Characters / League of Legends: Thresh

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Thresh, the Chain Warden

Erlok Grael, Warden of Thresholds "Thresh"

"What delightful agony we shall inflict?"

^{Unbound Thresh}

Voiced by:
Mark Oliver (English)
Iñaki Crespo (European Spanish)
Oliver Magaña (Mexican Spanish/Original)
Esteban Desco (Mexican Spanish/Current)
Ryūzaburō Ōtomo (Japanese)
César Marchetti (Brazilian Portuguese)
Beom-Ki Hong (Korean), Sergey Kolesnikov (Russian)
Appears In: Legends of Runeterra, Tales of Runeterra, Ruined King, Ruination

"The mind is a wondrous thing to tear apart."

Sadistic and cunning, Thresh is an ambitious and restless spirit of the Shadow Isles. Once the custodian of countless arcane secrets, he sought a power greater than life or death, and now sustains himself by tormenting and breaking others with slow, excruciating inventiveness. His victims suffer far beyond their brief mortal coil as Thresh wreaks agony upon their souls, imprisoning them in his unholy lantern to torture for all eternity.

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Thresh is a Catcher champion who grows stronger and more resilient the longer the game goes on, and who excels at directing movement, displacing enemies and repositioning allies.

• His passive, Damnation, prevents Thresh from naturally gaining armor as he levels up. Instead, he collects souls that are left behind by nearby dying enemies, with each soul collected permanently increasing his armor and ability power.
• With his first ability, Death Sentence, Thresh throws his chained scythe in a target direction, damaging, stunning and slowly dragging the first enemy it hits towards him; the ability's cooldown is reduced if it hits a target. Thresh can also reactivate the ability to pull himself to the chained enemy.
• With his second ability, Dark Passage, Thresh tosses his lantern to a target location, where it remains for a few seconds, revealing its surroundings, collecting nearby souls and shielding the first allied champion to walk near it. Any allied champion can click on the lantern to be quickly pulled alongside it to Thresh's location.
• His third ability, Flay, passively increases the damage dealt by Thresh's basic attacks based on the number of souls he has collected and how long he waits between each basic attack. When activated, Thresh sweeps his chain in a target direction, damaging, slowing and pushing surrounding enemies in that direction.
• His ultimate ability, The Box, summons a spectral cage formed by five ghostly walls around Thresh's location. Each wall lasts for a few seconds and vanishes when an enemy champion passes through it, damaging and massively slowing them for a few seconds; each enemy champion can only be damaged by one wall.

Thresh's alternate skins include Deep Terror Thresh, Championship Thresh, Blood Moon Thresh, SSW Thresh Dark Star Thresh, High Noon Thresh, Pulsefire Thresh, Prestige Pulsefire Thresh, FPX Thresh, Spirit Blossom Thresh, Unbound Thresh, Steel Dragon Thresh, Lunar Emperor Thresh, and Winterblessed Thresh. Wild Rift exclusively includes Dream Raider Thresh.

In season 2 of Teamfight Tactics, Thresh uses his Deep Terror Thresh skin and is a Tier 2 Ocean Warden. His ability is Deep Sea Lantern, which throws his lantern out to the ally with the lowest health, shielding them and all allies near them. He returns in season 3 as a 5 cost Chrono Mana-Reaver. With his Temporal Passage ability, he tosses his lantern towards random unit(s) on your bench, pulling them into the current combat and granting them bonus mana. In season 4, he is reworked into a Tier 2 Dusk Vanguard using his Spirit Blossom skin and returns to using his season 2 ability, now renamed Spectral Lantern. He was removed along with the Dusk origin in the Festival of Beasts mid-set update. He returns in season 5 using his base skin as a Tier 2 Forgotten Knight. His ability was changed to Death Sentence, which deals magic damage and hooks the farthest enemy for a few seconds, stunning and slowly pulling them towards Thresh for the duration. He was removed in season 6, returning in season 7 with the same ability using his Steel Dragon Thresh skin as a Tier 2 Whispers Guardian. He was removed in the Uncharted Realms mid-set update, returning in season 10 using his High Noon Thresh skin as a Tier 4 Country Guardian. His Devil's Round Up ability launches chains that deal magic damage and stun the largest cluster of enemies, healing Thresh for a flat amount plus a percentage of the damage dealt. In season 11, he returns to his Spirit Blossom Thresh skin as a Tier 3 Fated Behemoth, whose Fated bonus grants increased armor and magic resistance. His Guided Passage ability shields himself and the lowest health ally, dealing magic damage to any enemies surrounding either unit. The ally also gains a percentage of Thresh's armor and magic resistance for a few seconds.

