Traditional Trundle

First time I loaded into a game with Traditional Trundle I had this weird nostalgia hit. Like seeing an old friend who got a haircut you didnt ask for. This skin exists because Riot completely reworked Trundle back in season 3, changing him from a gross plague troll into the ice king we know now. Traditional Trundle is the “hey we didn’t forget what you looked like before” skin. Respect.

What Traditional Trundle actually gives you

So here’s the thing. Traditional Trundle preserves the old model aesthetic from pre-rework Trundle. Greenish, sickly, covered in rot and filth. The club looks like something dragged out of a swamp rather than carved from Freljord ice. Huge vibe shift compared to modern Trundle.

The skin comes with new VFX and new voice lines, which is wild for a 975 RP Standard tier skin. Joshua Tomar on the voice acting here. The Q slam feels dirtier, more disease-ridden if that makes sense. Could be wrong here but I think the Pillar of Ice even has a slightly different color tone, leaning more toward that putrid green instead of the clean blue frost. Been running this in my Diamond games occasionally just to confuse people who started playing after the rework.

Not gonna lie, the model shows its age. We’re talking 2013 geometry here. But there’s a charm to it. Played maybe 15 games with it last month and every single time at least one person in chat asked what skin that was. Nobody recognizes old Trundle anymore. (Random aside: my duo partner thought it was a custom skin mod the first time he saw it.)

The Traditional line and some history

Traditional Trundle dropped April 30, 2013. Right when the VGU hit live servers. Mitchell Malloy nailed the splash, capturing that pre-rework filth energy perfectly. The Traditional skinline is a small club: just Trundle, Sejuani, Lee Sin, and Karma got these preservation skins when their visual updates shipped. Riot stopped doing this eventually. Shame.

Legacy vault skin, so you cant just walk into the shop and grab it. Need to catch a vault opening or get lucky with Hextech crafting. Season 9 I think, maybe 10 – I remember seeing it pop up during one of those legacy sales around Worlds. Picked it up immediately because I knew it would disappear again.

No chromas for this one, which honestly makes sense. The whole point is preserving the original look. Adding Ruby and Obsidian variants to a nostalgia skin would defeat the purpose.

Should you grab Traditional Trundle?

Real verdict: this skin is for a specific type of player. If you mained Trundle before the rework, this is mandatory. Full stop. If you started playing after 2013, it’s more of a curiosity piece. 975 RP is fair for what you get, especially with the unique VO and VFX that reference old Trundle’s lore.

Kinda feels like Riot acknowledging they erased a champion’s identity. Old Trundle was this diseased outcast who stole a curse from his tribe. Completely different fantasy from Troll King Trundle. Been spamming Trundle in ranked this season for climbing out of a slump, and I keep coming back to Traditional specifically because the Q sound effect just hits different. More satisfying than the ice version somehow.

For Trundle mains who want the best overall skin, Dragonslayer or Fright Night probably win on pure visual quality. But Traditional Trundle carries something those dont have: history. Not sure if it’s just me but there’s something about locking in a skin that most of the player base has literally never seen on the Rift. In a late-game teamfight last Tuesday, our Lux asked me mid-fight if I was “playing a different champion.” Worth it for moments like that alone. Skip it if you have zero attachment to old Trundle, but for anyone who remembers the original – S-tier nostalgia pick.