Riot Games has unveiled League of Legends‘ last champion of the year: Rell, the Iron Maiden. This powerful support will be galloping onto Summoner’s Rift in Patch 10.25 next month.
On Summoner’s Rift, Rell is a tanky support that brings a ton of crowd control and utility. She also has a two-part W ability that allows her to either engage with a big knock-up or chase down an enemy and throw them over her shoulder.
Rell’s ultimate sees her yank nearby enemies toward her while she creates a gravitational field that pulls nearby enemies in for a few seconds—enemy actions aren’t interrupted by this field, though. She’s the perfect champion for all-in dives and engages since she can jump into the fray and survive the damage.
Related: Here are all of the abilities for Rell, League’s upcoming Noxian support
In her lore, Rell was born to an agent of The Black Rose and a ranking Noxian soldier. Early in her life, her parents realized that she had the power to manipulate metal. As a result, they sent her to the Black Rose Academy, where children with magical gifts were sent so that Noxus could shape them into weapons for war.
While at the academy, Rell was forced to fight the other students under the guise of “learning from one another to improve”—and she took down every opponent. What she didn’t know, however, was that the Noxian magicians had been ripping away the magical abilities of every kid she beat in combat and implanted them into her via a painful process called sigil magic.
“We really loved the idea of creating a tanky support. It’d been a long time since we’d made one—Braum was actually the last,” senior concept artist Justin “Earp” Albers said. “But unlike Braum, we wanted her to have a darker past and personality. I explored a few different options, but everyone was really attached to the metal bending concept. After we landed on that, we just had to decide where Rell came from.”
When Rell realized that Noxus had hurt her friends, she became furious with the entire academy. She ended up burning it all down and eliminating all of the faculty members in her rage.
Now free from the academy, Rell has become a gallant knight, ready to protect those who have been wronged by Noxus. And now, she’s hard set on taking down Noxus at all costs.
Rell is expected to join League in Patch 10.25 on Dec. 9.
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