Eternals in League of Legends: What to get

Riot Games has decided to undig Eternals, yet another freemium piece of cosmetics that you may show off in-game. While the idea of locking stat tracking behind a paywall is controversial at best, we went to the Public Beta Environment to check out the new goodies. 

What are League of Legends Eternals?

Eternals are Summoner unlocks that allow you to showcase various League of Legends stats. Common Eternals record general actions on individual champions (such as Kills/Assists, epic monsters secured), while Unique Eternals celebrate champion-specific feats. On release, each champion will have three unique stat-trackers.

Riot is mostly pushing Eternals toward Riot Points. You can buy a common Starter Pack (Takedowns, Structured Destroyed, Epic Monsters Killed) for 2,500 Blue Essence/225 RP, but unique Eternals would make you spend real money. Each set of three unique Eternals is priced at 600 RP. The upsell options here are Starter Series Pass for all champions at 14,750 Blue Essence/1,350 RP and the ultimate Series 1 Pass for 5,850 Riot Points. 

Outside Summoner’s Rift, Eternals are displayed on champion pages and the back of the champion card during the loading screen. During the game, players will be triggering pop-up messages for their milestones. The death recap also features information on your killer’s Eternals. Reaching multiple milestones also enhances your Mastery emote. Much like emotes, Eternal prompts can be muted. 

Assessing Eternals

The main criterion I’m using actually comes from Riot. The promotional video for Eternals claims that “it’s not enough to play the champion a lot—you’ll need to play the champion well”. As a result, I favor Eternals that encourage skill expression and call out those that are easy to just spam through. 

Also, I am not sold on unique Eternals that are as bland as landing a simple stun. They belong to a museum to common Eternals.

Best Eternals

Aphelios’ Gunslinger

This Eternal promotes flexibility and also addresses the community’s feeling toward his guns. While it’s a valid concern that Aphelios is strong no matter the gun, this Eternal at least makes Aphelios switch between them.

Ashe’s Stun Sniper

A 2,400+ range arrow is a great challenge. Such arrows require skill, take coordination, and invoke adoration. 

Dr. Mundo’s Mundo Time

This Eternal is about clutch plays. Clutch plays win games.

Kayn’s Quests Done Quick

I know that early Season 10 meta doesn’t favor heavy ganking, but this Eternal promotes Kayn’s key mechanic so well.

Master Yi’s Whiffs Caused

Dodging skillshots as Master Yi is crucial: here lies the difference between getting focused and slaying the oppositions for free. 

Vayne’s Action Roll

Vayne is in a similar position to Master Yi’s, except dodging requires better positional awareness.

Worst Eternals

Anivia’s Second Winds

Second Winds tracks the number of successful resurrections with Anivia’s passive, which I think is both hardly about skill and easy to spam. From my (albeit limited) experience of playing Mid, you can easily come back to life from the egg against most all-in champions. If they used their abilities to turn you into an egg, their auto attacks are too feeble to finish off you in time.

Annie’s Spicy Stuns

Spicy Stuns counts all Annie’s stuns. You can land a guaranteed stun with Q and you’re bound to hit somebody with R. Doesn’t add up with the “you’ll need to play the champion well” message.

Ashe’s Frozen Tendency

Ashe slows enemies with each auto-attack. This is just horrible.

Bard’s Distance Journeyed

It’s guaranteed that people will be travelling through your portal. The Eternal is a pure grind.

Brand’s Hot Stuns

Brand’s Q is a skill shot. This, however, is still not much better than Annie’s Spicy Stuns.

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As you can see, I didn’t have to go far into the alphabet to find 5 atrocious Eternals. Despite some great options that I listed, a lot of Eternals from Series 1 seem bland/repetitive/grindy. It’s hard to tell whether things will pick up with Series 2 because a potential Series 2 would require good financial and/or public reception of the Eternals feature. Between the aggressive monetization and mediocre Series 1, Riot is in for an uphill battle.