 What's up everybody on The Magus, you are awesome and Project Samina finally released information about Cassius, the character they created through collaboration with their community. They conducted a 2 hour live stream talking through the entire process of his creation, culminating in the final reveal and I strongly encourage you to watch that stream linked in the description below. I however will not make you wait for the final reveal as evidenced by the thumbnail, instead we'll go over the final product and then talk about the winding path they used to get there. So here's Cassius and all his rakeish stylish and mysteriously dangerous glory. If David Bowie was a Boba hero, he would be Cassius and I for one couldn't be happier. He's a butterfly inspired sustained heavy caster that thrives in the middle of team fights. He passively deals AoE damage around him when gaining shields with self shielding being a huge part of his kit. His basic attack fires a butterfly out that returns to Cassius like a boomerang piercing enemies and dealing damage along its path. Cassius gains shields for each enemy hit. His right mouse ability consumes some of the shielding to fire out a cone of damage in front of him. His Q ability fires a skill shot that marks the target and creates a tether. Cassius gains shields and move the speed while near the marked target. His E places a ring that contracts and gives him shielding for each enemy inside. Enemies that exit the ring will be rooted. His ultimate allows him to explode into a swarm of butterflies that slows enemies inside the swarm and provides Cassius with shielding based on the amount of slows his ultimate applies. He's completely immune during his ultimate providing him with some escape potential but I think will far more likely allow him to just reposition while sustaining himself during a team fight. We were also treated to some of his voicelines. These were from the audition for the character and are voiced by Darius Jackson. I'll have links to him in the video description below. Let's have a listen. Love me or hate me. It's still an obsession. You're lost. No, stop. Please don't die. Everybody really liked you. My fingers slipped. As ugly in death as you were in life. I thought killing you would make you more likeable. I've been wrong before. Don't get blood on the wings. This? Over here? Yeah. Get rid of it. Seriously? That's it? Stay down, loser. I got some on me. I'll be taking that silver spoon, Matani. Now what do we have here? Something expensive, I hope? Don't disrespect me again. I'm the king around here. Not you. Not them. Me. Oh, say my name. Is that the best you got? I'm listening. Who's next? I really like how we get a range of playful to pissed off and it still remains a hottie somewhat narcissistic element throughout. So how did Project Samurai get to this final product? Through collaboration with the community. Cassius is the product of cake, an acronym that stands for Community Architected Kit Experiment. The community, usually patron only but sometimes the entirety of the fan base, voted on various aspects of Cassius from the start. They began by providing us with a variety of options for what roles cake would fill. It was decided that he would be a caster with a strong focus on damage, resilience, and control. He would be of the Mellon arc faction, a sort of militaristic symmetry-focused faction with a strong sun-moon duality influence. He would also fill the specific role of having sustained damage and the ability to control fights. From that base, his abilities were voted on and started to take form. A self-shilding mage was born. Now that they had an outline for his kit, it was time for the community to decide on a theme for cake. A variety of ideas were submitted by the fans and then voted on. Out of all the themes, four of them came out on top with ice, that was my personal choice, lightning, and two forms of butterflies, ghost butterflies and moon butterflies. Which, aren't moon butterflies just moths? Anyway, Project stamina decided to combine the two butterfly themes so the vote came down to the three and the butterfly theme came out on top by a large margin. They asked the community to provide some butterfly pictures to inspire the color palette and overall design of Cassius. A little off topic, but one of the themes submitted and voted on was a cosmic sheep theme. I remember a lot of talk about the sheep and how the shields would be represented by crowing wool. While this concept lost, the Project stamina team and the community obviously loved this idea, just not for cake, not for Cassius. I wouldn't be surprised to see this become a hero later in the future, but maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part. The next step was polling to decide the overall shape they wanted for cake silhouette. Something that Project stamina has placed a great deal of importance on. They want each of their heroes to be immediately identifiable via their silhouette. Once the basic shape was decided, they began filling out the silhouette with only one restriction, no capes. Fancy indicated that capes just don't work with a third person view, since you're pretty much just looking at a formless block with a head on top. They did end up going with a split coat, which is kind of cape-like, but still presents a distinct silhouette. Much of the final design was taken on directly by Project stamina with the blessing of the community. Everyone trusted that the art team would put together something great. Cassius' body shape ended up being somewhat inspired by Ramsey from Gigantic, once again reinforcing that while they're creating their own thing, they still strive to pay homage to the game they loved. There were several concepts designed and paired down and simplified until they found exactly what they wanted. A slightly elvish mage with sunset skin tones and twilight clothing. A character that encapsulates the attitudes that the community wanted. A true collaboration that brings the fans what they wanted, while also inspiring the art team's creativity. I know many people will ask when this game is coming out, and unfortunately, I don't have an answer for you. I will say however that I have played a very early, very fun, pre-alpha build, and I can assure you that the game is coming. While I can't possibly guarantee that you personally will like what they've created, I can say that I absolutely loved it and I can't wait until they start their alpha. Please do me a favor and hit that like button if you enjoyed the video, subscribe if you enjoy third-person mobas in general, but for now this is the Mangu signing off, you guys have a good one.