They did it with Illaoi and Sylas debuting in lore stories before they were confirmed as champions. Illaoi is top 10 champions in the game and Sylas is at least cool in the lore
I think this is neat, do it more please
It's definitely cool, I think they should either do that or a cinematic trailer (not talking about the ones using in game footage) for each champion. Pyke had an awesome cinematic trailer last year and lots of characters in the past have gotten an awesome one as well. Unfortunately most cinematics go to skin lines now, which is cool but not as cool as revealing a new in-universe character.
I think for the lore before reveal thing though, Ornn was probably my favorite of all time. Reading about he and the other gods through folk tales was awesome. Sylas and Illaoi were awesome too.
They did it with Neeko too. I love it so much.
But then we'll never know which character will become a champion, and folk will look at everyone with plausible championship!
Which stories showed Sylas and Illaoi before they appeared in game cause i dont know which stories mentioned them before they were revealed. And to clarify do you mean they were mentioned in other peoples stories before they were announced as champions or they got little short stories as teasers before they were revealed
Here's to hoping Arjen becomes a champion.
Fun fact: Camille is given the title of 'The Grey Lady', why is this important?
Prior to Evelyn's VGU, her old lore has her state that 'The Grey Lady' was a competitor years before Camille was revealed, because they are both bounty hunters.
Overall I think Riot does this so rarely to keep more creative freedom when they actually design the champion.
The stories with Illaoi and Sylas were released a few weeks before their champion reveals,so their characters were pretty much set in stone at that part of the production.
Meanwhile Lissandra appeared in the lore beforehand as well,but she seemed like a completely different person at that time. Granted,this was explained by Riot making Lissandra a schemer who puts up a friendly facade on the outside,but who is secretly evil,however I doubt they had planned that far ahead at that time and simply designed Lissandras character this way to make the character they actually wanted to make instead of being forced to make the one that was presented in the lore.
Something like this happened on a far lesser scale with 
who appeared first in Urgots league-judgement and was described as blonde in that story only for riot to completely ignore that and give him darker hair anyway.
Still waiting on Shen's dad and the ruler before J4 to become champions
i like seeing champions before they are revealed in lore.
Personally I'm just glad that we're getting new champs and not just a ton of reworks.
