With over 168 unique champions scouring the rift amidst the recent release of Smolder, League looks to be bustling with more action and diversity than ever before. However the ever-evolving champion design and the introduction of exotic, albeit broken, abilities and mechanics in each new release keeps drawing the spotlight into older champions, collecting dust and dropping in popularity. Their calls don’t go unheard as the Primordial Sovereign finally rises back from his shuriman tomb; It is no other than Skarner.
With his introduction onto the PBE servers and as players get to experiment with his new self, we get to look back at what made this scorpion so forgotten in the first place. We’ll also examine his reworked abilities and VGU, analyzing his new identity and how he fits into the game.
A Skarner revision has been much requested by the community since season 6, and a full rework was announced by Riot in the 2022 roadmap (after winning the VGU poll after gathering %33.4 of the votes, tailgated by Shyvana who is predicted to follow suit by 2025), ****as his ironically primordial design started getting more and more apparent.
Skarner’s unpopularity is apparent through his dwindling, already low, pick/ban rate over the years, barely surpassing the %1 mark in recent seasons. Even professional players couldn’t make work of his kit as his esports presence is pretty much negligible, being picked a total of 25 times from over 500 games last season. His obscurity isn’t just from the community’s side, but Riot seemed like it also pulled the plug on his maintenance after he joined the 1000-day skin club (champions with over 1000 days without a new skin release), breaking his 2025-day streak only in 2020.
As the seasons went on, Skarner’s age started to show and cracks started to form in his already fragile kit. Since release, his abilities never underwent significant change aside from his passive which used to add a cooldown-reducing effect on his basic attacks (It was changed to his infamous crystals on patch 5.16).
He needed more than just tweaks and retouches, his abilities were basic at best and useless most of the time. His passive was a gimmicky mechanic with a creative concept and poor execution, trying to create more action in the jungle and provoking teamfights, and in reality, it’s just a glorified ward grating vision and movement speed to Skarner when near it. His other basic abilities are as basic as they could be, giving Kog’maw a run for his money, only his ultimate being somewhat exciting.
Riot has been keeping our beloved scorpion afloat through constant buffs and changes for the past few seasons, perhaps to cover up his delayed rework, but fear no more summoners as it just landed on March 19th on the PBE servers which gives us a glance at his new kit, looks and story.
The former Crystal Vanguard is joining us back with a fresh coat of paint, as his visual design is significantly overhauled; the most notable addition being his three new tails for triple the pain! His model also features added armor to be more in line with his new tank playstyle, and void-like facial features like three fangs protruding from his jaw.
Now to the real nitty gritty, his new abilities. And let me tell you, they’re a surprising mix but fit together really well on first impressions, so let’s get a brief rundown of what they do:
All of Skarny’s skins have received brand-new splash arts, visual models, and VFX along with new backstories associated with each one on release in the following patch 14.7 on April 3rd. New lore is confirmed but is yet to be revealed.
With Skarner’s rework introducing exciting abilities and a fresh look, this is the perfect opportunity to explore him in ranked play. Consider starting your journey with a ranked League of Legends account to climb the ladder with confidence and test his new skillset.
The thing that struck me the most about this rework is the radical change in the champion’s identity, especially with the removal of his crystals that used to always keep the idea that a Skarner is in your game in the back of your head whenever you encountered him. But looking more at it, it’s a necessary approach to ensure a smooth development cycle, since such impactful mechanic needs astute revision and fine-tuning to be neither worthless nor overpowered.
Swerving a bit from the old champion's identity is a necessary risk to ensure that the champion will land on fresh ground and not be tied up to his old failed version; An example of this is the removal of Mordekaiser’s dragon ghost and Aatrox’s revive which used to define them and their character, yet their replacement proved to be successful.
He gets to keep his symbolic suppression and make it more of a tool for skill expression. With his new Ult being a skillshot with a charge-time, it highly raises the skill ceiling from the old point-and-click suppress, introducing an element of risk with a worthwhile reward being the possibility to suppress 3 champions (In hopes that Riot introduces similar changes to Malzahar’s R, a 3-second point-and-click cc is not a healthy game mechanic).
Skarner’s other basic abilities and passive distinctly invoke the change in his playstyle and role, with his kit mostly scaling with bonus health and focusing more on shielding and utility, it is apparent that a tank/fighting jungler playstyle is to be achieved from this rework. Think something between Shen and Ornn. It doesn’t mean that he lost his damage altogether, In fact, his current state in the PBE is shaping him to be an unkillable monster dealing exorbitant amounts of damage so he’s likely to receive a couple of nerfs and balance changes as he approaches live servers.
He seems to draw inspiration in some of his abilities from other champions, with his E resembling a mix between Sion’s ult and Kayn’s umbral trespass, his W being the guy she told Jarvan’s W not to worry about, and his passive being a more of a classic 3-hit passive like Ekko or Vayne.
Skarner has returned to the spotlight after a long period of neglect, marked by dwindling popularity and an outdated kit. And even though some elements of his identity have changed, the rework introduces exciting new looks and skill expression opportunities. With a focus on tankiness and utility, Skarner looks set to carve out a niche as a formidable frontline fighter in League of Legends. As players eagerly await his official release, anticipation mounts for the revitalization of this long-forgotten scorpion on the Rift.
