Characters / League of Legends: Udyr

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Udyr, the Spirit Walker

"Conflict feeds the Freljord."

^Pre-VGU
"Our rage is beyond your control!"

Voiced by:
J.S. Gilbert (English/Original)
Sean Rohani (English/Current, Legends of Runeterra-)
Carlos Kaniowski (European Spanish)
Humberto Solorzano (Mexican Spanish)
Tsuguo Mogami (Japanese)
Walmir Barbosa (Brazilian Portuguese)
Jang-Won Lee (Korean), Alexander Gruzdev (Russian)
Appears in: Legends of Runeterra

"I can taste our enemies' hunger for victory. Let them starve."

The most powerful spirit walker alive, Udyr communes with all the spirits of the Freljord, whether by empathically understanding their needs, or by channeling and transforming their ethereal energy into his own primal fighting style. He seeks balance within, so that his mind does not get lost amidst others, but he also seeks balance without—for the Freljord's mystical landscape can only thrive with the growth that comes from conflict and struggle, and Udyr knows that sacrifices must be made to keep peaceful stagnance at bay.

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Udyr is a Juggernaut champion who specializes in close-range hand-to-hand combat, rapidly switching between different combat stances to deal with different situations. Udyr's abilities function differently from any other champion: instead of three basic abilities and an ultimate, he has four different stances he can level up from the start of the game; from level sixteen onwards his abilities gain an additional sixth rank.

• His passive, Bridge Between, has two effects:
  • Awakened Spirit: Each stance has a passive effect that is active for a set period. Udyr can recast to Awaken his stance, refreshing it and granting him bonus effects.
  • Monk Training: After using an ability, his next two attacks gain bonus attack speed and refunds a percentage of Awaken's cooldown on hit.
• His first ability, Wilding Claw, grant Udyr's next two attacks bonus range and physical damage. For a few seconds, he also gains bonus attack speed.
  • When awakened, Udyr gains even more attack speed and now deals bonus damage equal to a percentage of his target's health. His strikes now also create lightning that bounces between enemies, dealing percent-health-based magic damage to every opponent hit.
• His second ability, Iron Mantle, grants Udyr a shield and lifesteal on his next two attacks, also restoring bonus health based on ability power.
  • When awakened, Udyr gains a stronger shield and regenerates missing health for a short period. His lifesteal effect also doubles during this time.
• His third ability, Blazing Stampede, grants Udyr a decaying movement speed boost. And his first attack on any opponent will stun them briefly, the effect going on cooldown for every individual target.
  • When awakened, Udyr gains total immunity to crowd control and disabling effects, as well as an even bigger movement speed boost.
• His fourth ability, Wingborne Storm, surrounds Udyr in a snowstorm for several seconds that slows and deals magic damage to enemies inside. Udyr's next two attacks deal bonus magic damage to anyone inside the storm.
  • When awakened, the snowstorm will track the nearest enemy, dealing percent-health magic damage for its remaining duration. The storm will prioritize whoever Udyr attacked last.

Udyr's alternate skins include Black Belt Udyr, Primal Udyr, Spirit Guard Udyr, Definitely Not Udyr, Dragon Oracle Udyr, and Inkshadow Udyr.

In season 5 of Teamfight Tactics, Udyr uses his Dragon Oracle Udyr skin as a Tier 1 Draconic Skirmisher. His ability, Feral Instinct, has Udyr switch between Turtle Stance and Tiger Stance with each cast; Turtle Stance grants him a shield for a few seconds, while Tiger Stance causes his next basic attack to quickly strike three times for a percentage of his attack damage. He was removed in season 6, returning in season 11 using his Inkshadow Udyr skin as a Tier 5 Inkshadow Behemoth Spirit Walker. His Spirit Walker class is a unique trait that enrages him the first time he falls below half health each round, restoring him to full health, increasing his movement speed and changing his ability for the rest of combat. Before enraging, his ability is Ram Slam, which shields Udyr as he charges forward, knocking up all enemies he hits, he then grabs the nearest enemy and slams them to the ground, dealing magic damage to all enemies around the target. After enraging, his spell becomes Tiger Strikes, which grants Udyr bonus attack speed and empowers his basic attacks to strike multiple times dealing bonus magic damage for a few seconds.

