Halfway between Poison Ivy and an actual plant, League of Legend’s next champion, its 101st, is Zyra, Rise of the Thorns. It looks like she’s pillaged Ivy’s wardrobe, too, although she may well have been interrupted halfway between desperately grabbing bits of plantlife to tape to her body, because there’s really not all that much there. But she’s got some interesting sounding abilities.
Her Q and E revolve around her W, Rampant Growth, which plants a seed on the ground that sits there for 30 seconds granting vision. Far from being just a scouting ability, it’s there to be enhanced by either Deadly Bloom, her Q, which either acts as a grenade that explodes after a few seconds of being cast, or, when cast on Rampant Growth’s seed, turns into a Thorn Spitter, a ranged minion that attacks enemies that come near.
Conversely, if you throw your E, Grasping Roots, on the seed, you get a Vine Lasher, who slows enemies in a small radius. Without the seed it snares targets in a small AoE, which while more immediately useful is probably not as versatile as having a semi-permanent slow denying a whole area.
Stranglethorns, her ultimate, creates a growing AoE on the ground that damages enemies before knocking them in the air as it ‘contracts’, which seems to imply that it gets smaller again, like a great big pulsating prickly blob. Any plants in the area are also enraged, which makes them attack faster.
Finally she’s got an on-death passive that lets her throw out one last shot before dying, which while useful when you die, does seem to incentivise death a little, which is always an odd one. If you’re doing extra-well, you’re not using a big part of your champion, which is counter intuitive.
It looks like she’s going to be a solid mid-laner, though, and going by previous update schedules, should be out sometime next week.