Skarner was too unpopular to be this important || Casual Champion Review 

Man, Pre-Rework Skarner did not deserve the disrespect he got. No appearances in any sort of media, no short stories, the abuse by Piltovans and his only champ connection was to Seraphine, who abused the souls of his brethren to power up her speakers. The Lewis the gator fan club sympathizes with Skarner players

Sad thing abt skarner being moved to ixtal is that we will never hear abt him again

The funniest thing is that Skarner is unironically tied to the entire spaghetti code of league that deleting him would cause the entire client to implode. Bro really was the chef behind the recipe.

I'm really going to miss Skarner's old lore, for me it was an absurd mistake for Riot to simply throw the thing about hextech crystals being living beings in the trash, this had a very interesting conflict about champions who are good, but use hextech without knowing it, Camille becomes a much more sinister villain since she knew and simply didn't care, even Seraphine had enormous potential to find out about this and make songs that addressed it in an implied way (during the Brazilian dictatorship, several musicians made songs criticizing the regime, but in the subtext to be able to pass the censorship, I always imagined Seraphine doing something like that because if she spoke explicitly Camilie would slice her), Skarner himself had to make the choice to leave his people unprotected to go and rescue those who are in Piltover, now what? Is he at most an obstacle for Qyiana? Maybe one or two interactions with Malphite? Seraphine remains purposeless and, until they release Arcane 2, Camille simply doesn't exist in the canon because her story directly conflicts with Arcane.

Ironic that in the Skarner Casual Champion Review, NickyBoi got a bunch of Hextech Drakes in this game 💀

I watched a guy play Skarner for 290 days till his rework

"Seraphine would've been behind their cause" T H A N K Y O U. I have been saying the whole freaking time that the fix for Seraphine's lore was right in front of their noses - just LET her hear them and LET her want to help! That would've made Sera an actual hero relevant to the main conflict of Piltover - how this great Progress society is built on exploitation - and given her a concrete goal, obvious points of conflict and interaction with other champs - Camille, Jayce, maybe Caitlyn, definitely Skarner - and played into her theme of 'empathy'. It could've even worked with Arcane, since we don't know where Jayce got the Hextech crystals from and it's entirely plausible with some timeline tweaks that Clan Ferros are his secret supplier and he just doesn't think to ask about the origins of the stones. But nope - Sera got retconned to be ignorant of the Brackern and then the entire Brackern-Hextech lore got yeeted out. Riot chickened out, IMO.

I think skarner was made too *important to be so unpopular. Meaning so many characters were made with lore connections to him, whereas he had almost nothing. But now they're changing his lore entirely, so what happens to all the previous connections

Never forget the Final Straw for his unpopularity: he (or his race, at least) exposed the evil of the Profitable One, Seraphine, simply by existing in her lore.

i remember when skarner lore was him sleeping under Crystal Skar the map between Noxus and Demacia, and they both are fighting for the rights to dig that place and in one of the crystal diggings one of the crystals (Skarner) woke up and kill the miner and saw half of his people gonne dead by the miners and started defending that place for the few brackens that was still alive and sleeping, that lore stick with me for so long and on that time his passive was the crystal venon i miss that time

As a fellow skraner main, I’m also sad that we’re losing the purple guy but it’s for the best, he’s just a good ult on legs.

Might as well consider Ixtal to be lore purgatory

I think the craziest thing about skarner is the fact that he has an actual legendary skin, even though no one has ever cared about in the history of his existence. Its really cool that they gave an unpopular champion a legendary, whereas we now live in an age where poster boys like lee sin have 3, and a boatload of "undesirables" are left to beg for an epic skin maybe once every two years, if they're lucky. Pretty artistically bankrupt.

