@RIOT - Lore Based Skins

For a little while skins have been getting their own unique lore in alternative universes which is incredibly cool but it has been a long time since I can recall seeing a skin within the Lore of Runeterra. A recent post from riot in Dev Corner mentioned that League of Legends isn't always the best platform for conveying lore, although I admit this is true it seems odd to me that skins are not used for this more. When I first started playing League there was a decent proportion of Lore Based Skins; Young Ryze, King Tryndamere, Queen Ashe, Exiled Morgana, Crimson Elite skins, Pre-Void Kassadin, and the list goes on. Before I knew anything about the lore these were what grabbed my interest in the stories of the characters.

One of the best examples for me was Redeemed Riven, as before I had even unlocked the character a week into playing the game I was left with the question; why does she need redemption? This is what grew my interest in the character and more importantly her lore, where I found out that her release skins represented two opposite possible futures, which to me was really interesting. Since then I have read the lore for almost every character at some point, furthermore Riven has been one of my most played characters with Redeemed Riven as the most used skin. A similar thing can be said about Young Ryze, from just one picture we learn that Ryze was not always a blue bald rune wizard thing but was once a normal human being which leads to questions about what happened to him.

In general Lore-based skins fuel interest in the character's stories and I think they are an under-utilised method currently of including the Lore within League of Legends. So I was wondering why it is we have not seen more lore-based skins recently? Is it because they are less popular? Is it because it requires crossover work from two different teams? I am curious to know as personally I would love to also see the occasional skin based in the lore of Runeterra.