Legends of Runeterra - Card game by Riot Games

Patch Notes 1.11

Aurelion Sol: Level up goes from 20 to 25 total power. That's a pretty massive change, but warranted, he's almost auto-win if he levels up and it could be done fairly easily the 5 extra power is going to be hard to get.

Radiant Guardian: Goes from 5 attack to 4 attack, good change, it was and still is a good card.

Petty Officer: Reverting back a previous change from 2 to 1 health. Good change.

Bastion: WTF, goes from Give an ally Spellshield this round to Grant an ally +1/+1 and Spellshield. Probably auto-include in a lot of Targon decks.

Hush: Cost increase each time it's cast, but that's temporary 1.12 will remove the repeatable aspect altogether and reduce it's cost. Good change for now, but better still in 1.12.

A few other interesting changes but not going to list them all here.

A single player LAB, that sounds interesting.

In game leaderboards, I don't care since I don't play ranked but overdue feature.

What's next for Legends of Runeterra...



Apparently quite a bit...

Next expansion in 2 weeks on October 14th with a new card type...



New Seasonal Event

A new spectator mode.

And in-game seasonal tournament for the best players for each regions.

It's looking good, can't wait to see what they do with landmarks, sounds like cards you built around...could be very cool.

Yesterday's reveal...



Today's reveal...




Crusty Codger: While not spectacular it might see play as a 2/2 for 1 mana is a decent statline, with the ability to be healed to a 2/4.

Fortune Croaker: This is a good card, it's not a high cost for the ability to draw 1.

Boxtopus: 3/1 challenger for 2 that you can heal to be a 3/4 is pretty decent I think.

Lounging Lizard: It's an elusive with decent statline, I'll sound like a broken record but with a deck that heals it could be very strong.

Crumble: Slow, and can be easily countered by removing the ally targeted. Can be strong if used on a small unit to kill a large unit but slow is making that risky. It might see play depending on how common Landmark removals are and how meta Landmarks become. Most likely not going to see much play. (It's a Shadow Isle card)

Sunk Cost: Shuffling a unit into deck can be valuable sometimes, like Crumble I think it's viability will depend on Landmarks.

The Slaughter Docks: A toss engine that turns into a Sea Monster when you reach Deep. I'm not familiar enough with Toss/Deep decks to really evaluate this.

Tahm Kench: Looks interesting but too weird for me to evaluate exactly how it will play out. Sounds like he will be hard to level up, but could be pretty strong when he is. I feel you'll wait 3 turns to cast 3 acquired taste at once to level him up in one turn, and create a big board swing, although this will require some healing of buffing Tahm. I feel he'll only fit in Targon which can heal and buff easily. Maybe with Freljord but I think it will be weaker.

Tahm Kench Bayou Brunch: It's slow so it limits its use, could be useful on an Elusive or Overwhelm unit to push some damage that would otherwise be blocked, but I feel being slow will limit it too much.

An Acquired Taste: Token generated each turn by Tahm Kench and the means by which he levels up. It's a good card because of that, otherwise it's kinda weak.

Wise Fry: I'm not sure what to make of this, doesn't feel very good. In the best circumstance it's an 8/8 with Overwhelm and Vulnerable for 6 mana which seems ok, most likely will be a 5/8 or 6/8 for 6 which isn't awful but not sure in what kind of deck he would fit.

Shakedown: Probably great in a Undying deck, not sure it will see play anywhere else.

Conclusion: Interesting cards for the most part, they don't seem to fit into the current Archetypes of Bildgewater so that's cool as it might push even more diversity rather than strengthening existing decks.

I like the card design, alternate win condition can be interesting.

I saw Swim review of the card and if it works with regen, it could lead to some really toxic gameplay with Braum for example. He was mentioning that it would play very much like Lee Sin deck where you stall with Braum and buffs, bastion etc...then the Landmark would be his "kick".

That said the card can easily be tweaked by just increasing the heals from 22 to something higher if it's too consistent. If there is enough Landmark removal, it could be very hard to reach 22+ heals.

Soraka looks pretty cool. Stargazer could be really good too, if you can heal multiple units, they will all get Elusive this could end many games.

This Landmark looks like a meme card, might be fun but doesn't actually look good.

