Why Riot Games Bans Pro Players From Using SKINS | Pay To Win Skins

[@NicolaiLol]

Start using Porofessor to improve your future games, for free! link.overwolf.com/porofessor-nicolai

[@penguugaming6160]

Yes

[@trollnoobs178]

no

[@thedarkdragon1437]

yhea mobile games...all of them are p2w, outside of riot

[@xanimus9489]

Blackfrost Sion has a smaller Q Hitbox than his other Skins.

[@pebblebrowser]

I think I downloaded Facecheck because of you a long time ago, and tbh Porofessor looks better so imma try it out- double support to Nicolai!! You deserve it

[@superasdeiro]

In the old days where runes were expensive i'd say it was a little pay to win but nowadays i just spend all my savings for a new lux skin every week

[@huuuuuumpy]

Yep you were locked into one play style until you grinded enough. The silly days of getting one crit rune and winning level 1 fights.

[@bknighty28]

It's a little important to note that you couldn't spend real money for runes. They were purchased via IP and it was the ability to buy champions with money and thus not needing to buying them with your IP leaving it all left over for runes is how it was pay to win. Anecdotally, I was in high school during this phase of the game and had no issues with getting runes I needed. Be it flat pen, hp regen, flat ad/ap, it was all pretty easy to get. You weren't getting it in a day but if you did your daily wins and play a few games a day, it was no issue.

[@iBlueprint]

@@bknighty28 You could buy IP boosts as far back as season 1

[@lordpaulphilippfernandez9904]

​@@bknighty28 Problem was that you're locked behind just 3 rune pages. Any decent League player can tell you that it's extremely punishing to run a generic AD rune page against a specialized one. Even worse, you can't edit them in champ select, so the best thing to do (depending on your role) is to have an AD rune page, an AP rune page, and a tank rune page.

[@boogiewoogie9928]

Are you alright dude? XD

[@VoermanIdiot]

I think one of the most notorious cases of banned skins in pro play used to be Headhunter Nidalee, her old spear model was so incredibly thin, it was nearly one third of her normal spear skin. Even after standardizing her spear-sizes, HH Nidalee's spear is still so much thinner, but at least it's scaled correctly now.

[@spookyscarygraviton5944]

An actual needle

[@-Rhio]

Im a Nidalee Onetrick with 2mil+ Points and i also always felt like hitting more spears with headhunter. Headhunter Nidalee gives me Gladiator Draven Vibes, i dont know how to explain, maybe a wannabe tryhard skin? Similar to gangster twitch or sth idk xD

[@bgsprods]

@@-Rhio Headhunter is a lot more smooth than the rest of the skins and throwing spears out of visión is confusing for the enemy because they connect a little bit before you get hit visually by them. And gangster twitch has 100% proved better auto attack animation than the rest so is kinda pay to play smooth

[@squidfishie]

IIRC it wasnt because of the spear skin but rather cuz it was bugged. I remember HH being notorious for invisible spears being thrown.

[@pedropimenta896]

There is a Katarina skin that her laugh animation throws a dagger in the air, similar to her W. I saw a clip of a player using Flash because of that!

[@moonlightpain5638]

The only one i know is that the Warring Kingdoms kata throws a kata in the air with her backport animation.

[@DexTag]

As a mainly ARAM player there is a huge list of skins that straight up improve your winrate, especially on champions like Nidalee it makes it near impossible to see the spears if you don't focus on the Nidalee or spear, because they blend in with the background. And there are many skills like that, including Viktor ult, Syndra balls and many other things that become near invisible if you didn't already focus on them.

[@Zorroark]

I play aram with friends occasionally and I just groan when I see a skin on the other team that has light blue particle effects (like Death Blossom Elise for example) because I have such a hard time seeing those effects on top of the blue of the Howling Abyss (seriously Elise's spiders from her human form W are borderline invisible to me even though they flash different colours.)