In Legends of Runeterra, Udyr is a 5-mana 5/4 Freljord Champion that creates a Stance Swap (3-mana Slow spell that grants an ally one of four Stances: Bear Stance grants +2/+2, Wildclaw Stance grants +2 Power and Overwhelm, Boar Stance grants +2 Health and Regeneration, and Ram Stance deals 1 damage to everything else) in your hand upon being summoned or striking, or reduces its cost to 0 if you already have one. Once you've played Stance Swap 3 times, Udyr levels up, gaining +1/+1 and passively gaining another +1/+1 for each Stance you've given to a unit during the game. His signature spell is Udyr's Sprits Unleashed.

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A-J

• A Friend in Need: Udyr owed a debt to the monks and Lee Sin for helping him gain control of his powers, one they never asked him to repay. He repaid it during the second Noxian/Ionian war by fighting off the forces of Noxus, wiping out their forces in the scores.
  • This was eventually retconned in his VGU; instead he and Lee arrived in Ionia when it was already being attacked by Noxus, and proceeded to drive back the Noxian armies.
• The Ace: Udyr's not just any Spirit Walker, he is the strongest Spirit Walker to ever live. He can channel the spirit of almost any animal as well as the all-powerful demigods that watch the Freljord. The first manifestation of his power brought down a whole mountain, and instilled his lifelong fear of hurting those around him. Training with Lee and the Monks gave him actual mastery over this power, honing himself into a more controlled force of nature.
• Afraid of Their Own Strength: With how erratic and uncontrollable his power was in his youth, Udyr developed a deep fear of himself and his abilities, believing it'd be best to keep himself away from others so not to hurt them. Through learning to open himself up to people again and control his powers, he's slowly worked through this fear.
• The Aloner: For a long time this is how he was, too afraid to approach other people out of fear of his powers hurting them. The only ones he'd let into his life were Kalkia and eventually Lee Sin. Even after achieving mastery of his powers, he still prefers time to himself a lot to journey through the wilderness.
• Ambiguously Bi: Post-VGU, a lot of his lines revolving Lee Sin read as way more intimate than before, sharing equal weight to his deceased lover Kalkia.
• Animalistic Abilities: Old Udyr was the vessel of four primal animal spirits, each with its own unique power. The tiger granted him speed and ferocity; the turtle granted him resilience; the bear granted him might; and the phoenix granted him its eternal flame. This changed in his VGU to channeling the demigods of the Freljord. While functionally similar, the effects and capabilities of each are pushed further.
• Anime Hair: Spirit Guard Udyr's hair is much spikier and more exaggerated than in his base skin, and when he awakens it starts glowing and spiking upward like he's in a Shonen battle.
• Animal Motifs:
  • Pre-VGU, his animal themes were much more assorted: the Monkey (for a passive with no visual flair), the Tiger, the Turtle, the Bear, and the Phoenix (neither of the latter two are related to Volibear or Anivia). Most of this specific scheme was preserved for the Spirit Guard Udyr skin.
  • Post-VGU, Udyr's abilities channel the various animal spirits of Freljordian demigods: the Bear (representing Volibear), the Boar (representing the unnamed Iron Boar), the Ram (representing Ornn), and the Phoenix (representing Anivia). Silence for the Damned mentions a few other forms not included in gameplay: the Eagle and the Lynx.
  • LoR includes the Wildclaw. a species of giant cat that serves as an homage to his old Tiger Stance.
• Animal-Themed Fighting Style: While also gaining their unique powers, Udyr's fighting style reflects the mannerisms of the animals he channels, such as clawing like a bear or headbutting like a ram. He's even willing to bite his oppoenent if he goes all out.
• Anime Hair: Udyr has borderline-Vegeta hair while in a maxed-out Wilding Claw Stance. Equip Spirit Guard and this will apply to all of his stances when awakened.
• Apologetic Attacker: He shows immense guilt and reservations towards hurting Sejuani.
  "Sejuani, do not make me your enemy. Please...!"
  (Killing her as Sprit Guard) "Sejuani, I... never wanted it to end like this. I am sorry..."
  "Forgive me, Kalkia... I swore to protect your Sejuani... I..."
• Art Evolution:
  • Originally played with regarding the Spirit Guard Udyr skin, which featured much clearer designs, animations, and visual effects which reflected his then-canon appearance and was even described by Riot to effectively be his visual upgrade. However, the canonicity of this would be backpedaled years later in favor of giving him a true VGU down the line, along with concerns of gating a major quality-of-life upgrade to a paid skin.
  • He received his actual VGU in 2022, rebuilding all of his visual designs, animations, and VFX from scratch. One particular adjustment was the implementation of his stances — prior to the VGU, Udyr had multiple models that he'd swap to, each with a different pelt based on whichever animal spirit he uses, something that resulted in long-term resource sustainability issues and made it hard for him to receive updates or skins. With the VGU, they swapped to a more modular system where he'd retain the same in-game model, ditching a singular pelt and instead getting attachable bodily features, animations, VFX, and other accessories to make his stances more distinct and impactful.
