League champions everywhere, we need to talk.

Disclaimer: I understand League is fantasy, and that over-the-top designs are fun in fantasy. I understand they have both artistic and gameplay purposes.

That said, I'm going to play devil's advocate for a bit. Someone told me sword-legs are inferior to a normal sword, and that Camille's design is one of the dumbest, most combat-ineffective designs out there. Now I had counters, I won't repeat them here. Instead, I will address some champions who have more impractical designs. I'll be going purely on base skins, in the interests of fairness.

AKALI. What's with that mask? She's not hiding from anyone wearing that bright green, so it can't be a way to cover her bright skin in the dark. She doesn't often fight enemies with gas attacks. Maybe Singed, and that'd be about it. So essentially all this is doing is hampering her breathing; something she needs if she's going to keep up her level of agility. "But it hides her identity because sneaky assassin type!" She could do that more effectively with a tengu mask, and those can even be designed to leave breathing space unobstructed.

BRAUM. Braum, you're defeating the purpose of not wearing armor. If you're big and strong and durable enough to go into battle unprotected, go all the way so you can maintain mobility. How awkward must it be for Braum to bend forward with that solid piece of belt-armor covering his lower torso?

CAITLYN. The strength of a sniper is her ability to hide and stalk from a position of safety. Caitlyn isn't hiding from anyone with that ridiculous hat. Further, it's so topheavy that it would likely jostle around quite a bit every time she fires that high-caliber contraption she calls a weapon. Perhaps fall into her eyes, obstructing her vision long enough for a target to slip out of her scope. Perhaps off her head entirely, begging the question... Would she pick it up? Would she really take the time out of battle to pick it up? Likely not, so why is she wearing into battle it at all?

DARIUS. Those pauldrons make him top-heavy. Never a good thing in battle, particularly if you're swinging an already oversized axe around. They need to be about 60% smaller. Further, why are they spiked? So he can potentially shoulder-ram enemies and get them stuck on his shoulders? Yes, that seems quite conductive to maneuvering on the battlefield... I mean the concept of a hulking menace in battle isn't lost on me, but do we really need to add the weight of two Ionian grunts to either arm?

DRAVEN. Again with the spikes... What exactly is the point of this...? Draven doesn't even do the up close and personal thing. All this serves to do is provide equipment that can get easily hooked on shrubbery when he's trying to dash into the brush after a successful raid on an enemy supply convoy. Nevermind the size of his blades! Who makes a throwing weapon that unwieldy? Are Noxian smiths really this uneducated in their craft? If those blades were CONSIDERABLY thinner, as thin as the blade of a sword, I could buy them being throwing weight and they'd still be quite deadly.

EKKO. If he wore any armor at all, he'd be invincible. He can get his hands on the clearly pricey housing for that hextech drive, but he can't afford a piece of brigandine? I call shenanigans, particularly because he could just walk into a shop, grab a piece of armor off the shelf, and jump back in time. The craftsman wouldn't even remember him ever being there.

GANGPLANK. My man, you already died once. Your answer is to strap on pauldrons and leave your innards completely exposed? I get that matchlocks are good at punching through armor, but it's better than not having armor. Gangplank more than anyone should understand the value of protecting one's vitals.

GRAGAS. He fights with a keg. AN ACTUAL KEG. He completely removes one of his arms from the fight and blocks line of sight to his left leg in the process. A small rogue could slip right under his leg and slice his hamstring and he'd never see it coming. What good is that keg, anyway? So he can drink some liquid courage in the middle of the fight. You could achieve the same thing by strapping 30 flasks of the go-juice to your belt.

GRAVES. When one round of your ammunition takes up your entire hand, your gun is too big. Unless Graves is hunting literal dragons on a daily basis, there's no need for a weapon that bulky and unwieldy. A regular old blunderbuss would pack plenty of punch. As it is, Graves is lugging around a big, heavy firearm with enough kick to knock an elephant unconscious. It's unsafe, it's inaccurate, it's slow to draw and clunky to aim... What about this weapon told him it was a good idea to make it his main?

ILLAOI. Illaoi should be wearing less clothing. Her "religion", if she wants to call it that, is all about motion. Right? It's all about moving forward in spite of all odds. Why would a belief system built around motion encourage you to strap thick, heavy clothing onto yourself? You're surrounded by aetherial tentacles and you're built like a tank. Your tentacles heal your wounds when they smash others. So why bother? I get that she can't go nude, because this is a T for Teen game, but she could at least dress like an Edo fisher...person. Mawashi and sarashi are all you need, and it even fits the theme of her climate. Plus we'd get to see more tattoos, in case she didn't look Maori enough. She's already willing to lug around a huge ghost-skull for this belief system, so why not shed some clothes and get moving?

