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Morello reveals 101st Champion - Plant Mage

Posted on by Moobeat

I can't seem to find the post now ( jk someone found it for me ) , but Morello has been hard up on a plant-based mage for a while now. It seems his excitement was too much and he caved into revealing it to the community! The picture provided by Morello is titled "Zyra" ( a name later confirmed ) and appears to be a luscious caster touched by the green thumb. If you recall the PBE spoiled champions, seems like she might be the "Xara" champion mentioned there - perhaps with a name change that came later in the development cycle. Check out what Morello had to saw about her below:
While I maintain that Jayce's whole weapon-transforming thing is really fun, it's really not about some big mega-release milestone. It's a nice round number, sure, but I think it'd be kind of ****ty of us if we were holding something back for this that we'd had been capable of doing previously. 

I kind of see it as every champion needs to be a milestone of some kind - just trying to do something we hadn't done before in regards to gameplay, art, lore, or any mixture of them. I'll talk more about a couple of the big issues (monsters, why 3 masculine-style males so close) in a future post, but for this I wanna focus on the specific "champ 100 thing." I feel if there was something more special we could have done here, why aren't we doing that for every champion? 

I actually did a quick interview for a cool little video that takes a look back at our first 100 champions...it shows some of the process we use and a bit of revealing the man behind the curtain. I think that goes live next week.

So, I probably shouldn't do this, but what the Hell. I'm really stoked about champion 101 too because I got to work much much more directly on it than I usually do and it's an archetype I think we've needed. I'll....plant a little teaser for you.

(Hint, she's not made of flesh):
- Morello, Lead Champion Designer, via the official forums.








Later on in the thread Morello also comments that Zyra will have "Something you've never seen before in MOBA, but I won't tell". What do you think this little surprise might be?

35 comments

  1. FINALLY A PLANT THEMED CHAMPION THATS NOT A TREE

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  2. so many posts , good job moobeat :P

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  3. keep up the good work!

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  4. All hail the informative moobeat! Love coming back here everyday to check and see!

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  5. One of the posts. http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=24306103#24306103
    i remember this when was making refs on wiki xD
    Also this might be relevant
    http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=24419857#24419857

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  7. I bleeded a little bit but finaly found something you might use as link ref http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=19975757#19975757
    http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=19975959#19975959
    http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=19998474#19998474

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  8. What if when her ultimate kills a champion it latches on a parasitic vine that lets you 'become' that champion and use their abilities etc, until death?

    That would be something we've not seen before....unless I'm missing something.

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    Replies

    1. A hero in DOTA2( competing moba game ) can steal abilities. It would be cool if she

      In terms of cool, unique stuff I think it would be awesome to have the ability to fuse with another champion, granting you both bonuses and having you act as one hero instead of two. Heck, maybe you even can rattle off abilities from the back of the fused with champon

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    2. That is what I was trying to get across, sorry if i didn't make that clear it was late when I posted.

      Considering some parasitic plants do 'fuse' with the host plant and then live off of them it would be cool to see her fuse with the champion and 'become' them.

      Can't wait to see what happens....I am sure it's going to surprise us all.

      Delete

    3. Morello also said in a later post that she's a mage. I was hoping for either a mage or support, so I'm super happy about this. :D <3 I can't wait for this champion! Also, where is my Foxfire Ahri? :/

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  9. I'm personally still waiting for a support champion who's ultimate forces a champion to blue pill. Make it a really long cool down and make the target invulnerable during the pill process (so the attacking team has to refocus).

    Surprised that hasn't happened yet

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    Replies

    1. Blue pill means recall right?

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    2. The trolls would be malicious with something like that. Try playing with Wisp on DOTA 2, its horrid most of the time

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  10. Where did the picture came from? i cant find morello's post with the attached picture =(

    Looks sexy

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    Replies

    1. http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=26585153#26585153

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  11. Maybe she can interact with the enviromnent / nature somehow (trees interaction maybe?) - this would be new to MOBA :)

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    Replies

    1. I would like to see something like this in league. I would love to experiment with terraform the environment through a spell. maybe river turns into ice and you can run faster or bushes turn into defense bonuses. Perhaps normal terrain can give bonus ad / ap and then the jungle ground gives armor mr.

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    2. I am sure I'm not the only one to notice the dead looking tree people on summoners rift. What if she takes control of them as some sort of minion master?

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    3. you can eat trees in dota, and cut them off

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    4. oh, and nature's prophet can control trees... so it wouldn't be new to the genre

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  12. OMFG I concepted up a character like her based on the pic, I made her have a vine like whip and her ult summoned a gaint carnivorous Flower that was on the same color scheme that would pull enemies in in a aoe then if they got stuck in the mid at the end it would snap shut.... ANYWHO LOVE HER ALREADY! lol I hope she doesnt have lore tied into anyone else cause I want something fresh.

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  13. Klo Brille, you are one of the noobs that think lol is the only moba in the world. In dota you can interact with the trees and environment.
    Something you've never seen before, but I won't tell". What do you think this little surprise might be?
    Might be a balanced hero or a free one, at least 1350, but that's too much for Riot.

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    Replies

    1. Bit of a sour Sally over here

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    2. Void Bane, I play Dota 2, LoL and HoN ... Don't tell me supid things :) Not one game has really interesting spells, in which u can really actually USE the nature to your advantage. In HoN and Dota 2 you can destroy trees, but this is just a graphical aspect and not really interesting.

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    3. Actually Klo, Natures Prophet uses the trees, transforming them into beings he can control.

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  14. it would be nice a passive skill like when Zyra is into the bushes (similar to nidalee) , she regenerates x.x % of her maximus hp per second and her nearly aliates.

    sorry my bad English :(

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  15. Sylvari incoming! :D (GW2-refererance) :D

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  16. Why no DarkSovereign/Reiora? D:

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  17. i like adrian zholen's idea
    it makes since since a plant type mage
    so she should be able to heal or get some kind of buff in the jungle. but then that will xone her out to jungle alot and not be a mid champ...

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  18. I really like the idea, and not just because she us a concept that I had come up with myself. Really hoping she's not to similar to my idea, that means they have a camera in my room.

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  19. Morello said that the files on Zyra / Xara are 2 months old so almost everything changed on her .. so those files aren't really relevant now.

    ReplyDelete

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