League of Legends has been around for more than ten years now, and with Legends of Runeterra Riot Games is hoping to capitalise on that heritage to propel its world and characters into a whole new genre: digital collectible card games (CCGs). The result is stylish, exciting, cleverly designed and full of nods to League, whether that’s through iconic Champions like Yasuo, Jinx, Ashe, Garen and Teemo, or the many adorable Poros that populate the game.
Importantly, while Legends of Runeterra is firmly rooted in an established world, it in no way excludes newcomers who may be picking it up because of its genre instead of its pedigree. It’s very much like Hearthstone in that way. I personally came to Hearthstone without any real knowledge of Warcraft, and six years later I’m still playing it. Legends of Runeterra is no doubt hoping to also bottle that lightning.
That said, when Hearthstone burst onto the scene, it up-ended the gameplay of other collectible card games like Magic: The Gathering by being more straightforward and thus more accessible. Legends of Runeterra, on the other hand, sits somewhere in the middle.
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The overall goal, however, is much the same. Each player brings a deck of 40 pre-selected cards into a match and faces off against an opponent. Initiative is passed back and forth, allowing each person to play units to the board, cast spells and choose how to attack or defend. The game is won or lost when one player reduces the health of their opponent’s Nexus from 20 down to zero.
Like Hearthstone, your mana reserve – which dictates what cards you’re able to play – increases by one each round, as opposed to using a Land style system similar to Magic. Unlike Hearthstone, however – and like Magic – you’re able to choose how your units will block enemy attackers, creating an entirely different style of gameplay.
This ability to respond is foundational in Legends of Runeterra; its gameplay is intended to be like a conversation between the players. Control can go back and forth many times within a single round, as each player gets the chance to respond to their opponent’s actions.[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=This%20ability%20to%20respond%20is%20foundational%20in%20Legends%20of%20Runeterra%3B%20its%20gameplay%20is%20intended%20to%20be%20like%20a%20conversation%20between%20the%20players.”]
To give you an idea of how it works in practice, let’s say my opponent plays a unit late in a match. Doing that takes up an action and passes control over to me. I decide I want to kill it, so target it with a spell that deals just enough damage. That spell, however, isn’t a Burst spell, so doesn’t instantly cast. Instead, control goes back to my opponent to offer a chance to respond. He or she may then play a Burst spell to instantly buff the unit’s health out of lethal range. My spell still doesn’t cast. I then have another opportunity to cast an additional spell to take out the unit. When both players have run out of options or passed, the spell (or spells) finally goes off.
This action and reaction gameplay opens up a lot of strategy that other games in the genre don’t have. I could have gambled, for instance, by not lining up the spell initially, and simply passed the turn back, in the hope that my opponent might spend enough mana doing something else that I could then cast my spell later, preventing them from being able to answer it. Of course, once I pass, my opponent could also pass, ending the round entirely before I get a chance to do anything.
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Attacking with units adds another layer to all this. Between each round, an attack token gets passed from one player to the other. As the name suggests, whoever has this is able to initiate an attack, and can do so at any point during a round. If I have a full bench (the area between my hand and the battlefield, which is where my units sit after being played from hand) that could trade favourably with the units my opponent has, I may choose to attack immediately. Once I choose which units are going to attack, my opponent is only able to respond by choosing where – or if – the units that are already on their bench will be positioned to block, and/or by responding with Burst or Fast spells.
Again, this is all about predicting what my opponent might do. If I choose to play a follower instead of attacking, my opponent can do the same, potentially putting down a strong blocker that ruins my attack, or he or she could simply cast a Slow spell that can clear my board. Each round in Legends of Runeterra is a series of tough decisions, and it’s genuinely compelling trying to work out what the optimal line might be.
That line can extend across multiple rounds, of course, as you set up for certain combos or clears – and in another clever twist that gives players more flexibility, you can even bank mana. Yes, up to three unspent mana units can be saved from one round into the next as spell mana. As you’d expect, this mana can only be spent on spells, and means that you can do things like pass on turns one and two, then play a three-cost unit on turn three and still have three mana leftover to spend on spells. It’s a clever system, and means that proper planning can set you up to play high cost spells early.
