Riot Games unveiled its latest skin line this week, called Demacia Vice, with two skins for Lucian and Garen.
The theme of the skin line is fairly obvious if you’re familiar with 80s television: Miami Vice. The Demacian Vice Squad is a neon-pink-clad police task force in the League of Legends universe. Garen and Lucian will try to uphold the law, and they’ll look good doing it.
As new and exciting as this sounds, we’ve actually known about Demacia Vice Lucian and Garen for about a year now, before they were ever skins. They started out as arcade game characters in a game created by Riot Games in a company-wide hackathon last year.
The arcade game, called Demacia Vice Squad, was revealed last year at the LCS spring finals in Miami. Although the Streets of Rage-inspired side-scroller was never released to the public to play, we were at the Miami event to play and record footage of it, and then again at Oakland, where it made a reappearance. To put it simply, it rocked.
As you can tell, Lucian and Garen, the two playable characters in the game, are almost exactly identical to the skins revealed this week, so it’s clear that this is where Riot drew inspiration. Other characters either in the game or in cardboard cutouts near the arcade units were Darius, who was the game’s villain, and Vi. Both also looked fantastic, and we’d be surprised if they didn’t eventually join Lucian and Garen in the skin line.
But that led us to thinking. Who else would look awesome in a Vice skin? Obviously, champions that would look best in bright, neon colors would be best, so we’ll use that as a loose criteria. Here are five champions we’d love to see get the Demacia Vice treatment.
Graves
Burt Reynolds moustache. Thick sunglasses. Cigar. Unbuttoned pink shirt with a gold chain and black slacks. The ideas write themselves because Graves was built for a skin line like this. He’s the most natural fit in the game. Make it happen, Rito.
Katarina
Katarina, while the sworn enemy of Demacia, would also be a good fit for a Vice Squad, even if it’s Demacian. She’s got that confident, badass demeanor about her that both Garen and Lucian hold, so she can fit the bill of wise-cracking neon detective all the same. Plus, to see her spin around throwing pink or blue daggers while sporting some white leather pants would just be the best thing ever. She could probably even serve as a replacement for Darius as the villain. Maybe in the sequel?
Shyvana
I just want to see what Riot thinks a Miami Vice dragon would look like. Yes, this is only here for my own curiosity. She’s Demacian, too.
Vayne
She only makes this list from a purely stylistic stance. She already wears the pointy sunglasses, she already wears tons of leather, and she doesn’t have many goofy skins. Oh, and she’s also Demacian, so she’s a natural fit. Unfortunately, her crossbow would be difficult to turn into a Vice Squad weapon, but hey, it worked for Garen’s giant sword, so how hard can it be?
Jarvan IV
The crowned prince of Demacia deserves his own spot on the Demacia Vice Squad, right? Picture this perfect image: Jarvan in a white suit, a bright blue shirt underneath with a low-hanging collar, exposing a silver chain and a hairy chest. He’s not wearing a crown, just spiked brown hair and a thick pair of black sunglasses. Hot, right? Duh. Case closed.
