Neeko, The Curious Chameleon — An Introduction & Guide

Intro to the Guide/Neeko’s Role As a Champion

Neeko, The Curious Chameleon. League of Legends’ newest champion looks vastly different to anything we’ve seen from Riot Games previously, and yet, in some very thematically appropriate cases, very much the same. Her Passive is balanced around her changing forms into another champion on her team. Much like a chameleon in real life, she literally blends into the environment, leaving enemies confused and oftentimes dead thanks to the sheer amount of damage loaded into some parts of her kit (notably her Q — Blooming Burst, and R — Pop Blossom). The rest of her kit further augments her identity as a teamfight-centric mage that excels in skirmishes and creating picks through deception and opportunistic capabilities, with no real identifiable weakness outside of her relative fragility.

The most exciting part of Neeko’s kit is her passive, Inherent Glamour. The ability to shapeshift into any of your allies at any given moment is both a confusing and powerful tool. The fact that you can deceive your enemy into thinking you are anyone else on your team — for example, your support is supposedly roaming top lane, or your drastically underleveled jungler is frantically farming minions alone in a side lane. This ability to deceive means that you can repeatedly bait the enemy team into overcommitting into seemingly advantageous situations. A parallel you could draw here is that of Evelynn’s camouflage; your enemy will always have to play carefully. Even if it looks like they can secure a kill, Neeko could always be there in disguise.

From what we’ve seen across high-level solo queue in every region, plus what we’ve gotten from watching professional players on their occasional streams, most Neekos opt to max their Q — Blooming Burst first, as it is the main component of her kit for both waveclear and trading. You can align the ability to both last-hit a minion and poke your opponent where possible, and that makes this spell probably the most important part of her kit, from both a utility and sustainability perspective.

Her next ability, W — Shapesplitter, features a classic on-third-hit passive buff and proc combination, similar to Ekko’s passive in the sense that it grants you a burst of both damage and movement speed. The active on this ability is a more intuitive Wukong W, creating a clone of yourself (that runs in a straight line), while granting you stealth, and therefore, this ability should only have one point in it until level 14.

E — Tangle-Barbs rounds out our colourful chameleon’s pre-6 kit, and it serves as an engage tool and an additional way out should you be caught in an unfavourable trade. A slow moving, relatively short root initially, if you manage to hit multiple targets, the ability travels faster and snares for longer. As it’s a fairly important part of her kit, locking people down for the subsequent Q and all-important R, but offers little in terms of actual trading/waveclear potential outside of an all-in, you should be skilling this up as your second priority.

So we’ve had waveclear, poke, and disengage and engage potential. But Neeko’s true strength lies in her all-in capabilities, thanks to her devastating ultimate ability, R — Pop Blossom. After briefly channelling, she leaps into the air, gains a shield, and stuns enemies in an area around her, like an improved self-targeted Galio ultimate with 130% Ability Power scaling. Perhaps most importantly, the channel has no telegraphed cast information if activated whilst disguised as an ally, adding yet another dimension of trickery to an already deceptive arsenal. The fact that this ability has a wide enough range to cover the entirety of both the Dragon and Rift Herald (later Baron) pits means that Neeko’s objective control capabilities are significant if she is given the option to roam or have vision advantage in these areas.

When to Pick Neeko / What to Pick with Neeko on Your Team

Neeko succeeds as a piece of a team’s composition when you can accommodate for a champion that will need help transitioning through the early levels and a good amount of peel later on. She rewards teams that offer her this with strong waveclear, insane pick potential, and some of the best objective control in the game thanks to a near-uncounterable ultimate with an area-of-effect stun that does ridiculous amounts of damage at all stages of the game. Good luck to anyone attempting to burst her down through this commitment, as well, since she gains a fairly sizeable shield on top of all the damage. Pop Blossom is one ultimate the enemy team is really looking to avoid stepping in.

You should choose Neeko if your composition wants a champion that offers zone control, burst damage, and minion wave manipulation all in one cute chameleon bundle. She is very flexible in this regard, since as long as you have someone who can peel for her (i.e. a support not named Vel’koz) she can truly shine within a wide variety of team compositions.

