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Riot Games released a new skin, Soulstealer Vayne, onto the Public Beta Environment for testing a few weeks ago. While it’s a beautiful skin, there’s a catch - she’s only available through Hextech Crafting.
This means you won’t be able to get the skin any other way - not in the main shop and not through mystery gifting.
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Soulstealer Vayne sports a matching theme with Vladimir’s Soulstealer skin, rocking the teal-green and black color scheme. The theme itself is a cool new look for Vayne, since, according to the lore, she hates monsters and the undead because a witch killed her parents when she was young. Ironically enough, Vladimir is listed as one of her rivals, yet they both share this skin theme.
The skin itself looks stunning in game. After using Tumble, Vayne’s hands glow with an eerie green mist to indicate she’s ready for her empowered auto-attack. When she uses her ultimate, she begins to glow blue and puts on a more ghostly vibe.
Soulstealer Vayne isn’t the first skin exclusive to Hextech crafting. Riot released Hextech Annie when Hextech Crafting originally launched. Even Annie Bot, a Challenger tier Annie-only player, didn’t get the means to get her until over 300 boxes later.
The only ways to get Hextech-exclusive skins are to 1) roll them luckily out of a box and making them permanent using orange essence 2) roll them permanently out of a box or 3) collecting and combining 10 gemstones.
Gemstones are very rare to come by and are able to be forged instantly into a box and key for an instant reroll, if you choose.
Hextech boxes can be obtained be bought or obtained for free. If you or any player in your premade team scores a S- or higher on their champion, you will receive a box! However, you only get one box per champion you play. So if you’re playing Anivia and your friend gets a S on Tryndamere, you can not get another box while playing Anivia for the rest of the season. Keys to unlock the boxes can also be bought or obtained through drops. Key fragments drop randomly per win and it takes three fragments to make a key. As you win more, you find keys less, with the drop rate resetting back to normal every month. You can also only earn four free boxes per week.
Riot has said that it plans on releasing more Hextech-exclusive skins in the future, multiple times a year.