With update 1.15 and the Winter Season Live Championships on the horizon, there’s a lot of juicy details to share. Here is your required reading for the week.

VGL EU and NA

The second Qualifier is done and the Winter Season Finals teams are set! Another weekend of zero disappointment across the board as plenty of surprising compositions were busted out in the highest of Elos. I recommend you spend a little time over at Twitch treating yourself to a viewing party. In EU, reigning champions, Team Secret, lost in the semis to SK Gaming’s Prometheus, who then went on to take the whole shabang. On our side of the pond, we saw risky comps coming out of Alliance against HH Velocity in the semis, even running SAW all three games. Their gamble paid off due to some well-executed engages late-game and Alliance went on to sweep GankStars Sirius in the finals. Congratulations to all the teams that competed and good luck in the Live Championship in March!

Tesseract Qualifier

Huge congratulations to Infamous Legion, winners of the Tesseract Qualifier, in a dominant three-game sweep of sister team, Infamous Stigma. Legion has earned an automatic place in the next VIPL season in Seoul, Korea and will definitely be a team to watch. Make sure to check out the games on Mobcrush.

Hero Changes for 1.15

During the recent dev stream, we got some hints at hero tweaks coming in the next update. The struggling barbarian, Rona, will be receiving a change to her fortified health that should provide extra tankiness when she’s in the mix. This alone should give her a boost as her kit is about brawling and now she can finally go toe-to-toe with the Glaives and Fountain Koshkas. Sweetheart and child of Gaia, Petal, will be getting a more beefy set of munions as well, with yet unrevealed details. As much as I love her, I’m a little worried about this because I don’t really feel like she’s as poor off as the Internet would have you believe, even seeing her earn a spot in some VGL finals gameplay this past weekend. If my fears are correct and she becomes overpowered, all ya’ll scrubs better watch out for me in ranked.

L3on Leaves SK Gaming

Young phenom, L3on, has been an integral part of SK Prometheus in EU for quite some time now, yet only a day before the semis in the 2nd qualifier it was announced on Twitter that L3on was leaving the team due to differences. Fortunately, it seems relatively low-drama and there’s no word of L3on joining any other team; although, he is playing “for fun” with Team Secret in the meantime.

Star Queen Celeste Tier 2

By all accounts this could a sweet tier 3 skin, but the Super Evil creative department still has some tricks up their sleeves as this is not yet Celeste’s final form. The swirling galaxy in her staff alone is enough to make this a must-have for mage mains. Star Queen is becoming one of the most exciting skin sets, and that’s not even counting the jaw-dropping non-canon lore coming from Sugar Venom to go along with it. I’ll get into that further, but there’s something else I need to address first.

Stormlord Ardan Tier 3

The glowing purple answer to all your Punchfather dreams is finally dropping in update 1.15. The dark path of this humble father of two reaches its conclusion with this spectacular piece, which will be my first tier 3 skin. This tier 3 skins hits all the right notes with a heroic look you’d expect fron the Fold’s ultimate protector, meshing seamlessly with the previously mentioned lore to accompany it.

Just to catch up any non-readers, this skin lore encompasses “the family” as well as Catherine. Celeste overthrows the Stormqueen, who has tricked Ardan into serving her because she has his (almost) dead wife, Julia, in a cryochamber. Now, Ardan can once again drop the Gauntlet for his kids with the help of Celeste’s mysterious purple magic that keeps him alive and powers his fist to your face. It’s the climactic good versus evil we don’t see normally in the world of Vainglory, as we are more frequently spoiled with lore that hopes to blend the edges of morality. SugarVenom promises more to come – as Vox and Celeste tier 3 aren’t revealed yet – and I’m starting to sway toward this being my favorite read to date.

Taka Skin Card Event

Coupled with the Taka Night Shadow skin is an exciting new event that will allow you to earn cards to unlock it. During the upcoming event, it was been reported that 16 legendary cards will be needed to get Night Shadow. The exact details have not been released but this mechanic is a testament to SEMC’s mission to make Vainglory accessible to everyone. It’s unclear if they’ll implement an event like this for any future skins, but this time around you can get that limited edition sweetness just by playing the game you love.

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And we’re done for another week. Can’t wait to share more good stuff with you all next Monday, with another update possibly on the horizon. Until then, keep it real all you Monte Lille courts and sneaky SAWports.