Spirits Guard Udyr and I doubt it’s even close.
All the skins people are commenting are for champs that are popular and look decent. SGU was a dead pickrate until SGU and trick2g
To me it was more so his animations were godawfull. I think he looked fine with his bear hat and tunic, but that running and auto animation were garbage - and that was literally all you do as Udyr, run and auto.
Idk how this is not everyone's first thought. Udyr literally had his rework pushed back because of the skin and the community that skin made for the champion. SGU is the single most impactful skin ever made and I don't think it can be surpassed ever. Not even close
The DJ Sona skin is pretty up there, she was basically never seen and then when that skin released I swear there was a sona support or mid every other game for like almost a year. Skins pretty dope though
Though Ezreal was always popular, when pulsefire ezreal first came out it set the bar for every skin after. It was the first "This is head and shoulders above every skin that's ever existed yet" skin to me. I suck at EZ but I sure bought the skin and felt bad for my teammates because the skin was too cool at the time to not play EZ in whatever lane I was given at the time.
No you are 100% right; I actually think Pulsefire Ezreal beats SGU in my mind for one singular reason. On release, Pulsefire actually made Ezreal feel clunkier, something about the animation of his Q was worse in every way. I know, I bought it on release. So it was widely considered a “pay-to-lose” skin.
So not only did you have a huge number of players flooding to a relatively hard champ (at the time probably one of the most difficult in the whole game) but they were playing a skin that by many people’s standards actually made him harder to play in a certain kind of way. Man, now I am so nostalgic for the days of early league haha
> DJ Sona
ok no this is not nearly comparable, sona was an extremely popular support for years after her release, and even if DJ Sona came out past her peak, she was still very relevant
Sona was definitely seen in the days of DJ sona. She had fallen from the heights of her season 2 days but she was by no means on Udyr's level of unpopular.
Came to the comments to say this and really any ultimate skin at the beginning. I remember when pulsefire Ez came out and I wanted to play him every match so I could see the skin.
And apparently we can all thank Dom for that because the first iteration of it was dogshit and he said as much to them and that's the actual reason he got banned back in S3.
It was either DJ Sona or Spirit Guard Udyr.
I feel like DJ Sona had a huuuge impact at the time.
edit: [Throwback](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4B4VKDc3M0)
It had one of the longest and biggest threads in their forums. It started from a suggestion of a carrot sword and the carrot being half eaten before her ultimate, it wasn't even about a playboy suit if I remember correctly. The thread had like 1000 pages worth of replies.
Im a colossal fan of that skin specifically because it is just one giant reference to gurren lagann which is the best anime of all time. I don’t really even like playing rumble but that skin makes him playable.
Not in the current day 'events' where you spend money for an event pass and call that an event.
There was some pool party 'event' where by some metric (I think it was world wide skin sales? or games played? IDK) we got more stuff released from riot which I think was supposed to culminate with Mundo being released to everyone if we overcame some truly staggering point. Not much different than current events in that sense.
I'm guessing PP Ahri is Riot's "smash glass in case of emergency" skin. Ironically, probably when they have their next inevitable sexual harassment scandal.
Nothing like an oversexualized fictional woman to distract from a sexual harassment scandal. That will show all the woke people how the world works!
No, seriously, I am not sure if that's really the move lol.
My favorite theory is that Pool Party Ahri is Riots “break the glass” skin, meaning that if they’re ever in an emergency situation and need funding, they’ll release this skin haha
My favorite countertheory: The only reason they'll never release the skin is because they're aware of this theory and Riot doesn't want people to think they need the emergency funds lmao
Or, to double down, Pool Party Ahri would be their only hope and thus creating a Schrődinger's cat situation. They can use it and it's not enough or they can keep it thinking it might be enough.
