The Next Ultimate Skin: 2 years later (Part 5)
Hello again everybody!
Long time no see! When, I say it's been 2 years, I'm not lying. Gun Goddess Miss Fortune is approaching on her 2 year anniversary (in March), and since then...ALOT has changed.
If you are new to this little series of mine, I started making these threads FOUR years ago, right before the reveal of Elementalist Lux (seriously, I released the first part, and E. Lux was revealed maybe a month later). At first, the point of these posts was to try and predict the next Ultimate skin to be released, and I believe I did a pretty good job for the first 3 parts...despite not even being in the ball park for any of my predictions.
Then, GGMF happened.
Pretty much everyone, including Riot, agrees that GGMF could have been so much more, and was hardly deserving of the Ultimate title. I myself was extremely disappointed in the skin, not because I had gotten my prediction wrong, but because it felt like Riot had taken a step in the wrong direction with the skin. Instead of being able to present what the skins team is capable of doing when pushed to their absolute limit, they instead went for an easy to sell cash-grab. (You can read my thoughts on the skin here.
But since then...there has been plenty of development in the skin "industry" if you will, and I have half a mind to believe that GGMF was the instigator of it all. In this post, I will go over those changes, and, unlike in Part 4, I believe I have a pretty good idea on who's getting the next skin.
But first....
#What has changed?
Back when I started this little series, I had developed a set of rules that a champion must fall under in order to be selected for an Ultimate skin. Unfortunately, in my very first post, Kindlejack, the lead artist at the time, essentially shut down those rules, explaining that the skins team was far more...autonomous than what I had imagined. Pretty much everyone on the skins team had their own "rules" for what champs get what skins. However, at the time, I still felt that my rules still held merit, since the skins that were coming out followed a particular pattern. However, ever since GGMF....none of it applies anymore.
Firstly, my "rules" were under the assumption that both Ultimates and Legendary skins both followed them, since Ultimates could be considered glorified Legendary skins. This is what I came up with:
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The champ must follow the 6 month rule.
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Champions should be more than 3 years old.
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A champion must not already have a Legendary skin.
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Finish the team.
With these rules, I was able to create a list of champions that were "viable" for both a Legendary skin, and an Ultimate. But as time went on, each one got shut down by a specific skin release.
The first one was shut down pretty quick. My assumption was that a champion must have to wait 6 months in order to get a new skin, period. Didn't matter if it was an Ultimate, or a 750, that 6 month rule applied. But, with the release of Eternal Sword Master Yi coming soon after Cosmic Master Yi...it didn't take long for this rule to be thrown out the window.
The second rule of a champ being 3 years old only applied to Legendaries and Ultimates. My assumption was that a newer champ getting a Legendary skin would just be unfair. While I still believe it to be unfair, this rule was killed with the release of Odyssey Kayn, a champ who has yet to see his 3rd anniversary (which is in July.....yes, you read that right).
The third rule was one I honestly thought Riot would stick to as much as possible, and to give them credit, they have tried. However, this rule has been killed by both God King Darius, and High Noon Ashe. With Dairus, I can kind of understand why it came about, since he is the antithesis to Garen. You can't have a versus event featuring Garen without also featuring Darius. High Noon Ashe, however, was unnecessary. Don't get me wrong, I'm an Ashe main, and absolutely adore the skin to the moon and back, BUT, I will be the first to say that they could have made High Noon Hecarim the Legendary in the set.....a champ that has yet to receive his Legendary.
Now, some of you might say that that rule was killed a long time ago with Heimerdinger, Corki, Tristana, and Cho'gath, all of which "officially" have 2 Legendary skins. That being said, all of those skins (save for Battlecast Cho'gath and Dragon Trainer Heimer/Tristana) were made in a time where Riot didn't really have a good foundation laid out for how skins should be made, and what quality they should really achieve for. This is why Legendaries such as Alien Invader Heimer, Red Baron Corki, and Wonderland Annie are all Legacy skins, and can no longer be purchased. They simply do not match Riot's current standard of what a Legendary should be.
