Riot Games announced a new kind of League of Legends cosmetic this week: the Mythic Variant. Similar to the original intent for Prestige skins, these Mythic Variant cosmetics are meant to be “ultra rare and exclusive content” for League players. The first of those is Dark Cosmic Erasure Jhin which will be the League champion’s 10th skin, though getting this one won’t be as easy as heading to the game’s store and purchasing it. In fact, it can actually end up being pretty expensive to acquire it, and so far, the idea of Mythic Variants have not made a great impression on the community.
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The Dark Cosmic Erasure Jhin skin can be seen at the end of the video below after a couple of new Cosmic skins were shown off this week. Right from the start, players pointed out that this looks a whole lot like the existing Dark Cosmic Jhin skin albeit with some different colors and called the cosmetic a Chroma rather than a brand new skin.
Perhaps anticipating that comment and others, Riot penned a post about the Jhin skin and said in it “it’s not a Chroma.” That post also explained how players can get the skin, and it’s that part that’s gone over even worse than the similarities of the two Cosmic skins. It’s got a new splash art, icon, and border, but as far as the in-game look of the cosmetic, it’s not different enough for many players to get on board with.
“We’ll be using the milestone system that you’re used to seeing for showcases like Immortal Journey Sona,” the post explained. “For those who aren’t as familiar, the way it works is after you open 29 Cosmic 2023 Capsules you earn the guaranteed reward in that 30th capsule for that milestone rank. The Cosmic 2023 Capsules will be available during patch 13.17 and 13.18 for 750 RP.”
So, for most players, you’ll have to open 30 Cosmic 2023 Capsules that cost 750 RP each to get the Dark Cosmic Erasure skin. Riot points out that the skin has a generous 1% chance of dropping in Cosmic Capsules, and there’s a good chance that the event itself will give players a free Cosmic Capsule or two for completing missions or something similar, but if someone were to have to buy all 30 Cosmic Capsules in order to get the skin, it’d cost them 22,500 RP which amounts to just under $200 before factoring in the bonus RP you get with more expensive RP purchases. It’s not dissimilar to the Heirloom system in Apex Legends which asks players to spend excessive amounts of money to own a fancy melee weapon.
League of Legends players discussed the skin on social media in places like the active League Reddit community, and the discussions went as well as one would expect. Players compared this to the Electronic Arts’ “pride and accomplishment” fiasco regarding Star Wars Battlefront 2 while others who already consider themselves big spenders said they weren’t touching the skin.
“Not interested,” said one self-described “whale” meaning that they’ve spent tons of money on League. “If I’m gonna pay $200 for something exclusive, I want something new and fresh, not a recolor of a skin I’ve owned for literal years.”
Jeremy “Riot Brightmoon” Lee, the executive producer for League, penned a follow-up post on Reddit addressing these frustrations. Lee said this was an experiment to explore the idea of rarity in League and that similar pushback was met when Prestige skins were first introduced. He described this as a “heated topic,” but said “we aren’t going to change the skin or its rollout plan.”
“Aight well I ain’t reading all that then,” one of the top comments said in response.
League’s new Dark Cosmic Erasure Jhin cosmetic will be available starting in Patch 13.17.
