The 10 Rarest Skins in League of Legends

Image: Riot Games

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Reviewed by Benjamin Barr

League of Legends has been around for a while now — almost twelve years, if you can believe that. As the game continues to grow older, certain skins have become increasingly elusive over the years. There’s a good chance you’ve never even seen some of these rarest skins in LoL, and with accounts that possess these skins slowly dwindling and going inactive over time…

Thankfully, the Internet exists! We’ll always be able to find screenshots, videos, or 3D model renders of each skin somewhere out there! That said, if you’re looking to specifically try out one of these skins yourself, you’re going to be incredibly hard pressed to do so.

A fair chunk of the skins we’ll be talking about today are no longer obtainable (even on the PBE) or require ancient redeemable codes. Unless you’re willing to shell out a lot of money to buy a code off a marketplace like eBay, you’ll have to settle for the hope of spotting one out in the wild.

The 10 Rarest Skins in LoL

With our introduction out of the way, let’s get started on our list of the 10 rarest skins in League of Legends.

1/10

Collector’s Edition Skins

Silver Kayle, Black Alistar, and Young Ryze are three of the rarest skins in League of Legends and all came from purchasing the collector’s edition of League of Legends back when it released in 2009.

The Kayle skin came with all Collector’s Editions, but the Alistar and Ryze ones were exclusive to preordering the digital and retail editions, respectively. It was incredibly unlikely for someone to obtain both versions solely for both skins, even more so when you consider the game launched as free-to-play. Only the most hardcore fans would buy the Collector’s Edition, let alone preorder it.

While Black Alistar has not aged well at all as a skin (it’s really just a recolor), Silver Kayle and Young Ryze have received considerable visual overhauls with the two Champions’ respective VGUs (visual and gameplay update).

The Kayle skin in particular has received an amazing new splash art and an epic in game appearance to reflect it. The Young Ryze skin gives us a glimpse at Ryze before he became the purple mage we all recognize nowadays. While the in game model is a bit lacking, the splash art is quite nice.

Unfortunately, the skins are no longer available to obtain, as Riot disabled all redemption codes back in 2014. Even if you buy an ancient Collector’s Edition, you won’t be able to obtain these skins.

However, it should be noted that the Silver Kayle skin was available for a brief period in 2019… on the Garena’s SEA servers. Garena operates independently of Riot, which gives them leeway in deciding what skins can make a comeback.

As to date, Riot has announced no intentions of making any of these three skins available again for their Riot-owned servers, putting them at the top of our rare LoL skins list.

2/10

King Rammus

Given to players who participated in the private invite-only beta from April to October 20, 2009, this remains one of the most elusive rare League skins. This obvious homage to King Bowser from the Mario series was gifted to players when the game’s servers went live. As you had to specifically receive an invite to try out the beta, the amount of players who actually qualified for this skin is incredibly low.

As long as you made an account between April and October 2009, you would automatically receive this skin when the servers went live. Unfortunately, Riot has stated they have no intention to make this skin available again and remains a unique reward for the beta testers.

The skin quality is quite nice after Rammus’ recent VGU in early 2021 and definitively invokes the image of Bowser despite being a simple recolor for the most part.

3/10

Rusty Blitzcrank

Released in November 2009, this skin qualifies as one of the rarest skins in LoL due to it being pulled permanently from the store within three months of release.

The reason for being pulled? Well… it sucked.

This may have been during LoL’s earliest days of skin design, but this one was just a slap in the face to players who bought it. The difference between it and the classic Blitzcrank was just a very slight rust coloration. At first glance, you wouldn’t even be able to tell it was a skin in game.

Riot heard the backlash and pulled the skin from the store shortly after. Amusingly, this early removal of the skin has turned it into a rather sought after skin for its rarity.

It still looks terrible even with modern updates to Blitzcrank’s in-game model, but the splash art is an interesting take.

Unfortunately, if you’re looking to obtain this skin still for meme/rarity value, Riot has stated that they have no plans of ever bringing this skin back to the store. Which is a bit of a pity, since you could slap this skin on and tell your team you’re a bit rusty.

4/10

Victorious Jarvan IV

First end of season reward, only given to gold players.

While each season of League of Legends has awarded players that reach Gold rank a Victorious skin of the most influential champion of the season, Victorious Jarvan IV stands out as being the first Victorious skin ever given.

With the game now being twelve years old, it should come as no surprise that this skin has grown increasingly rare over the years, as the number of players who were gold ranked back in the day and still actively playing is incredibly low. Even more so when you consider that LoL’s player population didn’t really skyrocket until its second and third year of release.

The skin itself has not aged incredibly well, lacking any unique animations and the usual polish associated with modern day Victorious skins, but continues to hold the privilege of being one of the rarest skins in LoL, signaling a true veteran player.

5/10

Judgment Kayle

Another skin with its origins vested in Season 1 and coincidentally also for Kayle! This skin was awarded to players who competed in ten ranked games during LoL’s first season. You didn’t even have to win! While the season was live, this skin was rather common, but as it’s been more than ten years since then, the skin has naturally become incredibly rare.

Much like the case with Silver Kayle, this skin has received a tremendous overhaul with Kayle’s VGU and has taken on a form befitting a cold unfeeling arbiter of judgment with her eyes hidden behind a cold unfeeling visage. Unfortunately for her opponents, her new darkened color scheme does not suggest a favorable ruling.

Also much like the Silver Kayle skin, this one was also available briefly on the Garena servers after her rework. Also much like the previous case, Riot has no intention of making her available again on their own servers.

6/10

UFO Corki

When LoL won the Reader’s Choice Awards from IGN and Gamespy back in 2009, Riot decided to give all their players this skin as a symbol of their gratitude for voting for LoL.

