Riot Games has rushed to update a soon-to-be-released League of Legends emote packaged with several LCS-branded designs after the League community pointed out how “toxic” the Akali artwork could be.
The League emote, which was unveiled earlier this week, had depicted assassin champion Akali in a green-washed 100 Thieves jumpsuit with one eye raised and her hand shaped with a finger and thumb squeezed together—a casual gesture often associated with telling someone they have small genitalia. Today’s update has now changed Akali’s only visible hand to instead cup her ear.
It’s unsurprising that Riot made the change so quickly, especially considering the League developers have been working to delete anything that could be used to promote toxicity in ranked queues. This quick rework comes a year after the team removed a “bait” emote regularly used to flame struggling players.
What is a little surprising is that the Akali emote was even unveiled in its original form considering the major anti-toxicity drive. Dot Esports has reached out to Riot PR for further clarity on the design process.
The uproar in the League fandom has been immediate, with players slamming the rapid rework. Some furious players dubbed the change “lame” and “cowardly” while others shared they’d been prepared to “load up more RP… for the first time in I don’t know how long”—a plan now scrapped. “They legitemately [sic] made such a great emote worthless [and] didn’t even try to make the new version work,” one League player wrote.
The biggest sentiment that’s emerged across the League community was that 100 Thieves had been “scammed” by the update; every involved LCS org will be paid a percentage stipend from their emote’s sales. With the change, many now plan to totally boycott the 100T Akali design instead of buying the emote.
Either way, the “toxic” original design won’t be making it to the game. The updated version will become available in League Patch 14.17 alongside the others.