Man, I wished they made him a classic skin for him. Because I do enjoy the purple crystal design for him. Wished they brought that to make a skin for him. Just like they did for Trundle and Karma

Nicky, the "get over here" line is for his new legendary skin which will be Battle Boss Skarner where they will also give one to Kog'Maw and arcade Ivern with Daisy being a battle boss and no I am not on copium :)

Gives one of his mains a 5/10 and really likes a Yone skin. This is one of the reasons I really like NickyBoi, he tends to be fair in his judgement despite his biases and his channel isn't just about hating everything. I don't have to agree with everything he says but I respect that he is genuine.

The name stones are their culture. It's a very powerfull and deep analogi for the character and i'm sad they dealt with it COWARDLY

I am very fond of Skarner, he was one of the first champions I started playing, in addition to being the character with whom I have played the longest. When the news came that they were going to rework him, it made me incredibly sad, because I knew they would try to change him completely. I feel tremendous sadness knowing that I will have to say goodbye and never see him again. I just hope I can enjoy his new look as much as I do now, just as I hope everyone can enjoy playing with him a little more now.

Love the molting Skarner art but god damn the make out one was cursed.

As a Skarner main, the rework was one of the reasons I quited. The lore was much more important to me than gameplay or character. Since Riot decided to complete the gen0cide of brackern, there is nothing left for me in this IP to be attached to. My dsc pfp is still weeping Skarner, because I'm sad for him.

Y'know, Bracken Queen Seraphine would be a neat skin Idea, innit? Like, in another world, the Piltover's diva stumbled upon a dying old Skarner and was given enlightment of the hextech and shit like that. Old Skarner know that only the diva that treat his kin better or something like that...

Its sad that they killed everithing about skarner and made a new scorpion champion 😢 Like, i love the color scheme of his, i am a big fan od purple and cyan/blue, and his lore is so good... but hey, he now is part of the forgoten region, that doenst exist, very fitting for him, as the least popular. they removed the only thing he as knew for, the good lore

Idk why they changed him from his Crystal Venom to the stupid spires in the first place. The Crystal Venom version was great. I missed the movement and attack speed from his Q and being able to actually do stuff outside the jungle.

I think a fun way they could have handled Seraphine and old Hextech is that it isnt that she's doing nothing for the Brackern, its that nobody believes her as she is the only one who can hear the singing in the first place. eventually she gains a small cult following her that actually DO believe her, but its revealed that the higher ups of Piltover have known about the Brackern the entire time, maybe even keeping this knowledge away from Jace (from aracne). it could get to the point where they send Camille after her and her followers, only for old Skarner to save her and team up with her.

I remember having so much fun playing skarner in seasons 4/5. I remember discovering him in ARAM and getting mastery 7 pretty quickly on him to the point he became my second most played champion

Rip old Skarner. We will truly miss your kind...

will you play with reworked Skarner as well? Just curious.

They really should have kept his lore and kinda just updated his current fantasy (removing the spires! hooray!) and kept the whole hextech lore. Like, it could make really good interactions and conflicts with piltover where people like Jayce does not know exactly what the crystals are, and the ones who knows what they are (Camille and maybe a few more) does not care and want to keep that hidden so people won't turn against hextech. Now imagine this: Seraphine, a young girl with aspirations and love for music is gifted this really advanced, cool hextech music hoverboard thingamajig and falls head over heels for it! She uses it a lot, get better in music etc and everything is looking so good for her dream. But after she got it, she starts having nightmares. Not so clear at first, but always in the back of her dreams are screams of dread, pain and fear! Screams of a people trapped, getting killed while they are in stasis, fully conscious but unable to defend themselves! She doesn't get much good sleep, and the dreams get worse and worse over time, until one night, she wakes up, sweating and distraught, looks over at her hoverboard and it glows a sickly blue color, the screams of her dreams emanating from it. She doesn't understand them, but she can feel the pain and fear in their screams! Her whole mission becomes to find out what this is. Through her music she starts to be able to communicate with them, even soothe them, give them comfort, and becomes a person who tries to speak out against hextech. She is obviously a dismissed as a delusional teen by Camille and others, but becomes more and more of a thorn in their side, until she might even be driven out of piltover, so she starts her search for the brackern. This imo would be a cool story, with cool nuances and themes....but no more of that. Skarner is a tyrant now :(

Man when you mentioned A Sol I really felt that. I only played him a month before the rework and instantly understood and got good at his play style. When he got reworked it was cool but the new champion hype wore off and now I wish we had old A Sol. Such a unique and fun champion.

