Ryze is finally a playable character on League of Legends: Wilf Rift, and to celebrate, Riot Games have teamed up with the PC equivalent’s greatest ever player, Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok, to help players learn how to master the Rune Mage.
A video released on the Wilf Rift YouTube channel see’s the legendary esports pro give a “masterclass” on Ryze, one of his many signature champions. With 78 pro games stage as the champion and a 63% win-rate from those high-level matches, it’s safe to say Faker is worth hearing out.
The T1 midlaner says Ryze combo-heavy playstyle feels great to play on mobile and says the basic combo to master is Spell Flux > Rune Prison > Overload > Spell Flux > Overload. This allows you to first lock down your opponent then guarantee you’ll hit your maximum damage output.
Uniquely on Wild Rift, Ryze and his allies gain bonus movement speed when teleporting with his ultimate which will be extra useful when chasing down opponents or trying to run away.
Faker stresses that utilising your mobility is the key to playing Ryze well and says you need to continuously move around while throwing out abilities: “Ryze’s Overload(1) gives him bonus movement speed when chaining spells so it’s easier to kite and reposition. Keep moving, reset cooldowns, and keep the damage going.” That’s easy for Faker to say, considering he’s a master of in-game movement and dodging abilities, but for most of us, that will take a lot of practice.
And you will need to put that time in. Faker himself admits that while Ryze is easy to pick up at first, he’s a difficult champion to play overall: “Ryze scales hard with skill, so the better you get, the stronger he becomes.”
When will Ryze release on Wild Rift?
Ryze will launch on Wild Rift alongside Zilean and Nocturne on April 17 as part of Patch 6.1.
Ryze is one of the oldest champions in League of Legends, he was one of just 17 original characters available when the game first released in 2009 and is named after the gamertag of one of Riot’s founders, Brandon “Ryze” Beck. Because of this, it’s very surprising that such an iconic champion is only just being added to the mobile version of the game nearly five years after it was released in 2020.
It’s unknown why it has taken so long. It could be that Ryze’s low cooldowns and playstyle of spamming abilities made him difficult to balance for the faster-paced game. Or, perhaps the mage just isn’t that popular now as he once was and was relegated to the sidelines accordingly.
In my seven years of esports writing, I’ve introuduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I’m most proud of the latter.
