Thoughts of Skins: Shen

After what little feedback I could, I have decided to keep posting these here. So, until I actually am being stopped, these will continue as normal. Anyways, let's talk about the original OG ninja boi of League: Shen.

Shen has been around League for quite some time now. Not entirely from the beginning of League but introduced really early on since its launch. Yet strangely enough, even though he's one of League's oldest champs, he hasn't really gotten too many skins. This isn't too surprising as many other champs that are just as old as him haven't gotten a lot of love for that either (Urgot for example), but while certain factors could also contribute to this, such as popularity in solo-que or pick of the week, I feel like there is a bit more to it than that. Bare in mind that this is just speculation from what I see.

Let's go over his skins real quick:

• Frozen - Sub Zero reference
• Yellow Jacket - Scorpion reference
• Surgeon - he's a doctor, yet in some way still has a ninja look
• Blood Moon - self-explanitory
• Warlord - He's a samurai
• Pulsefire - Time traveling ninja

Now, can you see the common themes of what these skins have to achieve for Shen? They either have to keep the identity of him being a ninja in some way or keep it to some Asian style theme. Frozen and Yellow Jacket are obvious references to two already established ninja characters from Mortal Kombat. Warlord is an obvious nod to Japanese culture and while Blood Moon is it's own theme going, it still is very much inspired as a whole by Asian culture.

The two skins that kind fo try to break this habit are Surgeon and Pulsefire, but even Surgeon still seems to have to make Shen be more ninja-like since you could compare the images of a ninja and surgeon and draw similarities. Pulsefire, however, seems to be the only skin that Shen has that is possibly the farthest from these themes while still keeping it recognizable as Shen. I'm not inciting that these themes are bad, but it might be a good idea to step away from them so they all don't feel too identical to one another.

So, that kind of begs the question: what skin ideas can be made in the future for Shen? Well, I don't have a lot but here are a few suggestions I can throw out:

• Pool Party - Kind of a cheap one but it's something. Would be fun to see Shen bopping people around with a giant pool noodle.

• Arclight - Could be an interesting concept to have since the skin theme itself is about balance and order

• Vs. theme of Light/Order - Kind of obvious since he has a rivalry with Zed. Would also probably go back to being more of the darker theme of Vs. events as well.

• Knight? - I mean, Warlord is a samurai and samurai were basically the knights of Japan but with how Shen looks and acts in game, this....could work?

Yeah, I really didn't have a lot of ideas for this one, but I was glad to discuss about my thoughts on Shen. Anyways, what are your thoughts on the matter? Agree with some points or ideas? Have some of your own? Discuss them down below and next week we'll take a look at....I guess Ornn? Ornn will be next week.