One of League of Legends’ longer running skin-lines, a whole new set of Star Guardians is introduced, including the newest champion Nilah’s.
A powerful Outer Guardian who patrols the wider universe, Nilah has faced multiple reality-ending threats and returned alive… making her a living legend among her peers. Asked to act as teacher to the new generation, she has reluctantly accepted her new responsibilities… though if a particularly big monster appears in VC, she always calls dibs.
In the splash art for Star Guardian Nilah, she stands in the middle of the city amidst awed people as she faces a threat off-frame. She has a more pronounced hilt this time, and pink “dust” comes out of her jar that materializes into her whip. Her two-tailed familiar, unnamed as of now, is also leaping into action. Star Guardian Nilah’s color seems to be purple, accented by deep green. Not bad for a release skin, and if you feel like you’ll be playing a lot of Nilah, then a Star Guardian skin would be fabulous to have.
Starting from her Recall, Star Guardian Nilah already seems amazing. An angelic voice plays, and she forms multiple hearts as she exits. For her emotes, instead of interacting with Ashlesh the demon, she instead performs them with her familiar. The demon hands from her passive effect is replaced by pink Star Guardian gems. The watery sound effects from her basic attacks and Q are mostly gone. What’s left is a more crisp whipping sound, topped off with a little bit of magical sprinkle. Stars surround her and her allies under the effect of Nilah’s W, and the underwater tune is replaced by one more fitting the Star Guardians. Using E to dash, as well as the following wave from the E-Q combo now has star particles instead of water. The ultimate is also changed to fit the theme. In the middle of the huge pink circle is the Star Guardian logo, complete with sparkles and magical girl sound effects.
“Given time-shifting powers by the First Star, Ekko approaches life with a relaxed and casual demeanor. Why care if you get infinite do-overs? But when it comes to facing monsters alongside the Star Guardians, he’s deadly serious, using his command over time and space to keep Valoran City safe from the darkness.”
The Star Guardian Ekko splash art greets us with a very familiar scene of the skin line; the characters (and their familiars) protect the city from villains, and the color palette revolves around a lot of pinks. Ekko looks like he’s going to plunge onto his enemy with his sword, almost like a finishing blow, while his after-images are fighting enemies of their own as well. His familiar, compared to the others that look like animal-esque creatures, is more of a device that has a screen to display its (incredibly adorable) face. Ekko’s costume’s theme color is white and orange, with accents of blue and purple for contrast, and he’s sporting dark brown hair instead of his usual white, with striking orange highlights.
Starting with the recall animation, the same, elegant vocalization is heard during this animation. Ekko controls his familiar like a touch-screen for a few moments and its screen glows red before quickly flying to merge with Ekko’s body. He turns transparent, like his after-images, and does something similar to a “magical girl transformation” before going back to base. When he hits his enemies with his auto attacks, orange stars—or “sparkles”—scatter around the opponent’s body. His passive leaves a small, blue star on the enemy’s feet on the first hit, an orange star crossed with the blue one on the second, then an orange circle on the third, which diminishes slowly like a time-bomb during the duration of the passive. His abilities follow the orange and blue theme, mixed with an orange star in the middle. Additionally, his W skill has his familiar’s (cute) face in the middle. Once you have his ultimate ability, his after-image is transparent with blue outlines, as seen in the splash art, and an outline of his familiar follows the after-image as well.
“Ekko doesn’t need magical powers to look like a star. He rocks an effortless streetwear style wherever he goes, turning heads and paparazzi lenses alike. Appreciating the look? Take it all in. He’s got time.”
Star Guardian Ekko’s Prestige Edition is a complete contrast of the original one, with a much darker color palette revolving around a glowing teal, purple, and bronze. Additionally, his after-images look a lot cooler—literally, almost, as they glow an icy-white instead of the usual bright blue. His weapon looks a little bigger than the original Star Guardian Ekko’s, and his hair no longer has orange streaks. However, it’s difficult to tell if there are purple streaks with the backlighting. His familiar is no longer floating; instead, he keeps it on his belt, and it seems like it’s resting, too (still adorable, if you ask me). Even the background is darker, showing the city at night, but with a ton of glowing lights from buildings and billboards and store signs.
The Prestige Edition in-game is more or less a recolor of the original Star Guardian Ekko skin. The animations are the same, but the effects are tweaked a tad to fit the color palette and aesthetic. The stars on the ground whenever Ekko’s passive is proc’ed is no longer just a colored outline, but a star with smaller stars inside of it; first in blue, then in a soft brown. The circle on the third proc is green instead of orange. The outline of his Q ability is gold instead of orange, and the star in the middle glows blue. The W skill still shows the familiar’s face when the enemy is stunned, and his after-image is more teal now than blue.
“A born leader with a head for tactics, Kai’Sa takes her job as captain extremely seriously… perhaps too much for her own good. Still, her squad respects her command and will follow her into even the most dangerous missions, where she’ll snipe priority targets and spray the rest with payloads of starlight-powered missiles.”
Instead of fighting enemies, Star Guardian Kai’sa soars to the skies, towering over the tallest skyscrapers right next to her familiar, Ina, in her splash art. Her color palette revolves around white, pink, and blue, with her stars being a more reddish shade of pink. Instead of her usual wings, they’re replaced with something that almost looks like mechanisms that are akin to rockets that spew a trail of pink glitter and sparkles on its trail. Her outfit, including her weapons, look like it’s incorporated wings in its design.