In Legends of Runeterra, Thresh is a 5-mana 3/6 Shadow Isles Champion with Challenger. When he sees 6 units on either side of the board die he levels up, gaining +1/+1, and each copy of him gains a one-time ability to summon an attacking Champion (other than another copy of himself) directly from your deck or hand for free when he attacks. His Champion Spell is Thresh's The Box (4-mana Shadow Isles Fast spell that deals 3 damage to any enemy that was summoned in the same round).

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A-F

• Absurdly Ineffective Barricade: Played with. You can escape his ultimate rather easily, but do so at your own peril because breaking a wall hurts, and slows you to the point you won't be getting that far away anyways. It acts a lot like a weaker version of one of Veigar's normal moves, slowing rather than stunning enemies (even at 1% move speed, enemies can retaliate and use movement abilities as opposed to a stun from Veigar).
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: Zigzagged. Compared to Thresh's prior skeletal form, his Unbound appearance has him take on a superficially human visage, though his utter lack of effort disguising his Undeathly Pallor, glowing eyes and body leaking supernatural light suggests a conscious choice to more effectively toy with his victims before he claims their souls. Ironically, the boilerplate text for his in-universe wanted poster implies that Thresh's new form is why Noxian authorities don't yet recognize him as more than a highly dangerous mage. The lore cinematic "Thresh Unbound: A Night at the Inn," by contrast, reveals his ability to completely pass as a 50-something Man of Wealth and Taste in social settings, showing no skin from the neck down, while reserving his Unbound form for active killing sprees.
• A God Am I: His taunt line to Ledros in Legends of Runeterra has him describe himself as one.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Spirit Blossom Thresh turns him into a well-bulit and slender-faced man with his pecs constantly exposed. He's depraved like his canon self, but for other reasons.
• Anthropomorphic Personification:
  • In his Dark Star skin, he claims to be "entropy incarnate."
  • Since Thresh can't be depicted as skeletal in Wild Rift, his Unbound redesign compensates by playing up the fact that he is literally an extension of his Mix-and-Match Weapon, and vice versa. His fingers are segmented blades of the same glowing glass as his scythe blade and lantern, while the petals and spikes of his gold armor mirror their ornamentation. The keyring at his waist matches his never-ending chain's links, and his Undeathly Pallor and glowing green eyes evoke the glowing faces of his lantern, while his geometric facial markings mimic their surface etchings. His muscle cuirass functions like a tin luminary, while Supernatural Light also pours out of his collar and pannier pockets, making him just as much of a light source as his lantern is. Even his hair rings make chains of his multiple ponytails, one cuffed with a large charm shaped like his scythe.
• Arch-Enemy: Lucian despises him and wants him dead, even after he succeeded in taking back his wife's soul from him. Senna, for her part, deliberately treats him as more of an obstacle than her nemesis despite her torture at his hands. Ironically, Lucian and Thresh work rather well as a bot lane duo.
• Ax-Crazy: "What delightful agony we shall inflict."
• Badass Longcoat: With bones sewn onto it, all connected to a fanged skull on his back. The skull even appears to animate slightly when he's moving.
• Big Bad Ensemble: He forms this alongside Gangplank and Viego in Ruined King. He and Gangplank are responsible for awakening Viego and unleashing a second Ruination on Bilgewater.
• Bishōnen Line:
  • After empowering himself with thousands of souls in the wake of Viego's Harrowing during the Ruined King Saga, he regains his human appearance while becoming much, much more powerful.
  • Spirt Blossom Thresh will turn human once he's absorbed enough souls with his passive.
• Bowdlerise:
  • In Legends of Runeterra, his splash arts feature alternate designs in certain regions to tone down his skeletal appearance. His face is replaced with a metal mask that covers off his usual skull head, and his chains are redesigned to more resemble actual metal instead of bones. This alternate design serves as his default appearance in Ruined King.
  • His "Unbound Thresh" design also counts as this. While it mainly represents his rise to power in gaining the powers of the Black Mist for himself, it was also created to serve as his default appearance in Wild Rift, as his usual skeletal appearance wouldn't fly in a non-T-rated game.
• Break Them by Talking: One of his favorite tactics against his foes. He spent years taunting and tormenting Lucian for his failure to protect Senna and does so with other champions he battle in-game.
  Thresh: "I see your doubt Garen... gnawing away inside."
  Garen: "Get out of my mind, monster!"
  