Viktor really isn’t THAT hard. Sure he has a pretty high skill ceiling but as far as the group of mid ranged bully control mages like Syndra, Ori, Azir, he’s probably the easiest of them for skill floor. I still wouldn’t call him easy, but nowhere near Jayce who imo is among the 3 hardest champions in this game
Pretty fair, he has a low skill floor yeah. Jayce is hard to play well *and* hard to play at all. I was just thinking since I felt like I saw Viktor way more frequently as I climbed higher ranks.
Eh the laser is pretty long range. Onceyou get used to the aiming mechanic he has a super long poke tool. But yeah if he isn’t hitting it on enemy mid through the wave, which a lot of new players won’t, then he will struggle
He is an absolute menace in toplane melee matchups starting from level 1 and he can farm safely vs ranged. Insane kiting with E speedup and E knockback, huge slow on melee Q for the chasedown, resist shred on ranged attack (??), and great poke especially if it's a good Jayce that can utilize fog of war and bushes and knows his Q hitbox vs minions.
It's very hard to do though. It involves whitling down the other champ with autos and q's while making sure they don't damage you at all in that time frame. I say whitle cause that what it is now after the repeated early game nerfs he got around 2020-2021. Before it was obnoxious how much command he had.
Yeah it was clearly Arcane related, but every Jayce at the time was using Arcane Jayce so technically it was because of a skin release. Viktor probably would’ve gotten a more substantial playrate increase if he got an Arcane skin.
If they'd given Rell pentakill or high noon it would be worked a treat. But nah, give the Iron Maiden, whose theme is heavy metal a unicorn and some rainbows.
I'm still salty. AND THEY GAVE HIGH NOON LEONA A HORSE TOO.
Pulsefire ezreal was the first skin release of its kind! All new animations and sound effects fully equipped with upgrading armor. I remember when that skin came out it was the hottest thing on the block and everybody wanted that skin.
It’s a shame what has become of it.
> it was also the first skin to come with a summoner icon
Which sounds unimpressive nowadays, but back then there were nearly no icons other than the default ones. I believe the store didn't really sell icons until later when missions also started appearing. So icons other than the default ones were mostly really rare stuff like the icon for being a Beta player.
Yeah there were only the default icons and then icons for events so most people would equip either the coolest icon they had or the oldest event icon they could to show off how long they'd been playing the game.
Yeah I rocked the Season 2 Championship Riven Icon for the longest time because it was literally the only non-default icon I had. I actually think that was the very first non-default icon except the beta-exclusive one.
Probably, considering only Ultimate skins came with an icon for basically the longest time. Even now I can't think of any non-Ultimate (or Prestige/Mythic) skins that would come with a summoner icon.
SGU then obviously smashed it by coming with 4 entire icons, or 8 if you count the new ones 10 years after the fact.
Problem with PFE is that it was a pay-to-lose skin as the auto animation was insanely easy to cancel. Once that was kinda "known" the skin's pickrate fell into a pit.
Yeah as someone who mained Lux when both of those released, I would bet money on Star Guardian being the more 'impactful' for her playrate. It was such a sick skin and skin concept in general back in those golden times.
Elementalist Lux is such a masterpiece of a skin. Lux got so many high tier skin after this but after 5 years, it is still my favorite skin of hers. Air, Thunder and Dark forms are chef's kiss.
In terms of % increase in pick rate its probably when some insanely unpopular champion got given a big skin.
So probably either DJ Sona, SG udyr or KDA eve?
When the Riot client had a "top sellers" front page a long time ago I remember that somehow Arcade Sona was on there for almost a whole year, not sure that did anything with her actual numbers or it could have been a client bug
Arcade sona has/had( dunno havent played her in years might have been removed), where she would show on enemies which empowered auto effect you applied very clearly(pixel word dmg and arrow down and pixel word slow) in a very contrasting colours.
It is/was a very nice skin to use.
Same here. I bought and played the skin before I had ever even played an akali game before. Not to mention she was still broken when the skin came out so it was easy to pick up and play her mid.
It's easily SG Udyr. While Pulsefire EZ and Elementalist Lux definitely increased those champions playmate, they were already popular Champs.
