League of Legends Champion Spotlight shines on Azir, the Emperor of the Sands

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Behold Azir, the ancient Emperor of the Sands, commander of the Shuriman armies, and the latest Champion to fall under the League of Legends Champion Spotlight.

As revealed in August , Azir is a summoner who calls forth Shuriman soldiers to do his bidding, backed by powerful spells that make life difficult for his opponents. "An emperor does not act; he commands," Riot's ZenonTheStoic , aka Champion Designer Daniel Klein, wrote in the Champion Insights section of the Azir reveal. "Internally, we call these champs 'minion-mancers.' Once we knew Azir would take on this kind of kit, we knew it was time to look at what does and doesn't work for these often-problematic designs."

Taking stock of previous "minion-mancer" characters like Heimerdinger, Elise, Malzahar and Yorick allowed Riot to "introduce appropriate trade-offs to Azir's kit," Klein explained. "With these weaknesses in place, we could make the soldiers very strong indeed; imagine if I told you that, given the right setup, your basic attack has 1200 range and hits units in an AOE."

The full low-down on Azir, the Emperor of the Sands, can be read at LeagueOfLegends.com .

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.