  Thresh: "Whatever happened to your tribe, Tryndamere?"
  Tryndamere: "I won't let you play your tricks."
  
  Thresh: "Oh, your brother said hello... or rather, screamed it."
  Yasuo: "Impossible!"
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Subverted, Thresh does not bother to remember the souls he claimed and his lore makes no mention of any souls he claimed. However, as shown in Shadow and Fortune, Thresh did have some difficulties remembering Senna, but when he does remember... he tells Lucian that he specifically remembered her just so he can torture Lucian mentally with her.
• Captain Morgan Pose: Performs one while recalling in his Deep Terror skin. While recalling on the skin, there's also a slight chance for him to bring up a tire and pose disappointedly instead.
• Card-Carrying Villain: He's fully aware of how others perceive him, and he relishes in every remark of his cruelty and villainy.
  Lucian: (Upon seeing an Allied Thresh summoned) "Abomination!"
  Thresh: (Evil Laughter)
• Cool Mask:
  • In alternate Legends of Runeterra artworks for foreign markets, and as a default in Ruined King, Thresh wears a metal mask with trailing chains to replace his skull head and bone "braids." In Runeterra the mask evokes a rough cast-iron appearance, while in the more recent past setting of Ruined King, it's become ornate and finely worked, with a detailed steel faceplate and fine gold links on the chains, suggesting a more grandiose temperament the more powerful Thresh becomes.
  • In "Thresh Unbound: A Night at the Inn" a now more powerful Thresh breifly uses the Black Mist to conceal his more human visage behind a shadowy mass with glowing eye slits, dispersing it when he finds someone he wants to talk to face-to-face.
• Chain Pain: Tipped with a razor-sharp hook. Compared to the typical three attack animations one crit animation formula, he has a flavorful, wide variety of swings and slashes and flicks that he employs depending on distance to the target and rotation at the time of attack.
• Charged Attack: His E ability, "Flay", passively gives him this ability on his basic attacks - the longer he goes between attacks, the harder his next basic attack will hurt. The damage is based off of his attack damage and the number of souls he's collected, so it can hit like a train.
• Coins for the Dead: Zigzagged, in "Thresh Unbound: A Night at the Inn" when Thresh in his Human Disguise offers Bort, a much-abused, magically disfigured and impoverished waiter, a gold Two-Headed Coin as gratuity to butter him up and single him out. Saving Bort for last during a merry rampage murdering all the Inn's residents, Thresh offers him a Deal with the Devil, freedom from his circumstances in exchange for a place as Thresh's ghostly coachman. Since Bort accepts the post via death at Thresh's hands, Thresh then repossesses the coin, presumably to repeat the offer to others he wants for his retinue.
• Come with Me If You Want to Live: Thresh will end up doing this many, many times a game by using his lantern to yank his teammates from dangerous positions to safety... if they remember to click on it.
• The Corruptor: In "A Night at the Inn", he notices a poor, abused server named Bort and offers him the chance to torment those who mistreated him. Bort seems like a decent enough fellow who suffers abuse at the hands of cruel customers. After taking Thresh's deal, however, he takes glee in revenge.
• Cosmic Entity: Dark Star Thresh is based off a black hole, and even turns his lantern into a black hole.
• Cthulhumanoid: Deep Terror Thresh to an extent◊. The tentacles are there, just very small. He also has them on the top/back of his head as well.
• A Day in the Limelight: He stars in the Tales of Runeterra short "A Night at the Inn", following him as he tempts the troubled soul, Bort, to provide the Isles with a new tormenter.
• Depending on the Artist: Though introduced as a canonical new default appearance, Unbound Thresh's visual presentation varies in tone both across and within various League media. Promo art◊ for League and in-game models in League and Wild Rift and some card art from Legends of Runeterra play up an Raven Hair, Ivory Skin aesthetic of youthful beauty, while alternate Runeterra card art ages and sharpens his face, emphasizing his inhuman pallor, talons, and body made of light. Lore cinematic "Thresh Unbound: A Night at the Inn" goes the furthest to emphasize his maturity and monstrosity, as an older, leaner, taller Thresh fully Looks Like Cesare and visibly leaks light from the collar and joints of his armor, underscoring that he isn't remotely human from the neck down. This cinematic was very well regarded, and in October 2021, his in-game art was updated to be more in line with the cinematic itself.
• Determinator: It doesn't matter how far you run or how well you hide. No matter how long it takes or whatever he has to go through, Thresh will kidnap you, torture you, and then collect your soul.
• Difficult, but Awesome: While it's not hard to be decently competent at him as long as you land your hooks, his skill ceiling is utterly enormous because he's capable of doing so much more. On top of having solid enemy lockdown with his hooks and The Box, Flay is a great tool to both engage fleeing enemies and disengage approaching enemies, and Dark Passage is able to give a live-saving rush of mobility to allies not seen in many other champions. Figuring out how to string these abilities along can be quite tricky, but a seasoned Thresh can spot every opportunity and use every tool to force devastating engages onto enemies, to the point where he's considered one of the few true "playmaker" supports.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: A key hangs in front of where his crotch would be. Given the sadistic, predatory nature of Thresh's existence and habits, one has to wonder if this was deliberate.