And finally, the last rule of "finishing the team". When I first started this series, Riot was releasing skin sets with full potential teams. This means a skin set would have a top, jungle, mid, bot, and support in the line up. This is evident in the first set of Star Guardian skins, and PROJECT skins. They were also in a trend of fleshing out a team for currently existing skin lines, such as Headhunter and Arcade. Due to this, I figured that the "Ultimate" skin line would follow this trend, and it did.....the first time. Elementalist Lux was released, and so the Ultimate line had a jungle, mid, ADC, and support. All it was missing was a top laner. And we know how that worked out.
It was soon after E. Lux came out that Riot ended the trend of creating full teams for skin lines. Shifting to more of a thematic cohesion than anything else. If the champ could fit reasonably well in the thematic of the skin line, then it would likely get a skin for that line. This is why the second set of Star Guardian skins doesn't fit the "full-team" mold. And so, unfortunately, the Ultimate line fell victim to this with the release of GGMF. Needless to say, quite a few top laners were probably a bit more upset than everyone else.
So, we have had rules and guidelines change over the years, but, what else has changed?
Well, one obvious change is the fact that every skin released is, at minimum, the 1350 RP price range. This actually makes sense if you really think about it, however.
With Riot leaning pretty heavy into events lately that offer battle passes, players are actually getting more skins for cheaper prices. You rack up enough tokens to get a few event orbs, which in turn grant you skin shards, which then can be rerolled into permanent skins. Yes, it is a clever and shady way to work around the "loot-box-alypse" (coining that term now) that is happening in the gaming industry, but the fact that it would affect how much money Riot makes off of skins still applies.
But then, we also have chromas. 750 and 950 price tier skins were likely becoming too easy to make, and it became more of a hindrance to make them. Artists would have to waste time in determining who would fit these lines, design them, and then make sure they work on release. Well, what if you could drastically reduce both of those aspects by just recoloring a higher quality skin, and make more money off of 1 skin, then a potential 5? And, if you happened to notice, chromas are starting to offer differentiation in model design. Not by much, mind you, but enough of a difference that a chroma could feel almost thematically distinct from the base skin.
So, you make less money off skins in general, but you combat this by cutting costs in unique ways, while also increasing the amount of money you make off of any individual skin. Sounds like business 101 to me.
But another side affect of this business decision is that skin quality has been rising dramatically....and that's putting it very lightly. For example, the new Blood Moon skins that are on the PBE as of writing may seem pretty par-for-the-course today. But back when Riot would release skins like Gentleman Cho'gath, these skins would probably be considered legendaries in their own right. Even when compared to early PROJECT skins, these newer skins stand a very obvious step above the quality that those past skins had to match.
#Predicting the Future
Rules have changed, business models have changed, art direction has become more streamlined, quality has increased ten fold over the years, and technology has obviously gotten better as well. How does any of this help us predict what the next Ultimate skin will be?
Short answer: It doesn't.
In all complete honesty, we simply can't predict which champ will get the next Ultimate skin. Hell, even Riot can't do it. Choosing a design for a champ can takes months, and dozens, if not possibly hundreds of concepts are thought up, and thrown.....possibly within a single day. They even said it themselves that they effectively wanted to rethink what it meant to be an Ultimate tier skin.
And this is exactly why this particular skin has taken so long to come out. Riot themselves aren't even 100% on what champ would be getting the skin, let alone the design it would take......or, at least they were when that article was written.
Remember how I said that I have a pretty good idea as to who is getting the next Ultimate skin? Well, it all comes from this one video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI65xHnD5Yc
Particularly at 1:01 when Bellissimoh starts listing off the champions that Riot plans on releasing skins for. He went through the list pretty quick, and a couple of the skins even got teased (Elderwood Ornn, and Dark Star Mordekaiser), but there was one champ that stood out.
Taliyah.
