Young Ryze

First time I saw Young Ryze in a loading screen I had to double take. This is Ryze before the scroll corruption, before the runes warped him into the blue mage we all know. Clean face. Normal skin tone. Just a kid with a book. Played against one last season around 3 AM in a Diamond ranked game and genuinely thought it was a custom skin for half a second.

What Young Ryze actually changes

Real talk though, this is a Standard tier skin from 2009 so temper expectations. Young Ryze swaps the model to show a younger, pre-transformation version of the champion. No purple skin, no glowing runes carved into his body. He’s wearing a simpler outfit, looks like an apprentice who hasnt seen real combat yet. The scroll is still there but it reads more like a student’s notebook than an ancient artifact.

No new VFX. Base voice lines, no changes. No recall animation update either. You’re getting a model swap and a texture change. Thats it. For a skin from July 2009 that tracks perfectly. Riot wasnt exactly pushing boundaries with cosmetics back then.

The splash art is honestly charming in a nostalgic way. Young Ryze standing there looking determined, not yet consumed by the World Runes. No artist credit on file for the splash which is typical for skins from that era. Could be wrong here but I think the original art team at Riot handled most of these early pieces in-house.

The Collector’s Edition story

This is where Young Ryze gets interesting. Part of the Collector’s Edition skinline, which was bundled with the physical retail copy of League of Legends. Released July 17, 2009. Season negative one energy. The Collector’s Edition line is tiny and exclusive, just a handful of skins that came with the box.

Special pricing on this one because you literally cannot buy it from the shop. Legacy vault skin. If you want Young Ryze in 2026 you’re rolling Hextech chests and praying. Been playing Ryze on and off since season 4 and I’ve seen maybe five of these in my games total. (random aside: the rarity alone makes this skin cooler than half the Epic skins Ryze has)

The Collector’s Edition bundle also included Black Alistar and Silver Kayle if I remember right. All three are some of the rarest skins in the game. Young Ryze is probably the most accessible of the three since it hit the vault rotation at some point, but still. Rare.

Should you chase Young Ryze?

Okay, the real question. Is Young Ryze worth hunting through Hextech crafting? Depends on what you value. The skin itself is bare bones. No new particles, voice stays default, no fancy recall. Visually its a downgrade from something like Guardian of the Sands Ryze or Blood Moon Ryze in terms of raw content.

But the flex factor is real. Locking in Young Ryze in champ select tells your whole team you’ve been around. Or got extremely lucky with rerolls. Not gonna lie, the nostalgia hits hard when you see that young face on the Rift. Kinda feels like playing a different champion entirely.

For Ryze mains specifically, this is a collection piece. You dont pick Young Ryze because the VFX pop in teamfights or because the Q animation reads cleaner. You pick it because you want the rarest Ryze skin in your rotation. Skip it if you want gameplay value. Chase it if you’re a completionist who plays 200 games a season on the blue mage and wants something nobody else has in their Diamond lobby.