• The Dragon: He presently fancies himself as one to Viego, ushering in his latest global Ruination and shepherding the tortured souls and gathered artifacts for him. However, Viego doesn't exactly see him as a useful ally, and even Thresh himself notes that he doesn't have the most trustworthy reputation, backed by the fact he genuinely seems to want something for himself from the Ruination.
• The Dreaded: In-universe as a mysterious figure who could appear at any time to visit upon you a Fate Worse than Death, in-game as a high-tier kill support with the dreaded grab as but one of his powerful controlling abilities.
  Kalista: (upon seeing an enemy Thresh summoned) "The dying curse your name above all others, Thresh!"
  Thresh: (Laughs) "Good."
• Dynamic Entry: He can both do this himself by Death Leaping to a chained target and bring an ally in from the fog of war with his Dark Passage. Potentially both at the same time. Protip: if Thresh throws his lantern Behind the Black for no obvious reason, it's probably to bring in an ally. Or to make you think he's doing so. Sometimes, if he hooks an enemy and hit Q when it lands, he can pull himself to them. The "dynamic" bit depends on where he's entering from (ex. brush).
• Easter Egg: For much of Thresh's existence as a playable champion, he always began with one soul when faced against Lucian, presumably Senna's. This was quietly removed in October 2019, foreshadowing Senna's escape and becoming her own champion.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He evidently has no love for Teemo.
  Teemo: Hut, 2, 3, 4.
  Thresh: (upon seeing an allied Teemo summoned) Hm, and I thought I was evil.
• Evil Feels Good: He has no interest in undoing the curse of the Shadow Isles, in part because despite many spirits considering it hell on earth, Thresh sees the eternity it grants them as its own wondrous liberation. In "The Echoes Left Behind", when Ledros confronts him about the idea of finally ending the madness for peace, his response?
  "You cling so desperately to the past, even as it runs through your fingers, like sand in a timepiece, yet you're blind to the wonder of what we have been given. It has made us gods."
• Evil Makes You Monstrous: Played With; consistently, when a soul is transformed by a Ruination, their most prominent traits are warped into a distorted version of their past self, and they lose their sense of self in the process. Thresh however is explicitly the exact same as he was in life, personality-wise; his monstrous wraith form is simply that wicked personality given a shape.
• Face–Heel Turn: Started out as custodian of a vault of corrupted magical artifacts, but over time was himself corrupted by the things he was supposed to be guarding, which he started torturing For the Evulz. When he started getting living prisoners....well, the rest is history. However, his diary entries in The Ruined King muddy the situation, as he claims to have been unaffected by the Nameless Tome, a tome so horrifying many were driven mad by its ramblings. Either Thresh was already so evil the book could not affect him or he was too arrogant to realize it was corrupting him.
• Fake Difficulty: Savvy players who know about Thresh's lantern will sometimes stand directly on it so it cannot be clicked, often depriving some poor schmuck of their only salvation.
  • This "bug" (if you can call it that way) got patched out in the latest patches, giving the lantern collision and 'not' breaking a core mechanic of this champion.
• Fate Worse than Death: Being trapped in Thresh's lantern subjects you to an eternity of endless torment as he slowly breaks you apart until there's nothing left of you. Senna is the only one who has ever escaped him.
• Faux Affably Evil:
  • He facetiously speaks to everyone like they're dear friends of his. He also happens to be an immortal spirit of malice and sadism, out to rob people of their hope, will, strength, and minds. Oh, also their souls. Can't forget the souls.
  • "Thresh Unbound: A Night at the Inn" shows his skills at playing this part: seeing an unfortunate waiter getting picked on for his magic-induced deformity, Thresh begins his scheme by feigning generosity and sympathy towards his plight. When he ends up making his attack, Thresh doesn't immediately go after him — he instead offers him the chance to cure his deformity and a position of "freedom" over his abusers. He's quickly convinced to take the chance, adding yet another soul into Thresh's collection.
• Flaming Skulls: His head resembles a monstrous skull wreathed in green flames. High Noon Thresh opts for a cow skull to fit the wild west theme.
• Flaying Alive: While his Flay ability doesn't do this in actual gameplay, he is a Torture Technician, so its name suggests that he does a lot of this off-screen.
• For the Evulz: Thresh's endgame is simply gathering power and spreading suffering through Runeterra. His thrist for power was born from being put in a resented position by his superiors on the Blessed Isles, and he took the opportunity of Viego's arrival to kickstart the Ruination. Since then he's traveled around Runeterra with every harrowing to gather souls and recruit new torurers to join him on the Isles, like he does with Bort in "A Night at the Inn".
• From Nobody to Nightmare: In the grand scheme of things, Thresh was ultimately a no-name civilian whose biggest contribution to the Ruination of the Blessed Isles was showing Viego the way to the Waters of Life he was already looking for. Now, he's one of the most infamous and sadistic beings in not just the Shadow Isles, but all Runeterra. And as of the end of the Ruined King saga, he now has claim as a new Big Bad, courtesy of all the shadow power he collected while working for Viego.
• Fully-Embraced Fiend: Thresh has gladly embraced being a wraith bound to the Black Mist; he believes he and every other wraith have been given godlike power and should be embracing their undeath.