All players that had an account registered before January 14, 2010 could pick up the skin for free. The redemption period was only a short two weeks spanning from January 1st to January 14th. After that, it went away forever.

Considered by many to be Riot’s first attempt at a legendary skin, as it involved a change to his in-game model beyond a minor weapon or color alteration. His standard plane was replaced with a UFO saucer with updated textures and particle effects to match. By today’s standards, this would hardly qualify for a legendary skin but certainly did back during LoL’s early days. Plus it was free, so no one would complain.

As Riot has classified this as an achievement skin, they have no intentions of making it available ever again short of freak occurrences when their skin gifting feature runs into a hiccup, making it one of the rarest skins in LoL.

7/10

PAX Prime Skins

PAX Twisted Fate, PAX Jax, and PAX Sivir are the three unique-themed skins awarded to players who attended the Penny Arcade Expo from 2009–2011 respectively.

Each one has a unique theme, with Twisted Fate being the simplest (a rather pleasing reskin to the event’s black, blue, and white colors). The Jax one references the Penny Arcade webcomic’s Cardboard Tube Samurai, arming him with a cardboard tube (duh) and a parody of a samurai’s outfit, complete with a Pac-man cape. Sivir takes on an appearance straight out of the movie Tron, complete with a futuristic biker outfit and updated boomerang.

All three skins were redeemable with a code that game with an attendee’s pass to PAX. However, since many people either didn’t play LoL or simply care to redeem the skin, many of these codes were sold online for hundreds, as there was no other way to obtain them.

Unfortunately, Riot disabled all these code redemptions back in 2014, meaning that’s there no way to obtain them anymore nowadays.

Though it should be noted that in 2017, Riot temporarily released a NEO PAX Sivir skin, basically an updated version of the skin. It was craftable with ten Gemstones, or you could hope for rolling the dice and getting it from an epic loot capsule. If you had the original PAX Sivir skin, you got the new one for free, too!

It was available for from August 2017 to the end of the year and has not made a return since. However, Riot mentioned they might bring it back again in the future if the company attends PAX once more.

8/10

Urfwick

In a rather twisted sense of humor, Riot decided to canonically have Warwick hunt down, kill, and skin Urf the Manatee to wear as a costume.

Originally, the skin was released as part of April Fool’s Day in 2010 to appease fans who wanted Urf in the game. Sold for 5000 RP, it proceeded to go on sale the next week for only 50 RP, brought back to 500 RP the next week, and then finally back to 5000 for the last week before disappearing from the store.

You might be thinking there would be huge outrage over this pricing, even if it were an April Fool’s Day/Month joke. However, all proceeds from this skin went to charity to help fund a foundation protecting hunted manatees. So while Urf may have died horribly, hopefully real-life manatees will continue to flourish and live on.

The skin itself has no new effects or animations, but the sight of Warwick running around wearing Urf’s poorly stitched together corpse is definitely worth something.

It’s also technically still obtainable — you just have to know where to buy rare LoL skins!

You see, every once in a while, Riot will bring the skin back to the store, but with a twist. You can’t buy the skin with RP — instead, you need to spend a staggering 150,000 Blue Essence for it. While certainly doable, you’ll be farming Blue Essence for a better part of a year to be able to afford it.

9/10

Riot Skins

There are currently five unique skins to the Riot skin line: Riot Blitzcrank, Riot Graves, Riot Kayle, Riot K-9 Nasus, and Riot Squad Singed. All of these skins are riot police-themed and are a play on the company’s name.

Typically, you can only obtain these skins by attending an official Riot event and receiving a promo code from a Rioter. However, players can typically purchase the skin for a bit of RP when they are initially released, but be quick, as they tend to go away forever from the shop. Riot also on occasion gives them away as part of anniversary events and other event promotions.

Additionally, you can obtain all of the Riot skins via hextech crafting and lootboxes, so they’re still technically obtainable with a bit of luck.

Except for Singed.

Singed is a unique case, as he can’t be obtained via the hextech crafting system. The only way to get his skin is by redeeming codes issued from events during 2010 and 2011, except those codes were all disabled in 2014.

Nowadays, Riot Squad Singed is by far the rarest one of the Riot skin line, with no announced plans to make him available again in the near future, one of the rarest skins in LoL overall. A real shame, given he’s the one wielding the iconic Riot-branded riot shield.

10/10

Championship Riven (Original)

10) Championship Riven - Rarest skins in LoL — *Image: Riot Games*

This skin is a bit of an odd case, as there’s two near identical versions of it.

Back in 2012, Riot released the skin to celebrate the World Championships, with this skin starting the trend of releasing a new Championship-themed skin every year. Folks who bought tickets and physically went to the Championships received a redeemable code with their ticket for the skin.

Approximately 8,000 people had access to the skin, and this was the only way to get it at the time. Naturally, people started selling the skin on eBay for more than $300 easily. In response to the sheer player demand for the skin and to curtail online selling, Riot made the skin purchasable for RP for one week after the finals from October 14–22. Since then, it’s been removed from the store and became one of the rarest skins in LoL.

There was a promotion event three years down the road where anyone could pick the winning team for each bracket, with the skin being awarded to the one player who correctly guessed all match results.

However, Riot decided to re-release the skin in 2016, though with some caveats as to preserve the value of the original skin. Owners of the original Championship Riven would receive the new one for free, a unique summoner icon, the original skin would have a unique loading screen border, and a crown was added in game to Riven’s model.

The original version of this skin will not be available again in the future, making this one of the rarest skins in LoL.

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That wraps it up for our list of rare League of Legends skins. If you enjoyed this article, then subscribe and become a High Grounder for the latest gaming news and guides.

Happy gaming!