New League champ teased in Riot’s MSI hype video

It's definitely not a manta ray, and it's definitely scary as hell.

Screengrab via Riot Games

Riot released a hype video today for the upcoming Mid-Season Invitational, and it may have featured an unexpected guest—the next champion.

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The video pans through epic stills of battle scenes and League of Legends champions next to some of the most talented players from around the world. A giant Kha’Zix rips his enemies to shreds, Elise calls down a larger-than-life Smite to cull the Baron Nashor, and as the video moves to a shot of Janna on the beach, the dark silhouette of a creature lurks in the water (it’s at 0:45 if you want to skip ahead).

Screengrab via Riot Games

That terrifying creature right there could very well be the upcoming champion. After all, it lines up perfectly with the teaser Riot released last week in the latest edition of Champion Roadmap. In the post, Riot promised a dark-themed, aggressive champion, and the image the company used in conjunction with the teaser showcased underwater or nautical themes, hinting at some sort of sea monster.

This creepy shadow certainly gives off a strong Creature from the Black Lagoon vibe, which only lends further credence to the sea monster theory. Either way, that’s not something we want to come across on the Rift, and we’ll certainly be having nightmares about it.

The original teaser of the champion was only a week ago, so it’ll likely be some time before Riot officially reveals anything, but at least now we (sort of) know what it’ll look like.

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Image of Aaron Mickunas
Aaron Mickunas
Esports and gaming journalist for Dot Esports, featured at Lolesports.com, Polygon, IGN, and Ginx.tv.