King Rammus

First time I saw King Rammus in a loading screen I had to double-take. Season 2 or 3, cant remember exactly, but some dude in my ranked game had this golden Bowser-looking Rammus and I spent the entire laning phase trying to figure out what skin it was. Turns out it’s one of those skins you literally cannot buy. Closed beta reward. The flex factor alone is unmatched.

What King Rammus actually looks like in-game

Real talk though, this is a Standard tier skin from 2009 and it shows. Rammus gets a full model swap into what looks like a golden armored king, crown and all. The shell is this regal gold with green accents. Koopa King vibes. Not subtle about it either.

The skin does have new VFX which is surprising for something this old. The Powerball (Q) gets a slightly different particle trail and the Defensive Ball Curl (W) has that golden tint to it. Nothing crazy by 2024 standards but for a 2009 release? Decent. Voice lines stay base, no new VO or recall animation. You’re still getting the classic “ok” and honestly thats part of the charm.

Could be wrong here but I think the auto-attack particles also read slightly different. Played against one maybe three times total across thousands of games. Last one was around patch 14.3, some Rammus one-trick in Diamond who absolutely terrorized our jungle. Kept ganking bot lane and we had zero peel. (Random aside: that game tilted me so hard I switched to ARAM for the rest of the night.)

The Beta skinline and why this skin matters

King Rammus dropped October 20, 2009. Part of the Beta skinline, which is literally just rewards for players who participated in the closed beta. That makes this skin over 15 years old at this point. No splash artist credited, which tracks for that era of League. Riot wasnt exactly commissioning full art pieces for every skin back then.

Zero chromas. Special pricing, meaning you could never just walk into the shop and grab it. Hextech only these days if you’re lucky enough to roll it from a chest. Been playing League since season 4 and I’ve rolled this exactly zero times. Seen it in maybe five games total across my entire career.

The Beta line is tiny. Just a handful of skins that mark you as someone who was there from the start. King Rammus is the crown jewel of that group. No pun intended. Actually, full pun intended.

Should you even want King Rammus?

Okay, the real question. You cant buy it. Special price tag means it was never a shop item. If you roll King Rammus from Hextech crafting you keep it. Period. No debate.

Is it the best Rammus skin from a visual standpoint? Not even close. Full Metal and Guardian of the Sands both look cleaner in teamfights. Astronaut Rammus has better VFX across Q, W, E, R. But King Rammus has something none of those skins will ever have. Rarity. Pure flex value.

Might be overthinking it but there’s something about locking in a skin that 99% of the playerbase literally cannot obtain. You load into a game with King Rammus and your team knows. Enemy jungler knows. Everyone on the Rift knows you’ve been here since the beginning, or you got absurdly lucky with a chest reroll last Tuesday at 1 AM.

S-tier Rammus cosmetic for collectors. Not for the visuals. For the story it tells. If you main Rammus and this drops from a chest, you equip it and never look back. OK.