By: Cactopus

No great idea gets into League of Legends without being examined, challenged, and mutated by our collaborative process. When Marco “Wendigo” Silva, an artist from the São Paulo office, dreamed up “Cyber Yi,” he knew it’d be put through that creative gauntlet.
Silva wanted to fight hard for his idea, so he put together a team of concept artists and animators and created a 50-page presentation detailing how a legendary Yi skin could fit into an entire universe inspired by classic cyberpunk films. The first few Rioters who saw the pitch sent it around to others, and it spread virally through the company. People started piling aboard Silva’s cybernetic hype train.
My first reaction was like, ‘whoa, this is ridiculous,’” recalls lead concept artist Larry “The Bravo Ray” Ray. “I was impressed.”

Still, there were obstacles Silva hadn't considered. While the Cyber Yi concept was still being pitched, a team at Riot’s Santa Monica office was independently working on a cybernetic-themed skin called PROJECT: Yasuo. Our artists thought that Cyber Yi might complement the new Yasuo skin, but first they’d need to figure out the artistic direction for PROJECT: Yasuo — and for any other champions that might fit into that world.
Cyber Yi would need to evolve.