Except for a few patches released in 2020, where the fast jungle meta became a key strategy for professional teams, Skarner has generally been a neglected name in League of Legends.
Outdated design, monotonous abilities, and easy counterplay are barriers that prevent Skarner from finding a place on the Fields of Justice. For this reason, Riot Games is also hastily planning to revise and rework this champion in the near future.
However, recently, some gamers put in the effort to experiment and find out the limits of Skarner’s power, and they proved that this champion possesses many more interesting gameplay mechanics than what most League of Legends players can imagine.
Specifically, Skarner’s ultimate is not only an effective tool for catching key targets but also has the ability to interrupt the animation of abilities that involve position displacement (moving the champion using the ability away from their original position), such as Malphite’s Unstoppable Force, Sett’s Arena Dominance, Yone’s Soul Unbound…
In the testing clip, when Skarner uses his R – Impale on a champion executing blink or displacement abilities, all of these champions will be immediately suppressed. In the case of Malphite or Sett, the knock-up effect of Unstoppable Force or the damage from Arena Dominance will not reach the designated target.
In some other situations, such as Jarvan IV’s Cataclysm or Hecarim’s Spectral Rider, terrain creation or fear effects will still occur, but the target will still be suppressed by Skarner’s ultimate, and the trajectory of the abilities will be completely altered.
It can be seen that Skarner’s R has the ability to counter extremely strong initiation champions. However, the problem is that players need to choose the right moment to use it. Additionally, this functionality is quite situational, so overall it does not bring too much appeal to Skarner. For this reason, a rework for this champion is still something that Riot Games should aim for.