The most sad thing is that we will NEVER have a story about Scarner been captured, send to circus in Piltover and then been save by Seraphine....to just he cut of her head...

Good video, little disappointed you didn't mention the old Journal of Justice lore back when The League of Legends was a canon institution erupting during a site of battle between Demacia and Noxus (I think it's been like 13 years it's hard to remember). There was all this speculation because Jarvan was the one who instigated the battle, and one of the reasons why people first began to suspect Jarvan was actually LeBlanc in disguise.

Skarner is my jungle main. And of course I hate the spires. I always thought they should have put a spire in the bases that way you weren't half a champion when you pushed into your base. I am excited for the rework, but I'm worried that he'll become an insanely popular champion and I'll never get to play him because he's either banned or picked before I can pick. Also hope we get a skin (probably that mythic skin line) where he is a purple crystal scorpion again

I'm gonna really miss this champ so much, I loved to play as Skarner in ARAM because it was so cool pulling the enemy out of their safe space

Just had this tin-foil hat theory just now but what if Hex crystal still exist how they are but instead of Brackern souls they are like crystallized souls from the Shadow Isles or from Blue Mordikaiser’s realm and made into the tech. Would sound weird but could lead somewhere

Finally, THE SKARNER VIDEO!!

Unpopular Opinion: Nicky should've used both the old and new skarner in one video

18:59 Since they announced that all lore is shared in 1 universe, the hextech lore is literally the hextech crystals from the Arcane show now.

18:12 Rare footage of Nicki playing monster hunter.

Idk they don’t even need to change much from his old lore to tie him to Ixtal. And NOT changing the old lore would be even more interesting for his conflict with Qiyana. To some degree he agrees that he should destroy piltovans but he might be fearful about opening Ixtaocan to other regions and risk discovery since he might be reluctant about the entire Runeterra learning about the source of namestones/hextech crystals.

I honestly love skarner since hes so fun to just vibe to, but saddly he fell off as a tank but its a good champion for group sessions and always gave me good laughs

From what you said about not another champion having a passive where an enemy can shut it down. May I introduce kindred

The baby boy himself Despite that he looks awkward af i will have a soft spot for his old design, he's kinda friend shaped. Ofc the rework design is miles better too, tho i wish riot would give him one of those fancy cristalis dominus skins, it would serve well as a "traditional" skarner skin.

loved Skarner during the rune glaive abuse meta. 😂 man time really flies

The brackern themselves are super unique but they got replaced with a malphite cousin by the dude who made smolder and ksante

This fanart section was so cursed . . . I loved it

I'll miss the crystals on the map with his cosmic sting skin. They are really pretty

Finally the skarner video!!!

Finally, skarner video released

Skarner was my second most played champion back when I still played league. I believe he has a very dedicated lil community of players that are all kind of bittersweet about his changes. I already dislike how slow he is and how his ult comes out so slow. I also liked just the amount of exploration of items you could try out with his kit

I guess where hextech crystals come from are gonna be changed or retconned? Because the hextech core is more void-y and I don't see how brakern memories can do the things that the hextech crystals did in arcane (since arcane is canon)

Honestly about the crystal skin. Surprised Riot isn't doing one with his rerelease. Seems like an easy way to get some money without much work

Two Skarner videos in one week is the prophecy true

I actually have always enjoyed his simplistic gameplay, the spyres are weird and can be annoying but there a fun gimmick. Watching this video actually made me wanna play him again

my favourite part of this video is the audible q spam

I'm totally with you on the "why couldn't we get a traditional skarner skin" for me personally, I actually really liked the crystal scorpion aesthetic. I thought it was neat and a cool, different kinda scorpion design. I was actually kinda sad when I saw the rework was just basically making him....what to me reads as just...a stone golem shaped like a scorpion. Which is far less unique imo. I would have loved to still be able to use the 'crystal scorpion' design. Granted, I dont play him really, just one of those design aspects I always liked kinda things.

