League of Legends Skin Shard & Hextec Crafting guide

If you want to know everything about Skins Shard and Hextec Crafting, this article will guide you through all the basics explaining the different Shards types, re-rolling Skin Shards, and the best strategy for Hextec Crafting.

Riot Games introduced the Hextech Crafting system to League of Legends in 2016. The system expanded on League of Legends’ old currency system of Riot Points (RP) and Influence Points (IP) that allowed players to unlock Champions and Skins alike. To expand on the original Hextech system, during the 7.22 update of League of Legends, the developers added two new currencies, Orange and Blue essence, for players to use. Orange Essence now serves as the currency to create cosmetics through the Hextech Crafting system, where Blue Essence serves to transform Champion shards into playable Champions. In addition, the old “Orange Essence,” RP, is now the game’s paid currency with various other uses. 

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The basics of Hextech Crafting

To make Hextech Crafting as simple as possible, you can combine Shards obtained through leveling up and other sources with Blue or Orange Essence to unlock stuff for your journey. You use Blue Essence to unlock Champions and Orange Essence to unlock Skins and other cosmetics. 

The easiest way to obtain these shards is through playing any of League of Legends’ game modes. As you earn experience through participating in any matchmade (with other players) game mode, you level up your player account and receive rewards for each level you gain. Before you worry about running out of levels, the current “cap” is at level 10,000, which Riot Games can always raise further if anyone ever reaches it. So far, the player Nolife Fynn holds the known record at player level 3498, a feast more than six years in the making. 

Aside from leveling up, players can earn various rewards through Riot Games’ esport-watching rewards, event missions, and Twitch Prime. The other common way to obtain various shards is through performing and being a great teammate. If you, or a teammate, accomplish the S- or above rank in Summoner’s Rift PvP matches, you can obtain a Hextech Chest up to twice a week. To open these keys, players can purchase Hextech Keys or collect Key Fragments periodically earned through receiving honors from other players in the game.  

The different Shard types in League of Legends

There are several types of Shards, including the most important two, Skin and Champion shards, and various other cosmetics or add-ons, like Eternals, Emotes, Ward Skins, and Icon Shards. 

Then, within the categories of Skin and Champion shards are several different “tiers” and costs. For example, with Champions, the cost in the shop ranges from 7800 BE for newly released characters to 450 Blue Essence for the oldest or beginner Champions of League of Legends. If players have a Champion Shard for the champion they are looking to unlock, the shard makes up for 40% of the total cost of the champion. For example, a recent champion may cost 6300 BE in the shop, then the cost to unlock the champion with a skin shard is only 3780 BE. Similarly, players with duplicate Champion shards, or if they have previously unlocked the champion, can disenchant the character for BE equal to 20% of the champion’s original cost. 

Note: On rare occasions (primarily from special events), players may unlock Champion Permanent shards, which disenchant for 50% of the champion's original cost, or allow players to unlock the champion for no cost. The last occurrence was during Riot Games’ celebration of the release of Arcane, which granted all players access to Vi, Jinx, Ryze, and Jayce, alongside their corresponding “Arcane” skins, for free. 

For Skins, which use Orange Essence(OE) as their crafting material, things are a bit more complicated as skins have different rarity tiers and associated costs. There are up to ten different cost tiers for Champion Skins, but only five are commonly available through the Hextech Crafting system.

Notably, Champion Skin shards equally disenchant for 20% of the skin’s original cost. However, the cost to craft skins using Skin Shards reduces the required OE by a flat 300 from their original price. These tiers include the following: 

In addition to the Champion and Champion Skins, as mentioned earlier, there are several more cosmetic options available in League of Legends which players may choose to craft through the Hextech Crafting system. For example, Ward Skins are available at 640 RP or by combining 340 Orange Essence and a Ward Skin shard.

Similarly, Emote Shards and Summoner Icon Shards cost 350 RP or 250 RP, respectively, or can be crafted by combining their corresponding shard with 175 or 125 OE. 

Rerolling skin shards in Hextech Crafting explained

In addition to crafting or disenchanting shards in League of Legends, there is also the option to reroll Champion Skin Shards into a random skin with a rarity of 520 RP or above. While several skins cost only 390 RP in the League of Legends shop, these are not available through the rerolling function of Hextech Crafting.

However, other rare or unavailable skins, such as Hextech Skins, Prestige Skins, and some otherwise unobtainable skins, are available to unlock through the Hextech Crafting system. Notably excluded are the old code-based skins (Black Alistar, Pax-skins) and the Honor Capsule skins of Grey Warwick and Medieval Twitch. 

To access the Hextech Crafting system, players can locate the “Loot” system in the top-right corner of their League of Legends browser. Now, to make things a bit more difficult, several additional drop rules are worth noting for the Reroll system. When rerolling Champion Skin Shards into a permanent Champion Skin, there is a 10% chance to obtain a free, additional Hextech Chest and Key. In addition to a 0.04% chance to unlock a random, unowned Mythic rarity Skin, and if you happen to roll a 520 RP champion skin permanent, you also receive a bonus of 100 Orange Essence. 

The strategy for Hextech Crafting

There has always been a lot of discussion and controversy surrounding the best strategies for the Hextech crafting system, with lots and lots of complicated math we won’t get into here today. The overall rule of thumb is quite simple. If a skin is of 520 RP rarity, unless you specifically want the skin, reroll it when you collect three or more. Generally speaking, the 520 RP skins aren’t the best looking, and often some of the oldest skins in League of Legends, making the average skin a great outcome. 

Skins of 750 RP or higher are generally best used to craft into permanent skins or to disenchant later into Orange Essence if you obtain duplicates of these skin shards. While you can choose to disenchant these Champion Skin Shards earlier, there is always a chance that you will regret this later due to League of Legends’ ever-changing meta and strategies. 

For those of you looking to “complete” your skin collections (Yes, that is a thing. Yes, that is very pricey.), make sure you keep your skin shards and reroll once you have purchased the cheaper skins first. The rerolling system doesn’t allow you to obtain duplicate skins, so if you purchased all cheap and Legacy skins, you obtain more of the higher-cost skins as you go. 

That said, the most important thing is that you enjoy League of Legends and everything this amazing game offers, whatever path you take. 

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