It’s time again for another champion sneak peek, this time bringing us artwork of Moakai, the Twisted Treant. Here’s the official blurb:

Sometimes, when you look at the League of Legends champion lineup, it’s easy to feel like you’ve seen it all. You’ve seen light mages, thorn mages, mad scientists, illusionists, ninjas, and warriors with gigantic swords. But there’s something that this next champion has that none of them do: roots. That’s right, while you may have been engaged in epic, pitched battles with trolls, gargoyles, ogres, scarecrows, minotaurs, mummies, and mutant armadillos, I bet you’ve never had to fight a tree before! Introducing Maokai, the Twisted Treant; a groundbreaking new champion in the League of Legends whose bark may or may not be worse than his bite. You decide.

If you’ve been on the forums in the past month or so you probably new that he was coming, along with Jarvan IV, who we should see introduced in a fortnight. Moakai was originally teased in PC Gamer with the image you see above. He was accompanied by the text:

Who: A tree hit with magic that became a hero
He Will: Plant acorn bombs; teleport on top of lightly armored enemies
Release: Feb 15

So far, the article’s right on, though we never really know what skills will make it live. The acorn bomb sounds interesting. Will we have a Teemo rival at last? I can already feel the frustration of another teleporting champion. Shen has been the bane of my existence recently. I don’t know how much more I can take.

Look for Moakai next week.

We’ve got another champion on the way, this time in the form of a troll. Named Trundle, all we know for certain is that he has a massive club. Of course, if you know how to use Google, you might find some potentially leaked patch notes with a skill list that sounds fairly interesting.

Here’s the official post:

Champions in the League of Legends come in all shapes and sizes. Whether you’re a fan of huge, hulking, stone giants; sinister, lithe femme fatales; awesome, mighty warriors; or aberrant, horrific creatures, we try to represent them all under one roof. And while we’re on the subject of aberrant, horrific creatures, allow me to give you a glimpse of our next champion. Meet Trundle, the Cursed Troll. He’s hideous, and very possibly diseased, so he wanted me to let you know that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Unless, of course, that cover is snarling and wielding a club. Then you might be onto something.

Look for him to launch after the holiday next week.

Amidst the tumultuous Season One release, Riot is still sticking to its frequent roll-out of new champion ideas and designs. The latest is Vladimir, the long-rumored vampire champion.

Here’s the official word from ByronicHero:

If you’re like me and you’ve ever gone through one of those dark, goth phases at some point in your life, you’ll probably relate to this next champion at least a little bit. Meet Vladimir, the Crimson Reaper. This champion combines the epic power of fueling his magic with the blood of his enemies with the style and flair of Transylvanian count. You know the type of count we’re talking about… the type that has a lifetime supply of liquid black eyeliner sitting in his medicine cabinet. So dust off that copy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula that you’ve got sitting on your nightstand. If you start reading now, you should be super excited by the prospect of getting your hands on Vladimir by the time you finish.

I could be crazy, but it sounds an awful lot like Vladimir could be using yet another new resource system. Will we be seeing a range of vampiric toons, similar to the trio of ninjas?

If there’s one thing League of Legends is missing, it’s monster champions. Today, Riot gave us a sneak peek at something that is finally non-humanoid: Kog’Maw, the Mouth of the Abyss.

Kog’Maw made his first appearance back when Malzahar launched, in the picture above. A lot of people thought that might be his original voidling skin, but it turns out that’s actually our boy, Kog’Maw. Unfortunately the picture is the only thing we have to go on at this point. I think he looks pretty cool, I’m just hoping his mouth-related abilities aren’t quite as buggy as the gentlemanly Cho’Gath.

Pendragon included a silhouette of our new champion in the official post, but I think the pic above does him more justice. I’m as excited about this guy as I’ve been about any of the recent champions I can remember. I’m also kind of happy that the Test Realm is down because it makes his release a little more mysterious. I can’t wait to see a skill list.

I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve been not-so-patiently waiting for news on Akali, the last of the ninja trio. After the long wait, we finally have…concept art! Okay, this isn’t exactly the news I was hoping for but it’s something, and with the other champions release has followed shortly after this kind of preview showed up. I’m really hoping for a Wednesday evening TR launch, but I kinda doubt it. I’m content to wait another week, though.

I do wish the image told us a little bit more. From what I can gather Akali is melee and will likely be some sort of assassin. I would not be surprised to see some kind of stealth mechanic. She is a ninja, after all. Really, with all the community complaints about the ninjas not really being very ninja, Riot kinda has to pull through on this one.

In any case, I’ll be ready when she launches. I’m sitting on a couple thousand IP and I’ve played everyone else (except Eve). Anyone else excited about this chick?