Well with Syndra and Zed being rather disliked for their lack of appeal. I was wondering to you summoners...what will make an interesting evil Ionian character? Someone who was forced to betray the greater part of Ionia to protect his own? Someone who once represented the darkest of Ionian's secrets unleashed into the League as evil incarnate? Or perhaps a sellsword from Ionia who relished in killing his former countrymen during the Ionian invasion?

What will make an interesting evil Ionian that Zed and Syndra failed to deliver.

I've always felt that if there was to be an evil Ionian, they should fulfil the anti-villain or tragic hero archetype (i.e. they're doing bad things but for good reasons). For example, perhaps they're forced to do evil things in order to protect someone they love (e.g. Darth Vader from Star Wars), or to make the world a better place (e.g. Yagami Light from Death Note).

Varus is somewhat of an example of this. He gave into the pit of corruption to slaughter all of the Noxians involved in the Ionian invasion, but he only became that way because the Noxians killed his family, driving him to anger and despair.

Yeah, this really does sound like Varus. Also, where did you get that people don't like Zed? He's decently popular from what I've seen. I agree with the Synrda hate, though. She's boring.

I think the point is that Ionia is a place full of enlightened, "spiritual" beings - they're usually above killing people for no reason. Syndra and Zed are the exceptions, both have power that they feel they shouldn't have to limit or restrain, so they do whatever they want and to hell with the consequences. It's just a shame that THAT plot idea is already played. That's the only way you can make an evil Ionian that still fits in with the lore of the island.

Varus isn't "evil", he's just corrupted. Basically, he martyred himself for his family, and upon finding they were dead, he was driven to destroy Noxus, so he joined the League.

Another "evil Ionian" idea could be that it was some Ionian folklore/legend thing that somehow manifested itself? Could be pretty interesting from a visual standpoint, something reminiscent of a Chinese dragon or something along those lines?

Varus, Syndra, and Zed all came out pretty recently. I think we have had enough evil Ionians for a while.

I would rather see more characters from areas like the Shurima Desert or Urtistan that don't have more than one or two champs. There is a lot of room to explore other stuff. I want to see more unique stuff like a camel-rider or a Sikh-inspired warrior or a tribal shaman.

I would imagine the problem with having 'evil Ionians' lies in the relatively small amount of cannon lore we have to deal with.

Setting aside the natural good/evil relativity arguement and focusing on the archetypes that the characters are given it is usually clear whether they are goodguys or bad-guys from what they say and look like.

Ionians are meant to be virtuous meditative people. As far as I can count, we know about 10 Ionians (may have missed one or two). Unfortunately, about 30% are 'bad-guys'. They betrayal of their Ionian values is not that much of a shock.

The best way to make an ionian champion is by doing this, first we have a man, lets give him a name um, we'll name him Landar, he is an ionian and is in touch with his spiritual self and the spiritual world. One day he is reciting prayers and a tear in the sky appears, his body separated from itself and his spirit was engulfed into the tear, this tear showed of a new war, a civil war of ionians, as his spirit returned to his body he had one goal in mind, to stop Ionia from destroying itself. the war's base roots are caused by lies and recreations of hatred by evil ionians, he sees that if he tries to create and army to stop the war he must do the opposite, he becomes the evil and slaughters people so that ionia would unite to destroy him, yay the end.

All the champs from Ionia were generally "pure" up to Lee Sin.

Ahri is trying to reform, but her backstory implies that she did not have human concepts of morality for a long time. She's still good, though.

Varus only desires to end the Noxians that took his family in spite of his duty. He's generally true neutral.

Syndra is Chaotic Neutral, I guess? She's not exactly on the side of the angels, but she mostly just wants power and will not be restrained by Ionia's petty ways of balance. She doesn't seem like she would kick puppies or use them as target practice, at the very least.

Zed is probably the first "pure evil" Ionian we've gotten so far if you look at it that way. He's also popular, I think.

They need to add another Ionian Flippin' Ninja and make skins like the 3 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Then, make a Shredder skin for Zed, and just for the heck of it. Make a ninja Twitch skin so he looks like their Sensei!