[@cristinaguzman1604]

Mainly aram player? 🤔 what’s that like haha probably a lot more sane than the average league player

[@TankYou90]

winter wonder orianna orb looks just like a poro and most of the time I don't see it. and all blue/white skins have an advantage too

[@thatguy5233]

yeah, for example the blue skin for nidalee is actually the most pay2win skin i've ever seen - not only the spear is blue/white just like the aram map, but it also looks thinner than it is. while i normally can easily dodge her Q, this skin made me so frustrated omg. you just have to look out for it, otherwise it blends with the environment. maybe i should upload a video of how it looks

[@zeal705]

@@cristinaguzman1604 You still get people who call you tryhards for winning and you do get the occasional troll/player who gives up after a certain point. It's actually fun to play and it's all I do myself (because I know in a normal game I would be more of a liability than a good player)

[@christopherbostock1941]

The one I always remember is i-blitzcrank where the hook was WAY Longer than the visual

[@xsethy7728]

To make things clearer, it's like Djoko, the coach who talked about the skins, said in the video, there are skins that in a certain patch are disabled and in others they can come back, mainly due to visual bugs, most of the skins in the video, for being dated, have already been updated and do not contain the "competitive advantage".

[@lordrevan571]

Yeah that's bullshit, try again. Pulsfire Ez and Elementalist lux are still banned in pro play and have been since they were released

[@janah6473]

@@lordrevan571 "most of" - and you call bullshit because 2 arent? Try again.

[@lordrevan571]

@@janah6473 You right, one moment. iBlitzcrank. Pax Sivir. Dragon Trainer Heimerdinger. Draven Draven. Riot Singed. Black Alistar, Silver Kayle, Human Ryze, PAX Twisted Fate, and the 2012 Championship Riven among others.

[@lehends5683]

I think the worst pay to lose skins are clunky skins, Like ezreals ultimate skin is very clunky, dragon trainer tristana also a bit clunky. Also high noon lucian i feel like gives you a buff early game but in the late game you'd be better of having project, or hired gun for example

[@kohout1148]

Playings vs Blitzcrank POV: Everybody ganksta until blitz goes space groove skin a spams ctrl+4.

[@wowJhil]

Another famous but advantageous skin for Veigar, don't remember which skin it was, was his E stun animation. It is much less visible in the initial phase then the standard skin for example so it's harder to avoid for the enemy.

[@JohnDoe-vt8vp]

I would just consider that nostalgic since his e used to be instant lol

[@wowJhil]

@@JohnDoe-vt8vp Ohhh, maybe a Rioter who main Veigar had something to do with this :D

[@n0teroblox]

Isn't Leona pool party banned too? Or did they fix the 1% less DMG to people with sunglasses or whatever it was

[@bruninhomidiglioni7329]

For those wondering who's the former br coach in the video. His nick is Djoko, super famous and does have a KZbin channel

[@jamilangon5798]

This does not include Blitz Space Groove skin (idk if its already fixed), there is some key frame on the animation of the taunt looks like he is going to hook so if you have fast reaction time you preemptive flash or use your dash spell. Like in a scenario that blitz has a clear LOS and press W to close gap, the next thing you react like you are immobile champ adc is to flash if you see that animation, but it is only a taunt and when the flash was expended, it is easier to land the hook.

[@cgktheking]

Gladiator Draven makes the axe catching spot bigger.

[@Tensuten]

Funfact, Yasuo can animation cancel his tornado q, when directly after shooting the nado u spam ctrl+3

[@maliciousmisari1485]

Love the Fact,you showed Elsword at the "pay2win" 2009 releases.

[@BansheeNT-D]

Super Galaxy Rumble is a big buff. Because it change the super old animations too good new ones.

[@Shaco.]

3:08 what about a All For One with each of the 10 players picking Lux with the Elementalist Skin?

[@kolonelwolf2449]

there have been cases of something like that and honestly nothing bad has happened apparently. Riot are just making up excuses to never make an incredible skin again

[@theogthugcat]

@@kolonelwolf2449 well that but also...we already have like 10 pauses per pro game already...how worse do u want it to be with elemental lux?