• Audience Participation: His VGU was the result of a player vote held by Riot in 2021, coming in first place against four other champions.
• Badass Adorable: Played for Laughs: "Definitely Not" Udyr replaces his normal animal spirit forms with different pajama onesies, all resembling cute versions of the corresponding animals.
• Badass Boast:
  "I can taste our enemies' hunger for victory. Let them starve."
  "I enter the fray, anger in my heart and ice in my veins."
  "Anger the phoenix, and feel its talons."
  "Mastery is a volcano, and I will rise within it like magma."
  (Vs. Lissandra): "Ice Witch, you are a blight on the Freljord! I will be its cure."
• Badass Teacher: The splash art for his post-VGU Black Belt skin envisions him as a karate teacher instructing several young students.
• Balance Buff: Udyr's fantasy as a stance-swapping Warrior Monk with a focus on auto-attacks came from an older and simpler point in League's history. As champions became much more dynamic and, especially, mobile, he's struggled to keep up, both because he had few options to approach combat besides running in and his stances provided very minimal differences in utility, making swapping not very impactful. His VGU addresses all of these shortcomings, making his kit much more dynamic and practical to enforce his archetype. Universally, all of the passive effects of his stances have been toned down to instead the first two attacks being the most impactful, creating a greater sense of power from switching. While he no longer has permanent stat boosts like the older version, his ability to capitalize on openings is greater, with his damage output still remaining strong too.
  • Wilding Claw streamlines the damage buff from Tiger Stance, actually applying the bonus damage more consistently since he can activate it manually rather than have it be on a timed activation. And he puts out even more hurt when awakening, dealing percent-health damage and damaging all enemies behind his target thanks to the Chain Lightning.
  • Iron Mantle's life steal is much stronger than that of Turtle Stance, making that his most durable stance as intended.
  • Blazing Stampede builds on the engage potential of his old Bear Stance by giving Udyr crowd-control immunity, easing the amount of effort needed to close the gap between him and his foes.
  • Wingrborne Storme turns Phoenix Stance''s ring of fire effect into a persistently active hitbox, improving its capabilities as an AoE ability. The ability to slow and track the nearest enemy also greatly improves Udyr's ability to stick to opponents.
• Barbarian Long Hair: With his VGU, he gets longer hair to evoke his warrior-druid influences.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: With raw strength and a bit of godly assistance, Udyr only needs two working arms to defeat his opponents.
  "Weapons are for the weak."
• Baritone of Strength: His rework especially grants him a very low and growly voice, befitting of someone big and strong like him.
• Barrier Warrior: Iron Mantle (as well as Turtle Stance) grant Udyr the ability to generate barriers from his own spiritual energy. While primarily for gameplay, "A Walk with the Voices" shows he can do this canonically too to fend off attackers.
• Battle Aura: Awakening grants him a thick aura corresponding to the color of whatever stance he's using. It's taken even further with Spirit Guard which goes full Dragon Ball with his awakened stances.
• Bears Are Bad News: Both before and after his VGU, Udyr has a bear-themed ability. Pre-VGU, Bear Stance gave him bonus movement speed and an on-hit stun. Said ability was converted into the ram-themed Blazing Stampede come post-VGU, and he concurrently gained Wilding Claw, instead giving him Volibear's electrified claws to shred enemies with.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: The first person he truly opened up to was Kalkia who was kind enough to approach him even after he was banished from her tribe. He also happily took to Lee Sin when the monk offered him a place to finally master his abilities.
  "Kalkia helped me find myself. Lee helped me claim myself. Both good lessons."
• The Berserker: His fighting style emphasizes animalistic fury and determination, roaring with every strike and overwhelming his opponent blow after blow. It takes a lot of willpower to keep this from going out of control and harming his loved ones too.
• Bilingual Bonus: The word "Udyr" literally translates into "Beast" in Norwegian. The Danish words "Uhyr" and "Dyr" mean "Monster" and "Animal", while "udyr" is mostly used to describe people as evil, acting like animals and not caring if they kill.
• Blessed with Suck: Being able to hear the voices of every living creature around him means Udyr's mind is constantly clouded by noise. Nobody in his tribe could help him control such a vast amount of power, and this caused him to slowly close himself off from others for a long time.
  The needs and wants of everything around him constantly flooded his mind, making it impossible to hear anything above their roar.

