Sylas the Unshackled revealed as League’s next champion

Sylas is a Demacian mage whose origin story was revealed by Riot on Universe, the official League of Legends lore platform, last week. Almost immediately following the story’s release, the fanbase’s rumor mill started spinning, questioning whether or not he could be the next champion.

We covered the story, speculating that the new champion could be Sylas as a villainous adult, as the story was of Sylas as a child, or some other anti-Demacian baddie. As it turns out, our first guess was right, because Riot just released the official new champion biography. Say hello to Sylas the Unshackled.

We won’t get into too many details of the original story shared by Riot last week, but essentially, the last we heard of Sylas was that he, a mage, had just murdered several people (including government mage-killers), in a country where magic is outlawed. He was only a child then, and he was on the run, even though the triple-murder was an accident. His biography today revealed what happened next.

Apparently, he gained notoriety as one of Demacia’s most-wanted, but he was captured by mageseekers before too long and sentenced to life in prison. While in prison, his magical abilities were choked out by the prison’s anti-magic shackles, and he sort of just stewed in his own hatred of Demacia for several years thereafter. While in captivity, Luxanna Crownguard (otherwise known as Lux) began to visit him, and the two forged a bond in secrecy, as Lux was a mage-in-hiding. Sylas would teach her to control her powers, and Lux would educate him on the world outside.

He was able to manipulate Lux over a long period of time to smuggle a very old and powerful tome into his cell, which taught him secrets of petricite, the very same anti-magic stone that was being used to keep his magic snuffed out. One day, when he was brought to be hanged for his contact with Lux, he used his petricite bonds to unleash a powerful magical explosion, as he had learned that the stone didn’t suppress magic, but simply held it away instead. The explosion killed everyone in the vicinity, except Lux herself, who had come to the hanging to plead for Sylas’ life.

Now he roams Demacia, gathering acolytes to his only cause: Bring down the throne.