[@tomasadams3922]

if many people use the same skin they dont have to load multiple copies of it. So 10 elementalist luxes in 1 game would be mostly the same as in the game with 10 different champions

[@TankYou90]

Project Pyke and most fiddlesticks skins, Project Pyke makes a loud scary sound that caused me to burn flash many times and die because I panic. Fiddlesticks skins are terrifying too.

[@cristinaguzman1604]

I know there were no miss fortune skins on that list but I swear some of her skins make me play better than others 😂😂 especially the Candy Cane skin idk what it is

[@FizzleFX]

5:35 lmao *i saw some of those!* ... when the animation of the hitbox is HALF .... and the visibility of said attack also down 90% ... *ITS NOT TINY* if you stand there and are like "oh well its not that bad" than you just give it a free pass and wait for worse skins to come out until everything goes south. bravo. lets pretend there is no problem and it will go away (lets not introduce a simple option to turn off enemy skins for you) nah. that be reasonable and would work for everyone :)

[@despondentanura6939]

I would love a ranked option to see every champion as their default skin

[@JohnDoe-vt8vp]

Dont think a small indie company is capable of that though :(

[@Kata-l7l]

There used to be a bug with Twitch where if you were invisible and you walked into someone's vision range while they were in the bush, the vision icon would appear over your head and tell you that someone could see you because you were too close. I'm pretty sure they fixed it though because a while ago I was playing an aram and used my Q with Twitch thinking I would check the bush by walking up to it and seeing if I got the vision icon over my character. As I walked closer to the bush I didn't get a vision icon over my character at all and assumed the bush was safe, but once I entered the bush I found out that how very wrong I was and I was quickly helped back to the fountain, so that I could buy items.

[@AlienRsrchPrjct]

Pay to lose, SKT1 Elise has a marker on exactly where she will land after spider form e

[@MadIIMike]

Kinda ironic for it being on Elise...

[@Littlebean-t2t]

I just wish we could know the actual hit boxes of champs and their abilities in game. Well skins and chormas are sometimes difficult to distinguish particularly in certain terrain so I’d say they are p2w. Would love it if for ranked i could disable seeing skins or at least select certain ones to disable. Hell I’d pay for that feature even with a monthly sub.

[@alexISnotmyrealname]

1:44 no way you just showed rumble fighter. That game was fun af

[@NicolaiLol]

A major throw back. One of the first free computer games a friend told me to play that was actually fun lol

[@jochenrunge3706]

@NicolaiLol tbh idk the name of the skin but there is a caitlyn skin where when u put cait traps under turret there is legit no outline i played against her like 2 days ago and the only reason i knew there was a trap was because i heard the sound of it but no matter how hard i tried to see it i couldnt. i legit had to walk into it to check if i was stupid -.-

[@kaworuswife]

How did it look like? The skin

[@jochenrunge3706]

@@kaworuswife caitlyn xD idk dont remember

[@kawaiidesu8864]

I think the most pay-to-lose skin are skins like Highnoon Ashe where her body change form and glow when her ult is on cooldown

[@ZappyZ4p]

YOUUUUU ARE ON FIRE NICOOOLAI! Love the content man much love

[@NicolaiLol]

Thank you my friend, couldn't have done it without you 🤝

[@maxp2346]

Katarina daggers are on most skins pay to lose. The base skin has a color, which blends in and people sometimes don't see it. While most of the skins work with those daggers and add more color to it. I personally like the skins because they make the dagger fancy, but still. It's pay to lose.

