Shaco

A puppet meant to comfort a lonely prince does not usually end up as a byword for murder, but Shaco managed exactly that reversal.

He was built long ago as a toy for a prince who had no one else to keep him company, and by every indication he served that role well, kind in whatever limited way a marionette can be kind. What happened afterward — the loss of the child he was made for, the dark magic that took hold once that bond broke — twisted him into something else entirely. The gentle toy became a jester who delights in murder and mayhem, treating every kill as the punchline to a joke only he finds funny.

An Assassin who runs on Mana and usually takes the mid lane, Shaco still plays with toys, just not the kind anyone would want handed to a child. Backstab, his passive, adds bonus damage to his basic attacks and Two-Shiv Poison whenever he strikes from behind. Deceive turns him invisible and teleports him to a chosen spot — most useful when cast over terrain, since it lets him vanish from a fight cleanly rather than just stepping sideways — and empowers his next attack out of that invisibility with bonus damage and a guaranteed critical strike if it lands from behind, one more reason items that boost critical damage suit him. Jack In The Box plants a hidden animated box that fears and attacks any enemy who triggers it, and its on-hit effects scale with whatever gear Shaco carries. Two-Shiv Poison lets his throwing knives poison on contact, slowing their target, with the thrown version dealing extra damage if the poison is already active. Hallucinate, his ultimate, conjures an illusion of himself that fights nearby enemies, benefiting from those same on-hit items, and explodes into three more Jack-in-the-Boxes upon death. Once he commits Deceive to start a fight, he has no quick way to use it again to escape, which is exactly the moment his opponents are told to strike back.

Shaco isn’t bound to any one nation — he answers only to Runeterra itself, drifting wherever there’s a dark corner to hide in. Other wanderers of that same unclaimed territory, like Evelynn and Fiddlesticks, share his taste for lurking just out of sight.