League of Legends may be the most popular game on the planet, but wandering through any toy store you’ll find a decided lack of branded products compared to franchises like Angry Birds or even Call of Duty.
That’s where shady knockoff toy manufacturers come in.
Decool, a company infamous for their LEGO knockoffs, often seemingly combining legitimate LEGO sets into their own products and printing their own lines of branded minifigures, has combined two of the world’s most popular leisure brands. And the results are glorious.
The company has released two sets of League of Legends minifigures featuring champions like Pantheon, complete with spear and shield, the alligator-head Renekton, Katarina (with authentic cleavage), Garen, and even blade-wielding barbarian Tryndamere—one with the real Tryndamere’s seal of approval.
This is amazing. It’s a League and Lego rip-off all in one, but at least Trynd is looking good! pic.twitter.com/U3HwcDQ2Kh
— Marc Merrill (@MarcMerrill) October 29, 2014
The toys are compatible with actual LEGO sets and are pretty high quality, compared to other cheap Chinese knockoff products. They don’t stand up to authentic LEGOs with their legendary quality control, but the Decool toys aren’t bad. The biggest difference is the molds are a bit sharper, with harsher edges compared to more rounded LEGO toys. The paint may also be a little lower quality, but Decool makes up for it with more elaborate designs than many LEGO sets, including generous prints on the back of chest and head models.
Still, it’s not the LEGO and Riot Games collaboration fans have been clamouring for. LEGO has already jumped into video games—their official Minecraft sets are already on the way.
Fans of League of Legends and LEGO have been trying to bring the two together for years with various fan projects and pleas to the companies for a merger.
One fan submitted a League set to the Lego CUUSOO project, since turned into the LEGO Ideas program, where aspiring builders can submit projects for approval and attract official LEGO attention if enough supporters approve it. The “Raid on Baron Nashor” features a LEGO Baron and baron pit, along with awkward looking concepts for Blitzcrank, Katarina, Taric, Graves, and Brand. The project reached the 10,000 supporter threshold, but LEGO decided not to produce the set.
Others brought the two together for stop motion videos, like this take on the LEGO LCS:
A designer at LEGO even pitched the idea of official sets to the Reddit community a year ago, independent of official LEGO, but that just goes to show the interest.
Decool has beat LEGO—and Riot Games—to the punch. Their knockoffs may not be official LEGOs or official League of Legends products, but they’re pretty damn cool.
Screengrab via pinoytoygeek/YouTube
