League of Legends, Riot Games’ biggest title, makes most of its money by selling champion skins. With 155 champions and more than 1,200 skins they are definitively the biggest available money sink in the game. Since its release in early 2020, many have been wondering if Legends of Runeterra would also get alternate appearances for champion cards. Patch 2.8.0 on May 19 marks the developer’s first attempt at introducing this to the title with
What Are Champion Skins?
Much like in League of Legends, champion skins in Legends of Runeterra are purely cosmetic changes which do not affect the ability of the card they’re offering at all. Some champion skins will only alter the card’s art while others will also come with thematic level-up animations. Since each champion has multiple appearances based on whether their leveled up or not, each skin also comes with what is essentially two splash arts. There’s also some fancy new flavor text if that’s your thing. A few even come alongside different summoned units like Zed’s shadows.
As the name implies, champion skins are only for champion rarity cards. You won’t see different appearances for epics and rares outside of the current Prismatic cards which simply change the card’s border. You can obviously combine this Prismatic border with these champion skins for the flashiest card possible.
How Much Do Champion Skins Cost?
We don’t know how much they’ll cost individually yet! However, you can buy this set of four in the Cosmic Divide Bundle for 4921 Coins. That’s roughly $50 human dollars. To be fair, the actual Champion cards are built into that cost as well. So you’re getting 12 Champion cards and four skins for that price. Not exactly cheap, but neither are League skins these days.
Current Skins List by Champion
The first available champion skins are for Riven, Shyvana, Yasuo, and Zed. We’ll be updating this list with each skin’s individual price once those are made available.
- Riven
- Cosmic Exile Riven
- Shyvana
- Dark Star Shyvana
- Yasuo
- Cosmic Zephyr Yasuo
- Zed
- Dark Star Zed
Current Skins List by Theme
If you’d rather see how each skin set is filling out, look no further. Want an entire skin line? We’ll also be tracking how much each one would cost to complete.
- Cosmic
- Yasuo
- Riven
- Dark Star
- Shyvana
- Zed
More Legends of Runeterra:
- How to Use Wildcards in Legends of Runeterra
- Legends of Runeterra Expeditions Guide – Tips, Rewards, Strategies
- Legends of Runeterra Weekly Vault Guide – Ranks, Rewards, Upgrade Chance
Does This Affect Future Releases?
Thus far, Riot has only added one copy of each champion and there are a limited number of champions available to them. In theory, releasing skins does mean Riot won’t be able to release thematic champion cards in the future. So don’t go expecting a Dark Star themed set in the future with actual Dark Star champions in it.
What’s next? We don’t know yet, but Riot says new skin lines will be released regularly throughout the year. Check back around the release of the next patch, we’ll be sure to update this guide with the latest skins.
