Riot has been slowing down its new champion releases over the past year, but with some of the hints we have received in the fairly recent past there has been a lot of anticipation for the champions we do have upcoming. It seems only natural, then, for the first major leak of what is implied to be the next champion coming to the League of Legends to be something we have not heard anything about at all yet. Vel’Koz is unconfirmed, but given both the amount of detail involved and threads on Riot’s forums discussing it having been closed, it seems plausible enough to report.
Vel’Koz is clearly another void champion, and the most alien-looking one yet. His abilities, as seen in this leak, would imply he’s an AP carry, but with some potential as a support if the crowd control applied by his abilities is altered. He also gets a very unique skillshot mechanic in his Q, with a damaging and slowing skillshot that splits off at 90-degree angles either when it strikes or is activated again, creating the potential for some truly astonishing play in skilled hands.
But is it legit?
The League of Legends community has already started finding and latching onto hints that this leak is legitimate. For starters, summoners have been pointing to previous champion artwork and picking out Vel’Koz in the images. Most plausibly, Battlecast Viktor’s splash art shows a machine in the background that looks very convincingly like a Battlecast version of this possible champion. Both Lucian’s Hired Gun splash art and Kassadin’s Pre-Void splash show tentacles as well, but such things are hardly out of place as a generic and symbolic representation of evil, so could easily be coincidence.
Perhaps most tellingly is Xelnath. He is known for using puns to give veiled hints about upcoming champions, and he was quoted with one that could very easily indicate this supposed champion.
I’m a little sad it’s premature to start hinting at the next champ. I’ve been eyeballing some amazing puns for when the time is right.
All of this is only guesswork, but it looks pretty convincing. Speaking personally, Vel’Koz looks like amazing fun and I am always at least vaguely interested in new non-human champions for League of Legends. Watch for an official response to this leak/rumor from Riot Games!
