League of Legends: Top five moments from the Warriors cinematic

For the third consecutive year, Riot Games has released a League of Legends cinematic to get players hyped for the new season. This year’s is Warriors!

It’s starting to become routine for Riot Games to release a high quality cinematic for fans before a new ranked season starts encouraging players to return to the League of Legends grind after preseason.

With Patch 10.1 being added to the game earlier in the week, and the ranked season beginning on January 10th, it’s no surprise that Riot has decided that now is the perfect time to release their cinematic, Warriors.

The Climb started the tradition back in 2018, with the likes of Lucian, Taliyah, and Yasuo exciting the player base for Season 8. Then in 2019, Awaken was released and is now widely regarded as the highest quality League cinematic of all time and ranks amongst the best video game cinematics in recent memory.

Now Riot has released Warriors after the reception that last year’s cinematic received, once again following a few of League of Legends’ most popular champions as they face off in familiar Runeterra locations.

Draven, Jhin, and Riven had the biggest impact on the audience following Awaken, but a new set of heroes have taken to the stage this time around.

Lux, Galio, and Garen protect a Demacian outpost against Sylas who is surprisingly leading a band of Freljord warriors. Caitlyn and Vi chase down a group of Zaun criminals who are hellbent on releasing Urgot from his prison. And Ezreal joins Kai’Sa in a battle against countless Void-like monsters.

And what League cinematic would be complete without an incredible, new Riot Games produced song to go with it?

Since Awaken’s release in January 2018, the accompanying song has reached over 28 million plays on Spotify alone, once again showcasing Riot’s talents in the music department.

As if to demonstrate that fact even further, Riot has now decided to start remixing its own songs for cinematics with Imagine Dragons’ 2014 World Championship anthem being refashioned by 2WEI and Edda Hayes for the Warriors video.

So, what were the biggest highlights of the Warriors cinematic? At what point did you open up the League of Legends client and queue up for a ranked game, ready to finally reach Diamond in Season 10? Here are our top five moments:

5) Icathian Rain

Kai’Sa’s first real action scenes in League of Legends cinematics certainly didn’t disappoint as she looked completely overpowered while taking down multiple foes with a single Q.

Not only that, but she also threw a few Killer Instincts and backflips in there to show Ezreal who the true carry is, resulting in a huge CS (or Voidling) advantage.

4) Vi

While we’ve seen PROJECT: Vi previously in The Hunt, we hadn’t seen the classic Vi skin in a League cinematic until now. Needless to say, she’s just as scary here as she is on Summoner’s Rift.

Selecting just one highlight of Vi’s Warriors battle would mean ignoring so many other incredible Vi moments, so we’ve just picked them all instead.

That includes her intimidating introduction alongside Caitlyn, her character design (especially her huge Atlas Gauntlets), her beatdown synced to the beat of Warriors, removing her gauntlet to avoid Fear Beyond Death, and the uppercut to take down Urgot and claim victory.

Basically, the number of Vi mains probably increased tenfold as a result of this cinematic.

3) Urgot’s Release

We all know how terrifying Urgot and his champion design is, but I don’t think any of our eyes were prepared to see him in a 4K League cinematic. There’s no doubt that we’ll be seeing his ugly, bald head in our nightmares for the next few days, especially after he landed his Fear Beyond Death and looked certain to win the fight against Cait and Vi.

The moment he was freed from his Zaun prison was incredible and will remain in League of Legends players’ memories for a long time. Although, they may be questioning why just one lever was required to release one of the most dangerous characters in Runeterra.

2) Garen vs. Sylas

Obviously, this isn’t just one moment, but it would be impossible not to include one of the best League of Legends fight scenes of all time in our top five moments.

From Sylas’ entrance to Garen’s Decisive Strike charge to the anticipation of a hijacked Demacian Justice, this clash was by far the most exciting part of the Warriors cinematic.

1) Hero’s Entrance

And finally, this one goes without saying. Is there a better way to end a hype video than a 100m tall Colossus landing on the battlefield to end a fight? Probably not.

Galio’s Hero’s Entrance definitely claims number one in our top five moments of the Warriors cinematic and could even claim the most hype moment of every League of Legends cinematic.

What were your favorite moments from Warriors? Do you think it is a better cinematic than Awaken? Don’t forget that the Season 10 ranked season starts on January 10th!