Here’s what you need to know about Vainglory, the MOBA showcased at Apple’s iPhone event

At last night’s new iPhone reveal, Apple showed off Vainglory, a brand new MOBA for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. After years of seeing yet another new Infinity Blade game at each of Apple’s events, this was a welcome change of pace. Here’s all you need to know about Vainglory.

It’s hardcore (or so we’re told)

[fve]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLTeeAIM4lw[/fve]

Vainglory is pitched as an “an unapologetically core MOBA”. That’s no surprise given that the development team sports talent from Blizzard Entertainment and Riot Games. Matches will last around 20 minutes, though, and there are only three players to a team. There’s a single lane, a jungle and two teams on opposite sides of the map. Each team has a structure known as a vain crystal, and the objective is to destroy your opponent’s in order to win.

The common strategy that players are using in its testing phase, according to developer Super Evil Megacorp, is having a ranged carry in the lane with two other teammates in the jungle. Laning, ganking, and team-fighting all have their place here, along with a jungle shop in the middle of the map for those who like taking risks.

(See: Strife has a plan to beat LoL and Dota 2—and it might just work)

It has some interesting ideas

[fve]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxPqfpO-OWA[/fve]

There are no wards. In their place are scout traps. These are bombs that give a field of vision. When enemy players step on it, it explodes as well, exposing their location for seven seconds.

15 minutes into a match, replacing the gold mine in the middle of the map, from which you were able to harvest resources, is a raging kraken. Defeat it, and it blasts through the lane, destroying enemy turrets.

It’s a neat end-game mechanic that in theory, gives losing teams a potential comeback —or can be the decider in very even matches. Either way, the feature is sure to encourage quick finishes.

No clunky controls

The controls in Vainglory seem rather intuitive. Traditional MOBAs on PCs are notorious for their many hotkeys and unintuitive interfaces. This is fine simply because of the keyboard and screen space most desktops and laptops offer. But older mobile MOBAs like Heroes of Order & Chaos sport way too many menus and icons to be easy to use. Vainglory has a slick interface that should make it easy to play on mobile devices.