Lead Producer of Champions Ryan “Reav3” Mireles took to his regular Champion Roadmap posting to tease League of Legends players of what comes next. In the April 2022 Champion Roadmap and on a Reddit post, Reav3 went into some details of the incoming League champions.
League's New Champions
Three champions were revealed in the Champion Roadmap, including the previously revealed jungler from the Void. Referred to as an “Empress,” this Void jungler can be expected the earliest out of all of the updates in this roadmap, followed by the colorful bot laner. A new champion from a never-before-seen region of Shurima was also mentioned, but it seems that this champion is still early in development.
Reav3 mentioned a while back that the champion development team is aiming to make less “pure human champs.” When asked about it, Reav3 said “Yes, we still plan on doing less pure humans going forward. We will still make humans, of course, but just less then before where we were mainly only making humans.”
The Empress, Void Jungler
Updated April 21: This champion has been leaked, and is supposedly named Bel'Veth, the Void Empress. Read more about what we know here.
Don’t you dare close your eyes! The Champions Team has something coming soon. Something beautiful, something inevitable, something foretold. A new skirmisher for all those jungle players out there. A new Empress to submit to… and you will submit.
Many times has this jungler been teased in previous Champion Roadmaps, and it seems that she is finally upon us. In this one, Reav3 mentions that those who submit to her will become part of the “ever-expanding Lavender Sea that crashes like waves on enemy structures.” In previous Champion Roadmaps, the dev team has made it a habit to hide some parts of a champion's kit in their teaser material, and personally, this feels like one to me.
As many veteran League players might remember (albeit unwillingly), an item named Zz'Rot Portal once existed within the game. It had an active effect, placing a portal upon cast and spawning waves of void creatures on enemy towers and inhibitors. It was removed several years ago, but players, especially those whose hobby is to splitpush, will surely remember this item. The specific choice of words by Reav3 on this Champion Roadmap feels like a callback to this item, denoting that some form of Zz'Rot Portal or its effects might be present in the Empress' kit.
Jared “CarnivalKnights” Rosen wrote the narrative for the void jungler. He has worked on a ton of other narrative bits, including Star Guardian and Solar Eclipse. Check them out here.
League of Legends Art Director Larry “BravoRay” Ray is in charge of the Empress' art. Previously, BravoRay worked on a lot of champions, as well as concept art for Riot Games' other IP, VALORANT. Reav3 was asked on Reddit on an ETA for this champion's release, to which he replied “when she's ready.”
Joyous Lover of Oysters, Bot Laner
For this one, lore-heads will be as joyful as this newly revealed champion. A story from Oyster Bill of Oyster Bill's Oyster Shack is all we have for this champion. Read it below:
“Last night we stopped by and saw the place was a wreck. Tables smashed, bottles broken, strange glowing puddles all over the place. According to Oyster Bill it was caused by a colorful but deadly stranger who came to Runeterra from a land across the seas.
He claimed some Noxians were getting rowdy and one of them accidentally knocked over the stranger’s oysters. The colorful one laughed a most joyous laugh as they stood up from their table. The Noxian looked confused at first, then, thinking the stranger was making fun of her, got in their face. The rest of her war band stood to join her, grabbing their weapons when mist suddenly filled the restaurant. Oyster Bill said all he heard was joyous laughter and the sound of splashing water. When the mist cleared all ten of the heavily armed and armored Noxians were dead and the stranger was nowhere to be seen.
We laughed as we always do when Bill tells one of his famous stories, sure it was just a random bar fight that caused the mess—but hey that’s not nearly as exciting! When one of the other customers doubted the story, Bill doubled down on his claim that it was true, and that the mysterious stranger was, in fact, living in a room above his restaurant. He said that if any of us wanted to go talk to them ourselves we were welcome to.
We passed that night, but who knows. Maybe if you join us next time we can go and see if this stranger from the land of a thousand colors is real or not.”
We can pick up some small hints for the champion's kit in this story, such as the mist that was mentioned. However, with what little we're given to work with, it sounds like a shot in the dark.
Reav3 mentioned that Blake “Squad5” Smith is in charge of Champion Design for this colorful champion. Some of the champions that he's previously work on include the newly released Renata Glasc, Samira, Ivern, and the Fiddlesticks rework.
Nancy “Sojyoo” Kim is doing art for this champion. She previously worked on all forms of K/DA All Out Seraphine, Zeri, the Spirit Blossom skins, and more.
CarnivalKnights is also working on the narrative for this colorful bot laner.
The Pride of Nazumah, skillful top laner
Good news for top laners: a champion with skill expression.
Reav3 briefly mentioned The Pride of Nazumah, and described them as “a new high skill top lane tank from a region of Shurima that hasn't been seen yet.” While he didn't reveal much about the champion, he still left bits and pieces for us to analyze. The Shuriman will be covered in more detail in the next Roadmap, he says.
In the Reddit thread, he talked more about the champ, commenting “we looked at our tank roster and realized we didn't have like a Aphelios/Azir/Yasuo of top lane tanks. They were are [sic] medium to low skill/complexity. The goal with this champ was to add a high skill/high complexity tank to the roster finally. Something that players that like that kind of stuff can really sink their teeth in and master over 100s of games.”
He mentioned that a lot of the current tank choices for top lane do not have much skill expression, citing Ornn as the closest to fulfilling the “master over hundreds of games” fantasy. Reav3 classified Ornn as a medium skill/complexity champ.
Daniel “Maxw3ll” Emmons is working on this champion. Maxw3ll previously worked on Yuumi, Lillia, and Gwen.
New Champs Release Dates
No specific dates were announced throughout the Champion Roadmap for any of these champions, but it's safe to assume that the jungler and bot laner would release in the coming months. The Udyr rework is also almost here, which can be expected to release before the Shuriman top laner.
If I had to make a guess, the jungler will hit the PBE server for testing within a few weeks. Patch 12.8 is definitely a no-no, since this is the version that the Mid-Season Invitational 2022 will be played on. Patch 12.9 and 12.10 sound plausible and is a safe bet to when we can finally see the Empress.
Last year, League of Legends released a new champion about every three months. Following this pattern, the bot laner can be expected in the second half of 2022. This pattern isn't consistent though, since the two newest champions Renata Glasc and Zeri were released only a month between them.
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