Legends of Runeterra | Viego Officially Confirmed!

Viego, the Ruined King is the latest addition to the ever-growing Legends of Runeterra champion roster! And boy does he look mighty threatening! While his reveal might seem unexpected, it starts to make a lot more sense once you factor in what’s about to transpire across the fictional world of Runeterra!

And, well, we can’t wait for it all to begin! This is a landmark moment for Riot’s entire portfolio of games, and seeing how they’ve been working on it for years, we’re pretty sure they have something truly special in store!

So, without any further ado, let’s take a closer look at Viego and talk a bit about what he might bring to Legends of Runeterra upon release! (July 14th)

Legends of Runeterra | Viego Joins the Fray!

Viego is a 5 mana champion from the Shadow Isles with 5 | 4 and Fearsome. Each round, the first time an allied unit dies, summon an Encroaching Mist. To level him up, Viego needs to see allies with 20+ total Power die.

Once leveled up, he’ll grow to 6 | 5, retain his previous passive, but also get a new Round Start effect — he’ll steal the strongest enemy unit for the rest of the round. If that happens to be a champion, he’ll kill it instead.

First of all, there’s a very obvious synergy between his effect, his accompanying spell (Despair) and Encroaching Mist. We’re talking about the quintessential Shadow Isles experience, so explaining anything would be quite redundant. Will Viego make SI-based decks as meta as they once were? It’s still too early to predict anything with confidence, but he very well might, assuming this whole strat ends up being as powerful as it looks.

In any case, fans of SI have something to look forward to!

Encroaching Mist is a 1 mana Ephemeral unit from the Shadow Isles with 1 | 1. Once summoned, it’ll grant all allied Viegos and other Encroaching Mists everywhere +1 | +1. This is like a more potent (and usable) version of Spiderling. All in all, a great little card that you’ll be seeing a lot more of once it ships to live servers!

Despair is a 4 mana Slow spell that’ll allow you to pick a unit, have it strike your Nexus, and then have it eliminated from the board. You can pick an allied follower (like an Encroaching Mist, for instance) or, conversely, an opposing unit or champion. Quite a powerful removal tool, and it’ll definitely come in handy against a slew of meta decks.

Camavoran Soldier is a 3 mana unit with 3 | 3. Once summoned, it’ll summon an Encroaching Mist. Yet another card that serves as a fodder for Viego and the underlying mechanic that’ll make Viego-based decks work.

Closing Remarks

All in all, we love what Riot has done with Viego, although it’s still a bit too early to predict whether he’ll make a big enough splash upon release or not. We can already see where he’ll fit in terms of playstyle and strategy, but one could argue that he’s still missing a couple of support cards that’ll allow him to truly shine.

Interestingly enough, there’s still a whole week’s worth of reveals left, and we already know what Viego will bring to the table. It stands to reason, then, that Riot will also reveal Akshan, The Sentinel of Light at some point in the very near future!

The days ahead will no doubt be extremely exciting, so stay tuned for more coverage!