Rank 1 hwei italy ( and euw ) Francesco Giuseppe Antonucci alas Kestrel / kestrelloz just announced his retire from league due to a rare illness getting worse.
I decided to translate and share his words in case some english speaking fans lost the news since soon they will find themselves without content, without contest and just this explanation, also i think his words truly hit me i no cap got emotional about it, i’m so sad he made this decision.
What is truly depressing is his decision to “set as private” videos and live streams because “…i want people to remember for how strong i was and not how weak i am…- …i’ll set as private video and streams since i’ll probably rewatch them from time time as a nostalgic remembrance, but they wont be public anymore, if no one remembers me than it means i simply wasn’t important enough, for thise who will remember me: you are cursed, you now carry my memory, and thus a burden, you are now forced to live also on my behalf, my situation will get worse soon so i won’t be able to, this means that you’ll have to experience all emotions twice, once on my behalf.”

Here’s the full text

“Salve a tutti, a seguito di un peggioramento della mia malattia (LES), non riesco più a giocare a league come un tempo, e dunque non riesco a mantenere un alto livello di gameplay, per questo preferisco ritirarmi prima di mostrare un brutto spettacolo, così la gente mi ricorderà fortissimo (xD).
Per alcuni potrà sembrare patetico ma ormai non provo gioia nè interesse a essere riconosciuto come il miglior hwei italiano o europeo, sono felice di aver raggiunto vette altissime e aver giocato contro giocatori più forti di me; lottare per mantenere il titolo è divertente ma realizzi presto che prima o poi dovrai smettere e qualcuno prenderà il tuo posto, quindi non pensate che io fossi molto attaccato al titolo ma per piacere ricordatemi per quello e ricordatemi forte.

Mi ritiro da league of legends, dal coaching e dallo scenario competitivo; mi ritiro anche da tutti i social e ho deciso di rendere privati i video e le live pubblicate. Li renderò solo privati, senza eliminarli, perché potrei voler rivedere il passato come ricordo personale ma nessuno potrà accedervi, “beauty fades, this is why it’s beatiful” se tutto rimanesse per sempre available a chiunque allora la mia storia perderebbe di significato, se a nessuno è rimasto impresso il mio nome allora non sono stato importante abbastanza, a coloro a cui il mio nome rimarrà impresso : siete maledetti con il fardello della mia storia, portatela avanti, vivete anche per me, prima o poi la malattia mi renderà un broccolo inetto, vivete al posto mio che non potrò, provate tutte le emozioni due volte, una anche per me.

Kestrelloz siete voi, francesco antonucci è solo un nome e un volto, siete voi ad avermi reso quello che sono.”

Translated with google translater :

“Hello everyone, due to a worsening of my disease (SLE), I can no longer play League like I used to, and therefore I can't maintain a high level of gameplay. That's why I prefer to retire before putting on a poor show, so people will remember me as a great player (xD). It may seem pathetic to some, but I no longer feel joy or interest in being recognized as the best Italian or European hwei. I'm happy to have reached the highest peaks and played against players stronger than me. Fighting to retain the title is fun, but you quickly realize that sooner or later you'll have to stop and someone will take your place. So don't think I was too attached to the title, but please remember me for that and remember me strongly. I'm retiring from League of Legends, coaching, and the competitive scene. I'm also retiring from all social media, and I've decided to make my published videos and live streams private. I'll only make them private, without deleting them, because I might want to revisit the past as a personal memory, but no one will be able to access it. "Beauty fades, that's why it's beautiful." If everything remained forever available to anyone, then my story would lose its meaning. If no one has remembered my name, then I haven't been important enough. To those who remember my name: you are cursed with the burden of my story, carry it forward, live for me too. Sooner or later, illness will make me a useless broccoli. Live in my place, because I can't. Experience every emotion twice, once for me too.
Kestrelloz is you. Francesco Antonucci is just a name and a face. You are the ones who made me who I am.”

so with Your Shop coming out, I got winterblessed hwei and he is by far my FAVORITE SKIN EVER

I love the way all his abilities look frosted and cold, they did such a good job on making him feel chilly! and his FLEETING CURRENT I absolutely adore how it shows his model reflected off the water/ice and its RAINBOW-Y!

AND HIS RECALL? his ice skating feels so elegant and with his mirror self, the weight of the model is just so pretty and weightless

its genuinely just such a beautiful skin, I dont even get mad at bad plays or silly teammates because hes just so gorgeous to look at 😭😭

despite this being among many purple hweis, I feel like it suits him so perfectly here!! its both the perfect mix of serenity and brooding, finding peace in being alone, he wears it so well.

with that being said though, I absolutely would love for more hwei skins showing off his other emotions!! I want a red hwei so bad to show off his destruction! let him break and burn everything down! ofc hes brooding and moody, perfectly tortured- but I want to see all the other facets of him showcased and exaggerated!

thanks for letting me gush

With other champs, if I am stunned and want to spam an ability as quickly as possible when the stun wears off, I can just spam press the key and when the stun ends I immediately cast the ability, but with Hwei I cant do this since his abilities are 2 consecutive keys. I'll be spamming EQ but I become unstunned pressing Q, then I QE instead

How do you guys deal with this? There's a similar issue when I try to do like an EQ but my E is still on CD so Q mode gets entered instead

Any strategies?

