LoR: Which Champion Might Get a Second Version in 2024

During the Legends of Runeterra World Championship 2023 broadcast, there were several interviews with the game devs - and in one of them they confirmed an already existing champion would get a second version in LoR!

It is predictable this day would come, after all, champions are released in LoR faster than they are created in League. This difference in speed is so wide that Riot resorted to releasing exclusive champions in the last few years in LoR - Jack, Norra and Elder Dragon - instead of releasing all League champions as soon as they could.

In this article, I'll bring you some ideas and speculation about which champion will get its second version. I took the freedom of creating a few "custom cards" to showcase these ideas better. The cards in this article were all created by me and aren't available in the game.

Each alternative champion version I created was based on a concept Riot could use as a starting point to release these champions' alternative versions in 2024.

Twisted Fate didn't age well in LoR, and is currently one of the strongest cards in the game. He dominates the Eternal format, and is always a part of the meta lists there. The problem is Twisted Fate is the only character in the League of Legends universe that plays cards, or has anything to do with cards, so far. And, for this reason, not having this champion available in Standard in the only card game based on the Runeterra universe, for me, is a very odd.

The concept I used to create Twisted Fate's alternative version was: "Reviving characters that are players' favorites".

TF's strongest pair has been Nilah for a while now, so I gave him her exact level up requirement. However, I brought the new idea of: "What if Twisted Fate's cards were real cards?". This new level 2 brings a new concept to Runeterra, which is revealing cards from your opponent's hand, as if TF himself was playing a dirty game, looking at his opponent's cards.

Samira has become a problematic champion to balance, and is a strong candidate to be rotated in 2024. With that in mind, I brought an alternative version of her considering the following concept: "Showing this champion in more than one region." Samira is a character whose origins are tied to Noxus and Shurima, so a Shuriman Samira isn't something too crazy for next year.

As everything points to Shurima being a region focused on removing power stats from enemy units next year, I brought this same idea to this Shuriman Samira. She removes attack stats from enemy units, and also helps you control the board by denying enemy spells, just like she does in League with her "Blade Whirl" ability.

Irelia is one of the champions that didn't last long in the Runeterra meta because she is too strong when the meta is favorable to her, and too weak when it isn't. Considering this, the concept I used to create her alternative version was: "Support the main mechanic in her original version, but in a more modern way."

I thought about the idea that Irelia is a relentless warrior, who will do anything to help her people, even when she supposedly can't. For this reason, she will always attack even when she isn't normally able to. If she is Stunned, or if you're attacking only with Scout units, she will still go into combat. This would mean that, in Irelia's archetype, when you use a card with a Blade Dance effect, your Irelia 2.0 would always attack with the Blades as well.

This is an idea that already works in Path of Champions - The Irelia boss in Kai'Sa's campaign has a power that makes the strongest ally on the board always enter combat if anything else starts an attack of any kind.

Darius is the most "vanilla" champion in the entire game. He really is just a big unit with very strong stats, and no other effects. So, I thought about the following concept: "Upgrading simple champions, giving them a more complex effect". Like so, maybe Darius 2.0 will be added to future lists with a role more geared towards combo, and not only because he is a big dude.

Decimate is one of Aggro players' most beloved spells, and is also Darius' main ability in League. Why not make this champion use it in Runeterra as well? This alternative version of Darius revives the idea that Noxus is a region that deals damage to the enemy Nexus gradually and eventually wins the game because of it.

In the same interview that they revealed we'd have a 2.0 version of a champion that already exists in LoR, we were also informed that Akshan will be rotated at the beginning of 2024. So, I imagined this alternative version considering the following concept: "Keeping rotated champions in Standard through their alternative versions".

In my alternative version of Akshan, he has a mechanic similar to his League counterpart: reviving allies. I feel like this is a crucial part of this champion's identity which was forgotten when he came to Runeterra, and it could be interesting to have it in the game.

Another idea I brought to his 2.0 version is to mess around with double regions a bit because champions do not necessarily need to be from the regions on their cards, like Yordles - they only need to be strolling around there. For this reason, I moved Akshan to Shadow Isles, considering in his story he spends a good while there.

If you've read this far, now you know how wide the possibilities are when we discuss 2.0 versions of already existing champions.

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