G-Z

• The Gadfly: A really malicious one. When he isn't hunting down, capturing, and/or torturing souls, he toys with his living prey just to extract as much stress and fear as he can out of them.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • Thresh's lantern is a near-inescapable prison in the game's lore. In the game itself, clicking on Thresh's lantern is not inescapable, the player must choose to do it, and it will most likely be used as either an initiation tool or to help an ally escape danger.
  • Thresh himself is a loner who enjoys inflicting suffering and torment upon the souls he captures. In game, he's designed to fit in the supportive role, helping the team's botlaner through locking down enemies rather than killing them himself.
• Glowing Eyelights of Undeath: Present in both his classic and Unbound skins, signifying him as a wraith.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Grael's position as the Keeper of Thresholds was meant to keep others from having to deal with him. He was at first insulted by the role, as he was more than intelligent enough to catalogue knowledge. Unfortunately, he took his insulting position very seriously in an attempt to get promoted and came into contact with a cursed book, which pushed him further into depravity and evil. By the time Viego sailed to the Blessed Isles, Grael was more than willing to allow Viego access to the Waters of Life, causing Viego to corrupt them and destroy the Isles.
• Grappling-Hook Gun: Of the hook-on-a-chain-that-he-throws variety. He can use this to yank an enemy closer to him and pull himself closer to them if he so chooses.
• Hell Is That Noise: In universe, children are being told nursery rhymes to watch out for the sounds of his chains. Why? Because they may very well be the last thing that they hear.
  Cling, clang, go the chains.
  Someone's out to find you.
  Cling, clang, oh the chains.
  The Warden's right behind you.
• Hitodama Light: In addition to the typical Faux Flame wreathing his head like the other Shadow Isles champions, there are also the souls he goes about collecting that look like this.
• Hijacked by Ganon: At the end of Rise of the Sentinels, Thresh emerges from the ashes of Viego's banishment to Camavor as the new Big Bad of the Shadow Isles, having used the Black Mist of the latest super-Harrowing to unbound himself from undeath into something just as powerful, if not more so, as his predecessor. While the Sentinels manage to escape his immediate wrath, he's now turned into the prime target in Lucian and Senna's itinerary for the future.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: When Thresh dies, his soul emerges from his fallen form, and is then sucked into his own soul-trapping lantern.
• Hooks and Crooks: There's a hook on the end of one of his chains, as previously mentioned. It can really hurt.
• Hope Bringer: Ironically, he can become this for his team. Just got ambushed by enemy champs, only to see your ally Thresh toss his lantern over a wall to you? Your ass probably just got saved from a Curb-Stomp Battle.
• Humanoid Abomination: His Dark Star skin makes him this, being the Anthropomorphic Personification of a Black Hole and Entropy.
• I Let You Win: He loves to draw out his victims' suffering as long as possible, which means if he thinks it will break them further, he'll let them run free for the moment so that he can come reap them at a later time. This is what he did to Lucian after stealing Senna's soul, wanting to fester Lucian's anger to break him even more.
  "I'm not here for you... this time."
• Ikemen: In his Spirit Blossom skin, after collecting 45 souls, Thresh can freely transform from an Oni to a handsome young man and back again if the player wishes it. According to his Spirit Blossom event, the human form is his real form while the oni is a form he is forced into when he lacks a great number of souls.
• Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: His ultimate, The Box, generates a five-panel wall around himself and anyone near. Played straight for Thresh, but not for other players- unless an enemy tries to walk in or out, wherein they take damage and are slowed by 99%.
• Irony/Laser-Guided Karma: His death animation consists of the lantern flying out of his control, then absorbing his soul.
