Legends of Runeterra patch brings big card changes, ranked mode

Olivia Richman Published 24/01/2020

With Legends of Runeterra’s open beta launching tomorrow, Riot has released the full open beta patch notes.

Riot’s new card game will have a lot of updates since last year’s preview patches, including changes to some of the cards, new features, and even new boards and guardians.

Legends of Runeterra economy updates

Since last year’s preview patch, Riot has reset all account progression for the last time. Anyone who plays in the open beta will keep everything they earn. This update brings big changes to Legends of Runeterra’s overall economy, impacting how much experience players earn from wins and how much coins will cost.

“We’ve updated coin price points and purchasing power, mostly to align with price point standards on the Play Store and the App Store. During the preview patches, we used League of Legends’ RP price points as placeholders, but with LoR’s launch on mobile coming later this year, we needed to establish our own pricing structure,” read the press release.

The developers also note that they compared each region’s pricing when coming up with the costs. Any player who purchased coins during the preview patch will have the value of those coins returned to their coin balance, but any content purchased has been wiped from all accounts.

Vault, Expedition, Prologue, and chest rewards have also been updated. Level 10 Vaults will have an added Expedition Token to make Expeditions more accessible to all players. Shards are also a greater proportion of the rewards you’ll receive from these Expeditions.

“We’ve updated XP rewards to help you make progress without the grind. You’ll now earn bonus XP for your first few wins of the day and get more XP from losses, while XP gains will now tail off as you reach many hours of LoR in a given day,” developers said.

Legends of Runeterra’s new ranked mode

“From the start, our goal was to create a card game with enough strategic depth and interaction to support skilled competition. Now it’s time to see where you stand among the best players in Runeterra: the open beta is bringing Ranked mode to LoR,” developers said in the press release.

At the end of the Beta Season, players will earn a Beta Season-exclusive icon based on their highest reached tier.

To help players find opponents, Riot also added a new social panel to Legends of Runeterra. This means open beta players will have a friends list, friends chat, and even the ability to challenge a friend to a match. Riot developers called the social panel a “work-in-progress” with some “wonkiness,” but they’re already aware of some issues that need resolving within the first two weeks. These identified issues include delays and notification bugs.

Players can chat with anyone from within America, Asia, and Europe, but challenges will remain region locked.

New boards and guardians come to LoR

Each current region will see one new board during the open beta. Players wil also have access to three new guardians.

“There’s a ton more to come in the future, and you’ll be able to collect, select, and swap it all right here,” the developer noted.

The three new guardians are T-Hex, Grom Jr., and Scaled Snapper. The six new region-inspired boards are:

Hall of Valor
Reckoners Arena
Iceborn Peak
Clifftop Monastery
Hextech Lab
Cursed Ruins

Legends of Runeterra cards get buffs and nerfs for open beta

Both champions and spells have been tweaked between the preview and open beta.

After play testing, developers felt that Anivia was in a “pretty bad spot,” especially when players created decks meant to “exploit her strengths.” By taking her cost from six to seven and bringing her power down from four to two, opponents will have more of a chance to react to her power. They also reworked her to fit into an Enlightened deck to give her a clear role as a “control / ramp finisher.”

Ezreal’s level up to Level 2 also saw some big changes.

“Ezreal’s level up was slightly too consistent at immediately ending games, so we wanted to add a bit more suspense to the ‘is this it’ moment that comes when he hits Level 2 without impacting his power level overall. Leaving the mana cost on his fleeting Mystic Shot won’t impact him early while keeping his late-game spell slinging a true display of skill,” developers explained.

Tryndamere’s Level 2 was also tweaked due to how difficult he was to deal with at this second level.

Followers and spells also underwent some major changes. Battlesmith’s rarity was changed from common to rare to help Expeditions decks that were underperforming. They also made players “work a little” harder to turn on Fleetfeather Tracker’s power by making you summon another ally to grant Challenger.

Avarosan Hearthguard’s health was lowered from six to five and Wyrding Stones went from four health to three. Catalyst of Aeons’ cost went from four to five. Cloud Drinker had its health reduced drastically from seven to five.

“Cloud Drinker is a dangerous combo piece, but it was doing too much by also acting as a huge blocker to defend the combo strategy, so we’re reducing its health. We’re also removing the ‘super’ effect at Enlightened, which was risky long-term (potentially enabling infinite / game-ending combos) without offering much to existing Enlightened strategies,” developers said.

Legends of Runeterra is already available for players who created an account early or took part in last year’s beta.

Olivia Richman

About Olivia Richman

Olivia has worked in media ever since graduating from college, with her coverage ranging from traditional newspaper reporting to digital coverage of all things gaming, online betting, and nerd culture. She has traveled around the world pursuing that coverage, from the far coasts of the United States to the busy downtown core of Tokyo, Japan. Olivia’s favorite games include Overwatch and Super Smash Smash Bros, and she has been published at Esports Illustrated, Inven Global, EsportsInsider, Upcomer, and elsewhere.

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