Argus “Raiden Maru” Skin: Lore, Visuals, Price & Best S42 Build

Argus “Raiden Maru” Collector skin drops on September 1, the headline pull of MLBB’s September Exquisite Collection and Argus’s first-ever Collector tier release.

It also lands at an odd moment for the hero. Moonton is running its biggest promo push in months for a giant mecha samurai skin while Advance Server is still adjusting the exact numbers on the kit that skin sits on top of.

That contradiction is the whole story here, so we are going to walk through the lore, the skill-by-skill visual rework, what it actually costs in Crystals of Aurora, and the build we would run with it once Season 42 goes live on September 16.

The Theme, the Name, and Titans Lore Behind Raiden Maru

“Raiden” borrows from Raijin, the Japanese thunder god, and “Maru” is the naming suffix Japan uses for ships and mechanical vessels.

Put together, Moonton is not calling this a costume. It is naming a warframe, the same way you would name a battleship. The official teaser line backs that up directly: “Thunder’s reckoning descends. Raiden Maru, into the breach.”

This is the second entry in the Titans mecha line, after Balmond “Vulcan Lionheart” launched the concept in August.

Sun “Celestial Rebel” is slated to follow later this year, and the earlier Titans entries (Grock’s “Tremor of the Deep” and Helcurt’s “Kaiju of the Deep”) set up the kaiju side of the theme before the series pivoted into giant mechs.

Argus gets the samurai spin: single glowing eye, folding mechanical wings, and a chain blade that reassembles itself between slashes. Community reaction has settled on Pacific Rim’s Jaegers crossed with Date Masamune-style Sengoku armor, with a fair number of Gundam comparisons thrown in for the silhouette.

Moonton emphasizes his massive scale in its promo material, highlighting how the ground trembles upon activation, his visor flashes a sharp blue, and he looms like a skyscraper.

That framing matters for how the skin plays in a real match, not just in the trailer. A hero this visually loud changes how your lane opponent reads your positioning before a fight even starts.

See Also: MLBB 10th Anniversary: Confirmed Date, Free Skin & All Changes

Visual and Effect Breakdown: What Actually Changes On Each Skill

This is a full Collector-tier rework. New model, new VFX on every ability, a new entrance sequence, and (pending confirmation on the live client) a new recall and kill animation. None of it touches Argus’s numbers. The stat sheet stays identical to base Argus.

The model itself runs dark purple and blue plating with gold and cyan trim, though most of the in-game lighting reads blue once effects are active.

The headpiece has a horned, crest-like shape, and the back ring lights up whenever he takes flight.

The signature piece is the weapon: instead of a static greatsword, the chain blade physically extends and reassembles with every slash, which is the effect Moonton pushed hardest in the marketing cycle.

Broken down by skill:

• Idle and basic attacks: heavy plated movement with visible visor glow, and each auto-attack shows the blade extending and reforming rather than a simple swing.
• Passive (Demonic Slash): a circular tail-blade motion that reviewers who tested advance builds called out as the strongest single effect in the kit.
• Skill 1 (Demonic Grip): the dash and pull now comes with a summoned samurai phantom on top of the base animation.
• Skill 2 (Meteoric Sword): the chain blade transforms mid-cast into a thrust and ground-slam combo.
• Ultimate: wings deploy, the back ring ignites, and the flight sequence reads like a Jaeger activation. The death-immunity window functions exactly as it does on base Argus, so the timing skill you already have transfers directly.

The recall and kill sequence remains the primary unresolved detail. In early July preview builds, the skin still utilized the default recall animation without custom ultimate music, leading reviewers to point out the lack of polish.

Late-August official footage looks closer to complete, but that only gets confirmed once the skin is live in your client on the 1st.

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Price and How to Get Raiden Maru in the September Exquisite Collection

There is no direct shop price. Raiden Maru comes through the September Exquisite Collection gacha, paid in Crystals of Aurora or Diamonds at a 1:1 exchange.

Draw pricing follows the same structure as recent Exquisite months: a single draw runs 50 CoA or Diamonds (your first daily pull is discounted to 25), and a 10x draw runs 500, with the first 10x of the round typically cut to around 350.

If you would rather exchange directly, community guides for this exact pool put Raiden Maru at roughly 720 crests as the new featured Collector, against 800 for a returning Collector and 640 for a Lucky Box skin.

Your first ten pulls also guarantee a permanent item, though not necessarily this skin, and duplicates convert back into crests.

Realistic spend if you actually play the daily discounts instead of dumping everything on day one lands around 60 to 70 draws, or roughly 1,950 to 2,275 CoA. Skip the discounts and pull everything at once and you are looking at 3,000 or more.

The cheaper path guide channels are running for September looks like this: take your daily 25-draw single plus the discounted first 10x on day one, keep hitting the daily single through the month, use any milestone keys or tokens you pick up along the way, and close out the remaining crest gap on the last day of the event.

Anniversary events kicking off September 4 may add extra keys or tokens on top of that, which is worth watching if you are trying to shave the total cost down further.

See Also: MLBB x Jujutsu Kaisen Revamp Phase 2: All You Need to Know

The Best Argus Build for MLBB Season 42

The skin changes nothing about how Argus plays. He is still an EXP lane fighter built around attack speed, lifesteal, and staying stuck to whoever he is fighting.

Live-server numbers heading into the patch put him around 53 to 55 percent win rate with a pick rate under 4 percent in most brackets, which tells you the usual story: strong when picked, rarely picked, almost never banned.

The build the community has converged on for late Season 41 running into 42:

• Swift Boots as the default, swapping to Tough Boots against heavy crowd control
• Corrosion Scythe
• Windtalker
• Haas’s Claws
• Berserker’s Fury
• A situational sixth slot between Great Dragon Spear, Blade of Despair, or Malefic Roar depending on how tanky the enemy frontline gets

Run Inspire as your battle spell for the attack-speed window, and lean on the Assassin emblem for flat penetration and move speed against squishy-heavy lineups, or switch to Marksman emblem when you need percentage penetration against a stacked tank comp.

Skill order goes ultimate first, then Skill 2, then Skill 1, since Skill 2’s attack-speed steroid is what makes the rest of the kit function.

Two directions work depending on the matchup. A straight crit DPS build (Corrosion, Windtalker, Haas’s, Berserker’s) is what you want for deleting squishy targets while still farming off the passive.

Against a fatter frontline, swap in Demon Hunter Sword or Sea Halberd for a hybrid line that trades some burst for sustain against tanks.

A notable caveat to keep in mind: test cycles on the Advance Server throughout mid to late August consistently adjusted the stun duration, ultimate scaling, and critical hit interactions for Demonic Slash and Skill 2, though not all of these adjustments have transferred to the official live server.

If patch 2.2.x ships alongside Season 42 on September 16, check the patch notes before you lock in a crit-heavy tree, especially if the “Skill 2 cannot fully crit” rule survives into the live patch.

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Evaluating the Argus “Raiden Maru” collector skin, we see a top-tier visual upgrade that perfectly captures the mecha samurai fantasy.

Before you fully commit your CoA reserves, monitor the September 16 patch notes closely to see how the Season 42 passive and critical strike rule changes finalize his late-game scaling. 

Lock in your macro rotations, track those enemy teleport cooldowns, and dominate the EXP lane with precise mechanical execution.