What’s up guys it’s me Jeremy.
Today we’re looking at another cancelled champion, this time it’s gonna be Averdrian.
As you guys know I really love looking at the development of items and champions, and
getting the kinda glimpse behind the scenes into the design process.
Averdrian has been a really awesome concept to research because as far as we can tell,
no part of his kit or design has been used in any other releases.
Riot don’t like to waste the cool ideas they come up with for champions, so a lot
of the time cancelled champions end up having aspects of their design taken and used in
new releases - like Ao Shin and Aurelion Sol for example.
We don’t really know if that’s the case or not with Averdrian, so he might end up
in the game at some point, or maybe he already is.
For now, all we can do is speculate and try figure out what Averdrian was all about.
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Averdrian was definitely meant to be some kind of mage that used some type of arcane
power - maybe from his mind or drawing upon the energy around him, and it kinda seems
like he’d definitely be a champion that would levitate rather than walk around the
Rift so this makes a lot of sense.
A champion like this would offer both damage and utility, and his ability art suggests
that he would have some kind of force field as the main basis for his skills.
We haven’t really seen many mind-mage or spiritual type champions so it’s possible
he might show up in game one day, but there’s been a couple things happen that suggest otherwise.
In the 2010 Harrowing map skin, Averdrian could be seen inside a tomb alongside Tabu
and Gavid, two other champion concepts that have been considered totally cancelled.
This didn’t stop Lead Effects Artist Nocturne from using Averdrian as his avatar on the
original League forums though, who was really committed to trying to get him released.
That didn’t last though, and in July 2011 Nocturne finally changed his
avatar to Ravager Nocturne, leading people to conclude that Averdrian had been abandoned.
There were two main guesses as to where parts of Averdrian’s design ended up.
The first thing that really jumps out about Averdrian is his appearance.
We don’t have much artwork to go on, but he was definitely meant to resemble something
pretty creepy and alien.
He has a short, bony body and an enlarged head which led people to believe he was reworked
into Heimerdinger, although Riot Coronach confirmed that this wasn’t the case.
The closest thing we can find pointing to Averdrian being inspiration for another champion
was Malzahar, who used Averdrian’s head artwork as his own when released onto the
PBE.
There’s a little bit of potential similarity in their kits too, which we’ll talk about
next.
Riot never released any information at all about Averdrian’s kit, but his ability names
and icons were extracted from the game files so we can at least speculate about what they
might be.
The first ability is his passive, Lockdown, featuring art that kinda looks like a humanoid
inside a bubble either firing out a beam or being hit with one.
The name implies some kind of shutdown ability, so probably had some form of CC like a stun
or root.
Most passive CC abilities are balanced by being reliant on the rest of a champion’s
kit, so it’s pretty likely that if this was the case, it would interact with his other
abilities.
There’s also the possibility that the thing being ‘locked down’ was Averdrian himself,
maybe in some kind of protective bubble like a mini-Zhonya’s hourglass, potentially being
activated after he casted a set number of abilities.
His Q was called Detonate, and as the name implies this would definitely be an offensive
ability and probably his main damage tool.
The artwork has Averdrian inside some kind of forcefield looking thing, with energy leaking
out.
That gave us two main theories on what it could be.
The first one is that it might be a targeted ability rather than a skillshot that was mostly
just a nuke, where Averdrian blasted the target with some kind of arcane magic.
It could have some kind of interaction with his passive to gain bonus CC effects.
The second idea we had is that judging from the artwork, the energy is moving out from
his bubble, so maybe Detonate was an ability that damaged everyone around him.
This would be quite risky for a squishy mage, but if the rest of his abilities offered protection
then it could make a lot of sense.
Averdrian’s W was Consume Spirit, and from the name and artwork it definitely seemed
like some kind of life drain ability he could use on his enemies.
One thing worth noticing is that in the bottom left corner of the artwork, you can see something
that looks like the edge of the force bubble seen in his Q ability.
This might mean there was some kind of interaction between his Q and W - maybe W allowed him
to drain life or mana from opponents using his other abilities, rather than doing it
through the W itself.
Consume Spirit would probably have to be single target only for balancing issues, but that
suggests that it might have been a targeted ability or skillshot itself.
His E is Astral Beam, and the artwork for this one is being used for the Hand of Baron
buff from slaying Nashor, which is super cool.
