TPA Nunu & Willump

Been playing Nunu & Willump on and off since season 3, and TPA Nunu & Willump is one of those skins I keep coming back to just for the nostalgia factor. Not gonna lie, the first time I saw it in the shop back in 2013 I bought it immediately because TPA winning Worlds was still fresh. The skin doesnt try to reinvent the wheel. It’s a World Champions celebration skin, and it does exactly that.

What TPA Nunu & Willump actually changes

This is a Standard tier skin at 750 RP, so temper your expectations. Willump gets a full TPA jersey and headband, which honestly looks pretty clean for the price point. The yeti is repping Taipei Assassins colors hard. Red and black palette. Nunu sits on top wearing matching gear with a foam finger, which is a nice touch that sells the esports fan fantasy.

No new VFX on Q, W, E, or R. Voice lines stay base. No recall animation either, this dropped before Riot started adding custom recalls to lower tier skins. Kinda feels like they could have at least thrown in a unique snowball texture, but for 750 RP in 2013 this was standard practice. The model work carries the skin on its own though.

In my Diamond games I’ve run this maybe 40 or 50 times total across multiple seasons. The silhouette reads clearly in teamfights, which matters more than people think on a champion who needs to channel R in the middle of the backline. Had a game last Thursday where I ulted in dragon pit and my team thought I was running base skin until the victory screen. That’s how subtle it is in the chaos of a real teamfight.

The World Champions 2012 line and release context

TPA Nunu & Willump dropped May 23, 2013, part of the World Champions: 2012 skinline celebrating Taipei Assassins’ championship run. Bo Lu handled the artwork on the splash. Clean composition, nothing groundbreaking but it captures the vibe of Willump as a superfan.

The whole TPA set was a big deal back then. Season 2 Worlds felt different, smaller, more raw. Riot was still figuring out how to do championship skins. These days the Worlds skins get full VFX overhauls and custom animations, but the 2012 batch was purely model swaps. Fair for the era. (Random aside: I still have the TPA icon from that event sitting in my collection somewhere, havent used it since like season 5.)

No chromas available for this one. Legacy vault skin, so you cant just grab it whenever. Gotta wait for a Legacy sale rotation or get lucky with Hextech crafting. Seen maybe 2 of these in my ranked games all season, and one of them was me.

Should you pick up TPA Nunu & Willump?

Real verdict: this skin lives or dies on whether you care about LoL esports history. If TPA means something to you, if you remember Toyz on Orianna or Stanley’s Nidalee, then 750 RP is a no-brainer when it rotates back. The skin itself is modest. Model swap, base everything else. But the esports legacy gives it weight that pure cosmetic value cant match.

For Nunu & Willump mains who just want the best looking option, skip this. Space Groove and Papercraft both offer way more for the money. Could be wrong here but I think this skin appeals to a very specific crowd: the players who were watching competitive League before it was mainstream. If thats you, worth 750 RP easy. If not, your RP goes further on a skin with actual VFX work.

Might be overthinking it but there’s something about locking in a legacy esports skin in champ select that hits different. Like a quiet flex. Nobody pings it, nobody comments, but the three people in your game who recognize it know what’s up. Been daily driving this one in normals lately just for that energy, even though I swap to Nunu Beelump for ranked. Standard pricing, above-average vibes for the right person.