"I can't think of any champion that can turn off Your passive and get money from doing so" Have you ever laned as Naafiri vs an irelia? She chews up your dogs and turns in a profit with your corpse

You sound a lot better on this video Nicky, and that’s my favorite part of this for me. ❤

Skrrt Skrrt Skarner was busted last season with Divine Sunderer because of how it interacted with his Q, you'd deal 7% Max Health Damage and heal for that amount, throw a Titanic on there with a FoN and Dead man's plate, there was no escape

I think the best thing about skarner rework is that the gameplay is relatively the same although I suspect that he'll be the second comming of aatrox (clunky at start but once players get the hang of it, will become an unbearable monster) also the guy who design this rework also design k'sante and smolder.

I like spires. I think it's a fun mechanic and adds some purpose for your team to help you in the jungle. I'm Iron 1, I might be stupid, but I think having random fights in the jungle bc "Don't you touch my crystals you dog" is fun :3

Skarner kinda feel like a reverse Aatrox. Where instead of changing the champs identity through his kit they keep the abilities similar to the original but literally change his identity lorewise and appearancewise

Totally missed the opportunity for Seraphine to have an epiphany upon meeting Skarner, realizing that her tech is being powered by the Brackern. She would become distraught, guilty, ashamed, completely besides herself with pure despair. Her beautiful, carefree, happy-go-lucky music she has been using to unite the people of Zaun and Piltover has been a travesty in itself. No excuses aside ignorance, no possible way to apologize, no way to make it up to Skarner... except cast aside her technology and use her own powers to commune with Skarner and the Name Stones, soothing them in their peril and vowing to make things right. Her core cause to unite the people of her own home now joined by the effort to free the Brackern, she would join forces with Skarner and set out to completely change the entire region's philosophy of life.

Why dont you make a second video about skarner? That way you could have both versions of him in this series. You got to play him right in between of his reworks, i feel like it would really be right to play them both.

I love playing Skarner and Hecarim because I like going fast.

We're losing "Oh no! I seem to have stepped on one of my cousins!" in favor of a discount ASol.

Por fin tenemos el video de Skarner que dijo en su momento :v

Im gonna miss my Crystal Scorpion i will still main him but i must let old one go..

You know as much as skarner was unpopular gameplay wise and design wise I really liked him, mainly because one of my best friends is Skarner player. I learned all about his gameplay, the skarner build flowchart and how funny you can do some things with E+R+E+ Spam Q, it was hilarious to see an enemy stunned for 8 secs As a support player I used to pick seraphine to annoy them too was funny This is the first time a rework had this effect on me and honestly i'm really gonna miss old skarner, the new one isn't the same, goodbye ugly ass crab (old Aatrox players i get you guys now)

I did not realize old bracken were basically trill from Star Trek lol

The last remnant of the crystal scar is gone...

18:20 Nickyboy : im not doing any damage 😭 Me : bc you forgot to buy heartsteel 😢

Kindred has a passive the enemy can take advantage of. If you kill her marks you get gold and she doesn't get stacks

Skarner is my nr 5 mastery champion and I absolutely love him. In honor of his rework im doing a 20 game streak (at least) and I won't be playing any other champion other than him till the rework. The silly little goober gets all my love, but to be honest. I can't wait for his rework. and just goof around some more.

is the last drawing a JOJO REFERENCE ?!

Old Skarner was good imo, his old passive that gave cdr per attack was so good, I used to rush RoA and his mana was not a problem the entire game Like Skarner misses his kind, I'll miss this purple scorpion

He was also really fun in poro king

The thing about skarner conflict with piltover, is that Piltover doesn't really need it to have any kind of conflict or problems. We already have Piltover exploring Zaun(which already is bigger than mistreating some species). We have piltover hunting vastayas and other sentient creatures while invading Ixtal.

