Riot Gameshas unveiled Yunara,League of Legends' 171st champion. Yunara is an attack damage carry (ADC), or marksman as the young ‘uns call them.
Yunara was originally teased in the cinematic trailer for Spirit Blossom Beyond, which is what Riot is calling the second half of the 2025 Season. In the video, Xin Zhao glimpses Yunara between realms during Spirit Blossom, a period when the barrier between the physical and spirit realms is thin.
Yunara, subtitled the Devoted Shrine Maiden, has spent her life safeguarding a shrine that protects one of the most powerful Darkin weapons. What could possibly be more powerful than the reworked Naafiri is beyond me, but I hope I’ll never have to find out.
Zeri Meets Twitch
A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit Riot’s arena in Berlin, home of the League of Legends EMEA Championships (LEC). I was able to get hands-on with Yunara for a couple of hours, and even though I’ve never been the most analytical player, I’ll do my best to give you some of my thoughts on how the character plays.
Her Q stacks on auto attacks, and can be activated once you auto-attack eight times in a row without letting the “timer” run out. You’ll only get a second or two without auto-attacking before the stacks reset, so maintaining tempo is key. Once you hit eight stacks, you’ll be able to activate the ability, which makes every auto-attack splash onto nearby enemies, like Twitch’s ultimate. This ability works with on-hit items such as Wit’s End and Runaan’s Hurricane.
Yunara’s W is League’s first-ever circular skillshot. Previously, skillshots that appeared circular were actually comprised of tiny rectangles. It’s a straight-line skillshot that spins for a second when it connects and then carries on behind the target, dealing a small amount of splash damage.
Her E is essentially the Ghost summoner spell, but it also grants you movement speed towards enemies, similar to Vayne’s passive.
Her ultimate changes the aforementioned three abilities for fifteen whole seconds. You no longer have to stack Q, as you instantly get the splash damage auto attacks upon casting R. Yunara’s W is transformed into a straight-line beam of damage (similar to old Aurelion Sol ultimate), and her E becomes a small dash rather than a movement speed buff.
After playing her in several one-versus-ones in Berlin, I feel Yunara is a more calculated version of Zeri. While the latter can initiate fights by jumping over a wall and casting her ultimate, Yunara is more about picking the right moment to cast her ultimate and clean up a team fight.
I suspect she won’t be a lane dominant champion, given she needs time to stack her Q, and the need to constantly auto-attack in lane doesn’t lend itself well to concepts like freezing and wave management.
I don’t have nearly enough data to support this assessment, but Yunara feels like one of those champions who’s going to live or die by her numbers. Her relative lack of mobility combined with her need to stay close to a fight makes her a tricky champion to pilot. If you’re going melee range into a Darius, you’d better have enough damage to kill that Darius, as the old proverb goes.
Yunara is set to release in one of League of Legends’ upcoming patches, presumably after some testing on the Public Beta Environment.
