Xayah and Rakan, the lovebirds of the Rift, have been in the competitive mix for a few weeks now. This is the first time two champions have been released together since Gragas and Pantheon — a decidedly less elegant duo. They’ve both been showing up, independently and together, in competitive play since their release, and while there are some balance concerns, they’re largely considered a successful release.

Of course, it’s not easy releasing one champion — releasing two synchronized champs that have to work together as a duo is legitimately more difficult. Mark “RiotScruffy” Yetter shared some insight designs about the champions, and what we can expect from them in the coming weeks of competitive play.

Duo by nature

While Xayah and Rakan are the first champions designed with being a duo in mind, other dominant combos that have ruled bot lane in the past. Lucian and Braum, Kog’maw and a Janna or Lulu, or Sivir and Karma. It was the fact that these duos exist naturally in the game that convinced the dev team that Xayah and Rakan could work. “We made a lot of comparisons in the development on how strong they’d be together compared to separate,” Yetter said.

Xayah and Rakan work side by side © Riot Games

Many of these prior champion pairs work well because of an ability interaction. For instance, Braum’s passive procs much faster with Lucian’s double tap than with an ADC’s standard fire. Kog’maw struggles to survive, but Janna and Lulu can protect him with a shield. Sivir and Karma share a lot of the same power on their kit with AOE speed boosts and poke, which means they amplify each other by overloading on the same strengths. Sure, you can pair them with any other support ... but it’s just not as potent a combo.

So, what was the harm in designing a duo to exist together from the ground up? The dev team settled on a particular number to aim for. “A good pairing tends to be about 4 percent stronger than a badly matched one. We went in balancing Xayah and Rakan with that in mind.”

Hatching the duo

Xayah and Rakan both have their independent strengths, but together is when they truly shine. They each excel at different things. Rakan is an initiator, capable of setting up big plays and using his mobility to affect a fight. Xayah lacks that mobility; her only real escape (although it is a potent one) is on her ultimate. She’s more focused on staying in the back and consistently setting up the fight to her advantage. Having a Rakan is dramatically helpful for keeping her alive and setting up those plays once her feathers are down, but it’s not necessary.

It's not as if the pair aren't compatible with others, after all. Rakan wrecks house with paired with a Galio or Orianna, thanks to his AOE mobility and initiation chops. Xayah counters champions with wind-up abilities when her ultimate is ready. So while they may prefer each other's company, the lovebirds can stand on their own, too.

Writing a love story

In order to create kits that could interact, the Riot team started by throwing every possible idea at the wall. Riot hosted a three-day Thunderdome, where Rioters came up with six or seven different kits across teams.

“When we talked about other possible themes, we talked about best friends, buddy cops, a person and their trusted pet, but when we decided we wanted to do a romantic relationship — it's something we don’t have, and something people love.”

This meant that the gameplay had to feel good to play both casually and competitively. As Yetter notes: “If there was a dissonance where you were struggling to play together and you were constantly figuring out what you were doing, and they were like, ‘Oh, I love you’! It’d feel weird. So we we wanted it to feel like your partner was always doing more for you.”

Xayah and Rakan are a team, and they feel like one © Riot Games

Floors and ceilings

The Thunderdome left tons of uncompleted kits behind, but the team learned a lot about design synergy. “None of [the experimental kits] ended up being close to what we were shipping, but we discovered so much about what synergies work, and what amount of coordination is too much?” Pros on voice chat can pull off complicated moves and complex combos, but that doesn’t mean your average player will be able to do the same. Champions like Azir have found themselves under the microscope for being deadly in the hands of pros, and duds with the average joe. Planning a duo amplified this problem. How high could their collective ceiling go? The dev team went through multiple kits, trying to find the sweet spot of coordination and control for the duo.

Out of those experiments, the design team came to three major conclusions. First, Xayah shouldn’t be an atypical experience. It had been a long time since they released a "standard" marksman, with the Graves rework, Kalista and Jhin all being examples of experimental takes on the class. The team expected Xayah to be a more popular champion, because, well, she’s easier to play. (The fact that she can rack up kills doesn’t hurt either.)

Second, Rakan should have some moves. Yetter explains: “Right off the bat we came to the idea that a really mobile support would be a big opportunity, because we didn’t have one. When we started testing the mobile support, it was obvious that it was very fresh that support players — and even non-support players — would be attracted to.”

Third, Xayah and Rakan should be an awesome reveal, even for players who had been around the block. “We knew we wanted to do something very ambitious, something that would impress players who had been playing for years.” Xayah and Rakan required a lot of new tech for their interactions (both gameplay and otherwise), but the end result seems to have paid off.

