Katarina Skins Review: Finding the Best Katarina Skin

Published: August 11, 2021

It's time to find the best Katarina skin! These skins are available now and will change the look of your favorite champion. With so many skins to choose from, it can be hard to pick just one. In this Katarina skins review, we'll ever each skin for the Sinister Blade and let you know what they're like. We'll also include lots of pictures and skin spotlight videos so that you can see how awesome they are in-game.

Brief Katarina Overview

Katarina, the Sinister Blade, is an assassin champion in League of Legends that relies on building up her items and snowballing to succeed. If Katarina becomes overly fed, she is almost unstoppable. The only real threat to Kat is hard CC. Without CC, players find it challenging to deal enough damage quickly to kill her before she kills them.

She has an active ability (E) called Shunpo, which allows Katarina to quickly dash to her target. This gives her tremendous agility to either engage or dodge. She is particularly dangerous at low ELOs where players have less ability to anticipate her moves.

Kat Doing Her Death Lotus Ult Ability Throwing Daggers at Enemies

Kat's signature move is Death Lotus (her Ult). She spins around, flinging blades at nearby champions and dealing massive damage. If she isn't CC'd while using her Ult, she will usually kill any champions that linger in her area of effect. Many of Katarina's best skins improve the visual appearance of her Death Lotus ability.

She is one of the most fun champions to play in League of Legends. If you can get out ahead of everyone else with your gold and experience, you can easily snowball and dominate the game. For more information on how to build Katarina to maximize her effectiveness, you can check out our data-driven builds taken from analyzing millions of recent League of Legends matches.

Katarina Skin Review

13. Classic Katarina (No Cost)

The Classic Katarina skin is plain, old vanilla Kat. It's not ugly...far from it, but it's a little boring and far overplayed. if you're here reading this, you clearly want to find the best Katarina skin, so let's move on to more interesting skins.

12. Sandstorm Katarina (975 RP)

The Sandstorm Katarina skin is very plain and doesn't really justify its high price tag. It might've been higher on the list if it was cheaper, but there are certainly better skins for Kat that cost less than this one. We do like the look of her blades, but her costume isn't very appealing. Overall, we feel this is the worst skin you can buy for Katarina.

Sandstorm is Not One of the Best Katarina Skins you Can Buy with Ugly Appearance

Sandstorm Kat is a regular skin, so you won't need to wait for any special periods or legacy skin drops. This also makes it less desirable, since any player can easily pick it up if they wanted it.

11. Slay Belle Katarina Skin (975 RP)

We're two for two with bad, high-priced skins with Katarina. Slay Belle might be amusing around the holidays, but it loses a lot of the visual appeal of her other skins. Her eye makeup makes her look like an angry, emo, mall helper.

While we do like the Christmas lights around the edges of her Ultimate, we don't really recommend this skin when there are other great Katarina skins available. Maybe it's good enough as a joke skin around the holidays, but otherwise, it's too ugly to wander around the Rift in.

10. Tie: Bilgewater & High Command Skins for Katarina (975 & 750 RP)

Bilgewater and High Command skins are both similar, it's hard to pick between the two. In the end, we feel that Bilgewater is a slightly uglier skin for Kat than High Command. Yet, we gave both skins the same tied rating in our Katarina skins review because it was just so close.

Great Skin for Kat Showing On a Ship at Sea

Kat's flowing red hair in her High Command skin pops a lot more than the black hair in her Bilgewater skin. Furthermore, her more angular weapons in her Command skin look much more menacing than her pirate scimitars.

Both skins are decent, but neither comes close to being the best Katarina skin available.

9. Mercenary Katarina Skin (520 RP)

This is a great Katarina skin for the price. It's unusual for a 520 RP skin to beat out so many other higher-priced skins. Kat's white hair really stands out, and her simple green top and tight black pants look great. Not only that, but her daggers look very menacing.

If you don't have much RP to spend on a new Katarina skin but want to refresh her look, this is probably your best choice for a new Kat skin. The only real downside is that it doesn't include any new particles or animations compared to her vanilla skin.

8. Kitty Cat Katarina (975 RP)

This skin has some visual appeal, but it lacks any new particles, animations, or sounds. For 975 RP, we expect a lot more than small model changes.

