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Did you know certain skins are banned in tournaments and LCS?

Limakoko808·4/15/2014, 5:10:10 AM·9 votes·16,957 views

I myself only found out rather recently, and i couldnt help but wonder, Why?

Well i dont have the full list of banned skins, but i know of a few and why they are banned.

So apparently urfrider corki is not allowed to be played because his animations arent easily visible to spectators.

Underworld twisted fate is also banned. We all know that UW twisted fates cards are much smaller and harder to see/dodge than his classic skin.

Im just wondering, instead of banning these skins, shouldnt they just be fixed so that EVERYONE, not just lcs players/spectators, can play against them without being at a disadvantage?

I mean off the top of my head i can think of 2 other skins that have spell animations that are hard to read(santa gragas, steel legion lux) and could be improved.

Now i dont know how long, or how much resources would take up, but shouldnt this be fixed? Doesnt a certain skin having advantages in terms of gameplay basically make small elements of the game pay to win? Isnt this the exact opposite of what Riot wants?

11 Comments

Sir ArmaMalum4/15/2014, 1:29:51 PM4 votes

Another unfair advantage skin is Justicar Syndra, the orbs are surprisingly difficult to see as their outline is almost non-existent. From my experience however the advantage gained is so small that it shouldn't have meaningful impact in online play. It's just (speculation) the fact that professional and tournament play involves money and that mean the possibility of lawsuits for any one-sided advantage no matter how small.

That being said I wouldn't mind having them 'balanced' myself.

Thamios4/15/2014, 5:51:25 PM4 votes

I know another one is iBlitzcrank. Though that's just an annoying skin in general. "Hey let's make Blitz's distinct grab into a beam particle that has no readable hitbox because the hitbox ends at the fuzziest part of the animation which is super flashy btw, have fun dodging it!"

I have issues with them allowing Wildfire Zyra because her roots are harder to see because they're dark red/black/orange as opposed to green, black, and red. Coming out of a bush it's pretty hard to see them since the flashiest part of the animation is from Zyra. However I'm not diamond so I can't say much.

Wandered through Reddit and found the beginnings of a list (link here: http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1vh9kp/banned_skins_in_the_lcs/cesepim)

Okay so here is the official list of banned Skins from the tournament realm, i expect them to be the same as the lcs ones, but i can't 100% confirm that: Edit: People are saying that certain skins on the list were used in the lcs, so I will ask someone from Riot before cotinuing this list. Work in Progress Akali: Crimson / All-Star

Alistar: Black / Matador / Longhorn

Amumu: Pharaoh / Vancouver / Re-Gifted

Anivia: Team Spirit / Bird of Prey / Blackfrost

Annie: Goth / Red Riding / Wonderland / Frostfire / FrankenTibbers

Blitzcrank: Rusty / Goalkeeper / Definitely Not / iBlitz / Riot

Brand: Vandal / Zombie

Caitlyn: Safari

Cassio: Desperada / Siren

Cho: Nightmare / Loch Ness

Corki: Ufo / Ice Taboggan / Red Baron / Urfrider

Diana: Dark Valkyrie

Mundo: Toxic / Mundoverse / Mundo Mundo / TPA

Elise: Victorious

Evelynn: Masquerade

Ezreal: Nothingham / Striker / TPA

Fiddlesticks: Spectral / Union Jack / Pumpkinhead / Dark Candy

Fiora: Headmistress

I will continue this list after I slept if this gets enough upvotes since as you can see it's a huge ass list.

Have my doubts that these are ALL true (as the post is a month or so old) but most of these are accurate.

exec34/15/2014, 6:42:04 AM3 votes

I agree. TF's very difficult to see cards and Santa Gragas's tiny Q's are the only one's i've personally found to be 'cheat skins' and i'd like to see them fixed up though for Gragas I doubt it'll be fixed up (assuming the rework didn't fix it, haven't seen that skin yet post rework) until they do a VU for him. Underworld TF is probably a case of not worth wasting the resources fixing it when so many other things need work, I just wish it'd been caught before release.

HazeyInDaHead4/15/2014, 5:11:32 PM3 votes

Steel legion lux is pretty cheaty.

The animation and sound for her snare are completely underplayed that I basically call out all steel legion lux players whenever I see them.

If you havent seen in, the animation plays a very subtle low tone instead of the typical sound we all know means dodge sideeays and the missile art for the rune is like this little spark that is very easy to not recognize.

All in all it means you spend the first couple trades losing because you got snared by something you really do know how to dodge.

But these people are starting to get rare seeing as they probably just bought drophacks