I'm not liking the randomness that seems to being added to LoR recently, I know I am exaggerating but I feel it's turning into Hearthstone. This is another example, although as I said it doesn't look like a very good card. They had kept the RNG to a minimum and generally their RNG was pretty targeted but this is create 3 random cards and there doesn't seem to be any restriction on region, type or cost...so it looks like it will be from the entire card pool which is a massive RNG and what makes it probably nothing more than a meme card...still not a direction I like the game to be heading for...

The Patched Porobot is another RNG card, albeit much more targeted in its RNG as it just change the keyword each turn while in hand. There's a lot of Keywords in LoR so the RNG is still pretty big. Getting Ephemeral at the wrong time could cost you the game, as getting Elusive might do the opposite. Again not a direction I want LoR to take.

Trevor Snoozebottom looks like a very interesting card.

NOPEIFY! seems pretty good, it's a Deny that cost less but with some restrictions. I think it will be used instead of Deny in certain decks rather than with Deny. I doubt you'll see a 3 Deny and 3 Nopeify deck, most like will be a combination of both cards up to 3 maybe 4 max...like 2 Nopeify and 1 Deny, or 2 Deny and 1 Nopeify, etc...it will probably depend on the meta as to which is better to run at any point in time.

Noxkraya Arena: I think it might be ok, Landmark so far have been unimpressive for the most part. This one could be good, especially if your Strongest ally has regen... so it kills something every end of round. There's some nice counters to this as you can damage the strongest ally and it will die to a weak unit at the end of the round since it has to attack. I think it's an interesting card.

Scorched Earth: It's not a bad card, killing a damaged unit for 3 is decent, the added benefit of being able to destroy a Landmark will probably make it more of a card that will be dependent on the meta, if there's a lot of Landmark being played, this could be great otherwise there's probably better.

Stony Suppressor: I think that's a great card design, it will be extremely powerful against some decks, like it will seriously fuck them up, it's use is limited though as you need to play this in a deck that doesn't rely on many spells, obviously it's good in Demacia since they are mostly a unit based region. I like it, can be awesome, has deck building restriction and can be fairly weak against decks that don't rely on spells much.

Sharpsight: 2/2 for 2 is a pretty decent combat trick on it's own, having the possibility to block Elusive is a nice bonus. It's never really going to be a dead card, will always be a useful combat trick. It will be meta dependent somewhat if Elusive is popular or not.

Stalking Broodmother: It's a dragon, if dragon synergy is required it's ok, decent if pulled by another card. Other than that, there's better dragons available.

Dragonguard Lieutenant: A 3/2 for 2 is base statline, getting Challenger makes it a pretty good card. Only going to be played in dragon decks obviously but should come as a 3/2 with Challenger most of the time, so should be good in those decks if there's room.

Egghead Researcher: Similar to Dragonguard, it's pretty good in a dragon deck, won't see use outside of that. Weak stats, but getting generating a card is always valuable.

Shyvana: I like her design being stronger on attack than when blocking, her non level up version is ok, but her levelled up version is very strong, having bigger stats boost when attacking, gaining fury, and creating a fleeting Strafing Strike which is pretty good card.

Shyvana’w Confront: Challenger is always a good effect to have, so having this as her signature spell is pretty good. It almost always going to find a use.

Strafing Strike: Single Combat for one more mana that heals if it’s a dragon. It’s great card to get from Shyvana’s attacking, but even in a dragon deck you’d probably want Single Combat over it, 1 less mana is probably more valuable than the extra 2 heals.

Eclipse Dragon: The stats aren’t great, the Daybreak effect is ok but not necessarily great, the Nightfall effect is really good though as you get 2 cards from it, random dragon and a random celestial follower. I think the value of this card is in it‘a Nightfall effect. This is a Targon card btw which already has a decent amount of draw so not sure if this will find a room, but it might.

Kadregrin The Infernal. Not great stats for the cost, pretty solid effect in a dragon deck. At cost of 9 mana it’s really hard to evaluate. This feel like a win more card.

Dragonguard Lookout: Citrus Courier basically, now Citrus Courier gave Rally to a region that didn’t have it so he saw some play. Demacia has Relentless Pursuit for half the mana which I think is more valuable than the body Dragonguard Lookout provides. Although it’s rally effect is conditional to beholding a dragon, there’s almost no way that at that stage of the game that he won’t come on with Rally enabled. I doubt he’ll see much play, Relentless Pursuit is just more flexible.