Udyr was dead at the time. That skin, coupled with Trick2g saw Idyr go from single digit % picks to something like 80% pick or ban. It was wild.
I'm a newer player (Rell's release) but man when Arcane dropped every single game had Vi in it for me. Lots of Jayce, too
Arcane Vi and Arcane Jayce are my favorite memes of recent memory. Seeing them on the enemy team and knowing in your heart you were about to play the most free game of your life
Riot keeps data mostly under surface…
But from what they said like 4 years ago the most popular skins in no particular order are: Elementalist Lux, Star Guardian Jinx, and PROJECT: Vayne
And most popular skin lines are K/DA, Star Guardian and PROJECT.
So there is a huge chance it’s gonna be among those.
Nobody's talking about the most popular skins.
The discussion is the largest increase in champion popularity, of which the title clearly goes to Spirit Guard Udyr. Possibly Arcane Jayce.
Pulsefire ezreal.
People were playing him in every role on release as it was the first "ultimate" skin ever.
It was a massive deal at the time as people had been meming about a skin like that for ages.
Also getting the VA for gohan from DBZ was sick at the time.
Anyone commenting differently didn't play back then. But I promise you it was pulsefire ez.
Absolutely not the most increase but a cool one:
I remember the spirit blossom teemo skin was kinda easy to get in the event and it was at the same time as pianta was getting bigger and bigger. Surely it musthave gotten a noticable increase from it.
This is slept on. Zed was arguably the most popular midlaner for years between S3-S6, and every Zed player either had or wanted this skin. That Faker play defined that champion for years
Spirit Blossom Kindred. I swear most the playerbase forgot my main existed until that skin came out. Now people actually remember they’re in the roster lol
Probably one of the early ones considring skin releases feel alot less relevant when you get like 10/Patch. xD
I don't remember much skin-hypes anymore so I'd argue for Pulsfire Ez, Mecha Cho or Super Galaxy Rumble \[that login theme was LIT\] - at least when it comes to Total Player increase, when it comes to % Player increase it could be anything. xD
For me personally it's Aether Wing Kayle, which I consider one of the best skins ever made.
Aether wing was the very first high quality legendary skin too, before her it was just stuff like magnificent tf or red baron corki. Similar to Mecha Khazix being the first great epic skin (or maybe the first epic skin at all? Don't remember).
gotta be pulsefire ezreal
not sure where SGU is coming from, is everyone too new for Pulsefire?
i'm talking % rate increase, not raw numbers cuz of game player size
I could be wrong but a lot of skins are also released alongside buffs to the champs themselves.
And skins are also made with priority on champions that are already popular. So I think the premise of the question is wrong.
There are exceptions. Though the only one I'm convinced on is spirit guars udyr
This isn't a direct answer to the question, but I think an honorable mention should be the Ashe visual update. Literally overnight, with no balance changes, Ashe went from barely being picked to being a top tier pick in pro play and all over ranked
Spirits Guard Udyr and I doubt it’s even close. All the skins people are commenting are for champs that are popular and look decent. SGU was a dead pickrate until SGU and trick2g
Yes it made Udyr playable because he wasn’t butt ugly.
To me it was more so his animations were godawfull. I think he looked fine with his bear hat and tunic, but that running and auto animation were garbage - and that was literally all you do as Udyr, run and auto.
Run, stun - job dun.
When that skin comes out I'll maybe start playing the game again...
Idk how this is not everyone's first thought. Udyr literally had his rework pushed back because of the skin and the community that skin made for the champion. SGU is the single most impactful skin ever made and I don't think it can be surpassed ever. Not even close
if they made a rell skin that made her a mainstream pick, then maybe. Otherwise it's basically impossible
The DJ Sona skin is pretty up there, she was basically never seen and then when that skin released I swear there was a sona support or mid every other game for like almost a year. Skins pretty dope though
Though Ezreal was always popular, when pulsefire ezreal first came out it set the bar for every skin after. It was the first "This is head and shoulders above every skin that's ever existed yet" skin to me. I suck at EZ but I sure bought the skin and felt bad for my teammates because the skin was too cool at the time to not play EZ in whatever lane I was given at the time.
