Top 10 Champions Reworked Into a Completely Different Life

Some champions got a new ability or two. These ten got an entirely new identity, and in a couple of cases, an entirely new species.

Every patch has champions who feel one update away from a full rework. These ten actually got one. Playstyle and role got thrown out and rebuilt from scratch (sometimes the species went too), and that's a lot more than a few numbers on a tooltip.

Top 10 Champions

Completely Reworked

Champion Reworks

Some champions got a new ability or two. These ten got an entirely new identity, and in a couple of cases, an entirely new species.

Counting down from the rework that changed the least of these ten to the one that changed almost everything.

#10: Volibear (May 2020)

Old Volibear was a fairly straightforward lightning themed bruiser. New Volibear showed up as a storm god who slams the ground and chains lightning between targets, then calls down the sky to end a fight. Same bear, completely different job description.

#9: Karma (April 2013)

Karma's original kit barely resembles the Mantra [R] powered mage support players know today. The empowered ability system survived the rework, but nearly every individual spell underneath it didn't. Ability by ability, few champions on this list changed this much.

#8: Poppy (December 2015)

Poppy used to be an awkward little duelist (most players forgot she existed). The rework turned her into a dash stopping, hammer swinging protector who can end a fight winning ultimate with a single well timed knockup. She went from forgettable to a top lane menace almost overnight.

#7: Gangplank (July 2015)

The original Gangplank leaned hard on random critical strikes and a much simpler ultimate. The captain you'd recognize now trades that randomness for barrel chains and setups a coordinated team can actually plan around. Random to deterministic is about as hard as a rework can flip a design philosophy.

#6: Warwick (January 2017)

Old Warwick was a simple sustain hunter who mostly just autoattacked things low. The update gave him a sense for low health enemies from across the map and a fear that scatters an entire team fight, on top of a much scarier ultimate. He's still hunting low health targets. He just does it with a lot more theater now.

#5: Fiddlesticks (April 2020)

Fiddlesticks went from a mage who flashed in, feared, and flashed right back out to a swarm of crows wearing a scarecrow's coat, complete with a decoy that can stand in a bush pretending to be a real minion. The fear mage fantasy survived. Everything else about how he looks and plays got a full horror movie makeover.

#4: Skarner (April 2024)

Skarner's crystal themed suppress ultimate defined an entire era of jungle gameplay. His full rework replaced almost the entire kit (and the terrain interactions along with it), so longtime players had to relearn him completely. The name and the crystals stayed. Almost nothing else did.

#3: Aatrox (June 2018)

Old Aatrox was a lifesteal heavy juggernaut who turned into a genuine monster on his ultimate. The current version dashes and slams, resetting cooldowns off landed hits instead of sustaining through a fight. He kept the darkin flavor and swapped the entire gameplay loop underneath it.

#2: Evelynn (October 2017)

Old Evelynn spent the entire game invisible (nearly impossible to balance, and miserable to play against). The rework gave her a full demonic redesign and a charm combo. Her stealth now only kicks in outside of combat. She's arguably the most complete visual and mechanical overhaul in the game's history.

#1: Sion (October 2014)

Every other champion on this list kept their job. Sion didn't. He used to be an AP support and jungle caster with a shield and a stun (plus that signature death explosion). Today he's an unkillable top lane juggernaut who charges an unstoppable dash off stored max health and keeps growing bigger the longer the game goes. Support caster to juggernaut tank is the single biggest identity swap a rework has ever pulled off.

Conclusions

League has reworked plenty of champions over the years, but most of those changes stayed within the same lane and the same rough identity. The ten above didn't. They changed kits and entire design philosophies, a couple changed species, and in Sion's case the rework changed which lane he even shows up in.