stride should speak for itself.  
These additions mean that Riot's favorite phrase "strategic diversity" actually carries some weight since there actually more than one way to jungle now. Sure, players would take a slightly different route, sometimes counter-jungle, but the overall strategy was identical and it was the only one. Worse, relatively few champions were viable with this play-style, further limiting gameplay options.

I'm not saying the current set-up is perfect - there can and will be changes. What I'm trying to say is that this is not so much a loss but an evolution and will do more to extend the life of the game. Which in the end is what we all want.