Fun facts about skins at Worlds 2023

Intro

Winter is coming and there is not a better time to assess what your wardrobe should look like for the upcoming months. Who wants to go buy anything while it is freezing outside and listen to the same three songs on repeat while on the inside. The champions of our beloved game are thinking the same, as every year they gather the best of the best the game has to offer to pick out what they think are their best outfits, and to give their judgement on the latest line of fashion the champions got in the preceding year. After all, what is Worlds if not a large fashion gathering for a month to show off the best designs Riot has to offer. And I am here to give you the annual fun facts about skins at the event (2022 edition, 2021 edition).

From all around the world, our teams of fashion designers have competed over the course of 113 matches, and have given their approval of 278 outfits across 89 champions. This is much more comparable to Worlds 2021 (91 champs and 304 skins) than Worlds 2022 (109 champs and 362 skins), when you factor in that less games were played this year. Most popular tier of skins were Epic skins at 153. 43 skins were higher tier, 25 legendaries, 17 mythic and 1 special skin in Neo PAX Sivir (no ultimates this year). The rest (82) were split between 33 for superior (975RP), 15 deluxe (750RP), 7 classic (520RP) and 27 base skins.

Popularity Contest (Which skins were the most popular?)

iG Kai’Sa - 41 (41% WR)
Cosmic Dusk Xayah - 33 (73% WR)
Empyrean K’Sante - 31 (52% WR)
Classic Azir - 29 (45% WR)
Cosmic Dawn Rakan - 28 (64% WR)
God Staff Jax - 27 (52% WR)
Super Galaxy Rumble - 24 (67% WR)
Battle Queen Rell - 24 (50% WR)
Mecha Aatrox - 21 (38% WR)
Nightbringer Aphelios - 20 (55% WR)

iG Kai’Sa takes the cake as the most played skin not only at this World Championship, but at any of the three tourneys I tracked. The dominance displayed by the top two skins would have even increased if it was not for the playoff meta shift in the bot lane, making Kai’Sa and Xayah less attractive as picks so the leaderboard stagnated, but iG Kai’Sa was on pace to have 50% presence overall. Empyrean K’Sante completes the podium as a “rookie” skin (only one in the top 10), far outshining the two other K’Sante skins available even if they were much more equal during play-ins. All of the other skins were very much signature skins for their respective champions, and all but one of these skins were for a champion in the top 15 in terms of pick numbers. No duplicates this time around, as the meta shift also meant that many champions could not rack up as many picks to push their second skin into the top ten, with Rell being the closest one having her base skin at number 13.

Biggest Wardrobe (Which champions used the most skins?)

Kai’Sa - 8 (58 games - iG, K/DA, K/DA ALL OUT, Inkshadow, Arcade, Prestige K/DA, Bullet Angel, Lagoon Dragon)
Akali - 7 (13 games - Prestige K/DA, Star Guardian, DRX, K/DA, K/DA ALL OUT, PROJECT, Classic)
Renekton - 7 (39 games - Dawnbringer, PROJECT, Rune Wars, Blackfrost, Scorched Earth, Renektoy, Hextech)
Jarvan IV - 7 (41 games - SSG, Warring Kingdoms, Nightbringer, Worlds 2021, FNC, Commando, Darkforge)
Orianna - 7 (43 games - Classic, Bladecraft, Star Guardian, Pool Party, Dark Star, Winter Wonder, Gothic)
Syndra - 6 (24 games - Classic, Atlantean, Prestige Star Guardian, Withered Rose, Snow Day, Spirit Blossom)
Nautilus - 6 (25 games - Subterranean, Worldbreaker, Classic, AstroNautilus, Shan Hai Scrolls, Cosmic Paladin)
Sejuani - 6 (26 games - Bear Cavalry, Beast Hunter, Poro Ridedr, Firecracker, PROJECT, Dawnchaser)
Vi - 6 (28 games - Arcane, PROJECT, Classic, Neon Strike, Officer, Demon)
Xayah - 6 (47 games - Cosmic Dusk, SSG, Arcana, Broken Covenant, Star Guardian, Sweetheart)
Rakan - 6 (49 games - Cosmic Dawn, iG, Sweetheart, Broken Covenant, Classic, Arcana)

Look, it’s Kai’Sa again. The luxury of being the most picked champion at the tournament means that you can take all the accolades with pure numbers. Still, some of the fashion designers did not take the liking to the sleek look of her eSports skin, so she managed to try out 7 more of her outfits. Real surprise on this list is Akali, who even manages a place better this year despite seeing play in 20 less games (ties are broken by playing less games played). Seven skins in 13 games is extreme diversity compared to many other champions, and her most popular skin was DRX at 5 appearances (skins are surted by time of appearance and not games played). Only other repeat top 10 champion is Jarvan IV, who again scores highly and is the only champion to see a place on this list in all three years. Some shoutouts in this category are Yone, Sivir, Varus and Poppy who had 5 skins with less than 10 games played, and Lux who in her 4 games always wore a different outfit.