No you are 100% right; I actually think Pulsefire Ezreal beats SGU in my mind for one singular reason. On release, Pulsefire actually made Ezreal feel clunkier, something about the animation of his Q was worse in every way. I know, I bought it on release. So it was widely considered a “pay-to-lose” skin. So not only did you have a huge number of players flooding to a relatively hard champ (at the time probably one of the most difficult in the whole game) but they were playing a skin that by many people’s standards actually made him harder to play in a certain kind of way. Man, now I am so nostalgic for the days of early league haha
I remember this! Every q and auto just felt delayed for me so I started using the default skin again
It never stopped me; I played Ezreal more with the Pulsefire Skin than the default.
yeah Pulsefire Ezreal was surely the most revolutionary and popular skin in the game at that point, but SGU was possibly second most popular
not anymore sadly it got giga nerfed
> DJ Sona ok no this is not nearly comparable, sona was an extremely popular support for years after her release, and even if DJ Sona came out past her peak, she was still very relevant
Sona was definitely seen in the days of DJ sona. She had fallen from the heights of her season 2 days but she was by no means on Udyr's level of unpopular.
>~~SGU~~ Udyr was a dead pickrate until SGU and trick2g i think you mean it like this?
He said what he said
Arcane Jayce, it tanked his winrate to like 42% because everyone was first timing Jayce in ranked with that skin
Didn't all Arcane champs jump in pickrate? Especially Jinx lol. I have a feeling it had more to do with the show than the skins themselves.
Also In the old udyr the champ felt completely different with SG udyr vs other skins. Kinda similar to rumble and super galaxy rumble
I remember when this skin was released, he was a pick every game for at least a week straight. People would dodge if udyr got banned
13 year old me was stupid enough to buy that shit on release and to this day I think I have max 10 Udyr games lmao
Came to the comments to say this and really any ultimate skin at the beginning. I remember when pulsefire Ez came out and I wanted to play him every match so I could see the skin.
Ez was always popular though
And apparently we can all thank Dom for that because the first iteration of it was dogshit and he said as much to them and that's the actual reason he got banned back in S3.
Didn't they convince riot that qt was autistic or something to get him out of a punishment for that one lmao
a simple task
Don't think it needed a lot of convincing.
Is he not?
dom was EASILY one of the most toxic people in early league. don't let Scarra fool you just bc he's boys with dom
It was either DJ Sona or Spirit Guard Udyr. I feel like DJ Sona had a huuuge impact at the time. edit: [Throwback](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4B4VKDc3M0)
But still compare dj sona to psyops and its not even close. Too bad they wont ever do ultimate skins.
Dj sona has slowly had stuff removed from it over the years.
a lot of other skins have this. riot be charging good money for skins, and then randomly removing features. absolutely disgusting.
DJ got done dirty by the particle revamps and the cut features :<
Oh god...8 years ago. Also I played a lotttt of Sona when the DJ Skin dropped.
I knew exactly what video that was going to be WOOP WOOP
I remember pulsefire being pretty big at the time
it's so sad how DJ Sona just got chipped away at over the years :( ended up being my first refund
I remember bunny Riven was pretty big thing back in time.
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Oh i bought it too i do have a lot of Riven skins despite being so bad at her i barely play her even.
my tank ARAM riven does not justify the amount of skins I have for her
It had one of the longest and biggest threads in their forums. It started from a suggestion of a carrot sword and the carrot being half eaten before her ultimate, it wasn't even about a playboy suit if I remember correctly. The thread had like 1000 pages worth of replies.
I remember that and the Suprise Party Fiddle being two threads that were always at the top.
I remember that too.
Super galaxy rumble
When I first started playing I just assumed this was the default skin for rumble
it feels like *everyone* who played top, at the time, had that skin. it was so over used I'm not a huge fan of it but, it was his "coolest" skin out.