  The Spirit Walker
• Boring, but Practical: While his abilities are able to add some flavor and introduce strategy, at the end of the day, Udyr is a close-ranged fighter whose offensive abilities stem from auto-attacks. If you can smack enemies, you can play Udyr.
• Boxing Battler: Both his default stance and Iron Mantle turn his auto attack into a series of quick punches, even standing in a pose akin to an orthodox stance.
• Chain Lightning: Awakened Wilding Claw sends a stream of lightning out from whoever he attacks, damaging enemies behind his target. This is almost an exact copy of Volibear's passive.
• Close-Range Combatant: Udyr's abilities' are all only usable from "Smack them" range. Certain abilities can extend the range of his damage provided he auto attacks someone, damaging in a cone or with chained effects.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Every stance has its own unique color and special effects to differentiate them at a glance. Wilding Claw evokes Volibear's blue lightning, Blazing Stampede evokes Ornn's red fire, Iron Mantle is a metallic gray evoking the Iron Boar, and Wingborn Storm evokes Anivia's teal ice crystals.
  • Spirit Guard, and by extant Old Udyr, has a blue tiger, a green tortoise, an orange bear, and a red phoenix.
• The Comically Serious: His interactions with Gromp have him keep his serious composure while having to channel a frog.
  "Ribbit."
• Costume Evolution: On closer inspection, Udyr's design in Legends of Runeterra is actually an evolution of his classic League design that stuck around until his VGU. He's got the same bear pelt, black-sleeveless tunic, and red paw print on his outfit. But the details of the outfit are not only clearer, they tie more directly to the aesthetics of the Freljord, utilizing furs and rugged travel gear, and greatly downplay the East-Asian elements by ditching the sandals and references to a karate gi.
• Declaration of Protection: In the memory of his lover Kalkia, Udyr swears loyalty and protection towards Sejuani, aiding her and the Winter's Claw.
  "Sejuani's boar, her True Ice, her people, her purpose... I will protect them all."
• Defeat Means Friendship: Pre-VGU, he tried to defeat Lee Sin, but was quickly exhausted and unable to land a single attack. Lee offers to take him to a monastery where he could find peace. Udyr accepted and they have been close since then. His revised bio maintains their bond but frames the fight as being fought to a standstill.
• The Determinator: No matter how overwhelming the voices flooding his head get or how imposing his enemies are, Udyr lets nothing keep him down. This is especially illustrated in ""A Walk With the Voices" where he takes the final steps to gaining true self control over his spiritual powers, fighting tooth and nail against a merciless spirit that tears into his insecurities and mauls him, persevering through every mental and physical wound until he comes out on top.
  With a brutal lunge, he reached the spirit’s back, trails of his blood dripping down its sides. Spirit energy surged through him, a force strong enough to drown out any pain. The voices of wild beasts clamored unchecked in his mind—the bitter cries of those consumed by the tiger, and his own unbridled anger—merging as one.
  “I am no prey!”
• Disability Superpower: Udyr's constant hyper-sensitivity to the thoughts of wild spirits around him is a major problem for him, giving a massive sensory overload at any given moment, but it's implied that this gave him the mental fortitude to overcome the influence of the Ursine and the Volibear which had claimed previous spirit walkers.
• Draconic Humanoid: Dragon Oracle Udyr is covered in rough blue scales and has horns. His animal stances now evoke different kinds of dragons, like his Wingborne Storm stance now having draconic wings instead of bird ones.
• The Dreaded: His reputation as an uncontrollable Wild Man kept others away for a long time. The Winter's Claw banished him outright when he lost control and hurt someone.
  "The Winter's Claw remembers the beast I once was... what I nearly did..."
• Due to the Dead: He'll honor his opponents in their final moments, holding no hard feelings for them. He also takes it personally if others kill animals with little respect for them.
  "Balance is not always fair. I am... sorry."
  "A moment of silence."
  "A great beast has been felled... without proper rites."
• Dying as Yourself: If killed in battle, he expresses relief that the voices in his head have finally stopped.
  "Silence... at last..."
• Early-Bird Cameo: Prior to his VGU in League, Udyr was released as a champion in Legends of Runeterra. While his visual design is unique to that game, striking something of a balance between his original and new looks, several of his aesthetics and mechanics would be hints to how his VGU would turn out, including his new voice actor and the new animal spirits he channels.
• The Empath: Udyr is able to hear the mental voices of animals (and occasionally humans) around him. His radius is quite huge, and he struggles to keep them all down. Because of this, he's one of the few champs that shows compassion and respect to jungle monsters and sympathizes with their feelings.