While we did praise her pick potential, Neeko’s engage potential as a whole is slightly lacking. Therefore, it would be wise to pair her with champions that can facilitate her entries into fights and help her get off some particularly devastating ultimates. Whether it’s a Jarvan IV bringing a 4-man Cataclysm to help set up her combo (and provide some early lane pressure to allow Neeko to scale), a Camille looking to pair The Hextech Ultimatum with some particularly potent flowers, or a Rakan seeking some more-than-formidable follow-up to a fantastic Quickness, Neeko truly shines in team compositions that can give her access to avenues into fights that were previously unavailable to her. The 5-man ultimate is the dream of any Neeko player, and with a healthy amount of AOE crowd control on your side, it becomes a real possibility, and threat, for any team that finds themselves on the receiving end of any of these combinations.

Mid Laning Phase Guide / Brief Exploration of Other Roles

As a midlaner, Neeko brings your team some solid and reliable waveclear, as well as good trade potential. However, this is almost entirely tied to her Q, Blooming Burst. Therefore, when taking Neeko toward the midlane, it is imperative that you utilize the rest of your spells as an appropriate supporting cast to the star of your show: your Q (and later, R). Your main aim when playing mid is to actively trade and last hit minions at the same time, and you can with some clever placements and angling of your Q. Your E can help root enemies in place to land multiple parts of your single Q, and when further augmented with an Electrocute proc, Neeko can reliably chunk out 30–40% of a target champion’s health during a 1.8 second snare as early as level 2. To land your empowered snare, you will need to, again, position correctly, ensuring that the E spell passes through the minion wave (at least two individual targets) before hitting an enemy champion.

After taking sizable amounts out of your opponent’s health bar, you can use the time granted by their recall to either shove the wave and get some of the turret plating gold, or you can roam. Roaming as Neeko seems almost natural, as with her passive, Inherent Glamour (that we explored the possibilities for earlier), you can create some very confusing, and lethal, opportunities for any opponent unlucky enough to be deceived. If you find a way to path toward the bottom lane when playing on the red side, look to gank through the enemy tribush and then drop your ultimate (R — Pop Blossom) behind them (ideally, you will have shapeshifted beforehand so they don’t see the cast animation) for what is sure to be at least one free kill.

Later on in the game, look to simply clear out waves with your Q, and find individual catches with your E. Or, look for a devastating follow-up to an entry into a teamfight or neutral objective with your R. Make sure to use your passive to its maximum capabilities; for example, you can try to bait someone into trying to solo kill you by pretending to be your marksman solo-farming in a sidelane, before turning around and bursting them down, with Neeko’s passive even initially replicating your chosen ally’s attack range.

As you can probably tell, Neeko’s kit is loaded with utility, and she is scintillating in skirmishes (especially in enclosed spaces), which lends to her viability as both a support and jungler. They both feature similar playstyles, reliably trading/farming with Q and looking for catches with E. Just be careful that you don’t get caught by the enemy and die in a single Kha’zix (if jungle) or Leona (if support) rotation.

Skill Order / Rune Page / Itemization

As we touched on in our introduction, the standard build and itemization choices for Neeko right now all feature Q > E > W as the skill priority, as well as Electrocute as your rune of choice (since Dark Harvest was nerfed in the same patch that our curious chameleon was released).

As of now, Electrocute is the way to go for Neeko, weaving your spells and auto attacks in order to apply extra burst damage to a trade is something a burst mage like Neeko excels at. Consider taking Sudden Impact further down the Domination tree, as it further augments your damage in these trades thanks to a small boost in your damage upon exiting stealth (from your W, which is your ideal opener for catching opponents unaware). Ignite and Flash seem to be the way to go for Neeko at the moment, lending even more power to your all-in assassination potential.

Neeko’s build paths are all fairly similar to other control mages; a mana item for sustained damage per second in the form of a Luden’s Echo (as well as the extra punch it gives to your Q) paired with Sorcerer’s Shoes, followed by any amount of raw damage items (Void Staff, Rabadon’s Deathcap) or something with more utility to aid you in any prolonged trades in which burst damage might not do the trick (Zhonya’s Hourglass, Banshee’s Veil, Morellonomicon).