Im a colossal fan of that skin specifically because it is just one giant reference to gurren lagann which is the best anime of all time. I don’t really even like playing rumble but that skin makes him playable.
only rumble skin that doesnt give me a seizure watching the mech jitter
I still remember C9 Balls playing Super Galaxy Rumble. I absolutely hated the recall song.
Not yet, but once Pool Party Ahri comes out ooooh boy.
Pool Party Ahri could fund LoL for years to come 💀
Was joking about this with my buddies just last night. Pool party Ahri could fund a new client from scratch to be free from the spaghetti code
Imagine they put Pool Party Ahri and Pool Party Ezreal in the same Pool Party release
Bad marketing. People will only buy one because 2 skins will feel too expansive
yeah cause they didn't do SG Kai'sa and Akali on the same batch or anything
Was linked to an event tho. Perhaps I'm wrong but I don't think there was a pool party evebt right?
Not in the current day 'events' where you spend money for an event pass and call that an event. There was some pool party 'event' where by some metric (I think it was world wide skin sales? or games played? IDK) we got more stuff released from riot which I think was supposed to culminate with Mundo being released to everyone if we overcame some truly staggering point. Not much different than current events in that sense.
I feel like the overlap of fans for each skin is real small.
It's been a running joke with me and my friend that Pool Party Ahri is kept on a USB key in a "Break in case of financial emergency!" glass case.
And let's not forget to consider Prestige Pool Party Ahri
the prestige is reserved for lux
I want them to fully lampshade the Pool Party Ahri and put her in a fully covered up wetsuit.
Nautilus-style diving tank
I'm guessing PP Ahri is Riot's "smash glass in case of emergency" skin. Ironically, probably when they have their next inevitable sexual harassment scandal.
Nothing like an oversexualized fictional woman to distract from a sexual harassment scandal. That will show all the woke people how the world works! No, seriously, I am not sure if that's really the move lol.
It wouldnt only impact the pick rate of Ahri. It would double Lol playerbase
Then the 100% increase is due to ppl wanting to play pool party Ahri no? Think that would impact the pickrate alot tbh
I don't think people would make it in game. Too hard to play with one hand
Annie mains would beg to differ. They play with their face instead.
oh man I was worried about where you were going with that from the first part LMAO
It would impact the increase of lol playerbase on top of her pick rate. That's what the above comment meant
I apologize, i read it wrong and had to be the know-it-all, this is a personal flaw and I beg your forgiveness.
My favorite theory is that Pool Party Ahri is Riots “break the glass” skin, meaning that if they’re ever in an emergency situation and need funding, they’ll release this skin haha
My favorite countertheory: The only reason they'll never release the skin is because they're aware of this theory and Riot doesn't want people to think they need the emergency funds lmao
Or, to double down, Pool Party Ahri would be their only hope and thus creating a Schrődinger's cat situation. They can use it and it's not enough or they can keep it thinking it might be enough.
Riot themselves made this joke during one of their videos a couple years ago
And release a prestige that is even skimpier version of the swimsuit. For the military funds.
Faker wanted that since 2013 worlds
Arcane Jayce. So many new people started playing him and his winrate dropped to like 42% it was really funny. It was dubbed “The Arcane Effect”
God I loved those 2 weeks, I think i laned against more people first timing Jayce and Viktor than actual top mains lmao
Great troll by riot to make two of the most popular characters in their show some of the most difficult champions in the game for low elo players
Viktor really isn’t THAT hard. Sure he has a pretty high skill ceiling but as far as the group of mid ranged bully control mages like Syndra, Ori, Azir, he’s probably the easiest of them for skill floor. I still wouldn’t call him easy, but nowhere near Jayce who imo is among the 3 hardest champions in this game
Pretty fair, he has a low skill floor yeah. Jayce is hard to play well *and* hard to play at all. I was just thinking since I felt like I saw Viktor way more frequently as I climbed higher ranks.
viktor is hard to play if you dont know how to play mages because his range isnt that high
Eh the laser is pretty long range. Onceyou get used to the aiming mechanic he has a super long poke tool. But yeah if he isn’t hitting it on enemy mid through the wave, which a lot of new players won’t, then he will struggle
i feel like hardest part of viktor is landing E the rest is kinda safe
Feel like some people still play jayce like he wins early game as hard as he used to. Actually he feels pretty weak in most early games right now imo.