Kai’sa’s familiar, Ina, looks similar to a rabbit, with red, beady eyes and long, floppy ears. It’s wearing a red, poncho-like uniform as it flies beside Kai’sa.
Kai’sa’s recall animation is simple. She flies into the air with Ina, and what seems like the Star Guardian symbol appears behind them before she fully returns to base. When she does, there is a visor on her left eye, and there is a soft blue border on the screen. This visor can be toggled.
A personal favorite is her emote animation, where she places a frog on the ground. Ina flies around it and it floats, glowing pink, then the frog turns pink itself, with wings, and it flies off the screen. She has another emote where she is dancing with Ina as well, complete with a song playing in the background.
Her auto-attacks are pink, and so is her passive. It creates a huge pink circle on the feet of the enemy she hits, complete with an illustration of a star with wings on the center. Every hit she does fills the illustration, starting with the wings, then it explodes on the fifth hit. Her Q and W abilities makes her wings “open” to shoot the projectiles, glowing pink before it does, and her E makes her entire model pink for a few moments. Her ultimate ability makes her leave a pink trail of light while she’s in her dash, and she has a glowing pink, flower-like shape on top of her model afterwards. Empowering her abilities gives her a magical-girl transformation.
“Quiet and reflective, Sona spends her time away from the Guardians as a composer of music… and her time with them as a figther of incredible power, blasting enemies away with sonically charged starlight. Though she cannot speak, she always makes her voice heard through deeds… or her chatterbox familiar-slash-interpreter, Chiizu.”
While the background is still very pink, Star Guardian Sona greets us with a lot of green and mint, including her healing ability which is showcased in the splash art. Sona is seen wearing glasses in her Star Guardian skin, which has actually never been done before, and is a fresh look on her—not to mention how adorable it is that she matches with her rat-like familiar, Chiizu. Sona’s hair is in her usual twin-tails, but is now mint-green instead of her original blue. Her weapon, which was normally a piano, now looks like a harp of sorts, but with holographic strings.
The recall animation is absolutely stunning. Chiizu is flying in the sky, dancing like a tiny familiar-disco-ball, while Sona is dancing with a mirrored holographic projection of herself. She merges back with the projection and ends with a pose before going back to base.
Her auto attacks are simple. It looks like a projectile of light, and it leaves a very small explosion of stars whenever it hits an enemy. Her skills are all similar in design, but are in different colors. They create a big circle on her feet with small stars in the four centers of the circle’s outlines, and a big star in the middle. Her Q ability is blue, W ability is green, and E ability is purple. Even the auto-attacks that follow these abilities are in these respective colors. The cool part about this skin, aside from everything else, is that she plays different pieces when using different abilities, though the volume is very soft.
Her ultimate ability throws a bright yellow line on the ground, with the Star Guardian star and wings at the very front, and it leaves a green trail behind it. Enemies hit by this ultimate will have a gold circle on their feet, with stars and music symbols floating around their bodies as they dance.
Additionally, Star Guardian Sona has an emote where she uses her harp-like weapon as a guitar, and she also slams at it before placing her hands on her hips, as though throwing a tantrum.
“The creature known as Fiddlesticks has fed on Star Guardians across every era, hunting those on the verge of falling before finally consuming their light. Its connection to the Guardians, and the reason it is drawn to them, is not well understood… but the familiar seemingly trapped within it suggests a truly disturbing origin.”
True to its lore as the villain to the Star Guardians, Star Nemesis Fiddlesticks’ splash art is a complete contrast to all of the Star Guardians skin line. It’s dark and ominous, and Fiddlesticks is seen plotting against the Star Guardians; Jinx being the most visible chess piece.
Star Nemesis Fiddlesticks has an interesting design. While he’s meant to look villainous and dark, he actually has a lot of bright colors, and even white, incorporated into his costume, most likely from the light he’s consumed. He holds a staff in his left hand, with the end looking like a chess’ knight piece whose mane shifts into that of an axe, and in his right hand, he’s seen crushing a different piece. While his overall palette looks appealing and almost cute, he definitely gives off a terrifying vibe.
Because of the dark nature of the splash art, his in-game model definitely looks a lot brighter. However, his body itself is a dark purple, while his face glows with different colors. A checkered pattern like that of a chess board’s appears on the floor when he starts his recall animation, and the same singing voice from the Star Guardian skinline can be heard as well. A familiar appears and he catches it, devouring it, and he turns completely dark purple, even until he returns to base.
His effigies are effectively creepy, looking like dark holograms of his own person, with an equally creepy smiling face on top of each figure. His auto attacks are dark projectiles of light that explode into stars upon hitting an enemy. Smaller stars appear when he attacks in short-range. A cool thing to note about his Q ability is that there’s a trail of chessboard patterns on the floor when the projectile travels to an enemy. His W is a mix of dark and colorful, but still slightly references the Star Guardians design, while Fiddlesticks himself turns green. His E ability shows the same chess pattern on the floor, with his Star Nemesis mark on the middle. The chessboard pattern shows on the perimeter of his ultimate too, along with dark stars revolving around his person.
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