Original Post — Direct link

I was just looking at the shop (because I am still deciding if I should buy von Yipp or not...) and noticed that Riot is splitting all guardians into "collections", many of them associated with the regions playable in the game.

And one thing that is really standing out is the major imbalance in region representation when it comes to guardians. I will now list the number of associated guardians for each region (I am excluding event related guardians like Spirit Blossom and K/DA All Out):

Region Guardian count
Bilgewater 1
Demacia 2
Freljord 2
Ionia 3
Noxus 1
Piltover 2
Shadow Isles 1
Targon 4
Zaun 1

Noteworthy: while Targon is the youngest of all regions, released with the last expansion, it also has the most associated guardians with 4 (Ellie, Astra, Stella, Cosmo).

I know, it can be argued that Piltover and Zaun should count as 1 region for the purpose of this discussion, but I listed them seperatedly for some reasons:

  • they are listed seperatedly in the shop (we have a Piltover collection and a Zaun collection)
  • Zaun and Piltover, while being combined for gameplay purposes, vary alot when it comes to their thematics, which was also acknowledged recently by Riot by giving us a second card back for PnZ with the Zaunite aesthetic

The regions which are most in need of new guardians are Bilgewater, Noxus, Shadow Isles, and arguably Zaun. Noxus most likely has the problem of not having many animal designs in their cards, which are most commonly used for guardians (which makes it a waste that they gave us an elephant guardian based on the Targon star elephant instead of the Noxian plated one). But the other 3 have quite alot of potential....

So with this all laid out, I would like to hear some suggestions for guardians to fill spots for the regions which are most in need. I will start with my own suggestions:

  • Bilgewater: Coral Creature, Boxtopus, Burblefish
  • Demacia: Valor, Badgerbear
  • Freljord: Elnuk Calve, Bristle (boar)
  • Ionia: Tasty Faefolk
  • Noxus: Armored Tusk, Raptor (that thing on Wrathful Rider), Leech (cute Vladimir related with blood thematic?)
  • Piltover: mechanical animals (Hextech Scorpion (take that, Skarner))), Mouse Detective? (to go with Vi's Warden thematic)
  • Shadow Isles: Spiderling, Sapling, Crocolith
  • Zaun: Scrap Scuttler, Chemtech Augmented Rat, Whump
External link →
almost 4 years ago - /u/Riot_DanCast - Direct link

Originally posted by Chembaron_Seki

Yeah, Bilgewater really needs some new guardians. Pretty weird that they were pumping out 4 guardians for Targon already, but barely released one for Bilgewater with it's expansion.

I'm excited to see people talking about Guardians. Remember that Rising Tides expansion was released all at once, where Targon had 3 distinct launch moments to pair cosmetic content with. Looking back I think we over did it a bit with 4 new base Targon guardians, so we'll mix things up a bit more during the whole length of the Shurima seasons and try some new, more unusual, ideas. Equal count by regions isn't the goal though, but to have a variety of Guardians people find cool and desirable.

Our focus testing on Boxtopus shows you are in a very small group of fans there, but you did guess one Guardian correctly that will come out before the end of this year. :)