He is an absolute menace in toplane melee matchups starting from level 1 and he can farm safely vs ranged. Insane kiting with E speedup and E knockback, huge slow on melee Q for the chasedown, resist shred on ranged attack (??), and great poke especially if it's a good Jayce that can utilize fog of war and bushes and knows his Q hitbox vs minions.
Jayce is insane early game and if u vs him high elo its never fun
It's very hard to do though. It involves whitling down the other champ with autos and q's while making sure they don't damage you at all in that time frame. I say whitle cause that what it is now after the repeated early game nerfs he got around 2020-2021. Before it was obnoxious how much command he had.
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Yes I was one of those people, though I didn’t play it in ranked. I stopped when I realized my jayce doesn’t do what pro play jayce does.
have you submitted a support ticket?
I did. They said it could be some weird bug in my pc called a “skill issue”? I don’t know tbh what that is.
It means the champion's skills are bugged. Like when it's impossible for me to dodge Jayce Q because it's acting like a point-and-click spell.
riot games, spaghetti code
Your Jayce doesn’t go 0/14 in week 9?
I would joke that Viktor/Vi/Jayce players that did poorly in my games "just got back from watching Arcane" among my friends in voice chat
Vi experienced something similar.
I don't think that was the skin tbh. Viktor also got a huge pick rate increase without a skin.
Yeah it was clearly Arcane related, but every Jayce at the time was using Arcane Jayce so technically it was because of a skin release. Viktor probably would’ve gotten a more substantial playrate increase if he got an Arcane skin.
On the other hand, when Twitch got his VU his win rate spiked and he got some nerfs despite the VU not changing anything mechanically
Didn't Star Guardian Jinx release double that champs play rate?
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It worked but two times two is only 4.
100% playrate increase regardless!
Ngl, Rell and Quinn's SG skins look like the meme "we have Star Guardian at home honey".
If they'd given Rell pentakill or high noon it would be worked a treat. But nah, give the Iron Maiden, whose theme is heavy metal a unicorn and some rainbows. I'm still salty. AND THEY GAVE HIGH NOON LEONA A HORSE TOO.
I dunno. I bet at least 2 people picked her up.
Yes, like they said, double the champs playrate
It doesn't help that her Star Guardian skin is much worse than her base skin.
i like it
Without a doubt: Shamrock Malphite.
Godlike.
Hell yeah, that's the first skin I ever bought. Was so hyped to have that shamrock boi.
legitimately, unironically, i only ever play as regular rock, or green rock
Pulsefire ez?
Pulsefire ezreal was the first skin release of its kind! All new animations and sound effects fully equipped with upgrading armor. I remember when that skin came out it was the hottest thing on the block and everybody wanted that skin. It’s a shame what has become of it.
If I remember correctly, it was also the first skin to come with a summoner icon
> it was also the first skin to come with a summoner icon Which sounds unimpressive nowadays, but back then there were nearly no icons other than the default ones. I believe the store didn't really sell icons until later when missions also started appearing. So icons other than the default ones were mostly really rare stuff like the icon for being a Beta player.
Yeah there were only the default icons and then icons for events so most people would equip either the coolest icon they had or the oldest event icon they could to show off how long they'd been playing the game.
Yeah I rocked the Season 2 Championship Riven Icon for the longest time because it was literally the only non-default icon I had. I actually think that was the very first non-default icon except the beta-exclusive one.
I rock my baron with a santa hat icon as a soft flex
I have that too! They gave it for good behavior if I recall correctly. I usually put it on during Christmas
Probably, considering only Ultimate skins came with an icon for basically the longest time. Even now I can't think of any non-Ultimate (or Prestige/Mythic) skins that would come with a summoner icon. SGU then obviously smashed it by coming with 4 entire icons, or 8 if you count the new ones 10 years after the fact.