JANNA. Janna. Honey. You're constantly surrounded by a wind powerful enough to levitate you. Do you really think it's a good idea to wear an effective bikini? At the time Janna was made, League was all about skin-tight body suits, and I think that sort of look would really suit Janna, so why not? All it takes is an arrow to graze her hip and the force of that wind rips those glorified underwear right off. A bodysuit would handle a lot more punishment before a fight for victory turned into a fight to hide her naughty bits.

JARVAN IV. Jarvan, WHAT is your ARMOR? You do the spike thing even worse than the Noxians! I don't believe what I'm witnessing when I look at this man. I don't see royalty. I see a D&D adventurer who's more focused on form than function, to the detriment of his movement in combat. Let's also briefly mention that his underlayer is belts. I'll grant that leather is a good base layer for battle kit, but it's not all that sturdy, so belts are a form of leather I question. One cut - which WILL happen - and you lose 360 protection around the point of impact. Also, who designed his spear? I want his name, and I want him to surrender his hammer, because that is absurd. I get that Jarvan hooks and pulls, but as a practical thing, that spear is worthless. Assuming it does its job of impaling the enemy, he's not getting it out.

JINX. No. I don't care how you try to convince me. There is no way Jinx is holding a minigun of that size on full spool for that long. There is no way she launches rockets of that size without knocking herself to the ground. That's assuming she can left them in the first place, which I severely doubt. Further, what are those bullets around her ribs supposed to prove? If they're even the right caliber for her chain gun, you don't load a chain gun one bullet at a time, and that number of bullets compared to the rate of fire that minigun has? They'll last for about a second and a quarter. At that point those bullets are just dead weight, weighing down an already frail character who's lucky she can stand up on her own, by the looks of her.

JHIN. Ever notice how we don't get to clearly see the trigger mechanism on Jhin's gun? Because I do. And I suspect it's because even Riot wasn't sure how the hell it worked. I can only assume it's built into the grip, in which case how does he keep it from kicking out of his hands when it fires? He doesn't even shoulder it, he just slings it around like a Nerf gun. A weapon with that loud a bang is gonna kick right out of his hand without a proper way to grip it. Plus, for a guy who's so limited in mobility, I feel like that particular mask is a poor choice. His peripheral vision is severely limited, making it that much harder for him to dodge or spot threats trying to flank him.

KHA'ZIX. For a creature who adapts to the strongest of his prey, he sure picked a stupid weapon of choice. Maybe all he could manage to devour was a farmer? Who knows? But scythes are a terrible choice. Scythes were rarely used in war because they don't cut, they reap. Their cut happens on the pull, and getting your weapon behind your opponent when you're out in front is a terrible idea. It leaves you wide open with no guard and a great diminished clearance zone to evade. But let's assume your enemy allows you to make your pull. Ignoring Kha'Zix's short arms, even. It's probably going to do almost nothing. Again, scythes don't cut, they reap. They can reap wheat because wheat crop is frail. Bodies are not frail. Even an unarmored opponent would suffer a shallow, stinging cut over this at worst. Don't believe me? Push a knife straight against a piece of cardboard and see what happens. Sword-arms would've been a much more practical choice, Kha'Zix.

KINDRED. Um... Lamb? I don't know how to tell you this, but your bow doesn't shoot. You see the critical aspect of a bow is its ability to bend. The bowstring merely stores the energy of the bending bow, it doesn't actually stretch at all itself. Lamb's bow is about 600% thicker than any bow in actual history, and made of what appears to be the wood of a great elder tree. That's not bending in the least, and that means no energy to fire an arrow.

KLED. Skarl is a terrible choice of mount. Assuming his skin is tough enough to withstand damage, okay, we'll give him toughness. But his frill blocks line of sight something fierce, and his largely upright posture makes stabbing past him to enemies in front a chore. Further, he's only about twice the height of a yordle, making him smaller than many humans. A big benefit of mounts in combat is their size, charging weight and the height advantage they provide. Little Skarl offers none of these. If humans care ride elephants to war, yordles can ride horses. Give that man a mare!

