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Riot August tweeted:

Excited to announce that @Squad5lol is taking over as Lead Champion Designer!

I'll be moving into the mysterious role of "A Lead Designer on League of Legends," where I'll be helping out projects across League, from champs, to balance, to modes, to R & D!

For recent work, Briar was August's the last champ for a while and Squad5 is the designer for the upcoming Freljordian Vastaya solo laner and was the designer on Milio before handing him over to Emizery.

Fun fact: Squad5 worked a lot with August before becoming a champ designer. He fixed a critical day 1 bug on Vi and was the one who came up with the zoom, camera lock, execute for Jhin's ult, which convinced design leadership to let him work on his own champ.

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about 1 year ago - /u/RiotEmizery - Direct link

Having worked with both Squad5 and August, I'll just say that I'm excited for both of their new roles. August isn't leaving League and his passion and creativity will be seen, no doubt.

Squad5 deserves this position and is a trustworthy leader, designer, and person. He has a proven track record of high quality champions and is constantly pushing for better work from his team.

Good luck man, you earned it!

about 1 year ago - /u/RiotEmizery - Direct link

Originally posted by pyromanniacc

IIRC,(might be wrong) but i believe it was EndlessPillows who made him the designer of Yuumi and ksante and i believe Yone,Pyke Xayah and Rakan

EndlessPillows and Maxw3ll did early explorations of Hwei last year, but I've been the lead designer on the project and designed his kit under August's team leadership.

Squad5 has been a terrific colleague and sounding board on the champion. Hoboboy helped a tremendous amount with implementation and some later exploration, and Maxw3ll and August contributed some to implementation themselves as well. Champion development is a team effort.

Direct your hate to me, I'm powered by it! Can't wait!

about 1 year ago - /u/RiotAugust - Direct link

Originally posted by Boudynasr

a quick glance at the comments and damn people hate tf out of August lol, maybe I'm minority but will miss that bald dude

His Ws were much more than his Ls imo

It's cause all I do is ruin the game

about 1 year ago - /u/RiotEmizery - Direct link

Originally posted by Boudynasr

is this your first champion? hope its a banger but a bit worried that it might be the K'Sante of 2023 lol [pro play jailed 45% WR champ]

First champion that I've led the direction of.

I worked with Squad5 on Milio, but by the time I came on he was already a fire boy with range extension and a cleanse. I made the Q, and worked with him to flesh out and polish the rest of the kit.

Before I came to work on champs I worked on Wild Rift where I did the tutorials and Guilds, plus a couple other things.

Prior to that I've worked on a number of titles in the industry as a tech designer or gameplay programmer like Bioshock, Borderlands, XCOM, Disney Infinity, and a bunch of titles you've likely never heard of.

about 1 year ago - /u/RiotEmizery - Direct link

Originally posted by Need-Help123456777

What's your favorite part of working on champions?

Well I have a gameplay background so I really love making new abilities. For every spell that reaches players there's tons that we've tried which weren't fair but were hilarious, or didn't fit with that character's kit or theme, or that trashed framerate or internal test servers, or a million other reasons it wasn't chosen.

Making so much gameplay and trimming it down to the best parts is tons of fun and hard work. Even still we won't always get it right, but if it's a fun experience players want to keep playing then I'm happy. And if it's not, I want to change it.

about 1 year ago - /u/RiotEmizery - Direct link

Originally posted by Zarathielis

Are you only working on Hwei or will you take over another champion after Hwei? And is there any type of champ or ability you personally would like to do in the future?

I'm leading Hwei right now, no spoilers for what I do in the future.

My favorite class archetype is mages so I'm quite excited about Hwei. That said, outside of mages I like long range champions with poke options like Varus, Ashe, Kog'Maw and Miss Fortune or high durability high control champions like Leona, Sejuani and Braum.

My favorite champions though are pretty much all mages or enchanters; Veigar, Lux, Brand, Lulu, and Nami.

about 1 year ago - /u/RiotEmizery - Direct link

Originally posted by FriendlyGhostLady

Do u think Hwei will be as hard as Champs like azir or Zoe?

Not sure how to answer this. You'll have to see for yourself.