Cat themed Katarina skin with furry bikini and blades on her back

Cat lovers and furries will likely consider this the best Katarina skin; however, for the rest of us, there are better ones to choose from.

7. Red Card Katarina (975 RP)

Red Card Kat is a decent Katarina skin, yet it is without animations or added particle effects. We like the bright red hair as is also found on the High Command skin.

Great Skin for Kat Showing Her Gray Hair and Spiked Black Boots

Red Card Kat is a decent Katarina skin, yet it is without animations or added particle effects. We like the bright red hair as is also found on the High Command skin.

Yet, we're not sure if the "red card" motif really suits Kat's character. While the outfit looks good, what does a referee or soccer player have remotely to do with a knife-wielding assassin?

All in all, this is a good skin for Katarina worthy of a middle-ranking, but it's far from the best Katarina skin you can buy.

6. Warring Kingdoms Skin for Katarina (975 RP)

This skin is the top skin in our review at the 975 RP, non-epic, non-legendary level. It's not overly flashy like some of the other skins, but it does brutal, ancient assassin perfectly!

One of the best updates to the model comes in the shape of her knives. They just look so sharp and dangerous! Her outfit is also much more tasteful with this skin than some of the other Katarina skins, which depending on your opinions may be a good or a bad thing.

Kat sliding on a rope during chinese new year event with blades in hands and gold accents on her clothes

If you don't want to spend over 1,000 RP on a new Kat skin, this is an affordable and great buy.

5. Death Sworn Katarina (1350 RP)

It's hard ranking Death Sword so low on the list, but there are just so many other awesome Katarina skins to come. As we start to enter the realm of Epic skins at the 1350 RP price point, the skins start coming with more added particles, animations, and sound effects.

One of the Best Skins You Can Buy for Katarina with Glowing Teal Blades and a Haunted Look

What stands out most about this skin are Kat's blades. They glow a beautiful teal to match her hair. There are also some nice pink highlights in her hands and sword grips to add some nice touches.

We really liked this skin when we saw it, but after a few games, it gets a little stale. All it really has are the glowing teal colors. As you whirl around the battlefield in it with your Shunpo ability, you'll miss many of the smaller touches and it'll just blend into a teal blur.

Get this skin if you like the theme or the colors, but if they aren't perfect for you, keep reading!

4. Blood Moon Katarina Skin (1350 RP)

Blood Moon is a great skin for Katarina. It adds some very nice color effects (with subtle purple/pink blades), but it doesn't overwhelm with the colors like her Death Sword skin does.

When she swings her blades, they leave a trail of other colors in their wake. This helps make combat more interesting and dramatic! Her recall animation also gets a significant overhaul, with her seeming to cry out as she is pulled away into nothingness.

While Blood Moon isn't the best Katarina skin, it's a great choice and should be considered when looking for a new Katarina skin. It almost makes the top three in our Katarina skins review.

The Three Best Katarina Skins

Unless you've already fallen in love with one of Kat's previous skins (many of them are great), you're in for a treat with the three top Katarina skins.

3. Battle Academia Katarina (1350 RP)

Her Battle Academy skin is one of the best Kat skins you can buy. It adds some very cool effects to her dagger and Shenpo jumps. You can check some screenshots out below.

Battle Academia Skin Animations with Pink Color Highlights

As you can also see in the screenshots, her blades change to some interesting-looking double-edged swords instead of the conventional single-edged blades in most of her other skins.

This skin for Katarina also comes with a great recall animation. In her recall, she jumps onto a training platform before slicing apart a set of training dummies and returning to the Fountain.

2. Runner Up: Project Katarina (1350 RP)

Project Katarina is cool! It's an interesting departure from the other more alluring skins that Riot puts out for her. In her Project skin, Kat is almost entirely covered in shiny black and grey armor.

She has some really awesome pink blades that shine when viewed at different angles. Against the muted colors of her armor and hair, her blades stand out. And after all, that's what the "Sinister Blade" is all about.

While we really like this skin, her recall animation with it is somewhat boring. She basically just does some sword forms within the blue light of the normal recall animation. That's a little disappointing and is one of the main reasons why this skin didn't make it to the best Katarina skin.

Images Courtesy of Riot Games.