I feel like Hwei got weaker. Before, once I had two items, I already felt insanely strong, my teamfights and ultimate dealt massive damage. But in my last game, even with two completed items, he felt much weaker than before, and I couldnt carry my team

Ive been back to playing hwei a tad bit but now with mages om bot lane, what lane does hwei fit best in current state? Ive played two games as adc and i really enjoyed it but i genuinely enjoy hwei no matter if i play him supp mid or adc, if it helps im plat4 on eune

sb or wb?

hello, as an adc main and as someone who started playing again after 3-4 years i don't fully know hwei since he is a new champion and his kit is so weird. I've been getting hwei matchups in botlane and i play traditional adcs mainly ashe and tristana. I would like to know how to play against hwei in botlane and his weaknesses when to go in or when to avoid going in advice seeking only for botlane matchup

Follow me for more: https://x.com/405Volibear

This is Peak Manhwa for Hwei mains. Since Riot loves to make anime skins or create anime references, I would love for Riot to make a Manhwa Inspired skin.

All the champions I've played against before. Please share your experience if you'd place some of them in an other tier, I would love to hear it!

Draven dying offscreen, The fear in Lux movement,

I do not understand this mu, he pokes you from Africa and his passive with mana runes makes him never go oom he can just camp max distance and you can do nothing without risking getting ganked even if you play super passive he just roams with his ult. I legit have no idea how I am supposed to play this he has better wave clear, damage and poke.

Please for the love of god stop making me do the viktor matchup. Cant poke past shield early, cant dodge deathray. it's just a slow painful death. At least with fizz/ekko/yasuo there's outplay potential. Me no like viktor.

Depois de 870k de maestria finalmente cheguei no platina, agora é lutar para chegar no esmeralda.

Hi, beautiful people. I stopped playing league I believe a bit before briar came out. I believe mythic items are not even a thing anymore, no? I used to main Bard, Panth and Viktor back in the day and haven't played in such a long time.

Today, however, I saw this one guy on YouTube called Evandawak playing Hwei, and truth be told, Hwei looks really fun. I like the idea of a high skill ceiling by knowing when to use each combination of skills and like the idea of being rewarded for spending time on the guy. Is it worth coming back to LoL just to play this fun little fella?

I'm specially debating whether it makes sense for me to return while considering: How's the meta atm? Is Hwei viable on said meta? Will I struggle a lot learning the new item system, learning to use the new items and runes?

Thank you in advance, Hwei enjoyers.

Hi everybody, I've been enjoying quite a bit of Hwei lately and I've been consistently rocking up some pretty nasty damage, enough to be named "The Austrian Painter" by some of my teammates and enemies.

One thing I've noticed is that nobody seems to play Mandate on him, I find it quite strong as second item mainly for 3 reasons: 1- Mana regen means you can be way more oppressive in lane and shove without caring too much about mana even though you're one of the mana hungriest champ in the early game.

2- Haste is pretty good to spike early because more passive procs will deal more dmg than having more AP (just in the early tho, you still need AP to scale)

3- The pasisve from mandate give you (AND YOUR TEAMMATES) more dmg after CC spells. Since you usually always use E in your combos to proc passive this means you consistently proc it on enemies, and you also have way lower cd on E so you can rotate fatser to it and use it to peel yourself too if needed.

Vs vary tanky comps I've had it deal even more dmg than BFT and Liandry. Idk, seems sleeper op to me. Try it out and let me know. Wouldn't build it every game tho.

Golden Spatula (Teamfight Tactics exclusive to China and SEA) announced they’ll be adding new units to their now permanent Lore & Legends set. One of these new units is 5 cost Hwei~ No other information about his abilities (or method of unlock if applicable) have been announced as far as I’m aware but we should get more information soon.

(If they bring the set back to TFT in the future we may see him as an available unit there🤞in the meantime you can access Golden Spatula outside of CN / SEA using a VPN )

This was the last time I've cosplayed Hwei for now.. because I'll be working on upgrading him from now on!

I tried a new make-up style and did something different with his wigstyling, but I'm still not very happy with it (especially considering the lace quality is really bad)... Thank you everyone for the insane tips and insights you gave me under my last post! I'll try to put as many tips as I can into my new version of Hwei!

Pictures by terry_sculpt at dutchcomiccon 2026, cosplay by hedrawpix (me).

How many of you play a lot of hwei support?

Since support roles get less gold and their job is to support the botlaner, do any of you E max first since E has control spells?

I really like Hwei as a champion and I want to add him to my support roster but most of the info around Hwei is advice for non-support roles

I was thinking perhaps going CDR builds would be better than trying to do damage as support but I'd like to hear what the experienced Hwei supports think