• Exposed to the Elements: He's seemingly unbothered traveling the North with no shirt. Played for Laughs in his emote where he starts shivering as it snows on him.
  (shivers) "I should not have left my pelt at home.."
• Extremity Extremist: Compared to Lee Sin who makes full use of his body in combat, Udyr only attacks with his bare hands, merely adapting his posture and form to suit his different stances. You can even see blisters all over his knuckles in his splash art to showcase his experience.
• Fighting Spirit: Spirit Guard has Udyr accompanied by a fully modeled and animated spirit for every stance, all of whom interact with him through emotes and using Awaken.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: His three offensive stances, Wilding Claw, Blazing Stampede and Wingborne Storm all correspond to one these three elements, specifically lightning, fire and ice respectively.
• Foil: To Lee Sin, his fellow martial-artist monk. Lee Sin is disciplined and tidy in appearance and possesses a single dragon spirit burning inside him. Udyr is a Wild Man with a matching beard, dresses in animal skins and possesses several animal spirits inside him. Lee began as an Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy that had his ego tempered by grave mistakes he had to atone for. Udyr was a self-deprecating loner who, through mastery, was able to find purpose for himself. In gameplay, Lee Sin is a Lightning Bruiser who bolts around in combat to get to favorable positions, while Udyr is a Mighty Glacier that merely endures being in a bad spot and overpowers enemies with sheer power at hand-to-hand range.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: He's not that bad of a guy now, though. Not very pitying, though. You especially don't want to fight him in his awakened forms.
• Good Is Not Soft: He doesn't see fighting itself as a glorious thing to celebrate, rather a necessary skill to survive in the world. He's willing to battle against Volibear, Lissandra, and other threats against the world, but he also admonishes those such as Ashe for trying to preserve "peace" that he sees as breeding complacence and vulnerability.
• Good Parents: He loves Sejuani like a blood daughter, and the VGU establishes the feeling is mutual. He'll show intense regret in game if he attacks or kills her.
  "I did not think I would like being an oathfather."
• Half-Human Hybrid: Udyr is stated to have vastayan blood, but unlike other "true vastaya" who are a direct hybrid of human and animal parts, or Nidalee whose diluted vastayan ancestry allows her to shapeshift from human to cougar, Udyr isn't able to transform into anything, but is instead able to channel the spirits of various animals and adopt their power.
• Handwraps of Awesome: True of his reworked design, showcasing his raw power and years of martial arts training. Of note is the fancier handwrap he wears on his left hand, which is of a distinctly more silky material greatly resembling Lee Sin's blindfold — in a making-of post, it was confirmed to be a parting gift from Lee Sin before Udyr left Ionia, something he pledged to eventually return in person.
• Hearing Voices: Udyr constantly hears the thoughts and feelings of the spirits around him — of man and animal — but often times it's a cacophony he struggles to control. It's so bad that he carries a metal nail to stab his hand with in case he needs a shock to quiet things down.
• Herd-Hitting Attack: Having Wingborne Storm grants Udyr very fast clearing speeds in jungle and lane, as well as giving him a bit of deterrent against group skirmishes.
• Heroic Willpower: Admittedly, it's helped by his iron nail and Ionian meditation training, but he's still strong enough to resist the mind-crushing aura of The Volibear even when Sejuani and the entire Winter's Claw fell under its power.
  (facing Volibear) "I close my mind to you, great Valhir!"
• Homing Projectile: Awakened Wingborne Storm sends the blizzard around Udyr after the last enemy he attacked. He can use it finish off fleeing opponents or as a form of crowd control in team fights.
• Horn Attack: Blazing Stampede gives him a pair of ram horns like Ornn which he uses to bludgeon enemies.
• I Am a Monster: Because of the scope of his power and the trauma associated with it, Udyr has had a very low opinion of himself. It's thanks to people like Kalkia and Lee that he was able to learn any kind of self love.
• Implacable Man: His new Blazing Stampede grants complete immunity to stuns and slows on awakening, letting him charge in while tanking enemy fire.
• It Was a Gift: He keeps one of Lee Sin's blindfolds wrapped around his hand as a token of their bond.
• Jack of All Stats: Due to the unique stance-based nature of his abilities, Udyr has some build flexibility that allows him to specialize in different juggernaut playstyles, such as sustained DPS, mighty defense, hard lockdown and crowd control, and area-of-effect zoning. The downside is that he's not especially potent in any one of these regards, so you better make a choice in what aspect to focus on or risk being mediocre in all of them.

