The new VALORANT Champions 2025 skin teaser was just dropped by Riot Games, and the community’s response has been off the charts—but not in a good way. There isn’t even a proper announcement. The official tweet just says “Introducing Champions 2025” plus a hashtag and a link. The community and all the leakers are roasting straight from the jump.
The line is being ignored on every single social media site, and as soon as leaker ValorLeaks dropped the images, things only got worse. The brutality of the comments is out of control. The most civil comment said “This is so ass,” while the general consensus, using far worse language, was “Trash asf ngl.”
So what’s with all the noise? The escalated criticism centers around the vandal and hinders the rest of the line because of the perceived “boring” or “basic” design of it. As someone who follows leaks, I can say Xerofang 2.0 for the vandal isn’t anything special. Almost immediately, people began comparing it—calling it ‘Welcome back, yellow chroma EXO vandal,’ which is just mean. The fountain of tired ideas continues with the butterfly knife, which is something a lot of people want to get away from. One of the comments describes the perfect summary, “butterfly again 😩😩😩.”
The ‘kill’ sound is getting flak too. I coincide with the comment from one user who said, ‘Disappointed with the kill sound again,’ and the other user who remarked it is an issue with recent skin lines. Players lament the lack of a kill counter to accompany the tib 2024 phantom and 2023 vandal. Skins are purchased by a niche within the player base, and these small details matter even when spending a lot of money.
And speaking of money, there is yet one more issue. Per multiple users, the leak ‘saved money’ since they have no plans on buying the skins. Users such as ‘my wallet is safe’ and ‘Thanks @VALORANT saving my money😍’ became popular in the replies. Riot will surely have to wonder how they feel knowing their users are celebrating saving money.
A majority of the community is in the other camp, which explains why some questions are being asked as to why the negative reception is being received. The general mood is predominately negative. It was even shared in a joking way by the leaker Mike from ValorLeaks when he revealed it took a while for him to post because he required some time with the ‘new keyboard.’
The conversations in this thread show the sketchy nature of video game companies relying on ‘leakers’ to supposedly shield themselves from direct criticism. One user said, ‘Literally all of them await till a random leaks because they don’t want to face issues.’ This can explain why companies choose to reveal after the concept has already been ‘tested.’
If the community reaction carries on in this tone, it will be a major issue since the Community is indeed expecting the esports scene to shut down the event with a bang using the champions skin-line. In order to fund the esports competitive scene, the community expects the skins, and judging from the comments, Riot definitely needs to explain the skins’ value or do a total rework.
Some players have already started to assume that the worst is true and that Riot won’t do anything about it, although I believe that won’t be the case. I really don’t think the company will ignore the issue, although there’s a chance they might consider doing a complete revamp. ‘Ainda dá tempo da riot mudar e dizer que os leaks tavam errados,’ a comment in Portuguese said, which means, ‘Riot is able to change and say the leaks were wrong sometime in the future,’ and it’s unfortunate that the detailed leaks make this very unlikely to happen.
Through this, we’re reminded just how close-knit the Valorant community is regarding leaks and reveals. Everyone joins in the discussion and shares their thoughts. Players’ sharp and in-depth opinions indicate just how passionate the community is, and it also shows that they know a lot about the video game. This is further proven by their habit of comparing other skins to the one in question to emphasize how subpar it is.
Naturally, people have different skin preferences, but this community has made it clear that the feedback offered for the skins is mostly negative, so imagine the concern that this bodes Riot Games. One good thing about Riot is that they usually welcome community feedback, so they might address these issues before the official release instead of ignoring them.
The reception to the skins is identical to the lukewarm reception to the rest of the Champions 2025 skin line, adding to the ongoing disconnect. Players mention that they “don’t feel” the skins for the Champions 2025 line. There is an ongoing question about whether the reveal will make the rage die down early, but this will depend on whether Riot will be able to effectively calm the controversy. Players “might change their minds” once they get to use the skins with all the effects, but Riot has an immense amount of work to do in order to “convince the players this skin line is worth the price tag,” judging by the Twitter comments.