Jack of All Skins (Which champions used the most of their skin collection?)

Lux using 4 skins in 4 games is nice and all, but she is not really struggling to find what to wear, and in the end, she still has whopping 16 skins not tried out this year. So who used the most of their skin collection? This category favors newer champions as they have less skins to go through, so it should not be a surprise to see Bel’Veth, K’Sante, Milio, Nilah and Rell using all of their skins as they were played at the tournament compared to someone like Akshan. Rell is not really a new champion anymore, but with only one post launch skin, she may as well be in the context of this category. Champions with one outfit gathering up dust in the closet are Aphelios (Lunar Beast), Ornn (Space Groove), Renata Glasc (La Ilusion), Taliyah (Star Guardian), Yone (Inkshadow) and Zeri (Classic), all newer champions outside of Taliyah, who had 5 skins present this year, same as Yone. Gwen, Ivern, and Kalista had two skins missing the show (and Vex, but she only had one game and with three skins, she is certain to have only two left). List of champions to show more than half of their inventory (outside of those mentioned already) include Azir, Neeko, Sylas, Rakan, Kai’Sa, Nautilus, Xayah, Maokai, Orianna and Vi.

One Skin Ponies (Which champions had one dominant skin choice?)

Rumble - Super Galaxy (24/24, 100%)
Jax - God Staff (27/31, 87%)
Azir - Classic (29/34, 85%)
Aphelios - Nightbringer (20/26, 77%)
K’Sante - Empyrean (31/41, 76%)
Jayce - Resistance (17/24, 71%)
Kai’Sa - iG (41/58, 71%)
Xayah - Cosmic Dusk (33/47, 70%)
Aatrox - Mecha (21/33, 63%)
Lee Sin - Muay Thai (14/23, 61%)

Champions on this list needed to have at least 8 picks to qualify, and the shown skins are those that managed to have at least 60% pick rate on those champions. Having said that, the dominance of Super Galaxy Rumble over the competing Rumble skins is staggering but not too surprising considering the difference it makes on his rig. A legendary skin that is soon to count his years in double digits is still miles better than anything his even older base model can support. God Staff Jax and Classic Azir score extremely highly here as well, whre both of them discarded their previous competing outfit (Nemesis and Worlds 2022) in favor of a more unified look. Aphelios and K’Sante surprised me a bit here. Aphelios was one of the most balanced champions in terms of skin usage in the last two years, seeing play in all of his forms previously, and yet his release skin dominated this year for no reason I can think of. For K’Sante, his three outfits looked to be very even coming out of the play in stage, but with the swiss stage higher rated fashion designers pretty much exclusively used his Empyrean skin. Some of the skins fell as time went on. Cosmic Dusk Xayah, Cosmic Dawn Rakan and Marauder Alistar for example, had extreme dominance early on but saw more of their other skins used in the latter stages, with Rakan and Alistar’s skins falling to just over 50% skin usage while Xayah still managed to stay in the top 10.

Skin Universe Battle (Which skin universes were the most popular?)

