League Of Legends' Long-Overdue Rework For Poppy Looks Awesome

Poppy, one of the League of Legends's oldest and most outdated champions, is finally being reworked. Riot Games has fully revealed their details on the cosmetic and gameplay changes coming soon.

The core concept of Poppy is still the same. She's a small, pony-tailed yordle in armor running around with a huge hammer. However, all but one of her abilities (Heroic Charge) have been swapped out for the rework. She now has a lot more crowd control at her disposal:

PASSIVE: IRON AMBASSADOR - Every several seconds, Poppy throws her buckler as her basic attack, gaining range and bonus magic damage. Once thrown, Poppy can pick up her buckler to gain a shield, but if an enemy walks over her buckler, they’ll temporarily destroy it. If Iron Ambassador kills the target, the buckler returns to Poppy instead of falling to the ground.

Q: HAMMER SHOCK - Poppy smashes the ground, dealing damage and slowing enemies in a small area. After a moment, the crushed ground erupts, dealing the same amount of damage again.

W: STEADFAST PRESENCE - Passive: Poppy gains bonus Armor and Magic Resist. This bonus is doubled if Poppy is below 40% health. Active: Poppy gains Movement Speed. While Steadfast Presence is active, she creates a magic barrier around her, stopping enemy dashes and dealing magic damage to enemies.

E: HEROIC CHARGE - Poppy tackles an enemy, dealing physical damage and carrying them forward. Poppy deals additional physical damage and stuns the enemy if they collide with terrain.

R: KEEPER’S VERDICT - Poppy charges up her hammer for a mighty blow, slowing herself as she winds up. With the second cast, Poppy unleashes a massive hammer smash, creating a fissure that deals damage and knocks back all enemy champions in a tiny area an enormous distance towards their base. The fissure length and knockback increase with channel duration.

Her new kit definitely has more outplay potential than the current incarnation of Poppy. The shield throwing from her passive makes laning more fun. If she can time it well, that'll make her trading much more effective. Her opponent, meanwhile, has to decide whether or not to risk smashing the buckler when it's on the ground. I'm also interested to see how players make use of Keeper's Verdict. It seems a bit like Bard's ultimate, in that it can win you a teamfight or screw it up depending on your timing.

The active ability on Steadfast Presence is bound to make assassins and bruisers very unhappy. It's going to stop them from being able to leap on the carries on Poppy's team. However, the no-dash zone that Poppy creates around her only lasts 2.5 seconds it's another timing-sensitive ability.

The update to her visuals is just as welcome. Poppy, frankly, looks like garbage right now. With her football-shaped head and enormous cheeks, she looked a bit like the dude from Hey Arnold after getting too many bee stings. Her new appearance makes her head look more normal. Her hammer is a lot more imposing as well. All of her skins have been likewise updated. You can see the updated splash art for each in the gallery below.

Riot has released the reworked Poppy to the Public Beta Environment so players can test her out. Her official release shouldn't be far off.

League of Legends's Season 5 wrapped up earlier this month. We've seen several champions remade since then. Riot introduced changes for most marksman characters as part of the large pre-season patch.

Pete Haas

Staff Writer at CinemaBlend.