[@prismaticc_abyss]

What about the Fnatic Jarvan E coming out faster than on classic and all other skins

[@INoromania]

There is this blue vladimir skin. If you use w in the River its way harder to see it than other skins of vlad

[@NicolaiLol]

Was very close to featuring that! From what I saw that's definitely one of the worst offenders lol. Super unclear

[@Strlz_Remtachi]

I've seen some people( including myself) accidentally cancel Winterblessed Swain's recall animation due to it having a flying bird animation that sort of looks like a Xayah, Quinn or Caitlyn skill depends on the chroma, I was hiding on a bush when the bird animation showed up and I thought I was being attacked AHAHAHA

[@srensen3081]

hextech kassadin is very slightly pay to lose, since r animation is much more visible on where youre going to appear

[@ffmd6633]

omega squad veigar is arguably pay to win as well, due to the w being harder to see up front, and alsothe strange AA animation

[@Cokamo]

you would think theyd treat gun goddess fortune the same as elementalist lux since they both load extra models

[@romzen]

Some Draven skins are a double-edged sword (or axe for that matter). The ground effects for the axe landing position sometimes blends too well with certain colors of the rift. This makes it harder for the opponent to see where Draven is navigation. One may argue it also makes it harder for the Draven to see where the axes go but a good Draven always knows as he has the agency to influence the exact landing position unless he is not moving when a spinning axe is hitting the target. Vice versa there are Draven skins which make the landing animation much more visible. Ahri has at least one skin (was it Coven Ahri?) whose charm animation is not a pink heart but very similar to her orb.

[@thegamehbktaker]

You forgot the classic I Blitzcran or the legendary Blitz and Crank skin when the dance animations is similar to his hook

[@phinixable]

frostfire annie, back the days, when she had no bar for the stuns to show. her white aura was so hard to see when she shielded herself so you had to predict when her stun was up and when not

[@LZentertainments]

Why is ironside Malphite banned? Always thought it felt weird, but why?

[@xinh2295]

Holy moly was that a clip of old school Elsword in the intro?? Time to find you in-game

[@levenkek]

The irelia's skin is kida similar to thresh's legendary dark cosmic skin when it is so easy to accidentally cancel the autoattack, i notice that only when i play this skin on thresh

[@hukihn7990]

Everybody already forgot that odyssey yasuo skin where his tornado will disappear at the end but still hit targets max ranged?

[@hcorvnov6732]

I noticed with fanatic jarvan his e animation doesnt play if you do a quick e q combo

[@SenseiRaichuss]

You missed an oldie, Boom Boom Blitzcrank's Fist hitbox is larger than all his other skins, invisibly so.

[@supitaly]

I always remember arclight velkoz, due to his w e and q all being ridiculously hard to see compared to normal

[@Tnargav]

One thing that annoys me is access to legends/character(in fighting games with dlc for example). At least give us an option to test characters we don't have in the training mode. Reading about skills and watching videos is one thing but I personally learn more when trying the characters. Muscle memory is OP. Otherwise the only way to learn is playing against specific legends which is very painful at the beginning.

[@cookiemew]

Use PBE. It's a patch ahead and may be buggy, but you can play every champ in the practice tool there. And you can buy them very cheap with free BE and RP to use it in PVP

[@Tnargav]

@@cookiemew Oh I didn't know you can do that, cheers.

[@deziaczek1309]

Best example I can think of is Vandal Gragas - you can completely cancel his Q or R animation with well timed W auto - I'm abusing this issue in game and the barrel is literally almost invisible

[@clearly_akeno]

You should have mentioned the one Pyke skin, which has an Emote that actually looks like his ult animation.

[@knigo7967]

ok but even with the cange doesnt the zombie brand skin let the enemy know that you know they are in a bush, making it a disadvantage?

[@Kategan]

One of the very few things that I still love about League after playing it since season 1 is that it's not a pay to win game. Nowadays, there are way too many games with ads everywhere and stuff you can purchase to boost your account or be better if you simply pay. Respect to Rito for not making League this way (they've been destroying it in other ways tho )

[@ExplorationRandomDestination]

Riot is 100% pay to win they base buffs and metas largely around skin releases. So you don’t need to buy to win just play the meta but you know who will be op as duck based on new skins.

[@shiragatsu97]

i'm not sure about the list that the mentioned coach "revealed" I've seen not one of the mentioned skins to be used on official matches.

[@Andrew-cn7zy]

pretty sure HN ashe glows when she rs and it doesn't go away until she has it back up...

