This year’s League of Legends World Championship anthem was finally released today, mere days before the start of the play-in stage.
Recommended Videos
Rise is packed with all the motivational lyrics and symbolism we’ve come to expect from Worlds anthems, like Warriors and Legends Never Die, but this year’s was also filled with an absolute ton of easter eggs. More specifically, the music video of the song is filled with them, and it includes references to other players, skins, specific fights, teams, and past championships. Here are all of our favorites.
- The music video kicks off with a close-up on Kang “Ambition” Chan-yong. As he stands back up, you can barely hear play-by-play commentator Trevor “Quickshot” Henry announcing SK Telecom T1 as the winners of Worlds in 2016. Ambition had just been slain by SKT, and he was now getting back up to try again.
- This desolate field of death, for lack of a better word, is filled with the weapons of champions, like Riven, Darius, Jhin, and many more, as well as banners of fallen Worlds teams. There are some noteworthy teams here, like Origen, Albus NoX Luna, EDG, Cloud9, Flash Wolves, and more. Here, Ambition picks up Sejuani’s flail, Kha’Zix’s claws, and Jarvan’s spear before moving forward.
- While Ambition makes his climb to the top in between the epic animated showdowns with various players, you can see silhouettes of each year’s Championship skin somewhere in the backdrop. By the end of the video, all previous skins make an appearance.
- There are several noteworthy fights that Ambition has with other players throughout the video. The Yasuo is G2 Esports’ Luka “Perkz” Perković, Vayne is Jian “Uzi” Zi-Hao, and Ryze is obviously Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok. He defeats them all to eventually claim the crown at the end.
- At the end of the fight with Perkz, there is an extremely short reminder that other fights are raging on around Ambition while he experiences his own battles. A gigantic Kennen shuriken flashes across the sky, only to be struck down and dispersed by a bolt that turns into bats. We learn later that the bat-bolt was fired from Uzi (who is seen as Vayne, covered in bats), and we believe the shuriken came from Martin “Rekkles” Larsson. Rekkles is famous for his bot lane Kennen, and he and Fnatic were knocked out of the quarterfinals at Worlds last year by Uzi and RNG.
- One of the grand landscapes Ambition crosses on his journey is a field of statues of certain champions taking down an Elder Dragon. Those champions, Taliyah, Gnar, Ezreal, Rakan, and Xayah, were five of the six skins Samsung Galaxy (Ambition’s team) would choose after winning the tournament. The sixth skin, Jarvan, was Ambition’s choice, and the only statue not present in the scene.
- When Ambition reaches the top, he’s met by Faker, who is reading a book with several etchings of Korean writing. The writing was translated by someone on Imgur to read “The Unkillable Demon King’s fundamental guide to winning Worlds.” At this summit, you can see statues depicting the past winners of Worlds.
- After Ambition wins, the camera pans back out to the start to show other players on their own climbs, including Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng, Paul “sOAZ” Boyer, and more. At the very end of the video, Uzi opens his eyes in the same spot that Ambition started, likely to begin his own journey for redemption. Uzi and RNG won the Mid-Season Invitational this year, and have returned to Worlds for another shot at the crown.