K-Z

• Kevlard: Downplayed; his much more rotund redesign emphasizes his immense durability while still making him insanely buff in other areas like his arms.
• Kill It with Ice: Wingborne Storm turns his phoenix flames from before his VGU into a billowing blizzard. It can even slow enemies trapped inside.
• Life Drain: Iron Mantle's bonuse lifesteal greatly improves his survivability in combat.
• Luke, I Might Be Your Father: Silence For the Damned implies that Udyr could possibly be Sejuani's blood father and was possibly her mother's unnamed lover who, in Sejuani's backstor, she left searching for. However, the wording is ambiguous on this — Udyr had apparently known Sejuani when she was a "bone-thin girl he’d met a so many seasons ago," but Sejuani's bio says she was born out of a political marriage between her and a different unnamed chieftain. In the climax of the story, Udyr stood to protect Sejuani as "he had sworn an oath to protect Sejuani, as a father would," but it doesn't directly confirm that Udyr is her literal father.
  • His revised lore continues to keep the full nature of their relationship ambiguous, since Kalkia was never stated to have found love with anyone after him. Despite this, Sejuani still accepts Udyr as her oathfather.
• Lunacy: Implied by his backstory, where he was born "under a red moon."
• Manly Facial Hair: A big, buff warrior who beats the crap out of his opponents with his bare hands has the badass beard to match.
• Marilyn Maneuver: Spirit Guard Udyr's joke has his garments being blown up, striking the same pose as Monroe for laughs.
  "Where is this wind coming from!?"
• Meaningful Name: His name literally means "Beast" in Norwegian.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Udyr is currently the only champion in the game whose kit has effectively no proper ultimate, instead possessing four basic abilities that form a Stance System, with each ability having up to 5 levels in spite of an overall level cap of 18. His post-VGU kit gave him some depth with his Awaken mechanic, but this does put him at a funkier, more linear long-term gameplay pattern compared to everyone else in the game. However, for the sake of mechanics that require an ultimate (like the Zeke's Convergence item or Sylas' Hijack ability), his Wingborne Storm is counted as one.
• Mighty Glacier: Compared to other fighter champions which have access to quicker gap-closers that aren't hampered by slows while Udyr's abilities and attacks all hit at kissing-distance range or only just past it with Wingborne Storm. Udyr makes up for this with good damage and sustainability, which makes him very strong against jungle monsters at early levels and a potent duelist. Some of his abilities like Blazing Stampede can mitigate his lack of movement speed, but at the cost of mana and putting his main engage tool on cooldown.
• Muscles Are Meaningful: The incredibly stocky and muscular build he has is well-suited for tough juggernaut like him. A large focus of his VGU was to give him a distinctly powerful physique, shifting from the classic bodybuilder physique other champs use in favor of something more akin to a powerlifter.
• Nature Hero: Udyr fights "to defend the natural world from all who would threaten its balance", with four animal spirits at his aid. His Spirit Guard Udyr skin is a portrayal of him as truly being one with his four spirits.
• Nemean Skinning: Pre-VGU Udyr wore a pelt as part of his default outfit (as well as in several skins). His splash art and other major artworks depicted him primarily with a bear skin pelt, but in gameplay, it would change colors and heads to match his active stance. Post-VGU, it's only used in his Primal skin. While League has shifted to a new design without it, LoR still keeps it around, albeit with a much more subdued focus.
• Non-Human Head: Primal Udyr goes the extra mile of replacing his entire head with that of an animal, giving all of his stances an interchangeable mesh based on their respective spirit.
• Panthera Awesome: Spirit Guard Udyr trades Wilding Claw's bear stance for a tiger. This is a Call-Back to his pre-VGU ability, Tiger Stance which served a similar function to the newer counterpart.
• Papa Wolf: Whether he's Sejuani's literal father or not, he still made an oath to protect her like one, and does so without hesitation — he'll even challenge an eldritch demi-god to do so.
• Parental Substitute: With her mother gone, Udyr is the closest Sejuani has to a parent; he approaches the job with utmost seriousness in Kalkia's memory.
• Power Dyes Your Hair: A bonus feature of awakening with Spirit Guard, granting Udyr the spikiest and glowiest Anime Hair.
• Power Incontinence: He has no control over the thoughts of the spirits he hears and often struggles to avoid getting overwhelmed by them.
• Primary-Color Champion: Spirit Guard Udyr has red arm guards and threads, blue gems that adorn his attire, and yellow-gold accents, conveying a version of him that's more refined and in tune with his power.
• Razor Wings: Wingborne Storm covers his arms in icy feathers that bellow snow with every hit.
• Retcon: Being around in the series for so long, Udyr has had pretty significant changes and developments to his backstory over the years, and has overtime become more integrated into the lore of the Freljord and that of other champions.
  • Udyr's first bio characterized his wildness as a trait inherent to him, not any actual spirit he channels, and Spirit Walkers as a society didn't exist either. There wasn't even indication that he was Freljordian, being simply described as coming from the West and "going East" in reference to Ionia. His revised lore after the universal retcon is what established his primary arc mastering himself in the face of the spirits flooding his mind. It also introduced his bond with Lee Sin who becomes his closest ally and training partner.
  • A second revision came after the previous one to further change up key backstory elements; now he has ties to the Winter's Claw who were written into his mentors. There's also an unnamed Iceborn introduced as his Love Interest, heavily implied to be Sejuani's mother, Kalkia.
  • As of his VGU, his lore is mostly intact but with key changes made to really flesh out his development. Rather than being taken into the Winter's Claw young, he joins later in adulthood after his own tribe was wiped out by the Frostguard. Kalkia is now unambiguously his Love Interest and gives him a stronger tie and kinship to Sejuani. His relationship with Lee is also much more intimate as well, the two of their journeys to master their spirits being a shared experience.
  • Spirit Guard Udyr was not only meant to be a depiction of Udyr having finally gained control of his animal spirits, it was indeed meant to be his canon appearance in the "present" lore, which included endeavors like defeating Lissandra and encountering a storm dragon named Ao Shin (who was planned to be a champion). By 2019, however, Lissandra's lore was significantly redone and Ao Shin simply never came to be, so Riot hit the Reset Button, making his vanilla skin his canon appearance again with Spirit Guard Udyr being more of a "What if?" skin. But then in 2020, with the release of the short story "A Walk With the Voices", the skin's design was partially re-canonized with its accompanying artwork, revealing that it's how he looked during and just after his travels in Ionia, though the timeline states he would return to his usual Wild Man look by the time of "Silence For the Damned".
    “Instead of rewriting Spirit Guard’s story, we took what already existed and expanded on it,” explains senior narrative writer Elyse “Riot apothecarie” Lemoine. “We knew he stayed in Ionia and didn’t return to the Freljord, so we asked ourselves why? What about Ionia kept him there? What was more important than the promise he made to protect Sejuani?”