Event Horizon - 86 games, 7 skins (Cosmic dominance with Xayah and Rakan skins leading the charge, while Orianna is the only Dark Star member)
iG - 50 games, 3 skins (carried by Kai’Sa, though Rakan pulled his weight and LeBlanc was there as well)
Empyrean - 41 games, 5 skins (K’Sante’s two skins made all but three of the appearances of this skin line, as Zac, Jax and Vex made a single cameo each)
Chaos and Order - 35 games, 6 skins (three skins for either side, and while Garen was picked more by Adam compared to Darius, Aphelios and Jarvan IV far outnumbered Renekton and Yone for the Nightbringer dominance)
Snowdown - 33 games, 11 skins (very balanced skin line, as Orianna, Neeko and Bard lead with 5 appearances each)
PROJECT - 33 games, 7 skins (Renekton and Vi lead the way with 12 and 11 picks respectively)
Immortal Journey - 32 games, 4 skins (Jax is considered a part of this skin line so he carries them pretty much alone, Zeri being the only one being used more than once)
Star Guardian - 27 games, 9 skins (despite being Rell’s least popular skin, here she leads with 11 appearances)
Wonders of the World - 26 games, 3 skins (Lee Sin with his martial arts and Sejuani riding a bear)
Toy Box - 24 games, 5 skins (Renekton and Alistar make up the majority here)
Super Galaxy - 24 games, 1 skin (*insert heroic quote here*)
Battle Queen - 24 games, 1 skin (Rell is the only one to who up, not only in terms of skins but in terms of champions as well)
Mecha - 22 games, 2 skins (entirely carried by Aatrox, Kha’Zix had his failed cameo)
Eclipse - 20 games, 7 skins (Elderwood Ahri was in 7 games)
Trick-or-Treat - 20 games, 3 skins (Maokai and Neeko had 9 appearances each)

Fresh Content (Ranking the skins and skinlines from this year)

Empyrean K’Sante - 31
Crystalis Motus Taliyah - 12
Broken Covenant Rakan - 8
Nightbringer Jarvan IV - 8
Prestige Empyrean K’Sante - 7

Empyrean - 41 games, 5 skins
DRX - 17 games, 6 skins
Crystalis Motus - 17 games, 2 skins
Chaos and Order - 13 games, 2 skins
Cosmic 2023 - 12 games, 3 skins
Broken Covenant - 12 games, 3 skins
La Ilusion - 10 games, 3 skins

Quick everyone, act surprised! If it was not obvious who the star of the show was, it is now. Empyrean K’Sante utterly dominated the year and is the only reason this year is even competitive in terms of skins. Only Crystalis Motus Taliyah and Bewitching Neeko topped their skin catalogs. Other skins such as the DRX crew, Nightbringer Jarvan IV, Dawnbringer Renekton, Cosmic Matriarch Bel’Veth, Cosmic Paladin Nautilus, Broken Covenant Rakan and Prestige La Ilusion Renata Glasc only managed to be another one in the list of available skins, no dominance there. On the other hand, 9 skin lines failed to see any of their creations on the Rift (compared to 4 last year), while another 4 only saw them once, a big step back in terms of diversity.

Skin to win? Pay to lose? (Skins with abnormal win rate)

This is some really noisy data to be real (but is this even data analysis or pure entertainment), and this year has been particularly difficult to find some real outliers. So many popular champions kept their skins at close win rates like Neeko or Rell, it was fairly hard to pick out what was abnormal. But still, here are the ten skins that caught my eye:

Lunar Eclipse Aatrox (5W/7G (71%) with, 11W/26G (42%) without) - Preferred by one fashion designer, with good results compared to the more popular Mecha variant. I wonder if he made it far this year…
DRX Caitlyn (3W/5G (60%) with, 0W/4G (0%) without) - Is DRX Caitlyn pay to win, or is Arcane Caitlyn pay to lose? I look on the bright side
La Ilusion Gnar (5W/5G (100%) with, 3W/7G (42%) without) - Not a very popular pick, but his newest outfit yielded the best win percentage
Cosmic Paladin Nautilus (5W/6G (83%) with, 7W/20G (35%) without) - Nautilus death fund was very much stopped by the power of cosmos (and ranged supports), but this skin went undefeated until its last appearance in the quarterfinals
Fright Night Renata Glasc (8W/8G (100%) with, 6W/9G (67%) without) - Is it skin to win if your other skins have good win rate? It is if you go undefeated over 8 games
Bear Cavalry Sejuani (8W/11G (73%) with, 6W/15G (31%) without) - Bear Bristle (Bearstle…? no) was not only popular this year but also very strong
Freljord Taliyah (4W/7G (57%) with, 2W/16G (12%) without) - Again, is Freljord pay to win or is Crystalis Motus pay to lose if it lost all but one of its twelve games (thank you Blaber)? Other skins went 1 out of 4 so perhaps Freljord is the one out of line
Arctic Ops Varus (4W/4G (100%) with, 1W/4G (25%) without) - Late arrival to the fashion show, but one that is definitely prepared for the winter with those clothes. Another skin that is the favorite of a single fashion designer, who found great success with it
Neon Strike Vi (1W/7L (14%) with, 9W/21G (43%) without) - Vi did not find many wins this year, but Neon Strike was certainly the worst, needing to wait until semifinals to find its only victory
Withered Rose Zeri (0W/4L (0%) with, 6W/9G (67%) without) - There is too much positivity in this section. This overdressed skin had no right to be on this fashion show, and Zeri was much better off with her simpler outfits, even if her latest skin brought a gun to a sword universe