How do you feel about the reworked skins tho? You've only really addressed Battlecast but I feel like they have missed the essence of Earthrune and Cosmic Sting. I really dislike how muted the colours are, the skins have less detail, the obnoxious and cheap 2D moving texture effect on his limbs.. I loved current cosmic skarner due to how bright, colorful chromas and elegant he looks. To me it seems a bit lazy how they did some of the skins for example his tail is just taken from his reworked base skin instead of having them be segmented, just like the earthrune & cosmic one.. to me they're downgrades. They are especially lazy since Guardians of the Sands recall animation was just taken from his base skin with added sand vfx.. unlike his old unique recall where he stands on his tail.

Funnily enough only illaoi haves that as a mechanic, you gain gold by removing her tentacles

Isn't it already confirmed that hextech crystals are a thing called Targonite or something? Or is targonite a different stone?

Man I also do love Skarner's gameplay :(

the crystal scorpion doesn't look ancient well yeah hes crystal and immortal he doesn't age and I think him not looking like an intelligent/sad empathic creature is part of the charm like the misunderstood monster trope and tbh his rework is to remove the spires so he operates like his old self with all the silly champs out here I think release skarner with most of the buffs would do fine or just design a new passive and he's not just a key part to piltover Apparently Skarner was super important to League's Code a lot of champions reference skarners code to keep bloat down so removing old skarner breaks a lot of shit

12:57 Shyvana. All that needs to be said.

i bet they're gonna make a crystalis indomitus skin for him. partly to milk out people looking for "traditional" skarner, and also to hopefully actually improve his crystal skorpion design. not to say it's a terrible design, he's a very cool design as he will have been. but it could be so much MORE, and i hope they take the opportunity to see what they could do with it.

Im dead serious when I say this, Skarner after like 3 or 4 items feels like the BEST melee tank shredder in the game. If you build bruiser and a ton of ability haste, his Q begins to reset it's own cooldown against champions, meaning your dps is only limited by how quick you can press Q, and because it has rather good percent max health damage, you shred every tank.

At the end, it's not just lethality Sion that's cringe, it's just Sion. A Sion that hits your nexus 38 times while you kill him twice is barely any different than one that hits it harder 9 times while you kill him twice. He's just got a gross play pattern that riot refuses to fix.

I personally really love the subversion presented by OG Jayce and Viktor lore. Not that their arcane interpretation is bad, its just kinda bog standard.

I'm gonna be honest, i never liked skarner and the hextech thing never sticked to me really, like the only character who the hextech crystal being alive creatures favored was blitzcrank but it could be said that he is just a smart ia and not a crystal scorpion, i think is neat they gived a different lore with the rework and also this make seraphine a normal sound mage and not being a scizofrenic girl who start hearing voices from her speaker. (Yes i like seraphine character, no not his design except the lor one

I also miss Dominion and Ascension 🥲 I hope the new Arena mode continues to bring back ideas from that era

Ngl I'm gonna miss the old Skarner lore.

Wait but doesn't 4/10 + 9/10 + 5/10 equal 6/10 not 5/10 or does the final score not matter wiuh the first three?

how did you get the fiddlesticks laughing emojI? cant find it anywhere

That is indeed a fun fact

8:05 I think that's a pretty disparaging way to look at things. Not everything that's purple is from the void, but everything from the void is purple.

I'm surprised they don't have a classic skin on the rework. Seems like an easy decision given the drastic change in ascetic.

So… when skarner video?

did you skip Shen? :(

Skarner is actually the champ I installed League to play. I loved the whole concept. And honestly I don't love the gameplay. I hope his rework is fun, and I'll genuinely enjoy that. But I'll always wonder why his voice isn't more musical.

I loved dominion, I miss it dearly. It and Skarner got done dirty

whens the skarner video?