Fnatic Karthus

Picked this up from a mystery chest last month and honestly wasn't expecting much from a 2011 skin. After about 40 games though, I'm actually impressed with how clean Fnatic Karthus feels compared to base. The Q lay waste animation feels more responsive somehow, like there's less visual clutter when you're trying to CS under tower or poke in lane. And the ult channel is way easier to track with that orange glow instead of the base purple swirl that blends into everything.

The skin really showed its worth during a baron fight yesterday where I got caught out but managed to passive into their backline. The death animation is shorter and cleaner than Pentakill Karthus which I used to main, giving you that extra split second of clarity to position your corpse properly. Plus the E defile looks tighter around your model so you can actually tell if someone's barely in range or not. That fight probably doesn't go the same way on base skin where the effects just muddy everything up.

Is Fnatic Karthus worth it compared to other Karthus skins? For an older exclusive skin it's surprisingly competitive. It's not pay to win or anything but the cleaner animations definitely help when you're trying to hit those pixel perfect Qs in lane. The orange and black color scheme pops way better than I expected too, especially on Summoner's Rift where everything else is green and blue.

If you can snag it from a chest or mystery gift like I did, it's absolutely worth using over base. Maybe not worth hunting down specifically unless you're collecting the World Champions 2011 set, but my experience with Fnatic Karthus has been way better than expected. Solid 7/10 skin that aged really well.