Fashion Taste (Player’s signature skins)

Who are the most influential fashion designers from this year, and what outfits should you keep an eye on if you want to stay trendy and cool? Find out here as we go through most influential choices one by one:

Aatrox: Mecha Aatrox was certainly favored by most players, including but not limited to TheShy, Bin and apaMEN. But two of our best fashionistas used other skins, 369 started with Prestige Blood Moon and then switched to the Fishtrox (Seahunter Aatrox) for playoffs, while the new king of the top lane Zeus used Lunar Eclipse exclusively
Jarvan IV: Bunch of different choices. JunJia used SSG, Levi used Warring Kingdoms, Tarzan and Razork used Commando, BeanJ and Blaber used Nightbringer (and Worlds 2021 once), Oner, Kanavi, XUN and Canyon used FNC, and Elyoya used the last two. No logic I can see here, it is a mess
Lee Sin: It is always interesting to see what the pro junglers use on what is probably their most played champion. Levi, Tarzan and Oner liked Storm Dragon, while BeanJ, Sheo, Canyon, Razork and Kanavi went oldschool with Muay Thai. Peanut and Pyosik were the odd men out, using God Fist and Playmaker once respectively
Maokai: More junglers huh. JunJia, Gemini and XUN used the Halloween spirit, Yike, Contractz and Levi went to space, Sheo, Harp and Steal are probably cat people, while Weiwei was versatile and used all three skins hinted at here
Nautilus: A split here between the two stages of the tournament. Subterranean was used mostly by play in supports, while Shan Hai Scrolls was used by Delight, Mikyx and Trymbi. Lehends (and Zven) brought success with Cosmic Paladin skin
Rakan: Most players used the popular Cosmic Dawn Rakan, including MISSING and Keria. But others like CoreJJ, Hang, IgNar and Hylissang used Broken Covenant, Ceos, Trymbi used iG, while Delight chose Arcana, going undefeated in the three games he was let to play the champion. Players did not seem to intentionally match their Rakan and Xayah skins, yes, Cosmic was very popular together but they were popular in general and were taken separately many times, and there was no matching in their other skinlines like Arcana, Sweetheart and Broken Covenant despite both skins seeing play
Rell: One of the very few popular flex picks that we can look if the different roles have different tastes. In the jungle, Sheo is the only one to use Star Guardian, Oner and Peanut chose Battle Queen while Weiwei mostly used base version. On the support side, Star Guardian enjoyers only used that skin (Kellin, Bie, CoreJJ). Others like Trymbi, ON and Woody used both Battle Queen and Classic in different games. ShiauC and Palette used only Battle Queen, while Delight only used the base skin. So supports used Star Guardian more and in general those that like it did not swap it, while, the base and release skin were more interchangeable for some players, especially for supports
Renata Glasc: Now it is a streak of support champions. Keria brought terror with his Fright Night, but he was not alone in his choice as ON also used Fright Night. Keria’s lane opponent in the finals Crips took her newest prestige look before reverting to the base look in later stages
Renekton: A signature top lane champion is sure to have some consistency, surely? Not really. Consistent ones were: BrokenBlade used Renektoy, Fudge went for Hextech, Kiin used Rune Wars and Oscarinin and Zika chose PROJECT. Other players usually swapped at some point: Adam used Dawnbringer at first, before going for Blackfrost, Sparda started on PROJECT and swapped to Scroched Earth, Bin did Blackfrost to PROJECT to Renektoy and back to PROJECT and Blackfrost for the end, a full circle
Zeri: Crownie used Immortal Journey, Berserker, Noah, Slayder and Aiming took Ocean Song, while Light and Elk took the Withered Rose variant. Ruler is the only one to swap, going from Immortal Journey to Withered Rose to lose his last two games on it
Adam: Wait, he is not a champion! He is one in our hearts. But if you want to be like Adam, it is not gonna come cheap. He uses legendary skins on G, D and S parts of GODS, while he saves a bit of money on O by using Dragonslayer Olaf instead of the legendary Brolaf skin.
