League of Legends is quickly approaching a full decade since its release in 2009. Since then the launch roster has expanded to a total of 142 champions. In recent years, the release of completely new champions has slowed to a crawl while Riot focuses on bringing the game up to snuff with current standards. Today, Riot has announced Neeko, the Curious Chameleon, League‘s next champion.
Neeko will be the third champion to release this year and the first since May. She is a shapeshifter who can disguise herself as an ally. Appearing as another champion is not only beneficial as a tactic to confuse opponents, but it also helps her abilities. Pop Blossom, her ultimate, is not shown to enemies when she’s disguised by Inherant Glamour, her passive.
Neeko is a Vastayan champion. The Vastaya are “chimeric creatures” born of both human and spiritual magic of some kind of pre-human race. She joins the likes of Xayah and Rakan, Ahri, Nami, Wukong, and Rengar as other members of the race.
Riot has released the following details about her kit.
PASSIVE: INHERENT GLAMOUR
Neeko can disguise herself to appear as an ally champion. Damaging or taking damage from enemy champions or casting either Blooming Burst or Tangle-Barbs breaks the illusion and increases the cooldown.
Q: BLOOMING BURST
Neeko propels a seed into a target area, which blooms and damages enemies. If the burst kills an enemy or damages a champion or large monster, it will bloom again up to two times.
W: SHAPESPLITTER
Passive: Every third basic attack resonates with spiritual energy, dealing bonus magic damage and briefly increasing Neeko’s movement speed.
Active: Neeko briefly slips out of sight, becoming invisible, gaining movement speed, and sending a temporary clone of her current form sprinting in a chosen direction.
E: TANGLE-BARBS
Neeko slings a magical spiral in a direction, damaging and briefly rooting enemies it passes through. The last champion hit is rooted longer.
If Tangle-Barbs hits at least two enemies, it grows in size, speed, and root duration.
R: POP BLOSSOM
Neeko begins charging herself with spiritual essence. A moment later, she leaps into the air, gains a shield, and slows nearby enemies, releasing energy upon landing to massively damage and stun enemies in the area.
When disguised by Inherent Glamour, enemies won’t see Neeko’s initial charge-up.
PLAYING AS NEEKO
As Neeko, you slip into the skin of your allies to bewilder enemies and surprise them with bursts of colorful primordial magic. Trip up foes you encounter with Tangle-Barbs, rooting them within the painful petals of a Blooming Burst as it flowers again and again. When you’re ready to seek out something more exciting, draw on your Inherent Glamour to mimic the appearance of an ally and scurry off to a new encounter.
Once your curiosity startles foes into combat, use the clone from Shapesplitter to keep opponents confused while you reposition and prepare a special surprise. When you’re ready to reveal it was you all along, jump into the middle of the fight with a prismatic Pop Blossom and leave them all stunned.
Riot Games has been in the news a lot lately. The smash success of the K/DA song meant to promote League‘s Popstar skin line has topped charts around the world for more than a week.
Neeko will presumably release sometime before the end of the year and launches with a special Snowdown skin. The skin will be available for a limited time before Riot retires into the Legacy vault. It’ll be resurrected and available to all around this time next year. So if you’re a fan, grab that skin before it’s gone!
