New League of Legends champion Yunara is a welcome return to traditional ADCs

It feels like, of all the roles in League of Legends, ADC is the most variable. Sometimes you're absolutely unstoppable, critting all over the place and one-shotting squishies, while simultaneously shredding armor. Then, the next game over, you're getting obliterated by assassins and coming up against brick wall-like tanks. Modern ADCs have sought to change up the role, with the likes of Smolder focusing on abilities and scaling, while monsters like Aphelios require more brain power than I can muster. New champion Yunara is throwing all of those distractions to the wind, focusing entirely on autoattacking, critting, perfect spacing, and taking names.

While League of Legends is easily the best MOBA ever made, if you're playing ADC at the moment, you're probably struggling. Yunara in many ways feels like a return to the good ol' days, focusing on chunking down foes and perfect spacing. Immediately reminiscent of botlaners like Caitlyn, Jinx, and Vayne, her job is to stay in the backline, dodge enemy attacks, and just keep crittin'.

Riot calls Yunara a "slightly more modern" take on the traditional ADC, with game designer Max Perlman stating that her kit is "all about the ebb and flow of power. Playing Yunara is all about picking your moments and understanding when you are strong."

League of Legends Yunara abilities

Here's a full rundown of all of Yunara's abilities in League of Legends:

• Passive - Vow to the First Lands: Yunara's critical strikes deal extra magic damage.
• Q - Cultivation of Spirit: Yunara gains a stack of Unleash with every attack, plus an extra one when she hits a champion or lands a crit. At max stacks, Yunara can activate her Q to gain attack speed, bonus damage on hit, and will deal splash damage in a small area with each attack. This ability is automatically activated while Yunara is Transcended.
• W - Arc of Judgment / Arc of Ruin: Yunara sends a swirling prayer bead out, which damages and slows enemies as it travels. At its endpoint, it lingers and expands for a moment, continuing to damage enemies who don't get out of the way. While Transcended instead of a swirling prayer bead, she fires a beam of spirit magic that slows and deals damage in a line.
• E - Kanmei's Steps / Untouchable Shadows: Yunara gains a quick burst of move speed to chase down enemies, reposition, or dodge skillshots. While Transcended, she instead dashes.
• R - Transcend One's Self: Yunara taps into her full power, entering a transcendent state for several seconds that enhances all of her basic abilities for the duration

The core of Yunara's kit is, of course, that Q. Hitting your max stacks quickly is essential, meaning you'll have to farm perfectly and take pop shots at your enemies. You can then start to melt down health bars by activating it (or ulting and automatically triggering it), and, given your inventory will likely be full of crit items, you'll start dealing a ton of magic damage as a result of her passive. If your foes try to flee, the E helps to really close the distance, meaning you can whittle down their health bars from afar, but also get up close and personal to close out the kill. The W, while maybe the least useful part of her kit on paper, can slow said fleeing enemies, letting you get up in their face a lot easier.

Perlman says that Yunara is "is fully intended for the botlane and we do not wish to see her in any other roles," so while "we expect on launch people will try Yunara all over the place," Riot "will tune her" to stay with her duo.

To celebrate Yunara's launch, Riot is adding a brand new mini game inspired by The Unbroken Faith's lore. Having been locked away in the Spirit Realm since the Darkin War, she's teaming up with Xin Zhao in a side-scrolling, 2D brawler entitled Battle of Koeshin. This is entirely self-contained, meaning you don't actually need to play games of League of Legends to access it.

There's also a slew of nostalgia-tinged content set to drop with Season 2 Act 2, including the return of the much-beloved Butcher's Bridge to the ARAM pool, alongside brand new Spirit Blossom-inspired map, Koeshin's Crossing. You can read all about that here.

New League of Legends champion Yunara and her associated mini game, Battle of Koeshin, will release with LoL patch 25.14 on Wednesday July 16.

In the meantime, make sure you check out our LoL tier list to ensure you're locking in the best champions for the job. Alternatively, if you're a cosmetic collector like me, we have a rundown of all the League of Legends skins that are currently on sale.

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