League of Legends news » Champion rework: Sejuani, the Winter's Wrath

Sejuani girds herself for battle, eagerly anticipating the inevitable conflict brewing in the Freljord. There are a number of changes coming for Sejuani, including a visual upgrade, new gameplay mechanics and a deeper exploration of her lore.

 

Visuals

Sejuani's lightly-armored, skin-flaunting, fleshy apparel didn't mesh with the idea of a dominating, ice warrior. Now heavily armored atop Bristle, this visual rework clearly conveys the core of our concept for the champion. She's powerful, capable of conquering the Freljord and leading the Winter's Claw to victory.

If we were going to make Sejuani look imposing, we needed make sure her fierce steed, Bristle, could keep up. Here we added bulk and power to his model, and updated the animation on Arctic Assault to show him tossing scattered foes into the air.

As with the Trundle and Karma relaunches, those of you who already unlocked Sejuani will get a free skin based on Sejuani's traditional look.

 

Gameplay

In order to deliver on the promise of a powerful barbarian, we've added enhanced utility to her skills, allowing her to go head-on as a massive, tanky initiator. With a powerful armor-generating passive, a potent knock-up, AoE damage and slow to go along with a tweaked version of Glacial Prison, the Winter's Wrath is now even more angry.

 

• Passive: Frost Armor – Damaging an enemy with an ability or basic attack grants armor and reduces movement-slowing effects on Sejuani. If Sejuani already has Frost Armor, its duration increases.
• Q: Arctic Assault – Bristle charges forward, knocking enemies into the air and dealing magic damage. The charge ends after knocking an enemy champion into the air.
• W: Flail of the Northern Winds - Sejuani's next basic attack deals bonus magic damage to the target and enemies near it. She then begins to swing her flail, dealing magic damage to nearby enemies over time. If this ability is reactivated, she immediately starts swinging her flail.
• E: Permafrost
  • Passive: Abilities and basic attacks apply Frost to enemies.
  • Active: All nearby enemies with Frost take magic damage and are slowed.
• R: Glacial Prison - Sejuani throws a frost-forged bola in a line. If the bola hits an enemy champion, it shatters, stunning the target and nearby enemies. If the bola reaches its maximum range, it shatters and slows enemies. All enemies in the shatter area take magic damage.

 

In the jungle: Sejuani's still a riding CC machine out of the jungle. In the early game, Frost Armor keeps her health high while she tears through jungle camps with Flail of the Northern Winds. The combination of Permafrost and well-timed Arctic Assault from the brush can quickly lock down an enemy for a kill. Once she has a point in Glacial Prison, the additional stun makes Sejuani's ganks even deadlier.

Mid game: Heading into midgame, Sejuani makes an excellent split-push champion, pressuring lanes with Flail of the Northern Winds, then using a combination of her other abilities to escape enemy ganks. Her full arsenal of crowd-control makes chasing or being chased a frightening prospect for the opposing team; her passive armor allows her to wade into the front line of skirmishes, secure in the knowledge that her teammates can pick targets off at leisure.

Late game and teamfights: One of the most imposing initiators in League of Legends, Sejuani can use Glacial Prison to force a fight near an objective, or hunt down retreating foes with Arctic Assault. As a strong source of magic damage, Sejuani makes a great tank to complement an AD heavy lineup. Her charge can break up a channeled ultimate or wreak havoc on the enemy team's positioning. All the while she'll absorb huge damage and protect the squishier members of her team by forcing opponents to engage on her with her impressive crowd-control.

 

Story

Sejuani was weaned on hardship and reared on barbarity. Where others succumbed to the harshness of the Freljord, she was tempered by it until pain became power, hunger an encouragement, and frost an ally in culling the weak. Through her ordeals, she learned that to thrive in the endless winter, one must become just as cold and unforgiving. In Sejuani's eyes, her followers either have the mettle to endure or the right to die. Once she has conquered the Freljord, she knows that those who survive will form a nation to be feared.

As a child, the leader of the Winter's Claw watched her tribe's numbers slowly dwindle. Cold and starvation took all but the most resilient. She was the only one of her siblings to survive to her tenth year, leaving Sejuani sure that she too would die in misery. In desperation, she sought spiritual counsel from her tribe's mystic. But the seer did not foretell Sejuani's death. Instead, she prophesized that Sejuani would one day conquer and unite the divided tribes of the Freljord.

Armored with absolute faith in her destiny, Sejuani pushed herself to extremes that would have killed anyone without her will to endure. She walked into blizzards without food or furs and trained while frigid winds raked her flesh. She clashed with the strongest warriors of her tribe, one after another, until her legs gave out beneath her. When she assumed leadership of her tribe, Sejuani commanded her warriors to follow her example. Under her rule, the tribe grew stronger than they had ever been.

In the end, it was an offer of peace - rather than an act of war - that began Sejuani's campaign of conquest. On the first day of winter, envoys from Ashe's tribe approached Sejuani's camp bearing a gift of Avarosan grain. Ashe's intent was clear: if Sejuani united with her tribe, the Winter's Claw would never go hungry again. To Sejuani, the gift was an insult. In Ashe's tribe, she saw men and women, slight and soft, who preferred to farm instead of fight. Her contempt for them was absolute.

Sejuani gathered her people and set the grain alight. She proclaimed that Ashe's offer of charity would bring only weakness. Stripping the envoys of their supplies, Sejuani sent them back with a message: the Winter's Claw would prove to the Avarosan that only the strong deserve to survive in the Freljord. As the grain burned behind them, Sejuani rode out with her warband to inflict the first of many painful lessons to come.

"I was cut from the ice, shaped in the storms, hardened in the cold." -- Sejuani