More than half a year has passed since Samsung Galaxy won the Worlds 2017 tournament with a surprising 3-0 victory over reigning champions SKT. Now the SSG skins have finally been revealed and they look absolutely stunning. The skins take a lot of inspiration of the Korean culture as well as having character traits of the players that they’re meant to represent.
The 2017 Samsung Galaxy World Championship Skin Recalls! #Worlds2017 pic.twitter.com/gElAWuCO2L
— lolesports (@lolesports) June 26, 2018
The skins were revealed on Twitter with a video in which you see the players side by side with their skins. The video is a bit awkward as the players are clearly quite uncomfortable performing their desired recall animation but it’s all in good fun. It’s definitely not the first time we’ve seen shy gamers do awkward stuff. The video does give a really great look at how much effort the design team must have put into these skins. The recall animations clearly take what the players had in mind but elevate these ideas up to another level.
Creating skins for the winner of the worlds tournament has become a tradition in League of Legends ever since the Taipei Assassins first won in season 2. At first, Riot would just design skins for the request champions based on the team colors and they would add some general gaming/tournament gear such as headsets or the trophy. However, since SKT kept winning Riot had to change the way they designed the worlds skins to better represent the players and to not keep making the same skins over and over.
Since 2016 Riot has worked together with the players so that their vision on the championship skins can really be brought to life. The players get to perform their own recall animations and state a theme for their skins. SKT went for a high fantasy-like style whereas SSG has asked Riot to incorporate Korean culture. In a series of Tweets, Rioter Stellari has explained the influence of each skin and we think they did an amazing job. All of the skins will cost 1320 RP and will only be available for a limited amount of time.
The players wanted Korean culture represented for the 2017 SSG World Champ skins. Here’s a few of the inspirations: Xayah & Rakan reference the Korean magpie. Xayah’s flower is the national flower and Rakan’s recall hat is a traditional hat for passing government tests (1/3) pic.twitter.com/3O1TxA9Q3o
— Riot Stellari (@thejanellemj) June 26, 2018
Ezreal is inspired by the Korean hwarang (flower knights)–ancient elite warrior youth who are often depicted with long hair.
J4 has a lot of references to Ambition that are obvious, but also refereenced the famous Admiral Yi Sun Shin for his facial hair and ulti. (2/3)— Riot Stellari (@thejanellemj) June 26, 2018
Taliyah is inspired by a Hong Gildong-type (a Robin Hood-type) who weaves the kind of marble you’d see in ancient palaces. Gnar is a white tiger which holds a lot of cultural significance in Korean culture.
For SSG fans, there’s a number of references to the players too ? (3/3)
— Riot Stellari (@thejanellemj) June 26, 2018