Tips and Tricks / Interactions

Neeko is brand new, and more things are being discovered about her every day, but here are some tips and tricks we’ve already found out so far.

You can use Zhonya’s Hourglass midway through your R cast and not cancel it, allowing for creative flanks into the enemy backline without the threat of being instantly burst. You also keep the shield after the Hourglass wears off.

Your W clone is untargetable until leaving stealth. Therefore, you have to guess where the enemy skillshot will be half a second in advance (if you are looking to block a Lee Sin Q, for example).

You can E-Flash, giving your enemies less time to react to the ability, associated animation, and range. Combo this following a passive-empowered R cast into a Q, Electrocute proc, and Zhonya’s Hourglass for massive damage.

What to Pick Against Neeko

It is important to consider that because Neeko is so new, many players will not have mastered her yet, so there is always some incentive to leave her open, if only because she isn’t too powerful before individuals can really start mastering her combos. Even when facing off against experienced Neeko players, here are a few options you can take into the midlane to ensure that the curious chameleon meets the same fate as the curious cat.

Fortunately, a mage is still a mage, and that’s where Kassadin reigns supreme. Kassadin is notorious for his almost uncontestable post-level 6 roams, and Neeko doesn’t offer too much in terms of threat before accessing her ultimate ability. Therefore, she cannot do much to get everybody’s favorite anti-mage on the back foot before he starts to ramp up in power, and he can offset any damage she hopes to do via her Q simply by buffering a Null Sphere of his own. Kassadin’s inherent mobility is also an advantage to consider, as one of the true moments in which Neeko doesn’t shine is when she is jumped on and has her relative lack of escape potential capitalized on.

On the topic of champions that are able to jump on top of Neeko and punish any potential mispositioning, consider Irelia. In this case, any position Neeko takes near a low-hp minion can be taken advantage of by a quick Bladesurge into Conqueror-proc, Flawless Duet, Vanguard’s Edge, and many other Bladesurges to follow. Irelia’s innate mobility and tankiness through itemization also means that Neeko really has to question just how worth it any trade really is. This is another example of a champion that is weak pre-6 not really being presented with any threat to prevent their scaling to some frightening power spikes.

Similar to the above two, there’s another assassin in the meta right now whose only weaknesses appear to be with her pre-6 waveclear and trading, Akali. In a near identical vein to Irelia and Kassadin, once Akali has access to Perfect Execution, she’s set to demonstrate to Neeko just why that ultimate is named what it is. Armed with three gap closers of her own, and the iconic W — Twilight Shroud — to disengage should Neeko look for any favorable trade back, Akali looks set to scale, out-roam, and out-damage the chameleon champion.

Provided she doesn’t use her ultimate, Frozen Tomb, on Neeko’s clone, Lissandra is a perfectly serviceable counter to League’s newest threat in the midlane. Lissandra can reliably farm with Q, self-cast her ultimate should it look like she is going to be caught in Neeko’s, and offer more, by way of utility rather than raw damage, in teamfights. Neeko’s weaknesses are that she is relatively squishy and immobile, so if you flash to use your ultimate on her aggressively as Lissandra, she will often die before getting the opportunity to do anything.

A more off-meta counter would be something like Diana. While we haven’t seen the envoy of the moon for a good while competitively, it’s a rare occurrence that a champion’s kit seems so purposefully counterbalanced to another’s. Her Q denies Neeko’s W active fairly hard, and her W shields for almost the entirety of Neeko’s Q. Diana’s E reveals while pulling a target in, so if she manages to get on top of Neeko with an R, it’s very difficult to disengage with the usual W trickery. Diana’s Q also has a significantly longer range than most of the spells in Neeko’s repertoire, just adding another dimension of difficulty to what was already a frustrating matchup.

Essentially, you can play any champion with superior mobility, or comparable utility if you are comfortable relying on jungler ganks, something acceptable in a team environment but perhaps more risky in a solo queue one, and have a field day against Neeko as long as you remain respectful and aren’t too overzealous with commitments onto potential clones. Do not stand too close to your minions in the laning phase, as she can get her empowered root off just by having it pass through two of them. Play aggressively and don’t give her a chance to fight, or deceive, on her own terms!

Good Luck and Have Fun!

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