• Jerkass: He was like this even in life, having grown bitter and cruel from being relegated to guarding the Blessed Isles' vaults. Becoming a wraith has only allowed him to relish in his cruelty further, taunting and mocking his victims as he traps them in a cycle of torture.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: After lording Senna's demise over Lucian for years, he finally gets some comeuppance in the Senna: Shadow's Embrace reveal trailer. Not only is Senna freed from his grasp, but she gives him a solid thrashing to boot. He's even forced to flee the scene, a nice role reversal for such an Implacable Man. While he isn't killed, it's made clear that he's going to have a much harder time taking Lucian down than if he was alone...
• Kicked Upstairs: Grael was expecting to be given a high status position for his years of work as a Helian monk, but instead he was given a job as a warden of artifacts, implied to be so that the others wouldn't have to deal with his asshole-ish behavior.
• Laughably Evil: In Legends of Runeterra, while still being a threat and taken seriously as one, Thresh has a surprisingly large amount of comedic interactions with other units. He clearly enjoys toying with the living as much as as he does with the souls he's captured.
  Lucian: (Upon seeing an Allied Thresh summoned) Sentinels don't work with monsters!
  Thresh: Oh... now you've hurt my feelings.
• The Mad Hatter: "Me, mad? Haha, quite likely." In Legends of Runeterra, Lucian bluntly calls him an "abomination", to which Thresh laughs hysterically in agreement.
• Magikarp Power: He has a unique scaling mechanism: the number of souls he collects increases his AP and armor- he absolutely needs to since he otherwise doesn't gain any armor per level. Toward endgame, once he has become saturated with them, his abilities hit like a train *and* he'll be absurdly resilient to physical damage.
• Manipulative Bastard:
  • In Rise of the Sentinels, Thresh, intent on bringing down Viego for his own reasons, tricks Lucian into willingly giving him one of Isolde’s fetters by playing on the latter’s increasing desperation to protect Senna. He then gives said fetter to Viego in order to worm his way back into the Ruined King’s good graces.
  • In "Thresh Unbound: A Night at the Inn", he goads a deformed, down-on-his-luck inn worker into allowing him to claim his coworkers' souls by offering him to fix his deformity. Given that Thresh already planted the seeds of good faith while disguised as a normal human earlier that day, said worker takes the bait pretty quickly.
  • In Ruined King, he's playing both into Gangplank's desperation to regain power and Viego's misguided love for Isolde, knowing it will devastate the world around them, all as a means to harvest a wealth of souls for himself.
• Mascot: Similar to how Darius represents Noxus or Yasuo represents Ionia, Thresh has become akin to the face of the Shadow Isles, being the promotional figure used to sell the region. His spectral appearance has informed what the wraiths of the isles look like, and he's been instrumental in the events of the Ruined King Saga.
• Mighty Glacier: Thresh is not only tanky but also deals a lot of damage with the passive attack bonus from Flay. His other abilities are no slouch either, each being good at peeling and slowing down enemies. Besides Death Sentence though, he has no innate mobility to rely one for closing gaps or escaping, relying only on his studriness and crowd control. AD builds are a whole other thing.
• Mind Rape:
  • He seeks to break strong people (both physically and mentally) before taking their souls.
  • Ironically, he himself is a victim of this from all the corrupted MacGuffins he was supposed to be guarding.
• Mundane Utility: Thresh's lantern is a versatile tool, able to shield himself, shield his allies, save his allies, harvest souls, call in ganks, regroup for teamfights, engage in teamfights, disengage from teamfights, provide vision, induce paranoia... and make his carry's walk back to lane three seconds shorter if he happens to be in front. Also, he drinks the souls from it during his /joke.
• Not the Intended Use: Thresh is meant to be a support to an ADC in the botlane. However, he is sometimes played in toplane as a scaling tank or bruiser, as his mixed damage through his passive can give him solid dps and tankiness and he retains his great team utility regardless of where he is played.
