League of Legends is doing something special in 2026: Only one new champion is set to be released. With Locke, a new assassin arrives in the game, strongly reminiscent of well-known animes. MeinMMO reveals what the Exorcist is capable of.
Who is the new champion? For 2026, Riot has announced that only one new champion will be released in LoL. It has been known for some time that this champion is Locke. MeinMMO got an early look at the champion during a presentation, and let me tell you: Players who enjoy Jujutsu Kaisen, Hellsing, or Trigun will likely find him appealing.
The new champion is an Exorcist, who is expected to be played as a mid-lane assassin. His visual design should appeal to many players, as he resembles popular anime characters.
Exorcist and AP Assassin
What can Locke do? Corven Locke is a melee fighter, whose main feature is the nails of his Q – fitting for an Exorcist. He also has the classic tools of an Exorcist:
- Passive Ability: Locke deals additional magic damage (On-Hit) with his attacks, based on the missing life of the opponent.
- Q Ability: Locke gets nails that he can throw forward, piercing enemies and dealing magic damage. Enemies are marked and receive stacks. Based on the stacks, both the slow and the magic damage from attacks increase. Unused nails refund a portion of the mana cost and cooldown.
- W Ability: Locke enters a special form, granting him movement speed, which slowly decays. While in this form, he loses health per second, but gains health based on damage taken and a portion back. This is based on the time elapsed and damage taken. However, Locke can also end the ability prematurely.
- E Ability: Locke’s E is a short teleport dash that allows him to jump over walls. Upon exiting, he deals magic damage and can perform a short dash via an auto-attack, dealing damage to everything in his path. However, this costs nails. If a kill or assist occurs, the cooldown is reduced.
- Ultimate (R Ability): In his ultimate, Locke throws an artifact to the ground that marks enemy champions, deals magic damage, and fires soul nails. If he reduces an enemy champion’s health to a specific threshold within a set time, the opponent is instantly killed. If an enemy is killed this way, the duration for other marked champions is extended. If Locke picks up the artifact after a champion has been killed with it, the threshold improves permanently, and a portion of the cooldown is reset for each champion killed.
You can see his splash art and first skin here:
In a presentation, the developers explained to us that Locke is not meant to be an easy beginner champion, but also not overly complex for pros.
In line with his role as an assassin, Locke is not expected to scale super well into the late game, but slightly better than other champions. Since assassins can be quite frustrating for many players, the design team has tried to focus on a setup and to provide better visibility when Locke can execute another champion.
Locke is set to be playable on live servers as of June 24.
What does MeinMMO editor Nikolas Hernes say about Locke? His appearance alone sparks interest, as he visually resembles figures like Nanami from Jujutsu Kaisen (who is much cooler than Gojo), Vash from Trigun, or in his first skin also Alucard from Hellsing.
His kit also feels quite good, as it all seems to blend together nicely. Mid-lane assassins are a tricky subject. Personally, I like them, but I can certainly understand and empathize with why they can lead to frustrating matches – especially when you’re a simple mage wanting to reach the late game.
But one thing the Riot developers have certainly achieved: He looks damn cool.
What do you think of Locke? Are you looking forward to a new assassin or would you prefer to ban them from your lane? Feel free to share your thoughts on the new champion in the comments. Many fans are waiting for the MMORPG for LoL. Now a real veteran has joined the team: The LoL MMORPG has a new developer and could be getting some really good talent trees
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