Champion Reworks: Trundle and Sejuani

The news that two more champions are imminently receiving their own reworks, imminent enough for the changes in their abilities, models, and lore to be formally announced and spoiled, comes as a bit of a surprise.  Karma’s rework only went live on League of Legends about a week ago, after all, so summoners can probably be excused for thinking we’d have longer to adjust before having more champions updated similarly.

Riot clearly is ready, however.  Trundle and Sejuani have both been low-popularity picks for League of Legends for quite some time, for various reasons.  Sejuani has so many ways of slowing opponents that her damage has to be sub-par, rendering her effectively a tanky slow for most teams.  Trundle is… honestly just boring, and has lore that keeps him pointedly separate from the overall storyline of the game.  His ult also lost much of its effectiveness in the modern meta where stacking health is more effective than resistances.

The reworks to them target several of these issues.  Sejuani, for her part, losing much of the insta-slows she used to be able to apply, instead having her abilities stack Frost on targets which she can then use an active ability to slow them.  The downside is obviously that she doesn’t slow everything all the time forever anymore.  The benefit is the slow itself can now be made stronger while her damage can be buffed across the board.

Trundle is losing the damage-stealing effect from his q, but is gaining a slow on it.  His field ability remains, but instead of reducing the effects of crowd control while he’s on it will instead buff his healing.  The biggest change will probably be to his ult.  It still drains armor and magic resistance, but now also deals damage equal to a percentage of the targets maximum health, making it far more dangerous to health-stackers.

Both of them have updated lore.  Sejuani’s is similar, still being a Freljord leader out to conquer who doesn’t like Ashe in the slightest.  Trundle’s is entirely new, taking him from being host to his tribe’s curse to being king of the ice trolls and an ally of the mysterious Ice Witch.

The visual updates are nice.  Trundle carries a huge hunk of ice to smash people with, while Sejuani will have armor that actually looks functional, something rare and appreciated in video games.

Both reworks look solid, and liable to make the two champions both more viable and easier to balance against the rest of the League of Legends.  I am left with only one question.  When are they going to release this Ice Witch as a playable champion?  She sounds awesome.