This ability really makes us think of Malzahar’s Ultimate - a damaging beam with some kind
of CC like a slow attached to it, dealing big damage to a target enemy.
If Averdrian did have some kind of mental force field, the artwork kind of suggests
that the beam was hitting himself.
If that’s the case, Astral Beam could be some kind of buff instead, charging Averdrian
up and maybe boosting the rest of his abilities.
It could also be a separate AoE damage ability - it would be quite cool if Averdrian’s
playstyle meant he had to stand in the middle of a group of enemies and target himself with
beams of damage, hitting everyone around him and leaving himself unharmed.
The closest thing to something like that in the game would be a tanky AP like Galio, which
is actually quite cool but could be pretty hard to balance.
His last ability also shares the ‘Astral’ theme and is called Astral Barrier.
The artwork is still related to some kind of bubble around Averdrian, and is probably
some kind of defensive ability that he could maybe use on himself or allies - maybe both!
Riot prefers shield abilities to healing because they are a bit more open to counterplay, so
it’s not unlikely that Averdrian could have one too.
We do have quite a lot of ally shields in the game so far, and our idea for this one
makes us think about Karma’s Ultimate-infused shield that gives them all out to her nearby
allies.
This isn’t really creative design though, so we’re not that sure on what to make of
this ability.
If Astral Barrier was the ability that caused his force field that we speculated from his
other abilities, he might have access to it at level 1, using it to power up his basic
abilities.
If that was the case it might make a lot more sense to have powerful basic abilities - although
this is really starting to sound a lot like Karma herself!
Maybe Averdrian’s kit really was used after all, in Karma’s rework?
Let’s explore that idea a little.
Reworked Karma is based on using her Ultimate to buff her other abilities.
Her Q is a damage ability that gets stronger and detonates a second time if she used her
Ultimate with it.
Her W is a chain-based lockdown ability that absorbs life if you use it after her Ultimate.
Her E gives a shield, and with her Ultimate activated it gives that shield to her whole
team.
This actually lines up surprisingly well with our speculated Averdrian abilities.
If he receives his Ultimate at level 1, allowing him to enter his force bubble, the rest of
his abilities could be affected by it.
His Q could cause him to detonate his bubble, risking his protection but dealing damage
to all nearby enemies.
This suggests that his force field shield might be weakened by trying to damage Averdrian,
so maybe he deals more damage with Detonate based on how much strength his shield has
remaining.
His W shares the lifedrain aspect with Karma, but maybe instead of healing him directly
it just increased the strength of the force field.
His E doesn’t really line up with our Karma comparison, but might actually be a nuke ability
so that he can actually deal damage without needing to destroy his own shield.
This is some pretty interesting design, and although we’re totally speculating here,
it’s definitely not impossible.
If we’re correct, it makes sense that he was cancelled though.
A kit like this would prove really risky to use and insanely challenging to balance.
He’d be way too weak versus poke champions too, as he’d end up too far away to hurt
them while they simply nuked down his shield to leave him vulnerable.
So, should Riot Release Averdrian?
Well, he definitely has an awesome design, and his abilities may be a little hard to
figure out but from what we could speculate they could be really cool to see in game.
The main issue we see with his design is that as a mage he wants to be able to deal good
damage, and if he’s dependant on using force fields to keep himself alive while putting
himself into bad positions, it could be really difficult to balance effectively.
Either he’d not be able to survive the close range and die, or he’d be impossible to
kill while also dealing AoE damage.
Still, there is definitely room for a champion that generates force fields, although if the
kit was anything like how we’ve guessed it might look, it would definitely need some
major changes to be playable.
His appearance is quite unlike anything else we’ve seen in game.
He reminds me quite a lot of the boss Nihilanth from Half Life, a big floating homunculus
with magical powers.
Honestly if Averdrian was ever re-designed, the character would probably have to be changed
a lot.
Riot has been way more careful with champion and skins lately to make sure that they won’t
cause issues in different cultures, such as the skull issues in China.
Averdrian is definitely creepy, and he might be stepping a little bit too close to the
line.
That’s about all we could find and speculate about Averdrian.
If you liked a certain part of his design that you’d like to see in game or disagreed
with our guesses on his kit, make sure you let us know in the comments section.
That’s gonna be it from me, if you enjoyed the video drop a like, subscribe if you want,
thanks for watching and I’ll see you guys next time!