League of Legends’ coolest swords, ranked
The cast of League of Legends is so big that the best way to find an interesting character is to simply scan the list of champions, looking for a distinguishing feature. An easy archetype for gamers to understand is someone with a cool sword; that makes sense, because “cool sword” is actually in the bottom pyramid of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
There are fifteen sword-wielding champions; we excluded characters who only use very large daggers. We also didn’t add any skins; this is all core Runeterra lore. With such an arsenal of swords to admire, we realized we had to rank them so we could determine which of these swords has the upper hand on Cool Sword Day. Here they are, from least cool to coolest.
Substandard League of Legends swords
Gangway
Image: Riot Games
A brutal and blunt instrument, used for slaughter. Doesn’t really do anything, not the star of the show. Not a cool sword at all.
Tryndamere
Image: Riot Games
Very large, but not the source of Tryndamere’s rage powers, so not very impressive. Doesn’t seem to have any special craftsmanship; it’s not a True Ice item like its counterparts in the Freljord, or a cursed weapon, or anything like that. It doesn’t help that Tryndamere is in desperate need of a visual update. If they give him one, maybe they can give him a sword that doesn’t suck.
Fiora
Image: Riot Games
Fiora is very talented and her blade is aesthetically beautiful, but all of her dueling power comes from personal skill. Fiora is cool, but her sword isn’t independent of Fiora, so it’s not a cool sword.
Samira
Image: Riot Games
Samira is extremely cool and she gets a novelty point based on her skillfully switching between gun and sword for style points. However, her weapons are not automatically cool by association. When Samira dropped her sword and someone else picked it up and moved the camera to focus on them, I fell asleep immediately. Not a cool sword.
Mediocre League of Legends swords
Yasuo
Image: Riot Games
Yasuo’s sword is fashioned after his wind powers, which is a nice touch, but as far as we know the sword isn’t inherently magical. Yasuo uses it to direct his wind powers, similar to a magic wand, so it gets a cool point for being a strong visual in the film.
Master Yi
Image: Riot Games
Did you know that Master Yi’s sword was carved by Doran, a legendary artisan, and that they create swords blessed by ancient spirits of Ionia? Master Yi’s sword is actually the coolest thing about him; it’s the rest of its crazy, action figure aesthetic that drags down its ranking.
Leona
Image: Riot Games
Leona’s sword can turn into pure sunlight and teleport her to her enemies; it also has a hip sun theme. This is pretty cool, but in the lore of League of Legendsthe Solari are currently engaged in a genocide of the moon-worshipping Lunari, and using a cool blade for such an evil purpose means Leona ranks low on the cool scale.
Cool League of Legends swords
Shen
Image: Riot Games
Shen’s giant spirit sword is a link to a realm that parallels reality, and it allows him to control the environment around him. Shen is also quite boring – he’s a silent guy who believes in balance – but it’s impossible to watch his giant spirit sword whizzing around the Rift and not be a little impressed. This is a pretty cool sword.
Yarn
Image: Riot Games
At first glance, Garen’s sword is functional and shiny, but not particularly cool. But his ultimate ability is where things really get fun; he summons a giant golden version of his sword from heaven onto an enemy’s head to execute him. This is actually a gift from the Aspect of Justice, and he channels its power. Garen looks like an ordinary soldier, but he’s able to summon a great golden sword from heaven – that’s undeniably cool.
Viego
Image: Riot Games
Viego is an interesting case because his sword, the Sword of the Ruined King, appeared in the game well before he did. In fact, at one point the Blade of the Ruined King was so strong that everyone in the metagame simply had to build several of them. In the novel Ruin, we discover a lot about the history of the knife as Holiness, the ancestral weapon of the royal family of Camavor. Viego unleashed a torrent of hellish energy in an attempt to resurrect his dead wife, turning Holiness into the sword we know today – and that’s pretty neat.
The best League of Legends swords
Kayle
Image: Riot Games
Kayle is the aspect of justice that gives Garen strength, and she wields her mother’s sword. As Kayle levels up, so does her sword, and in the late game she uses it to send out waves of righteous fire. There’s a sisterly drama there too; Kayle can draw her sword into two smaller swords, and one rightfully belongs to her sister Morgana. Morgana has rejected her duties as Aspect of Justice because she disagrees with Kayle’s unrelenting policies. Kayle’s sword(s) represent her ideological differences with Morgana, but they’re also just plain cool.
Riven
Image: Riot Games
The Sword of Riven does a lot of work. It was forged with Runic magic in her homeland of Noxus, and she went into battle with the great sword. When she realized the injustice of the invasion of Ionia, she shattered her blade and carried with her a reduced, broken remnant of the sword. Her ultimate goal is to reforge the blade, which is larger than her and allows her to emit a wave of wind energy. Riven’s sword is relevant to her character, and there’s a lot of deep lore associated with it – that’s very cool.
Aatrox
Image: Riot Games
League of Legends lore is a patchwork of stories and concepts, some of which have been merged multiple times with retcons. Aatrox is one of these characters; he started out as a generic demon guy, and rewrites have since turned him into a much more interesting villain.
Aatrox was one of the ascended, huge warriors fused from the greatest warriors of the Shuriman Empire with the divine power of the Sun Disk in the capital. The ascended are half-human, half-animal, and many of them draw clear inspiration from various members of the Egyptian pantheon.
The League of Legends version of Ra, the hawk emperor Azir, built a vast empire using slavery. One of those slaves, his advisor Xerath, chose to betray him out of spite for this sin. A cataclysm ensued that wiped out most of Shurima, and the remaining Ascendeds fell into blood magic and civil war. Eventually, they were sealed in weapons by ancient heroes, and those weapons serve as their prisons.
Aatrox does not do this alone to have a cool sword, he is a cool sword. Whenever someone takes hold of its hilt, he can temporarily claim his body and build for himself a pale imitation of his past glory from flesh and blood. But eventually the war runs out for him and he returns to the oblivion of the sword prison. Aatrox is a horror nightmare from Cronenberg; it is the best.