    "Updating Spirit Guard Udyr"
• Screaming Warrior: Well, roaring. His stances' activations are accompanied with a relevant loud animal cry.
  "Old gods, HEAR ME!!!"
• Ship Tease: His revised lines against Lee Sin read as very intimate. There's also a curious line stating "Twice [Udyr has] loved", one referring to Kalkia of the Winter's Claw, the other implied to be Lee in Ionia.
  "My most worthy and most beloved opponent."
  "I have missed you, Lee. Let our spirits melt! Let us spar!"
  "Lee, my spirit. We shall show them true mastery."
• Shock and Awe: Wilding Claw gives Udyr the power of lightning briefly.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: His original look, and by extant the skins derived from it like Black Belt, forgo any sleeves on his gi, making those beefy arms of his the focal point. Cue his VGU and the whole shirt comes off instead.
• Social Darwinist: Not to the extremes as say Sejuani or Volibear, but Udyr believes that overcoming conflict, be it war, survival or otherwise, is essential to the cycle of life and detests the pacifism of Ashe and the Avarosans.
  "Peace is not balance here."
  "Struggle, challenge, growth... hm, the marrow of life."
• Sole Survivor: Udyr was the only living member of his tribe following a brutal attack by the Frostguard. While he did awaken his abilities, it was an event that took a traumatic toll on him.
  Alone, grieving, and overwhelmed, Udyr wandered the wastes for years, doing what he had to in order to survive.

