The League of Legends players who reached the Challenger tier in 2017 now know that they’ll be getting a special backpack as a reward in honor of their high rank.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Images of the Challenger reward haven’t yet been revealed, but the reward has been confirmed by those who have reached the rank. One Challenger player by the name of Scrandor who reached the rank last season and qualified for the reward reported on Reddit that an email from Riot Games had been sent out to inform players on the status of their rewards. According to Riot Games, the signups for players to verify their rank and get the rewards are now open with the backpack being delivered later in the year.
“The 2017 Challenger reward will be accustom-designed, exclusive backpack – delivered in Fall/Winter of this year,” the email from Riot Games read. “Details and concept art for the item will be shared in the next few months, as we move into manufacturing. We hope it increases your carry potential.”
The number of players that will receive the Challenger reward depends on the queue that the rank was earned. For Ranked Solo/Duo on Summoner’s Rift, the top 200 players from each region will get the reward, but the number is lower for the other queues. Those in the top 40 of the Ranked Flex queue on Summoner’s Rift will get the reward while only the top 10 in the Twisted Treeline Ranked Flex in each region will get the backpack.
It wasn’t announced earlier that only those within the higher ranks of the Challenger tier would get the rewards depending on the queue though, so some players wondered why the cutoff wasn’t announced. Riot Games responded to inquiries by saying that they weren’t entirely sure if the rewards would even happen again.
“We didnt announce earlier because to be honest at the end of last season we weren’t sure we were going to do the rewards again,” Riot Riscx said on Reddit. “It’s a small side project run by a handful of folks, and pretty expensive overall with customs and shipping globally.”
As far as how the cutoffs were chosen, the Rioter said that they looked at previous years for examples.
“That being said, we used the same logic as last year for Team queues. There were 50+ challenger teams, and only the top 5 teams received rewards due to lower participation. Another challenge with rewarding full flex is that we’re going to do it again next year, and Flex is a lot easier to climb in virtually every region. Lower requirement than SoloQ master-tier sometimes. Smurfs are already somewhat of a challenge and rewarding 200 in the other queues is likely to make it so a handful of people spam smurfs for the rewards, especially in lower pop regions via transfers.”
A unique Challenger recall is also in the works for players who are currently ranked in the Challenger tier. The recipients of the recall will be able to return to base in a flashy way fitting for their rank, but there’s not yet a ship date for when the recalls will be available.
Visuals for the exclusive backpack should be revealed sometime in the coming months, so keep an eye out for the first look at the Challenger backpack.
