To officially welcome the launch of League of Legends Season 12, Riot hosted an Opening Day stream, giving fans a glimpse of what lies ahead for the game in 2022. Among the many exciting things revealed, players can look forward to a couple of new champions slated to hit the Rift this Season 12. One of them is someone we already know about: Zeri, the Zaunite marksman whose reveal trailer video dropped earlier this week alongside early details about her electric-powered abilities. Here's everything we know so far about the new champions in League of Legends for 2022.
League always releases a number of new champions each year—and we've got 157 in total, plus Zeri coming in a few weeks' time. It's no surprise that 2022 is already off to a bright start on that front. While fans are already excited about Zeri and her zip-zapping moves, Lead Champion Producer Ryan “Reav3” Mireles warned that the dev team will be “slowing down” this 2022. We should expect only a few new champions this year, but the team will still strive to have an even split across the five roles in the game.
League of Legends Season 12 Champions
So besides Zeri, who else is coming to Summoner's Rift? Fans have speculated that we'll see some characters from Arcane, the hit Netflix show that was based on League of Legends in the first place. In fact, Zeri already fits the bill, because her lore is dead-center of all the Arcane action, being linked with Ekko in the undercity of Zaun. Other fan-favorite characters could also cross over from the TV series to the game world, so this might mean more champs from the Piltover arcs, rather than the Ruination storyline that League devs had primarily focused on before Arcane shot to global popularity upon premiering.
Based on the stream, we have at least three more new champions coming after Zeri in 2022. We don't know their names or even their timeline for release yet, but we do have a bit of detail about their roles in the game. Zeri is already an AD Carry (or better called a marksman, since her kit has AP scaling), but we will get another bot lane release as well this Season 12. Besides that, players can look forward to a terrifying jungler plus a dark enchanter support (perfect to pair up with Zeri?).
Bot laner
Of the three champions teased by Reav3, the second bot laner slated for a 2022 release is the one we know the least about. The Riot dev simply called the character a “non-traditional” bot laner—whatever that means. Based on her kit, Zeri already seems quite non-traditional to us, with the unique mechanic for her autos and Q.
Other guesses that come to mind may be something similar to Jhin having to reload bullets, or Aphelios, with the switching between basic attacks and weapon abilities like Gravitum and Crescendum, plus the lack of an E. It also keeps in line with Riot's plan to become more experimental when it comes to ADC designs and mechanics, especially with auto-attacking.
Jungler
Over in the jungle, meanwhile, the new champion appears to be decked out in purple. Instantly, we think of another Void creature like Rek'Sai and Kassadin. In the video, Reav3 began glowing an eerie purple color, as if being possessed by a monstrous force. His voice also sounded a bit guttural, so that may be another hint that we're getting a Void champion, plus the voiceover mentioned “lavender seas” and “purple cities”.
The Riot dev also said the champion will be “swarming” onto the Rift, so it sounds like a more animalistic abomination. (The picture I've conjured involves multiple distorted Rek'Sais crawling out of a pit in an apocalyptic setting.) The champion also apparently serves an empress, though, so we might even imagine that it could emerge in the form of an army of swarming tiny creatures combined into one “champion”?
Support
Last but not the least, the only champion that we actually got an image of is the enchanter support. The video showed a small portion of either the splash art or a scene from the Champion Reveal trailer. A hand is reaching out to touch a metallic device, which appears to be armor or other robot-like suit of some kind.
According to Reav3, the team plans to give this support a darker feel, to “balance out the cheery brightness” of the role. So we won't be seeing lighthearted characters like Lulu anymore, though the color scheme is still bright, fuschia pink but with a more ominous, even toxic aura surrounding the champion. The Riot dev team also promises that players will “go berserk” over this new champion—sounds fun, but it better not be the dark evil twin version of Yuumi *shudders*!
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