Formerly OP #3: Old Evelynn

For eight straight seasons you couldn't see her coming. That was the design.

With League of Legends Classic bringing back old kits on July 29, we're digging up the champions whose "old kit" earns an audible groan. First up: the demon who spent nearly a decade invisible.

Formerly OP

Old Evelynn

Season 1 – Season 7 · Ended Patch 7.20

For eight straight seasons you couldn't see her coming. That was the design.

With League of Legends Classic bringing back old kits on July 29, we're digging up the champions whose "old kit" earns an audible groan. First up: the demon who spent nearly a decade invisible.

You're laning. You've got wards up, or you think you do. There's no minion wave threat on the map, no jungler on your tracker, nothing pinged. And then you're dead, because a purple imp nobody's seen since character select just walked out of a bush, deleted half your health bar, and vanished again before your team even finishes typing "where." That was Evelynn for the better part of a decade, and it's why League of Legends Classic bringing her old kit back is the kind of announcement that makes veteran players reach for their pink wards on reflex.

When, And For How Long

Evelynn shipped as one of League's original 40 champions in October 2009, and she stayed a permanent-invisibility jungler for the entire life of that kit (Season 1 through Season 7). Riot finally ended the era with her full visual and gameplay rework in Patch 7.20 (released in October 2017). That's roughly eight years of a live, unaddressed problem champion, longer than almost any other kit-defining flaw the game's ever tolerated.

The Old Kit

The Data Dragon icons we've used below show the current versions of these ability slots (Riot's asset pipeline doesn't keep a historical archive of pre-rework art). The descriptions we've written are all the old kit.

Passive: Shadow Walk

Stand still out of combat for a little over a second and Evelynn faded into full invisibility, no level requirement, no camouflage compromise, just gone. Landing an attack or a spell broke the stealth and stunned the target for a few seconds, and then she simply faded out again a moment later. There wasn't any counterplay to this short of a ward, a pink trinket, or an Oracle's Elixir sitting on exactly the right patch of grass.

Q: Hate Spike

A near instant bolt of magic damage at the closest enemy that could cleave onto a second target nearby for half value. It cost almost nothing to spam, so Evelynn could poke a lane down from stealth, fade back out, and repeat until someone made a mistake.

W: Dark Frenzy

It's the forgettable one. A low cooldown self buff that cleansed slows and added a burst of movement speed, with no damage attached. Most Evelynn players from this era couldn't tell you its name. It's still the reason she couldn't simply be kited away from once she'd already committed to a target.

E: Ravage

A single target hit that stripped a chunk of the target's armor and magic resistance for several seconds. Combined with a jungler suddenly appearing behind you, this was the button that turned "I can probably survive this gank" into "I cannot."

R: Agony's Embrace

A ground targeted burst that hit everyone caught in its radius and scaled up hard against low health targets (and gave Evelynn a self buff on cast). This was the kill button at the end of an invisible approach, and against a target already whittled down by Hate Spike [Q] and stripped by Ravage [E], few survived to tell the tale.

Why It Was OP

Big numbers get nerfed in a patch or two. Permanent invisibility from level 1 is a structural problem, and that's what kept Evelynn banned and despised for the better part of a decade even as her damage rose and fell with every balance pass. A handful of things stacked on top of each other to make her uniquely miserable:

No information, ever. Every other threat in the game gives you something to react to (a ward tick, a missing minion, a jungle timer). Evelynn didn't. The only real answer was buying dedicated true sight items and consumables specifically because she existed, an ongoing gold tax that no other single champion demanded of the entire enemy team.

Two roles, one champion. In League's earliest seasons (before jungle and mid lane fully separated into their modern identities) Evelynn was an invisible skirmisher in either. Later balance patches pushed her toward a jungle only identity, but that early flexibility only added to how oppressive she felt in a less specialized meta.

Inevitability on top of damage. A gank you can't see coming is a kill that happens on Evelynn's schedule, whenever she decides your ward coverage has a gap. Ravage [E]'s resistance shred and Agony's Embrace [R]'s execute scaling meant that once she committed, the fight was usually already decided before you knew it had started.

The Fall

Evelynn's permanent stealth survived years of smaller tuning passes, cooldown adjustments, and damage nerfs that didn't touch the actual complaint. Riot eventually concluded the identity itself needed to change and gave her a full rework in Patch 7.20, released in October 2017.

What Changed

Stealth now only activates after level six, and it's camouflage rather than true invisibility. Nearby enemies can still spot her if they're looking. Hate Spike [Q] survived the rework in name only as her new clear and poke tool, while Allure [W], Whiplash [E], and Last Caress [R] replaced Dark Frenzy [W], Ravage [E], and Agony's Embrace [R] outright. Few kit overhauls the game's ever shipped went further.

Where She Stands Now

Modern Evelynn is a jungle only assassin who spikes hard once Demon Shade [Passive] unlocks at level six, chaining Allure [W]'s charm into Whiplash [E]'s execute damage and Last Caress [R]'s untargetable burst to delete a single target in one rotation. She's nowhere near the current top of the jungle tier list. She's a snowbally, high skill ceiling pick that specific players still terrorize solo queue with, and the whole roster doesn't fear her on sight anymore. The stealth hasn't gone anywhere. These days it's a level six power spike, where it used to be an eight year unsolved design flaw.