Every other champ mentioned was part of a list just quickly written down in a notebook. So, why was Taliyah intentionally made to stand out in this video?
Well, you could say that it was just to hype up the large fanbase Taliyah has. Ever since her release, Taliyah fans have been begging Riot for something more than just an Esports skin. Oh, and there's also this little gem that you....may.....have heard of:
Star Guardian Talyiah is so desperately wanted by the fanbase, that it kind of makes you wonder why she hasn't gotten the skin already. Hell, for all we know, Riot could have contacted this artist in order to help them design this very skin!
But...if there's one thing the Ultimate line does, it's not conform to any current skin line. If anything, they spawn skin lines of their own (evident with the Pulsefire line). So, if Taliyah is to get the next Ultimate skin, I actually doubt that it would be the Star Guardian skin. But, as you've seen earlier in the post, any "rules" I make tend to get shot down, so, it's possible we could have the first mainstream Ultimate skin.
But as to why Taliyah would get the Ultimate skin, it actually makes perfect sense. Especially in Season 10.
Rise of the Elements brought forth the first changes to the Summoner's Rift we've seen in 5 years. The last significant change being the release of the map's visual update. This season, we get to see changes to the map itself, with the introduction of Alcoves, and the elemental dragons physically changing the map.
And which champion's whole niche is about changing the map?
Sure, you have champs like Jarvan and Anivia being able to create terrain. You also have champs like Kayn and Bard that have the capability to remove the obstacle that is walls. You even have champs like Ornn and Camille that interact specifically with the terrain.
But no other champ has quite the impact on the map like Taliyah does.
Her passive directly interacts with the map itself, her Q forces to move around to other parts of the map for new ground, her E lays down dangerous terrain....and her ultimate. Need I say more?
One aspect of the past Ultimate skins is that they all have a simple theme that they can expand on, and a certain aspect of their character that Riot can really crank up to 11. Udyr and spirits, Sona and music, Lux and elements, MF and her guns (Ez is the odd one out since he was the first one). Taliyah checks both of those boxes, being basically just an Earthbender.
Her character design is simple enough to allow plenty of room for exploration, and she has one aspect that Riot can knock out of the park (changing terrain). And, amazingly, she actually fits my now defunct rules for a champion getting a legendary or ultimate!
- It's been years since her last skin.
- She's more than 3 years old (she'll be 4 in May)
- She doesn't have a Legendary
Only one she doesn't really fit is the finishing of the team. That said....Sona top is a thing now, Taliyah support actually isn't that bad, and Lux support has always been a thing. So, season 10 inadvertently finished the team for us!
#Conclusion
I can not say for certain that Taliyah is getting the next Ultimate skin, especially since my speculation is coming from just 25 seconds of a YouTube video. But, since Riot loves to tease the shit out of us whenever they get an opportunity, I'm optimistic that that little hint dropped is just enough info for us to make a pretty accurate guess. Not to mention that Taliyah is a prime candidate for such a prestigious skin.
As for when we will see it....well, it's entirely possible that we won't see it until closer to the end of the year. The Ask Riot article about Ultimate skins came out 7 months ago, and, every other ultimate skin has taken around 18 months to complete from the previous Ultimate skin. If we apply those 18 months to when the article was released, that puts the possible release date for around November or December. Remember, that list was a list of champs that would be getting skins this year, and so, we do have to be patient to see when they come around.
And there you have it folks!
I do hope you enjoyed my return to this series. I took a bit of a break from League, which added to the time it took to make this one. I only intended to come back once Riot decided to release a new game....6 months later, the 10 year anniversary announcements drop. So, here I am (loving LoR, btw!).
Let me know what you think about the possibility of Taliyah getting the next Ultimate skin, or if you have any ideas as to who the next recipient may be. And yes, you are free to be as biased as you want (if I was allowed to be biased, it'd be Ashe all the way!).
In the meantime, thanks for reading! Electro522
are the most likely ones I think
ultimate skin: The day Riot bombs hard on an ultimate skin.