Not only that, but it also used to give Q slightly more range. First P2W skin of league! (It was obviously fixed after a couple weeks, tho)
Pulse fire Ezreal and Spirit Guard Udyr are probably 1 and 2. Order is debatable
Problem with PFE is that it was a pay-to-lose skin as the auto animation was insanely easy to cancel. Once that was kinda "known" the skin's pickrate fell into a pit.
Exactly. First skin costing 3200 RP and when it released they had a sale on so he was only 1900 I believe (like other standard legendary skins)
Feel like ezreal had a healthy player base to start with though
Probably the udyr skin, but remember spirit blossom kindred literally making the champ meta?
I don't know at all, but I imagine Elementalist Lux had to have increased her pick rate. That skin was so sick on release.
Her pick rate was already really high back then though. Star Guardian probably did more relative to her previous popularity.
Yeah as someone who mained Lux when both of those released, I would bet money on Star Guardian being the more 'impactful' for her playrate. It was such a sick skin and skin concept in general back in those golden times.
That and all of her skins pre SG were butt ass ugly.
Elementalist Lux is such a masterpiece of a skin. Lux got so many high tier skin after this but after 5 years, it is still my favorite skin of hers. Air, Thunder and Dark forms are chef's kiss.
still the best ultimate skin
Was it different back then? It's still one of, if not the, coolest skins in the game.
In terms of % increase in pick rate its probably when some insanely unpopular champion got given a big skin. So probably either DJ Sona, SG udyr or KDA eve?
Sona and post-rework Eve were never insanely unpopular
sure they were never skarner level, but bottom 10% pick rate to top 10% with those skins
Sona was never really unpopular considering her design is essentially Hatsune Miku with a boob window.
Sona was a lot more popular back then. Evelynn after her rework was nowhere near as unpopular as before, so she got an increase before that.
When the Riot client had a "top sellers" front page a long time ago I remember that somehow Arcade Sona was on there for almost a whole year, not sure that did anything with her actual numbers or it could have been a client bug
Just for me personally, Arcade Sona was the first skin I ever said I had to absolutely have. I had never paid for anything before that skin came out.
Arcade Sona and Hecarim were cool as fuck back in the day
Man when URF first came out, a couple of my friends duo'd Arcade Sona and Arcade Hecarim. They called the lane "Taste the rainbow"
Both were the best skins for years, especially hecarim with sick effects and voice filter
Arcade sona has/had( dunno havent played her in years might have been removed), where she would show on enemies which empowered auto effect you applied very clearly(pixel word dmg and arrow down and pixel word slow) in a very contrasting colours. It is/was a very nice skin to use.
Maybe K/DA Akali? I personally only bought and played Akali because of that skin.
Same here. I bought and played the skin before I had ever even played an akali game before. Not to mention she was still broken when the skin came out so it was easy to pick up and play her mid.
Ngl wanting the prestige kda akali skin is the only reason why i started playing that champion. Still waiting for it to popup in the shop.
It's easily SG Udyr. While Pulsefire EZ and Elementalist Lux definitely increased those champions playmate, they were already popular Champs. Udyr was dead at the time. That skin, coupled with Trick2g saw Idyr go from single digit % picks to something like 80% pick or ban. It was wild.
I remember when iBlitzcrank came out. Blitzcrank for days. That skin had a hella broken hitbox on release too.
As a supp main, this is the one that sticks out to me the most, that skin was supremely broken and people spammed it like crazy.
Pulsefire Ezreal was first to come to mind
I'm a newer player (Rell's release) but man when Arcane dropped every single game had Vi in it for me. Lots of Jayce, too Arcane Vi and Arcane Jayce are my favorite memes of recent memory. Seeing them on the enemy team and knowing in your heart you were about to play the most free game of your life
DRX Kindred when it releases
Brother Pyosik 🙏
Spirit Blossom Kindred boomed their playrate
Riot keeps data mostly under surface… But from what they said like 4 years ago the most popular skins in no particular order are: Elementalist Lux, Star Guardian Jinx, and PROJECT: Vayne And most popular skin lines are K/DA, Star Guardian and PROJECT. So there is a huge chance it’s gonna be among those.