LEONA. I love Leona, I really do. She was my first support main. But elements of her design are a horrible idea for combat. First off, her armor. She leaves her body completely unprotected. This is fine from the front, as he shield is quite large and protects everything it needs to. But from the rear, she's utterly vulnerable, and a Katarina or a Nidalee would have no problem getting there, given the weight Leona's carrying. I also want to address the spiky bits on her sword and shield. If that shield is near her face when she takes a heavy blow, there's a chance one of those spikes harm her severely. On the blade, they serve a degree of purpose, but a simple cross guard would do the job better.

This design gives her a sword that could easily obstruct certain twisting motions made with the sword arm. Finally, her sword's construction suspect. All the weight is in the front and back of the blade. This doesn't make it a particularly good slasher or thruster, but my biggest problem is that the major stress point of this blade will generally be its center, which is the thinnest and lightest part. Every time Leona thrusts, the heavy weight of her tip will be pushing against the heavy weight of her hilt and that sword is going to break in two eventually.

Finally, one quick thing about her attire. Leona has made herself somewhat top-heavy (lots of unnecessary weight on her head and the top end of her shield). Now add to this the fact that she's wearing heels. I'm not against heels on fighting women. ... Well no, scratch that, I'm against heels on principle because I just don't care for the look of heels. But wearing heels when you need to dig in and keep your footing in the face of heavy incoming strikes is quite foolish. To compound matters, she wears long, flowing attire that's likely to tangle up on her feet and be stepped on. Leona, whose style of fighting involves absorbing blows and standing firm, is uniquely unqualified to keep her footing.

LUCIAN. You know that saying, "Two guns are better than one?" Me neither, because it doesn't exist. Literally the only advantage two guns provide is the ability to aim at two different targets at once. Problem is, unless you have independent eyes and two brains to process visual input from both eyes at once, you're only aiming at one target no matter what you do. The other gun is firing blind. It could be firing at an ally, it could be missing its target, it could even have jammed. You wouldn't know, because you're not looking at it.

But let's assume they're pointed forward. Two guns provide twice the fire rate of one, right? Yes, but the problem is that the accuracy of each shot is significantly diminished due to the one-handed grip. Further, reloading when your hands are full is a trick and a half, to say the least. Just give Lucian a carbine with light shells and he's got 8+ times the rate of fire, with better range and shouldered accuracy to boot.

NIDALEE. Where does Nidalee store her javelins? Because I don't see any javelins strapped to her body.

PANTHEON. Pantheon's shield is big, bulky, and seems to be made entirely of steel. Do you have any idea how heavy and unwieldy that would be? Bolting a steel plate onto a shield is one thing, but crafting the whole thing out of one big hunk of metal is a disaster waiting to happen.

RAKAN. Why is Rakan not clothed? His mechanic is dashes. He leaps to his ally's defense and shields them. What if his magic is too slow? What if he's worn down and the barrier shatters on impact? When if he has to take a bullet for Xayah? Caitlyn's rounds would rip through him like nothing and hit Xayah on the other side. But if he wore even some padded leather, that could be avoided.

RENEKTON. Renekton's blade isn't made for cutting. The way it waves, it ends up having multiple cutting surfaces, all of which curve inward in relation to the target. That blade is going get about a quarter of its surface onto flesh before the blade dips to a point and bounces off the target. I'm not saying it'll go flying or anything, just that it won't be making contact anymore. The point of a cut is to make contact, is it not?

RENGAR. I think I know how Rengar lost his eye. I would wager it happened when he brought his left arm forward to slash an opponent and his shoulder spikes ran through his eye.

SEJUANI. One of my favorite champions, hands down, but not without her flaws. Chiefly, that flail is going to bounce off of rounded armor like nothing. It needs some teeth to really dig in. Morning star mace heads existed for a reason, and it wasn't intimidation. Sejuani has faced rivals like Tryndamere, surely, and Tryandamere has rounded armor (what little he deigns to wear, but I won't even address him because he's basically invincible, yay professionalism!). She should know that her flail head needs teeth.

SINGED. So does Singed craft alchemical solutions that can only be inhaled via the mouth? I can think of no other reason he'd cover his mouth, but not his nose. I mean it's a big nose, but come on. Surely we could wrap some cloth over it.

VI. Those gauntlets are way too big. First and foremost, how does she see past them when she's throwing a punch? I also question their usefulness on grounds of maneuverability, as they look like the sort of thing that would be slow to connect and would make it really hard to recover after she throws a punch. They'd also be a burden when, oh, I don't know... Making an arrest? To top it off, I have serious doubts she can even lift them at all.

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Just a few of my thoughts. How about yours?