• Obviously Evil: A tall imposing wraith covered in bones who carries a sharp scythe on a chain and a lantern full of human souls. Did you think he was the good guy?
• Omnicidal Maniac: Dark Star Thresh cares less for everlasting torment of individuals and more of bringing about a Class-Z annihilation of all existence. To put this into perspective, he's a major threat to Aurelion Sol, Bard, and The Void. And one of his voice lines implies he's already done a Class X-4 (Universal Scale, Physical Annihilation) to other realities before he's gotten to Runeterra's.
• Paranoia Fuel: Riot said outright that this is an intended design aspect for Thresh. Like Blitzcrank, he often hides in bushes to wait until you're in a position to be chained up, leaving his opponents paranoid about going anywhere near a bush if they've suddenly lost sight of him. However, he must leave the bushes every so often to grab fallen souls, giving you a glimpse of him every so often like horror movies do for the monsters. In addition, when Thresh finally does throw his chain, he doesn't look in the direction he's throwing it until it's already out.
• Pet the Dog: In his trailer for Wild Rift, Thresh meets a man in an inn with a cursed arm named Bort, who is mistreated by his employer and customers. Thresh then offers Bort a chance at freedom, and at the end after enslaving everyone's souls, he makes Bort his ghostly coachman, restoring his arm in the process. Of course, this is just to create further suffering for Bort's former abusers, but it's also implied that Thresh sees a bit of himself in the server, as a man held back and abused by his fellows.
• Punishment Box: His ultimate is named "The Box" in reference to one of these. While it won't outright hurt enemies all that much, its devastating slowing effect will leave them vulnerable and trapped, which isn't a good feeling when you're being pursued by Thresh.
• Punny Name: His weapon is a sickle. Sickles are used for harvesting in agriculture, such as wheat. Threshing is what you do with wheat after harvesting it.
• Resource Reimbursement: Death Sentence has him toss out his chain-hook to catch unfortunate enemies — if it successfully lands, half of the ability's cooldown is reset, allowing him to do it again in a shorter time.
• Retcon: When initially created, his Mysterious Past suggested that he was once a purely evil jailer even in life before becoming the spectral horror show he is now. With the Shadow Isles lore update in 2016, it was rewritten so that he actually began as a relatively normal artifacts keeper but became slowly corrupted by the evil of said artifacts, though this was still before the isles became ruined by un-death. Ruined King further tweaks Thresh's history, implying that, in spite of being at the top of his class, his position as a Warden was a way of being Kicked Upstairs due to his already extant personality issues, to which he remained oblivious until artifact exposure made them exponentially worse.
• Scary Skeleton: His base design is laden with bone imagery, evoking a theme of death. His head is a skull, his coat is covered in bones, and even his chain seems to be made of bones.
• Sea Monster: Deep Terror Thresh which replaces his head with a creepy squid.
• The Shadow Knows: In "Thresh Unbound: A Night at the Inn" Thresh's shadow retains the shape of his original skull and bones, briefly glimpsed while he chats with a victim wearing his newer, human guise.
• Sinister Scythe: His weapon is a scythe attached to a chain that he hooks victims with and reels in.
• Softspoken Sadist: Nearly all of his many lines are playful, sadistic mockery spoken in a magnified, echoing whisper. Pretty much the only times he raises his voice are when he's been killed and when he's laughing.
• Spacetime Eater: Dark Star Thresh. He's basically a black hole embodied, who thinks time is a cog in a dying machine.
• The Starscream: Even though Viego before spurned Thresh’s help due to his blatant untrustworthiness, by the end of the Ixtal chapter in Rise of the Sentinels, Thresh has managed to put himself back in the position of advisor by personally delivering him one of Isolde’s fetters. However, it’s also made clear in that chapter that what he truly wants involves Viego being defeated.
