League’s next champion is this friendly-looking tree

A few weeks ago, new voice assets were added to the PBE, in a move many thought was a tease for the next champion. Recently, those voice assets have been live in-game, and you can hear this “friend of the jungle” occasionally while clearing jungle monsters.

Wednesday, Riot confirmed that speculation with a video posted on Facebook of Ivern, a friendly tree who will be the game’s next champion.

If you can’t watch the video, those cute puppies are about to be speared by a hunter until Ivern pops up and entangles him in roots. Ivern also raises the grass up around him and the pups — both of these could be hints at Ivern’s ability kit, possibly including the ability to alter/create terrain.

So now it looks like we’ll have two tree champions in the game — Ivern and Maokai. All the more reason to break my Lumberjack Sion skin out some more.