League of Legends players can finally play the long-awaited visual and gameplay rework of Ixtal-based champion Skarner, who was long due for a VGU overhaul.
Skarner’s rework went live yesterday with Patch 14.7 and Matt “Phroxzon” Leung-Harrison, the lead gameplay designer of League, has already addressed the early state of the champion. “Initial power level does look a tad weak, but he does have a moderate learning curve, so we’re monitoring closely,” Phroxzon said.
So far, the Primordial Sovereign has one of the lowest win rates (39.03 percent) of champs among all ranks in the game, according to stats site U.GG. Thus, the devs might be forced to quickly issue some hotfixes after reworking Skarner’s kit and visual appearance.
The champion’s lore also got reworked due to Riot’s “goal of creating a single cannon throughout all of Runeterra,” making it easier for the developers to keep a consistent piece of lore in the game connecting everything. According to League senior writer Elyse “apothecarie” Lemoine, the champion is in Ixtal as one of the longest-serving and founding members of its ruling caste, the Yun Tal. The champion has been hearing “whispers” that ask him to end Ixtal’s isolation, which is currently driving Skarner into paranoia.
Riot’s current interpretation of the Brackern’s lore has received a mixed reception from fans, who are confused about the champion’s old lore and how it’s connected with the origin of Hextech. With the new lore, Riot hasn’t connected the champion with Hextech, so it should be interesting to see the future of Hextech as a material deeply involved with the popular League-based series Arcane, which gained a major fan following after its release.
Apart from the complete overhaul of Skarner’s in-game abilities, the champion’s five cosmetics have also received a visual makeover to match his current game theme. You can try the reworked Skarner out for yourself on League’s live servers.