  "The Spirit Walker"
• Spam Attack: Thanks to his passive's attack speed boost; if Udyr has a stance that is off-cooldown and he has enough mana to use it, you should probably cast it. With all of his stances having a low cooldown, Udyr can increase his auto attack output greatly by shifting between abilities depending on what the situation calls for, keeping his damage up in the process.
• Stance System: The core of Udyr's playstyle; every stance of his grants a unique strength and function for him to specialize in. Wilding Claw is for increasing his single-target damage-while also whittling at anyone in range of the lightning passive, Iron Mantle is his main sustain tool due to its shields and lifesteal, Blazing Stampede is his primary engage tool-with the bonus of playing more like a vanguard that tanks and stuns, and Wingborne Storm grants a vastly improved area-of-effect thanks to the blizzard circling him.
• Stout Strength: His VGU gives him a bit of a gut, creating a much heftier body for the elements of the Freljord.
• Super Mode: The basis for how Awakened Spirit works; all of Udyr's stances have an extra powerful version he can tap into, but it's kept in check by a cooldown for the recast.
• Super-Strength: Udyr can tackle wild animals with his bare hands and overpower armed warriors. Channeling the right spirits can make him even stronger. At his full strength, he can trigger an avalanche.
• Take That!: Pre-VGU Udyr had an oddly fourth-wall-breaking instance of this with his joke, directly referring to controversial animal rights group PETA: "If PETA asks, this fur is fake."
• Thank Your Prey: A variant; whenever Udyr fights and defeats jungle camps, he pledges to keep their spirits alive through the strength they give him (unless it's Baron Nashor; he sees it as a soulless abomination and will kill it with impunity).
  "I venerate my kills. My enemies, they revel in theirs."
• Token Good Teammate: One for the Winter's Claws, Udyr has defended Ionia from Noxus and is a very zen individual with no aspirations of "making the world only for the strong". But he still believed that Sejuani's strength is absolutely necessary to restore the balance of nature that is disrupted by Lissandra.
• Trash Talk: He's bold enough to talk smack with demigods of all things.
  (Fighting Ornn) "Weapons are often the tools of cowards, great forger."
  "Your hunger for battle is too weak to overcome me."
  (If your opponent takes too long in LoR) "Are they warriors or poros?"
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: His spirit walker abilities finally manifested when the Frostguard attacked his tribe. What it cost though were the lives of his people.
  Young Udyr, terrified, hid in the forest. He did not expect to feel the life ripped from... everyone. His entire tribe, slaughtered in an instant. Howling with sadness and rage, Udyr took power from the spirits of the forest.

  "The Spirit Walker"
• Unstoppable Rage: When Udyr truly cuts loose, he becomes a One-Man Army that can vanquish swarms of warriors. The most prominent example was the night his tribe was wiped out by the Frostguard and he slaughtered them barehanded. This unfortunately became a problem once he integrated into the Winter's Claw; it was to his own horror that he lost control and nearly killed a young child, getting banished as a result.
• Variant Power Copying: With the exception of Iron Mantle, all of Udyr's stance abilities correspond to one of the playable Freljordian demigods' abilities, briefly adopting a bit of their playstyle to enhance his own. Wilding Claw copies Volibear's Relentless Storm, including his passive attack speed boost, giving Udyr higher damage per second to shred enemies one to one. Blazing Stampede is a riff on Ornn's Searing Charge, as well as borrowing Bellows Breath's immunity to stuns, to play more like a vanguard for his team. And Wingborne Storm borrows Anivia's Glacial Storm, including the Frostbite passive she has on her abilities, granting Udyr powerful AoE damage to control the battlefield.
• Vocal Evolution: Pre-VGU Udyr spoke in a deep, somewhat growly, but controlled and stoic tone of voice, mostly letting the roaring sound effects of his animal stances do the job of intimidating his opponents. Post-VGU Udyr is even deeper and more growly, his performance now much more booming when he needs to be, perhaps more befitting of a rugged Freljordian Wild Man. He also has a thick Nordic accent now to better suit his culture.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: While his pre-VGU design gave him a rugged gi and animal pelt, he now goes completely topless, showing off a variety of tattoos across his body and overall better selling his Wild Man archetype
• Wild Hair: He could smuggle a knife in that beard ^note but he wouldn't because those things are for the weak.
• Wild Man: He has the generally shaggy appearance of one through combination of his constant travels and restlessness from his animal spirits. He's slowly trying to find his peace again, but he still gets odd looks whenever he hears the thoughts of horses and shouts at them.
• Wolverine Claws: Wilding Claw grants him huge, electric bear claws like Volibear that he slashes at enemies with.
• Worthy Opponent: He and Lee Sin can match each other in combat, even before Udyr properly trained his abilities. The two of them are always happy to spar.