Riot killed TFT’s Rammus meme in Set 8, but there’s more on the horizon

Rammus has finally been added to TFT Set 8. The meme is dead. The “Ok” Armordillo making his debut in the League of Legends autobattler is the end of a four-year saga, but don’t worry as Riot has plenty more champion dreams ⁠— and memes ⁠— to fulfill.

Rammus was TFT’s white whale for nearly four years. The Armordillo got passed up every single set, watching his League of Legends colleagues get reprint after reprint, waiting for his time to debut.

It became the longest-running meme in the community. Riot even tempted fate by adding a Rammus-like scarab into Gizmos & Gadgets in Set 6 ⁠— although a near-replica lookalike was cut just before the expansion debuted because it seemed unfair. As time went on, the pressure ramped up on how Rammus would finally make his debut though.

All good things have to come to an end though, and the Rammus meme is meeting its fate. Riot has finally found a spot for the Armordillo in TFT Set 8, Monsters Attack, and he’s a Threat.

Using his Guardian of the Sands skin, he will make his debut as a three-cost Threat ⁠— one of the new traits added for the latest release. It’s an anti-trait of sorts: Threat doesn’t actually give units any additional power, nor does it stack like a regular trait. In saying that, he is an ultra-flexible tank and an anti-physical damage option that can be splashed into any team.

And as far as locking down Set 8 goes, Rammus’ inclusion was one of the first priorities. 

“One of the first things Mort [Stephen ‘Mortdog’ Mortimer, TFT’s lead developer] said to me as we were doing Set 8 was ‘you have to have two things in this set. One is no Assassins because I really hate them, and two is you have to put Rammus in this set,’” set design lead Lynda Tang told Dexerto.

“From previous experiences, we’ve thought about having him as a one-cost in Set 6 but we thought players would be disappointed. Set 7 was mostly about Dragons, even though some of you have rightly observed this Dragon [Terra] seems a lot like Rammus. 

“For Set 8 we wanted to make sure he was a meaningful unit that did what Summoner’s Rift Rammus does, so we saved him for now. We finally thought it was time.”

There’s not much else to say other than the meme is dead. However with Rammus mains finally having their wish fulfilled in the autobattler, Riot can now turn their sights to generally increasing champion diversity across the board.

Now everyone is going to look towards the champions who have only made brief appearances in TFT: Karthus and Yorick from Set 1 and Set 2 respectively are the first that come to mind. Riot is wary of sprinkling champions back in to keep mains invested, and they’re going to keep an eye on how long units spend on the sidelines.

“We know our fans are fans of the League IP,” Mortdog said. “Players who haven’t had their chance are going to be like ‘where’s my chance to see my favorite champion?’ I fully expect next ⁠— and we’ve started talking about it ⁠— just like skins in League, there’s going to be a list of how long since my champion was in a set. 

“We know next is going to be Karthus so we have to find the right spot for him. We’ll be keeping an eye on how long it’s been.”

How long it’ll take for them to make their redebut remains to be seen though. One thing is for sure though, the TFT team loves a good meme. Be very afraid if your main is the next one they lean into heavily next.

“I like a good meme,” Mortdog laughed, “and to be honest we were leaning into it really hard so it made for a good opportunity. If anything, I’ll be looking for the next good meme we can do.”