I wanted to say thanks for making Zoe

Now that some of the Zoe hate has died down, I just wanted to take the time to thank Riot and CertainlyT for making this champion. Long story inbound.

I've been playing League since early 2012. At various points, I've mained the likes of Lulu, Lux, Anivia, Malzahar, Teemo and Sona. I'm naturally drawn towards cute, colorful, high-energy, free-spirited characters. Initially, I was totally obsessed with Lulu. She had come out 2 weeks prior to when I started playing so I got to spend the whole week playing her via the free rotation. I thought she was the most amazing character, design-wise, that I'd ever seen in a game. I mained her for a long time. I spent a lot of my early days as a new player on League slowly learning how to use her skills (the fact that she had different effects for enemy/ally really tripped me up a lot). I bought all of her skins, made an alt account with the name "Lulu" in it, bought the Lulu emotes (Delightify and Cup-Yay).

Fast-foward to the animation of a shimmering bubble that shoots into the fountain and puts people to sleep at the start of a game.

"What in the world is this?" I asked. I was very curious by the in-game teaser, but then I read Riot's remarks on the matter.

"We also wanted to take this chance to do something a bit more playful and bubbly as opposed to the dark and serious champions we’ve done recently. The new mage will have unique abilities that haven’t been seen before in League, so hold onto your summoner spells and don’t fall asleep, because change is coming… cataclysmic change. Also, sparkles!"

Suddenly, I went from curious to buzzing with anticipation. "Is this going to be another Lulu-type character?"

Then her Champion teaser dropped. My first reactions of it when I messaged my friends went like this:

"LOL she's cute

And potentially very obnoxious

My new main?

We have a Disney character on the rift now

Very annoying

Well that settles it. My new main"

Little did I know that would actually come to be the case.

I must have watched that teaser a dozen times. Here's this obnoxiously happy character in League of Legends. She's jumping across the rift, using three Flashes in a row, being a massive nuisance for her enemies. When she showed up on the PBE I couldn't wait to get a few games in as her. Just like when I first started playing Lulu, Zoe was confusing as hell to control. But, little by little, I got the hang of it and she's now the most fun aspect of the game I've had playing this game in a long time.

Everything about her kit is so much fun. Landing mile-long sleep bubbles is the most satisfying thing ever. However, I tend to focus on the character design aspects. As far as Zoe's character goes, she's perfect. She's bubbly and obnoxiously innocent. She reminds me way too much of myself when I was a little kid. She sings randomly, talks way too much, makes up her own lyrics to songs, makes up words, gets mad when she messes up (miss Q's). The little things about her in-game model are great. Her hair is bigger than she is, she turns to the summoner and sticks out her tongue, she slips and falls randomly when she stops walking. Every time I look at this character, it genuinely makes me happy. She is amazing and I love everything about her.

I embraced the consensus of her being 'annoying' and 'cancerous' and thought it was great how people got mad over her. It made me like the character even more. However, I was really disheartened by the genuine hate for the character — both for her personality and because of her kit. I knew she was going to be aggravating, but the community had this almost universal hate for her and it was not a good time to admit you liked Zoe. I'm happy they nerfed her into the ground and then re-adjusted her numbers and abilities to be a lot less ridiculous. Now I can actually play her without her getting banned 90% of the time, or picked by the enemy team the other 10%.

tl;dr: Zoe is the most perfect Champion I've ever played. She's annoyingly bubbly, high-energy and free-spirited. I see a lot of myself in this character. She hits all the right notes for me and I identify with the character more than any other Champion in the game.

Thank you CertainlyT and everyone else involved so much for this awesome character. You got a lot of flack for designing her, but she's drawn me into the game more than any other Champion ever has.