Riot has decided to hold off releasing this year’s SKT skins. On Tuesday, skins for last season’s League of Legends World Champions, SK Telecom were finally revealed to the public. Having a skin for the team that won the World Championship has turned into an ongoing tradition; with every team since season one getting five skins to commemorate their victory. SK Telecom already has a World Championship skin from season three.
The League of Legends community was not a fan of these skins. Reddit post after reddit post hit the front page, complaining about how “bland” and “boring these skins are. Every one of this year’s SKT skins were 750 RP and had no unique interactions or recall animations. Last year, Samsung Galaxy White’s Imp skin had a recall animation that had him rolling around on the ground, like Imp did in a World’s hype video.
Many felt that these skins didn’t live up to the SKT legacy or Worlds skins in general. Riot KateyKHaos wrote in a now deleted tweet that there was nothing “iconic” about this year’s winners to commemorate in a skin. Commenters were quick to point out that Faker, SKT’s mid laner, tumbled onto the first group stage in glorious fashion. They could have at least thrown that onto a skin.
SK Telecom actually said that they didn’t like these new skins. After their win against Sbenu in the LCK, Faker was asked if he liked his team’s new skins . Faker said: “No, they look cool, but hopefully they will make them better.” Last year, SKT members were asked what skin they would want. Bang said he wanted Kalista , and instead they gave him a Sivir skin.
This was the final nail in the coffin and later that day Riot Super Cakes took to the League forum to discuss the skins. The SKT skins will not be released just yet; Riot wants to wait to find things to make the skins “look even more awesome.” They are also adding a skin for Easyhoon, who was SKT’s sub mid laner. He said that he wanted an Azir skin and that’s what they are giving him.
Like the Overwatch scandal with Tracer’s booty , the loudest community members get what they want. The skins were boring, so I’m happy that they are going back to the drawing board but I’m worried about this trend of developers giving in to community backlash. The internet hive mind may have been right this time, but they aren’t always. If you give us an inch, we are going to take a mile.
I appreciate the clarity coming out of Riot, especially after telling us that Solo Queue is coming and then snatching it away .