• Super-Persistent Predator: As his lore puts it:
  "Once Thresh takes an interest in a soul, he does not relent until he possesses it."
• Super-Strength: Thresh can yank grown men around like ragdolls with his chains. He does so effortlessly in "A Night at the Inn" against a fleeing patron.
  "I forgot how squishy they are."
• Teethclenched Teamwork: He really rubs it in when partnered with Lucian.
  Thresh: "Well, this is awkward."
  Lucian: "Everything's a joke to you, huh?"
• Time Abyss: His Dark Star skin makes him into one, as his lines mention he's already destroyed other realities.
• Torture Technician: He deliberately only seeks out the strongest, most stubborn people to torture. We have reason to believe he hasn't failed yet.
• Variable-Length Chain: Either side of his long waistcoat has a horned skull ornament from which the chains for his lantern and hook are dispensed. Neither one has any observable limit.
• Villains Never Lie: Inverted. During the Ixtal chapter of Rise of the Sentinels, Thresh gives Lucian information on a weapon that can revive the dead in exchange for one of Isolde's fetters. Lucian thinks he's lying and tries to call the deal off, but it turns out Thresh really was telling the truth when the team meets Akshan.
• Voice of the Legion: Even though he rasps, whispers, or crows everything he says, his voice can get pretty loud thanks to this.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Thresh's lantern can be a simple click away from escape. However, a simple way to deny those clicks as the enemy is to obstruct it with your own body, or even just plopping down a ward onto it, with the idea that the enemy's clicks will prioritize it over the lantern.
• Worthy Opponent: Never in a million years did Thresh think Lucian could destroy his lantern, freeing Senna. He now eagerly awaits to see what happens to the couple next, and what he can do to break them once again.
  Intrigued by the obvious strength of their mortal bond, he has decided to allow them this small and insignificant victory, knowing all too well that the game of light and shadow they all play is still far from over...
• Xanatos Gambit: He effectively set the entire Ruined King Saga into motion by waking Viego from his slumber, and then leeched off of the massive Harrowing that followed to gain a massive amount of power. It ultimately didn't matter if Viego or the Sentinels won in the end, because he'd either become Viego's dragon if the Ruined King succeeded, or take his place as the Shadow Isles' Big Bad if the Sentinels banished him. He ends up with the latter in addition to a new human form in the end.
• You Don't Look Like You: Human Thresh already had an established look that's different from the appearance of Unbound Thresh. This was even more jarring when the skin initally released, making Thresh look younger and sleeker before being aged up after "A Night at the Inn" released.
• Your Soul Is Mine!:
  • His central theme is to collect the souls of nearby dying enemies to get stronger, more or less indefinitely. That lantern of his carries all of the souls he's gathered, which actually carries over into gameplay even though it's said nowhere in the tooltips - throwing his lantern at souls can capture them from afar.
  • Invoked in a sidequest when fighting against Senna (and Lucian if the two are together), triggered when Senna gets 100 Mist and Thresh 40 Souls. Whoever kills the opposition first gains bonus stats from their collection. It's not quite a true example since neither truly "steals" the souls, and the stats gained are a flat boost (Thresh killing Senna [or Lucian if he's also around] gives him 40 attack damage, 50 attack range, and 30% crit chance, while Senna killing Thresh grants her 30 ability power and armor).
  • Collecting 45 souls in his Spirit Blossom skin can allow him to transform into a human.
• You Will Not Evade Me: Par for the course for a "kill" support, he has three ways to enact this. Death Sentence in particular lives up to its name; it stuns a hapless foe, pulls them a short distance back towards Thresh, and can be re-activated to bring Thresh back into melee range. Combined with Flay's re-direction potential and The Box's incredibly powerful slow, a well executed Thresh combo can lock down enemies with ease.