Back in the spring of 2022, a tremor of excitement rippled through the League of Legends community. Rumors had been circulating for months that a new Void champion was finally on the horizon—a monstrous addition many Summoners had been begging for since Kai'Sa slithered into the game four years earlier. Then, on an ordinary Wednesday, prominent leaker and YouTuber Ryscu dropped a video that sent the fandom into overdrive. The wait was over, and the name on everyone's lips was Bel'Veth.
The leaked footage gave players their first glimpse at what would become one of the most unique champions ever to hit Summoner's Rift. In her base form, Bel'Veth looked like an otherworldly fusion of a manatee and a Lovecraftian horror—a towering purple underbelly supporting a bizarrely serene human head perched atop the creature. But that was only half the story. Ryscu's leak also revealed her ultimate transformation. When she cast her R, Bel'Veth shed her human features entirely, morphing into a true apex predator with a regal gold headpiece and gilded trim adorning massive, wing-like fins. It was a design that screamed both elegance and terror, perfectly encapsulating the Void's twisted beauty.
Naturally, the community immediately began theorycrafting. What kind of kit would such a creature have? The leak hinted at an infinite-scaling jungler capable of devouring everything in her path, much like the Void itself endlessly consumes worlds. Later official reveals confirmed those suspicions: Bel'Veth was designed as an attack-speed hypercarry who could permanently stack attack speed after taking down large monsters, champions, and epic objectives. Her passive, Death in Lavender, let her gain true damage on-hit from those stacks, turning her into a late-game monstrosity that could shred even the tankiest frontline with enough patience. Pair that with her dashes, damage reduction, and a knock-up, and you had a champion that could singlehandedly take over games if left unchecked.
Even the skin teased in the leak had the community buzzing. Alongside the base model, Ryscu hinted that Bel'Veth would launch with a Battle Boss skin—a theme that hadn't seen a fresh coat of paint since 2019's Arcade event. This was a nostalgic callback for long-time players who fondly remembered the pixelated chaos of Battle Boss Yasuo, Qiyana, and the Arcade lineup. When Bel'Veth officially arrived in June 2022, she did indeed sport that retro-inspired villain skin, complete with glitchy voidlings and a boss-stage ultimate transformation that felt right at home in an old-school beat-'em-up.
Looking back from 2026, it's clear just how much Bel'Veth changed the jungling landscape. Before her release, carry junglers like Master Yi and Kindred were the closest analogues to an infinite-scaling DPS machine, but none of them played quite like the Empress of the Void. Her ability to swarm the map with Void remora after taking down epic monsters introduced a new macro layer—pushing lanes with unstoppable waves of alien offspring—that forced teams to rethink objective priorities entirely. Bel'Veth wasn't just a stat check; she was a strategic nightmare that demanded coordinated answers.
Her lore impact was equally seismic. For years, the Void had been the dark, unexplored underbelly of Runeterra, its champions mostly appearing as solitary predators like Kha'Zix, Cho'Gath, and Rek'Sai. Bel'Veth arrived with a voice that spoke of erasing reality and remaking it in her image, positioning herself not as a mindless beast but as a calculating empress. This shift opened the door for Riot to dive deeper into Void narratives. In 2023, they released a series of short stories exploring the Void's hierarchy, with Bel'Veth at its apex. Then, in 2025, the long-demanded Skarner rework finally dragged the ancient Brackern into a new Void-infused origin, creating narrative threads that intertwined with Bel'Veth's grand design. It felt like the entire region was waking up after years of dormancy, and Bel'Veth was the catalyst.
Even now, four years after her release, she remains a staple in both solo queue and professional play. Pro junglers still pull out the Empress when they need a scaling threat that can also dish out surprising early-game dueling power. Meanwhile, casual players adore her fantasy of evolving from a sluggish predator into an unstoppable death-dealer, especially when those stacks start climbing past 100 and true damage melts through health bars like butter. Riot has carefully tuned her over the patches, nerfing her early clear speed while keeping her late-game identity intact, a testament to how well her core design resonates.
Bel'Veth's 2022 leak wasn't just a spoiler—it was a promise fulfilled. After years of fans clamoring for a truly monstrous Void champion, Riot delivered an empress who embodied the region's core themes: consumption, adaptation, and unending hunger. The leak ignited a fire that burned all the way to launch day and beyond, making her one of the most memorable champion unveilings in League history. And as we continue to play in 2026, watching her devour yet another Elder Dragon and send her swarm down mid-lane, it's a reminder that some leaks age into legends.