Xayah and Rakan can't always aim for the stars © Riot Games

Competitive impact

Xayah and Rakan’s interactions are unique to the game. Other duos can have synergy, but Xayah and Rakan have factors in their kit that only work with each other. Xayah can grant Rakan Deadly Plumage for a massive auto attack buff, and Rakan’s Battle Dance dash has a higher range if Xayah’s around. Neither of these things are devastatingly strong — remember, the dev team is aiming for a 4 percent win rate increase for Xayah and Rakan over other combos — but they feel great.

There’s one synergy they have that isn’t mentioned nearly enough: their recall. To recap, if one lovebird recalls, the other can join it at any time, and they get the in progress recall timer. Yetter thinks that this has the most power on their kit for competitive play. “Of the synergies they had, their recall is the one that takes the most practice and coordination to get the power out of it. It feels and looks special, but it’s not powerful for most players,” he said. “I think high-level players, or pros, or people who play together a lot can get more power of it. In general, it’s the type of synergy we were aiming for, where we had this philosophy where we wanted the synergies to feel insane, but we wanted it to be moderately powerful.”

“I would say in a general sense we’re exactly happy with how their balance is going,” Yetter says. In 7.12, both heroes got tweaked. Xayah received a nerf to her late game team fight damage, and Rakan’s passive now properly interacts with shields. These small changes represent a positive sign for the lovebirds’ balance. “When it's a nuanced discussion like we’re having already, that means that they’re pretty close.”

The NA LCS has already showcased a rich variety of strategies around Xayah and Rakan, including banning one half of the duo or picking just Xayah or Rakan. “It depends on what the team needs; they won’t enter into super must pick/ban territory,” Yetter said, addressing fears that the duo might take over pro play entirely. “If you need a tank support, or a different kind of carry for late-game like a Kog’Maw or a Caitlyn, they won’t work. Hopefully they slot in nicely and we see them ... maybe 20 percent of the time.”

Sticking the landing

Nerfs or no, their underlying concept is solid © Riot Games

Xayah and Rakan were an ambitious project, and the developers had to be concerned about the impact when they were released. On one hand, one champion has the impact to warp pro play around them upon release, requiring severe balance changes. If a Camille or Galio can dominate the pro scene, what could two synchronized champions in the same lane do? On the other hand, Xayah and Rakan were an ambitious opportunity that could bring in new players and inspire interest in the game.

“Sometimes we know we’re making a complex champion that’s not meant to bring in new players, it's meant for veteran players, but in this case we were trying to reach as many people as they could,” Yetter says, explaining the balance the dev team had to strike. “We wanted champions you could play with a friend, or bring a friend in to play with, we wanted it to be an appealing theme that reached out to people. There were times in development where we make specific choices, and one of our early kits for Xayah was pretty different, but it was out there for what a Marksman player would want.”

Riot knew that the concept would bring in new players, but they had to aim for that 4 percent win increase if they were played together. If Xayah and Rakan dominated the meta and crowded out other bot laners, it’d be frustrating for competitive players and passionate fans alike.

“We care a lot about our game, and of course it’s frustrating if something doesn’t go as we hoped. It’s not just frustrating because the players are angry and you’re getting blamed — it’s frustrating because we’re trying to make the best game we can make,” Yetter said, reflecting on the lead up to Xayah and Rakan’s launch. “So when we make something that lands perfectly on the line, that people appreciate and adds a new element to the game without taking over it, that’s amazing. When we make something that takes over or becomes irrelevant too quickly, we see them as things we want to fix.”

If a champion doesn’t end up succeeding, the community usually chimes in. If that champion ends up becoming a Camille, who shows up in every role in competitive play due to their sheer strength, the dev team has to act. Eventually, Camille settled into having a clearly defined role, but it took some changes to get her there.

Yetter notes that he’s personally good at coping with an unsuccessful launch — after all, it’s a PVP-oriented game, so staying resilient and being ready to make changes is important. “We take this mindset that we’re lucky, we don’t have a console disk that’s shipped and carved in stone forever. In the long-term, can we get our dreams and our goals with our character and design to get closer and closer to what we want?”

Xayah and Rakan swept in to pro play, and they’re going to be hotly contested in the weeks to come. Their built-in synergy, combined with their unique strengths, makes them the dream date for any LCS pro. Sure, you can break them up by banning one or the other, or even pit them against each other, but they always end up back together in the end if a team has them open in two consecutive pick slots.

The lovebirds are more than friends with benefits: They’re a situationally strong bot lane pair, especially if paired with a team who can capitalize on Rakan’s lockdown. They may not be bullying out the rest of bot lane combos quite yet, but to Riot, this is actually proof that the experiment is a success.