I was cruising some of the red posts on the forums today and noticed a post about a new Irelia skin. I haven’t been looking for mid-cycle skins for a while now, in large part because they stopped being mid-cycle. While I was poking around for the Irelia skin, I figured I might as well have a look at what else was in the mix.

And then I found this. Yes, it’s another Teemo skin. It’s not just any skin, though, it’s…it’s…it’s SUPER TEEMO!

I can’t lie, I’m pretty excited for this skin. Can’t help but wonder if Riot will do something special to announce its release. I’d really like to see more skins in this style – something silly and fun that has nothing to do with warfare. We got another Caitlyn skin this week that’s just another chick with a big gun and an undersized bra. Caitlyn is sort of an exception – it’s tough to come up with really creative stuff for her paradigm – but there are so many options for fun champion skins. The day I see Xin Zhao wielding anything but a spear is the day I buy a Xin Zhao skin to replace Commando.

For all of the perverts that were waiting on Teen Annie, well, you can now rejoice in your perviness. The Prom Queen Annie skin went live today, along with Almost Prom King Amumu. When is that poor mummy gonna catch a break?

Alien Invader Heimerdinger was by far the most disappointing “legendary” skin to date. It was just Heimer with a different shirt and a slightly reshaped head (like the standard skin doesn’t look like a brain, anyway). I can think of plenty of things I would rather waste $20 on.

Luckily, Riot heard the community outcry around the underwhelming skin and decided it was time for an update. Now the Invader skin casts some very otherworldly turrets, which is a big step in the right direction. It makes the skin stand out as a truly unique purchase, which is what I think most people were hoping for. Firefighter Tristana also got an update. She now sprays water from the fire hose instead of bullets. Again, a nice touch.

If there’s one thing to be said for the Riot development team, it’s that they listen to the community. Sometimes we have to harass and cajole, but this change and changes like the level 30 requirement for ranked games restore some of my faith in the developer’s ability to successfully run this game.

I don’t know how Riot expects me to pony up the cash necessary for all these great skins. The company announced yesterday that Hillbilly Gragas, Emumu, and Deep One Kassadin are now available. We already knew about the Kassadin skin from the “community inspired skins” announcement, but those other two are just incredible. Emumu made me laugh out loud the instant I saw the splash screen.

If you haven’t seen it yet, Groovy Zilean has to be one of the coolest skins in game. I caught a game with a guy yesterday that had one. Great stuff.

After that big string of losses I had to do something to make a comeback. Luckily, a buddy of mine logged in just as I was about to pick up some late night games. We queued up for Summoner’s Rift hoping for the best. It went surprisingly well. Our first game was a nice long back and forth with a pretty solid opponent. We had the AOE advantage, though, and my survivability as Nidalee kept me on top of the kill charts and at the bottom of the death count all game long. It was a long fight, but a good one. Our second game our opponents had a Nidalee DC, so we had an easy victory.

Another friend logged in and we started 3-man queueing, though still on Summoner’s Rift. I thought I recognized one of our teammates as the DC from the previous game. As it turned out, the two just had similar names. We went in rolling Tryndamere, Janna, Blitzcrank, Tristana, Karthus. It was an admittedly strange team, but I’d been wanting to play Trynd ever since I bought his Highland skin earlier in the day.

Things started out rough – our two randoms were feeding pretty hard and one of my buddies couldn’t get traction because his lanemate was dying just about every 3 minutes. We were getting outpushed as well, though I was farming well bottom and getting a few kills. Around the 20-minute mark I was up 7-0, but my team had died something like 12 times with no kills. We were also down four towers.

By 35 minutes things looked grim. Our Karthus was now 1-9, Janna was something similar if not worse, and we were down two inhibitors. I still hadn’t died, though, and was flying high on a good farm with 12 or so kills. We kept trying to defend, and though my team was dying often, we were steadily holding them back. They did get one break and bring down all the inhibitors. From there we decided to just stand and fight at the nexus. They would rush in and beat on a tower until Janna could blow them back and we’d get a few kills. Eventually, though, they brought down both towers.

What I’m about to tell you is a little surreal, and I don’t mean to suggest you can win every game if you just stick it out. Sometimes it’s just lost. For whatever reason, though, we decided to stay and fight. After they killed our second nexus turret, we managed an ace. Obviously we couldn’t push, so it was back to defense and trying to let inhibs respawn. Time after time the other team would roll in and time after time Janna would blow them off nexus and we would somehow manage to ace them (I think my massive farm had something to do with it). Slowly our inhibitors respawned and we kept acing them further and further toward the base. In the final fight, our opponents had to split to protect two lanes that were being pushed by creeps. We killed two of their teammates and pushed straight to nexus for the win. It was one of the most satisfying victories I’ve had (ending 25/0 as Trynd certainly helped).

As much as it hurts to lose those epic fights, it feels just as good to be on the winning side after a long losing streak, which is a big part of my continued enjoyment of this game.