Everything You Need To Know About League Of Legends' Lunar Beast Event
League of Legends released a new cinematic on Feb. 2, 2021 to launch what it calls the Lunar Beast event. The popular MOBA is no stranger to big events, which typically include limited time game modes, a variety of skins to choose from, and a new event pass for players to pick up.
The Lunar Beast event launches right in time for the Chinese Lunar New Year, which starts on Feb. 12, 2021. According to The Oprah Magazine, the Lunar New Year marks the start of a new year that's based solely on the moon cycle. Riot, the group behind League of Legends', is celebrating a little early, starting the event on Feb. 4, 2021. This gives players plenty of time to get the skins they want before the actual Lunar New Year comes.
There's a lot coming with the Lunar Beast event. While it's not quite as big as the last major League of Legends event, you'll definitely find ways to spend some RP.
The Lunar Beast trailers
League of Legends actually released two videos on its YouTube channel about the Lunar Beast event. There's a cinematic and an "official theme trailer" that were both released on Feb. 2, 2021.
The Lunar Beast cinematic features Annie's struggle against a Furryhorn, one of the Little Legends from Teamfight Tactics. The playful Furryhorn accidentally mistakes a magical orb for a tasty treat, leading Annie, Alistar, Jarvan 4, Fiora, and Darius on a hunt through a city. The video shows off skins as well as some new spins on characters. One comment from YouTube user hazim hamid mentions that "a gentle Alistar" and "a narcissistic Jarvan" are things no one would expect to see.
The second video is more about the work that went into making the Lunar Beast skins. There's a few early art sketches for every skin coming out, including Aphelios and Viego, who aren't featured in the cinematic. You can also see a group shot with all of the characters receiving skins in an Avengers-esque pose.
The Return of ARURF
League of Legends is bringing back ARURF, the more chaotic version of the fan favorite URF. The All Random Ultra Rapid Fire mode will be making a comeback for the first time since the new item system that came with Season 11 of League of Legends. For this reason, the game mode has been changed a little bit to keep things balanced.
One major change was the switch from cooldown reduction on abilities to ability haste. The URF and ARURF modes centered around an 80% reduction in cooldown times, which has now been switched to 300 ability haste, according to patch notes. Ability haste will also be able to stack, whereas cooldown reduction couldn't in previous versions of the game modes.
In order to create a competitive atmosphere, League of Legends is disabling a few items in ARURF, including Spellthief's Edge, Steel Shoulderguards, Relic Shield, and Spectral Sickle.
The Lunar Beast skins
The skin line for the Lunar Beast event features eight skins, including a prestige edition skin and an already-released Viego skin. All the characters in the cinematic (Annie, Alistar, Darius, Jarvan 4, and Fiora), along with Aphelios, are getting new skins. Each skin will come with the regular chromas to pick up, and even Viego is getting two new chromas to his already-released Lunar Beast skin. The prestige edition in this set belongs to Fiora, giving the skin a gold, white, and pink look instead of the red, yellow, and blue colors of the regular skin.
It doesn't stop there — the Little Legends in Teamfight Tactics have a new look, too! With updates that arrived in Patch 11.2, Choncc, Furyhorn, and Shisha got two new chromas: Lunar Beast and Lunar Revel. The arena also got a skin that TFT players can purchase.