LoL Transcendent Skin Tier
For most of League of Legends' history, Ultimate skins were the highest tier of cosmetics available, completely transforming the champion and pairing them up with an entirely new animation kit, an updated model, and new mechanics such as forms that can be toggled, or hours upon hours of new sound effects.
With the release of Immortalized Legend Ahri in 2024, we saw the addition of a new tier to the skin catalog and Riot Store page, that being the Transcendent skin tier along with the Exalted skin tier. This new tier of Transcendent skins sits above Exalted, which sits above Ultimate.
The release of Immortalized Legend Ahri had its own controversy and discussion due to its hefty price tag of $450 USD, which is discussed in its own standalone article. With that aside, let's talk about the future of this new tier of skins, what they'll look like, and what are the expectations placed on Riot for each.
What are Transcendent Skins?
The League of Legends Wiki defines the Transcendent tier as the following:
"This tier transcends and overcomes the bounds of the game and is reserved for real-life events. Skins in this tier include all Ultimate skin features but also unique flavor for multiple different parts of gameplay. Outside of the game, releases are paired with an abundance of exclusive and non-exclusive content related to the event, whether it be for entertainment, collection, or commemoration, all meant to function as a landmark of the entire League of Legends community."
The new tier of Transcendent skins is defined less by the value of its cosmetic features and more prominently about its rarity, lack of availability and high price.
Transcendent skins are not intended to be for the average player to pick up and casually play with— they're collector's items, designed to flaunt high prices on other players
How to get Transcendent Skins?
This new skin tier cannot be obtained through Hextech Crafting. It will not appear in Hextech Chests, Mystery Gifts or Skin Shard rerolls.
The only way to acquire Transcendent skins is to purchase their highly priced and time-limited bundles. Immortalized Legend Ahri's bundle, which is currently the only skin in this tier, was only available in June and July of 2024 and was priced at 59,260 RP, equivalent to around $455 USD.
It's important to understand that the purchase of this specific skin was within a bundle rather than a standalone skin. It also included a unique title, border, icon, emote, event pass progress and 4 rare chromas for other skins.
It's very likely we'll start to see the following skins released within this tier be sold directly in the store, rather than as part of a larger bundle, with a discount or lower base price.
Skin Rarity
As of 2025, Riot Games has made it clear that Transcendent skins will never return once their event is over, and will not be added to the pool for Hextech Crafting. This would actually fit them within the roster of the rarest skins in the game.
10 years from now, an account with Immortalized Legend Ahri skin could be worth way more than the bundle's original price. Although Immortalized Legend Ahri was released at a time when it was more popular, compared to extremely rare skins such as PAX Twisted Fate, their incredibly high price and limited time window to acquire them will eventually make them outscale other rare skins in price.
The Hall of Legends
As we've stated before, Ahri is currently the only champion with a Transcendent skin available. Or rather, the only one that was released, since it's no longer available for purchase. The only way to add Immortalized Legend Ahri to your collection is purchasing accounts that bought the bundle during the event.
The skin was made to honor Faker's performance and his induction into the Hall of Legends, a new initiative to celebrate the most iconic and high-performing players in the history of League of Legends. While one can criticize the pricing, there's nobody more deserving than Faker to host such an event. His performance has earned him a legendary status in the community, and his achievements and career require an entirely different article to explore.
We can expect the Hall of Legends initiative, along with the Transcendent tier, to expand slowly with time. It's anybody's guess who'll be the next to be inducted, though. They would have to be not only active within the community and competitive scene, but also within social media and willing to collaborate professionally with Riot Games. One good example of somebody like this is Caps, of who we also have an entire article about.
Transcendent Skin Features
Transcendent skins will include all the benefits expected of Exalted and Ultimate skins, including:
- New splash art
- New model
- New animation kit
- New visual and sound effects
- New voiceover and voice lines
- Extra mechanics and gimmicks, such as forms that can be toggled in-game or variant skins and chromas included onto the base product
But the new tier also includes extra features, such as:
- Special effects for destroying towers, along with signatures on towers you've destroyed
- A fifth emote (not including Ctrl+5 model toggles)
- Animations, visual effects and model that upgrades in real-time throughout the course of the game
- Counters that show off your kill count
- Special visual and sound effects on kills
Community Controversy and Feedback
The "$500 Ahri skin" sparked a controversy within the League of Legends community. Although Immortalized Legend Ahri was, indubitably, an extremely good looking and well-polished skin with stellar gameplay feedback on her abilities, the price tag was left on everybody's minds. For several hundred dollars, most people would expect a lot more out of the skin, such as unique ability icons, a custom HUD, or a custom minimap. In truth, it's hard to think of enough cosmetic effects you could cram onto a skin to make it worth that much.
Players expressed outrage over the unprecedented cost. Keep in mind that it was introduced at a time where Exalted skins weren't a thing, so going from an Ultimate skin costing around $30-35 USD all the way into the $450 USD for the Faker bundle was a huge leap. The irony was not lost on players, as Faker was widely known for living a relatively frugal lifestyle and rarely using skins in game. It seemed to many players that the only purpose for the new tier was to see just how much people would pay for a skin.
In protest, many players initiated a boycott by consistently banning Ahri in all their matches, trying to make it so that nobody who bought the skin would get to show it off.
While some regions such as NA saw a small temporary rise in Ahri bans, the effect was relatively minuscule. Anecdotal evidence showed good reception for the skin. Faker streamed for an hour in Weibo to promote the skin, and in that time alone he gathered ¥17 million RMB ($2.3 million USD). Over time, the boycott tapered off and the community largely moved on to newer discussions. Riot Games has not announced any pricing changes for the skin tier despite the backlash.
Conclusion
Many believe that the community boycott was large enough to make Transcendent skins a one time thing, but Riot's bottom line has hardly shifted from the backlash. Transcendent skins are here to stay, reserved for large events, with their function being that of an intentionally rare and exceedingly expensive collector's edition item.
Transcendent skins did, however, arrive in the same period as a lot of other changes to Riot Games' approach to monetization, and the release of Immortalized Legend Ahri did, without a doubt, contribute to a long-term sense dissatisfaction from the playerbase.
