League of Legends‘ newest skin has proven controversial within the community. The Immortalized Legend Ahri skin is designed to commemorate Faker as the first professional player introduced Riot League of Legends esports Hall of Fame, called the Hall of Legends. To mark this occasion, the skin has an optional extra layer that costs around $500 to unlock. While many fans online immediately took issue with the price tag, their displeasure has now shifted into the game, with Ahri’s ban count suddenly skyrocketing following the release of her new skin.
The skin arrived in patch 14.12, which hit the servers on Wednesday. Since then, Ahri has gone from being banned in around 8% of ranked games to being banned in over 15% of ranked games, according to Lolalytica. While the increase in bans is true worldwide, it is most pronounced in North America, from around 10% to over 23%, which suggests that NA players hate this skin slightly more than the rest of the world, or that the ranked players in the region are more committed to sending a message than increasing the rankings – a theory that the results of the Worlds in the region certainly support.
This kind of change in bans is usually reserved for champions who get significant in-game buffs, or with extremely high win rates, but neither of these apply to Ahri. In this case, it really does seem to be all about the skin – which provides no practical in-game bonuses unless you consider opulence and pride as psychological enhancements.
Without meaningful improvements, this admittedly funny ban trend will likely correct itself in the near future, which means soon enough CompetitionThe biggest spenders will be able to show off their shiny new skin.