champions

Out with the old, in with the new. Riot’s released a champion spotlight for Poppy 2.0, the long-awaited rework of one of League of Legends’ oldest and most outdated playable characters. She looks really neat! This probably means she’s coming into the main game in the next week or two, too.

Now who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? I am. Riot published a short story on its website last night to fill out the backstory for the new League of Legends champion Kindred, and it confirms my earlier suspicions that they’re extremely creepy. Read it here; it’s a tad long, but well worth it.

Riot just put out its champion spotlight for the upcoming giant catfish champion Tahm Kench. This guy seems so cool! I bet he’s also going to lead to so many awful puns about “feeding” in-game thanks to his swallow-other-champions ability.

League of Legends’ resident sexy pirate Miss Fortune and not-so-sexy pirate Gangplank are both getting big makeovers. Riot just pulled back the curtain on both of their new looks and ability sets, and they seem pretty neat! Check them out here and here. YAR!

The next League of Legends champion is...a catfish? Riot just put out a CGI trailer about a hoarse-voiced monster named “The River King,” following an apparent leak on the game’s Chinese website. Neat! Also: great music.

League of Legends is nerfing its new time-bending champion in a big way: by making his go-back-in-time-four-seconds ult actually cost mana. This change, which will go live in the 5.12 patch, follows player criticism that Ekko is both “overpowered” and “overloaded.” Phew!

Calling all League of Legends players: what do you think of Ekko? Cool? OP? Too many similarities to Transistor, or just enough? The time-traveling champ came out this week, and players seem divided on him. So let me know what you think! You can leave a comment, or send me an email at yannick.lejacq@kotaku.com.

Riot just put out a neat and surprisingly moving short comic that details the backstory of League of Legends’ new champion Ekko. You can read the whole thing here. Also: is anyone else getting a strong Transistor vibe from this guy?