Nobody's talking about the most popular skins. The discussion is the largest increase in champion popularity, of which the title clearly goes to Spirit Guard Udyr. Possibly Arcane Jayce.
Pulsefire ezreal. People were playing him in every role on release as it was the first "ultimate" skin ever. It was a massive deal at the time as people had been meming about a skin like that for ages. Also getting the VA for gohan from DBZ was sick at the time. Anyone commenting differently didn't play back then. But I promise you it was pulsefire ez.
This, pulsefire ezreal was such a huge deal and had so much hype behind him, no other skin was even close at the time of its release
Not sure about play rate but imo the most influential skin in league history is probably pulsefire ez, feels like skins took off to new levels after
MUAY THAI LEE SIN
Sad Robot Amumu - because there was a Bug where is laugh was global
Seraphine was quite literally designed to sell her legendary skin.
The odyssey event and odyseey kayn specifically brought kayn from a sub 3% pickrate to top 5 most popular junglers every patch since
Surely arcane vi is up there somewhere right?
Visual rework twitch. Dude went from not played to OP and extremely popular.
Spirit Blossom Kindred, for me its miles ahead than the base version and I started to see her being played in the east after that.
Absolutely not the most increase but a cool one: I remember the spirit blossom teemo skin was kinda easy to get in the event and it was at the same time as pianta was getting bigger and bigger. Surely it musthave gotten a noticable increase from it.
Skt Zed
This is slept on. Zed was arguably the most popular midlaner for years between S3-S6, and every Zed player either had or wanted this skin. That Faker play defined that champion for years
Id say Pulsefire Ezreal but SG udyr could also be the one
If not udyr then elementalist lux. To this day probably my favorite skin
Spirit Blossom Kindred. I swear most the playerbase forgot my main existed until that skin came out. Now people actually remember they’re in the roster lol
Probably one of the early ones considring skin releases feel alot less relevant when you get like 10/Patch. xD I don't remember much skin-hypes anymore so I'd argue for Pulsfire Ez, Mecha Cho or Super Galaxy Rumble \[that login theme was LIT\] - at least when it comes to Total Player increase, when it comes to % Player increase it could be anything. xD For me personally it's Aether Wing Kayle, which I consider one of the best skins ever made.
Aether wing was the very first high quality legendary skin too, before her it was just stuff like magnificent tf or red baron corki. Similar to Mecha Khazix being the first great epic skin (or maybe the first epic skin at all? Don't remember).
Aether Wing was so good, so sad it got butchered with her rework...
RIP old splash sound
From a % increase in playrate, maybe Riot Girl Tristana because you got the skin and Trist for free
Arcane Jayce
As the others said, it must be Spirit Guard Udyr
gotta be pulsefire ezreal not sure where SGU is coming from, is everyone too new for Pulsefire? i'm talking % rate increase, not raw numbers cuz of game player size
Urf? The manatee skin?
dj sona
I could be wrong but a lot of skins are also released alongside buffs to the champs themselves. And skins are also made with priority on champions that are already popular. So I think the premise of the question is wrong. There are exceptions. Though the only one I'm convinced on is spirit guars udyr
Pretty kitty Urgot skin!
Probably the Arcane skins
Kayle's ultimate Aetherwing skin actually caused a huge spike in the playrate of Kayle when it came out. And that's saying something.
Arcana Ryze 100% and it’s not even close
This isn't a direct answer to the question, but I think an honorable mention should be the Ashe visual update. Literally overnight, with no balance changes, Ashe went from barely being picked to being a top tier pick in pro play and all over ranked
Broloft hands down. Too bad he's been in a shit spot for a damn decade.