It’s also worth pointing out that Legends of Runeterra’s gameplay still feels remarkably snappy, despite control being passed back and forth repeatedly. Part of this is because players have limited time to make any one decision and part of it is because your turn will simply pass automatically if you have no available options.
Actionable
Of course, great systems don’t mean much without strong card designs to back them up, and Legends of Runeterra gives players a pretty incredible suite of tools to build decks around. The exciting idea underpinning deckbuilding is that any card can be paired with any other card. To make that possible, the card pool is divided up into regions based on the geography of Runeterra, with players able to combine any two regions together to make a deck.
You might want to combine the removal tools of the Shadow Isles with Ionia’s ability to play Elusive units (that can’t be blocked by non-Elusive units) and counter spells. Or you might be excited about the idea of a deck that utilises a combination of Champions with spell synergy, such as Karma (who generates spells) and Ezreal (who benefits from playing spells), or Karma and Heimerdinger (who generates units by playing spells).
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Yes, Champions play a huge role in Legends of Runeterra and are real game-changers. While roughly equivalent to legendaries in Hearthstone, they have a number of very unique concepts attached to them. Like other cards, you can include up to three copies of a Champion in your 40-card deck, but only six Champion cards in total. Unlike other cards, Champions can level up mid-match. Meeting this condition is different for each, and can be anything from attacking a certain number of times or seeing a certain number of units die through to emptying your hand or surviving a specific amount of damage.
When a Champion levels up it typically gets a small stat increase but, more importantly, gains new abilities too. Ezreal, for instance, has to target enemy units with spells and abilities eight or more times to level up, and once that happens every spell he casts also deals two damage to the enemy Nexus. The last Ezreal deck I played was basically a combo deck in which you generate a bunch of one-cost spells then play them all once he levels up to burst your opponent down fast.
Champions also behave differently in that they’re unique entities when it comes to the board. If you have two copies of Ezreal in hand, for instance, then play one to your bench, the other Ezreal transforms into “Ezreal’s Mystic Shot,” a renamed version of a collectible spell from his region. Each Champion has a spell associated with them, and these typically help progress them towards leveling up, or at least tie in thematically. Playing the spell then shuffles a copy of the Champion back into your deck. And if you choose not to play the spell, and the Champion is killed, the spell then transforms back into the Champion card and can be played as such.
I really love this as it changes how powerful Champions can be, as their effects can’t stack. Having two leveled up Ezreals in play would be pretty busted, for instance, as each spell cast would deal four Nexus damage – a fifth of its starting total. And as mentioned, this system underlines that each Champion is unique, so works well from a flavour perspective too.
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Presentation to the board
Legends of Runeterra isn’t just innovative when it comes to gameplay mechanics, it also breaks new ground with its presentation. Key information is always at your fingertips, such as the cards that have been played (which players can scroll all the way through) and the Champions in your opponent’s deck (so yes, not only do you know their regions, you can also guess what their specific strategy might be).
The board also has a feature called Oracle’s Eye, represented by a blue orb between the two Nexuses. If you’re unsure exactly how a sequence of spells or attacks will resolve, hovering over the eye will show you what will happen, assuming nothing changes. It’s a great option for quickly double-checking your math or logic, but importantly, is no substitute for learning how the fundamental systems work.
Another feature I absolutely love is the ability to see every card that’s associated with a particular card. Coming back to Ezreal again, if my opponent plays him, but I’m feeling a little hazy about what he actually does, I can right click on him and bring up an overlay showing his base card, his leveled up card and his spell card. Each keyword or term has a pop-up explanation too. Having the full information about every card a click or two away is great design.
From the card overlay you can also click through to the full widescreen art for each and every card. Not only is much of it aesthetically stunning, but it also really helps flesh out the world; the people, creatures, landscapes, cultures and tone of each region. Its consistency is hugely impressive too, really making Legends of Runeterra feel like a slick, polished package.
