Champion Roadmap: September 2020

Hey all, now that Samira’s made her stylish debut, we wanted to take a minute to talk about some of our upcoming plans for new champions and VGUs.

In the beginning of the year, we said we wanted to bring more champions from League’s lore to Summoner’s Rift. Creating champions like this helps make the world of Runeterra feel more alive and allows us to tell really compelling stories around the new champs.

We recently did this with Yone, as we brought him out of the pages of Yasuo’s story and into battle alongside (and against) him during the Spirit Blossom event. Yone's return from the grave helped us set new stakes for Ionia, where the azakana are growing in numbers and will continue to be a problem for the region. Players seemed to really enjoy the extra depth Yone's release added to Yasuo's character as well, especially in “Kin of the Stained Blade.”

Because the reception for Yone and Senna have been so positive, we're going to bring another character players have been longing for to the Rift next year.

Another strategy we discussed in our previous Champion Roadmap was our renewed focus on releasing more new champions. Specifically, we said that our goal was to release six new champions per year: One for each position with the exception of mid lane, where we’d target two (one mage and one melee champ). So far in 2020, we’ve released…

• A top laner (Sett)
• A jungler (Lillia)
• A melee mid laner (Yone)
• And an ADC (Samira)

This leaves us with a mid-lane mage and a support to round out the year, which I’m happy to say we’re on track for (but as always, things could change). Also, just because we are focusing on new champions doesn’t mean we have forgotten about VGUs. Dr. Mundo’s update is in full swing right now, as is early work on another unannounced champion update.

With that, let’s jump into the mage and support that’ll round out our champions for 2020, as well as an update on Mundo’s VGU and a little sneak peak on the first champion to set sail in 2021.

Become a Fan

I don’t know about all of you, but I have become a fan of so many champions over the years. Have any of you become so charmed by a champion, that you hang posters on your walls, play their theme on repeat, and lock them in every game you possibly can?

Regardless of your current level of fandom, when Piltover and Zaun’s new rising star finally hits the promenade, she might convert you into an instant mega-fan. I hope you’re all ready to crowd around her and cheer along!

WANTED! MUST BE ALIVE FOR REWARD!

Attention!

The empire will pay greatly for the capture and detainment of this runaway criminal. The fugitive is EXTREMELY dangerous, so approach with caution. They are heavily armored and will attack if even slightly provoked. Wear light armor, as reports show warbands have been killed with their heavy gear twisted and shattered, littering the ground around them. The criminal’s been known to mount a quick retreat when cornered, so bringing a highly-trained team is recommended.

If you somehow manage to detain this criminal, please bring them directly to the closest empire building marked with a black rose.

Twisted Obsession

What would you do for love?

Would you go to the ends of the world?

Would you give up everything you have?

Would you go to the brink of life and death?

If you are willing to do anything, you may just find yourself falling for our romantic new jungle skirmisher, who will be twisting hearts and possessing minds early next year.

I Need a Doctor?!

We’ve made a lot of progress on Mundo’s VGU since the last time we shared an update, which covered his early ideation phase. At the time, most of what we shared was exploratory, but we did know three things we wanted from his update:

1. We want to make big upgrades to Mundo’s visuals and theme, not only to look better, but to better fit in with how League's visual style has evolved.
2. We want to make significant gameplay improvements to Mundo’s kit, while maintaining his super-tank regeneration and the ability to chuck cleavers.
3. We want to keep Mundo a very simple champion.

After the post went out, we read a lot of your feedback about what was or wasn’t exciting from our early explorations. We saw that a lot of people wanted us to keep Mundo as a fun and comical champion, so that’s definitely something we plan on keeping. We really want Mundo to embody a kind of “dark comical” theme that we feel would be very unique to League’s roster of champions.

On the gameplay side, we tried a lot of different things, but the one that really stuck was pushing further on the feeling that Mundo goes wherever he pleases. We’ve decided to move forward with making Mundo an extremely difficult champion to lock down. This direction requires us to give him meaningful trade-offs—having CC-immunity in any form is a powerful tool—so Mundo will remain a champion with no hard CC or mobility on his kit.

Overall, we’re going to keep Mundo’s gameplay pretty similar. There will of course be tweaks and changes to many of his abilities to add more skill expression, satisfaction, and counterplay, but he will still feel like the same old Mundo we’ve grown to love.

We’ll dive much deeper into our progress on Mundo in his next /dev blog, which you can expect sometime next year. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with his latest concept art.

Until Next Time

One last thing before we go. Earlier this year, we said we were going to hold another poll where you’d get to vote for League’s next VGU. We ran into some problems getting the poll up and running on the new website, and we had to get started on the next VGU before we were able to fix them. The champion we chose wasn’t on the previous voting poll, but I think it’s one that many players will be excited about when we announce it (which we hope to do in the next Roadmap). We’re still planning on doing another VGU poll, which will happen next year and be for the following champion update.

With that, I hope you’re all as excited as I am for some of the up and coming champions. We’ll be back at the start of next year to share our plans for 2021. In the meantime… See you all on the Rift!