I dont know, why it is wrong for a champion to talk to a player directly. This have been standard in RTS games for decades, all the way back since the first Dune and Command and Conquer games. It all started, by putting the player in a role of a general\commander\whatever. It was adding to the immersion factor, having all those little people, answering to your commands and moving around the map, attacking, etc ("Da, comrade" "Kirov reporting" :D ).
I didnt realize this fact untill up recently, but hey, if there are not the summoners anymore, what are the player's role then (if there isnt any, maybe they should put him in one, other than being a summoner)? I mean, ok, remove speeches directly referring to summoner, but change it up a bit, to accommodate lore more. But i think that just putting some random jibba-jabbing about killing\annihilating\whatever enemies, or rival dialogues would be generic and boring. There HAS to be some talking to a player directly.