League of Legends world champ gets his very own skin as a reward—but can't choose his favourite champion because he didn't get a chance to play her: 'they said they can make Bard pretty too'

pcgamer.com:

League of Legends Worlds is a prestigious yearly tournament that wrapped up its 2023 run recently. The victors, T1 from Korea, took home $445,000 along with the gold. In a sad twist of fate—one that belongs in some Greek tragedy—a member of the winning team still didn't get what he wanted.

See, Worlds winners get to work with Riot on crafting a skin for their chosen character. The players get a cut of the skin, Riot gets a little more revenue off its tournament hype, everybody wins. The catch? You have to play the character at least once.

As spotted by GamesRadar, Keria, the team's support player, was really excited about being able to get a skin for his personal best girl Lux, whose whole deal is being adorable and shooting big beams of light. Despite playing a good game he didn't get his wishes, sacrificing those dreams for the good of the team, as Lux didn't get drafted once.

«Keria originally liked Thresh and Lux the most, and he seemed to really want the Lux skin,» explains fellow teammate Gumayusi, T1's bot laner, during a livestream (translation courtesy of contraverse0 on the League of Legends Subreddit). «If we went to the blue side, we might choose the [Caitlyn Lux combo] once, but we were on the red side for three consecutive games and won 3-0.»

For context, LoL's map isn't symmetrical. The side you end up on does genuinely impact which champions your team will pick. Terrain differences are small at surface value, sure, but it's important to remember we're talking about the best of the best here. Minor advantages turn to major ones in games like LoL all the time.

Ashley Kang, a seasoned esports journalist, translated one of Keria's streams after the fact. «Look, I only thought about making a Lux skin. I never