This extends to just about every other aspect of the presentation, from the countless lines of bespoke dialogue between characters as they enter the fray through to the full screen level up animations of each Champion. Players can also make cosmetic changes, customising their half of the board by swapping in a new setting or choosing a different pet. Simply put, Legends of Runeterra is best in class in terms of presentation.
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Balancing the budget
When it comes to building your collection, Legends of Runeterra has a robust progression and reward system in place. Playing games and completing daily quests earns you XP, which is then funneled into two rewards systems – your weekly vault and the region road you’ve activated. The former unlocks once a week and each time you level it up your rewards improve. The region road, on the other hand, allows you to choose a region to focus on, and steadily unlock rewards that will help flesh out your collection for that region.
Legends of Runeterra has no traditional card packs, so the rewards you’ll get are cards, shards (an in-game currency) and Wildcards, which can be spent on any card of a corresponding rarity. So yes, if you get a Champion Wildcard you can simply swap it for one copy of the Champion that you want. Shards can also be spent directly on cards.
The rewards are pretty generous, and active players will be able to build their collection quite quickly. And those that are happy to spend real-world money can simply add coins to their account and buy the specific cards they want, so you still won’t be subjected to the luck of the draw when spending cold hard cash.
The whole system makes for a refreshing change from most games in this genre, although newcomers may find it hard to decide which region road to activate and how to spend their Wildcards initially. After all, if you’re just learning the basic mechanics, how can you know what you’re going to want to play until you’ve truly got a feel for all the different archetypes and their strengths and weaknesses?
My approach when I had a small collection was to spend a small amount of money so that I could build a cheap but competitive deck that only had three Champion cards in it, then use that deck to learn the ropes and earn XP to expand my collection further. I think you could probably make pretty good progress staying free-to-play if you have the time, but I also think there’s reasonable value here for those willing to jumpstart their collection with real-world money.
I’m certainly glad to see the lack of card packs. I may be in the minority but I get very little joy out of opening card packs in other digital card games. Generally speaking, I feel like the odds are stacked against me, and all I’m really doing is going through the motions so I can trade my duplicates in and then craft the cards I want. Legends of Runeterra cuts that middle man out and puts a definite price on how much I need to spend to get the cards I want. I’ve had to spend a lot more money in other games to get the hundreds of packs required to build a similarly robust collection.[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=Legends%20of%20Runeterra%20puts%20a%20definite%20price%20on%20how%20much%20I%20need%20to%20spend%20to%20get%20the%20cards%20I%20want.”]
The Q2 Outlook
Up until now, Legends of Runeterra has been in open beta. Over the course of the last few months, Riot has made a host of balance changes, and leading into yesterday’s 1.0 update, it’s been feeling great. Over the last week I’ve had a lot of fun trying out a wide variety of region combinations, Champion combinations, and game plans, and while some strategies are more frustrating to run into than others (buffing Elusive units then attacking the Nexus repeatedly by generating attack tokens feels… dirty), no one archetype felt overly dominant to me – and, most importantly, there were always options in my card collection to help counter other strategies.
With Legends of Runeterra’s launch, however, things have changed significantly. A seventh region – Bilgewater – has been added, coming out of the gate with five Champions and more than 60 cards. Each of the other six regions also gets ten new cards, including a new Champion, bringing their totals up to five. Bilgewater introduces some really interesting new Champions and mechanics, such as Plunder (do Nexus damage to trigger this effect) and Deep (gives units +3/+3 once your deck has 15 or less cards left), and expands the number of two region combinations significantly.
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As such, Legends of Runeterra’s meta game is going to be in flux for a little while. With this in mind, I’m going to hold off on finalising this review until I have a better sense of how things have changed and how Legends of Runeterra is feeling. The mobile client is only just rolling out around the world too, so I’ll be logging a lot of time with that to get a sense for how well the experience translates to a smaller screen. And I also haven’t spent enough time in Legend of Runeterra’s Expeditions mode, which offers up an entirely distinct way to draft a deck of cards then face off against opponents who have done the same.
Source: IGN.com Legends of Runeterra Review in Progress