World champions and their skins: There were 10 previous world champions present at the tournament, and yet, their opportunity to use or play against their own skin was limited. ShowMaker, Scout and TheShy’s champion were not even picked, while Canyon and Crisp’s were picked once and it was not in their games. Faker has three skins but also did not see any of his skins in game, Zed was never played, Syndra’s skin was not used at all and Ryze was only picked once, and not in his game. He did not even face Easyhoon’s Azir skin despite the skin actually being picked at the tournament. CoreJJ did not face his skin nor did he use it, choosing Broken Covenant in his Rakan games. That leaves Ruler, Pyosik and Deft, who both played their own skin once, Ruler losing his semifinal match while the other two won in the swiss stage. As a honorable mention, JunJia won against Oddie when he picked JieJie’s EDG Viego, Faker had to face Zeka’s DRX Akali twice (Chovy and knight) and both Gumayusi and Keria took Beryl’s DRX Ashe as their Ashe skin of choice
T1: A quick glance at what T1 used on their favorite champions. Faker, obviously, used classic skins all the way on any champion (Orianna, Sylas, Azir, Ahri and Akali). But his teammates did not copy him, in fact, not a single classic skin was used by any of his teammates. Zeus used Dawnbringer Yone, Lunar Eclipse Aatrox and Resistance Jayce as his favorites. Oner got FNC Jarvan IV, Battle Queen Rell and Storm Dragon Lee Sin as repeat choices. Gumayusi’s signature skins were Arctic Ops Varus, Cosmic Dusk Xayah and Marauder Kalista, while his lane partner Keria showed off Fright Night Renata Glasc, Arcana Tahm Kench, DRX Ashe and Snow Day Bard.
Demon King’s Influence: Faker’s teammates may not use classic skins, but that does not mean his choice of classic skin does not influence others. Last year I noted that mid laners hold the majority of base skin picks, even if you remove Faker’s games entirely. The pattern has repeated again this year, mid laners are by far the biggest users of base skins, followed by supports and the other three roles far behind more or less equally matched. Mid laners used classic skins in 66 games (51 if you count out Faker), supports score is at 28, while junglers, top and bot laners are at 9, 5 and 4 respectively. So, who picks base skins? Top laners have a short list, 2 games of Licorice’s K’Sante, 1 game each for BrokenBlade’s K’Sante and Yone and Dhokla’s Ornn, all western players. Junglers are short as well, Elyoya’s Bel’Veth once, Sheo’s Vi twice, and Rell 6 times for Yike, Canyon and Weiwei. And bot laners it is four unique choices, Yeon’s Aphelios, Hans Sama’s Ezreal, Gumayusi’s Nilah and Light’s Varus. None of these players swapped skins on these champions, though obviously used skins on every other champion, sop they still played with skins most of the time. Support is where it gets more interesting, with 28 games there are still players who used base skins on particular champions like Rell, but two players have more interesting choices. ON used base skins 5 times on 3 champions (Braum, Milio and Rell) and used other skins 12 times on 11 champions, while Crisp played base skin in 12 of his 20 games played, choosing that look every time on his Heimerdinger, Milio and Senna, while he switched from Prestige La Ilusion to base Renata Glasc when the elimination rounds started. He used skins on Leona, Ashe, Bard and Lux. Faker is not a support, but Beryl does use plenty of base skins in his own games, so perhaps he has managed to have the same type of influence Faker has in his own role, though it is weaker. Mid laners are of course the most interesting, as some are true connoisseurs of base skins. Of those who can compete with Crisp we have Gloryy (6/10 games, 4 champs), nuc (11/19 games, 4 champs), Bdd (8/12 games, 4 champs) and Caps (6/9 games, 5 champs). Champions who used base skins the most are Azir, Rell, Orianna, Neeko, Syndra, Milio and Nautilus, further enhancing the idea that base skins are much more popular for mid and supports.

Outro

That is all I had planned for this post. Perhaps there is potential to see if there is anything to be said about combining the data I have on all three Worlds so far, to be made into a different post, or maybe I will manage to create something to track the skin usage across the domestic leagues as well for next year. All that is certain is that this Worlds has been enjoyable to witness T1 prove themselves on top of the fashion world and Faker further cement his legacy as the best fashion critic of all time as he has not only managed to get four trophies, but influence the clothing choices of so many mid lane champions world wide.