[@Puz_zler]

5:54 same thing happened to me but with project irelia. I got scared bcs of the animation and cancelled my back

[@phinixable]

the shan hai scrolls jhin skin is a little bit buggy. the grenade seems like a purple cube sometimes and can be pretty irritating for the player who has this visual bug. happened to me as the jhin player and 1 day ago it happened to me when i played against it.

[@TheDendran]

I think there was Project Pyke: His taunt looked simmilar to his ult animation and you could seriously bamboozle someone into a panicflash...

[@turbosaby6707]

Boom boom blitz hook hit box is bigger then any other skin been like that since it's released

[@snivian]

Fyi oddesey ziggs is also pay to lose skin, I got scared when back animation is running

[@stanimirborov3765]

0:18 wtf that spell is from her5oes ovff the storm??doesnt exist as a spell man is that heimerdinfgger

[@mushe729]

Talk about dawnbringer yone the legendary yone skin bassically every yone player thinks its pay to lose and it feels so clunkly like the qs dont hit and range is less and the animation for w and r is so weird and feels wayy longer and q3 barley hits qnd the ult feels so slow with the skin.

[@russellegan8403]

Ezeral pyjama skin is a smaller ult radius so it’s like a bit of nerf

[@TheSamuelFTW]

Didn't Super Galaxy Rumble literally make you do more damage upon release?

[@hashii1787]

program leblanc is, her other skins and base skin's W shows where she W'd by showing the direction, while her program leblanc skin rotates

[@TheAmarShow]

great work good video keep it up big nico

[@ryanclarke3771]

The commando skin line is also technically pay to win if vs a Leona. The 1hp less damage from Leonas passive is wearing sunglasses is funny.

[@JohnDoe-vt8vp]

I believe they removed that at some point a while back

[@perfectosdesconocidos8011]

The funny part is you putting faker in the thumbnail and is well known that he doesn't use any skin, even his own skins.

[@mcfischi3740]

Lucians Arcade skin back in the days (was it arcade idk anymore). the q range looked shorter when it actually was. I believe its still not fixed. got hit by many q`s just cause i thought i was out of range based on the visuals lol

[@HelloItsMikkan]

One of seraphines skins have a shorter ult visual if I recall.

[@20alpha90]

minute and 15 second ad on an 8 minute video is CRAZY lol

[@lucasthegreat6535]

night bringer trynda has a circle around him and flashes when r ends

[@TinchoX]

Well, for one, they never fixed Void Fizz's first jump animation (E), in all other skins the first jump has the champion jump and hang upward on his trident, then fall when not doing a second jump, but for Void Fizz, both his jumps look the same, I dare to say he's got two second jumps on his E! (Also his first jump AoE feels shorted range, akin to his second jump, compared to the rest of the skins)

[@keqingis3532]

as a Fizz main who almost complete his skins. I agree to this statement. This is the problem why I didn't pick this skin more often comparing to Super Galaxy, Omega Squad, Fuzz Fizz and Even the Cottontail one. I don't have the prestiges btw.

[@moontim4620]

Not a fizz main.. but i like void fizz because the animation confuses enemy too

[@chrisnorris7527]

You would think they would have a publicly available list. How are people going to know which skins they arent allowed to use if there isnt a list?

[@taxry4879]

Keep up the vids! They're always amazing, and always entertaining. You're really an underrated youtuber. I just recently discovered you, but I'm already at the 5 year old vids xd

[@icyliu1.4]

lol, when i clicked here, an ad appears as LOL is "Not Pay To Win"

[@TheBoss4711]

Supposedly, the Zombie Brand issue lasted much longer than people thought. Years after fixing the animation, the voiceline was still incorrectly triggering and so they had to fix that too.

[@jvjohntabuac7161]

project pyke ctr3 he jumps in the air and it looks like he's casting ult

[@mihajlo8145]

I saw a King Rammus skin in draft pick, he was pretty trash for draft and i was wondering if buying accounts was bannable?

[@PatrykLastowski]

imagine not fixing the infernal nasus q animation yet

[@rainbowpunch7399]

The fact that riot decided to ban these skins instead of fixing them is really sad

[@legenddark6928]

hight noon thrash has bigger hitbox on Q then the normal skiin

[@TheYaq]

Maybe we should have a red frame background for the spear or abilities

[@TheYaq]

Outlines“

[@thatoneweebguy6379]

"this skins gives an unfair advantages" My brother in christ, You made them.

[@HelicopterShownUp]

Over 1000 skins, I sure feel like a 'winner'

[@JumpscareRodent]

Im pretty suure Lux got a vfx update including Steel Legion and Rammus too, those are def allowed

[@herokai1772]

Could you please add Timestamps so for example i can straight up skip to the start or skip adds ?

[@thedeadliest4380]

Aurelia? is it spelled differently in your language? I always thought the champ names were pretty generic

[@Imora]

interesting how both super galaxy fizz and prestige fuzz fizz are in this list.. i understand why fuzz fizz but super galaxy? is it somehow pay to win?? i never even noticed it in my time OTP'ing fizz..

[@hardstuckbronze4470]

Project zed is a pay to lose skin because his ult mark shows exactly when its going to trigger

[@onthelam6316]

You should have mentioned all the skins on that super secret list...

[@Fehru]

Star Guardian Ahri. Despite really good look I remember before tye rework I had issues with her normal attack animations - they had different timing, so when I played other Ahri skins and then played SG Ahri... I suddenly couldnt farm well. But despite that thing - she's very visible when she uses her ult. She all glows and shines, even more than other of her skins provide which tells you if she can dash or not.

[@EOMMunaware]

Bro u can’t tell me the iblitzcrank skin isn’t pay to win. It literally extends by a bit, caught me off guard many times

[@moontim4620]

Championship ashe arrow's trajectory makes me hit more than valentine ashe's ult... Also.. snow day bard is OP

[@viny.8191]

Pool party fiora AA makes you feel you are doing way less dmg

[@particle3257]

Can you cover the possible issues with Duo queue? It may be anecdotal evidence, but myself and two handfuls of players I know ranging from plat -Diamond are experiencing similar issues with duo queue. I am a solo q player strictly, and I can easily 1v9 my games when the entire lobby is solo q, my account is in a permanent state of winning 10 games in a row (all lobbies full of solo q players, no duos.) then I get to a point where I’m about to rank up, and I will then get 15-20 games in a row where each team has a duo q (matching names, Smurf accts, etc, I do my research on op. Gg), but the duo q on the enemy team always performs better than mine, making it impossible for me to carry games due to them target focusing me, or just being hyper fed. Like I said this is anecdotal! But I play hundreds of games per month, and this cycle is consistent. I know with certainty when there are duos in my match now, because I can literally see and feel the drop in skill level during the early game of a match.

[@Xchoul90]

2:04 Welcome to lost ark. Welcome to Diablo

[@xBinyWolf]

Fanatic J4 can hide E animation same as vandal gragas. The 2 ogs of p2w skins

[@TheScribe0]

We need the drake meme with riot fixing the skins and Riot banning them from pro play.

[@alvarTV1991]

It's mostly because of visuality for the Viewers. Some Skins were disabled due to Bugs, but most of the Skins that are disabled are for the Viewers.

[@Vamparina413]

Yeah Faker also said he prefered the original design and he did not want any unfair advantage using skins

[@a1m4l1fe3]

Honestly i was once addicted and payed 600€ for orbs Edit: it was more fun to play with skin but im still gold elo so it really didnt help me :(

[@kaworuswife]

It is more fun to play with skins. Sometimes I think I’m even playing better with a specific skin?? But like, bc some of the models in the game & their animations are soo bad that I might not even want to play the specific champ like ever, UNTIL I get the skin for them. I couldn’t play Soraka ever and disliked her, but after getting her legendary skin, I play her just good. Same goes for a lot of champs for me lol, i know it’s just cosmetic that doesn’t grant you any skill, but I swear I just CANT play without skins lol