Legends of Runeterra |OT| Yay! Now I Can Bat Around the Bodies!

[ZeroX]

Yeah I don't know what they're talking about, fizzling spells is still a thing. Read the cards, the 'to' condition is the key factor. I can't think of any cards where the wording is off?

I guess what they could do is add a space between the effects to make it more clear that they're separate but using the two examples above... you can see one of them says 'to' and the other is a completely separate sentence.

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[Sylvee]

There was an open 7 round swiss BR tournament today with 89 entrants. Normally I wouldn't care all that much about the results of a tourney that doesn't have a top cut portion, but there's some spicy brews that went X-0 and X-1 that I wanted to share. Firstly, out of 4 players who went X-1 or better there was two representations for Plunder and Shen Jarvan. At this point Plunder has gotten some good results at least in the various Brazilian tournaments I've been following, so I wouldn't be surprised to see it end up being established as a tier 1 competitive deck. Shen Jarvan was already pretty fringe playable before, and the buffs to Jarvan and Young Witch both helped quite a bit. I'm not sure if it's fully tier 1 yet but it's definitely at least tier 2.

Of course those aren't the reason I'm making this post. Firstly, there was someone who managed to go X-1 with Zoe Diana Invoke Atrocity. It was running a full playset of both Star Shaping and the Fangs, so it's a pretty standard build. But it's just funny seeing this deck pop up when it previously wasn't doing great for a while and also got pretty significant nerfs. There was also an old school Go Hard list, it looks like card-for-card the exact same stuff you'd expect to see back when it was tier 1. It even has 2 Wail and no Make It Rain.

Those are just old curiosities though. We also had an Akshan Shyvana list which ran 11 bust speed combat tricks (Shaped Stone, Absolver, Sharpsight, and Riposte) along with Egghead Researcher, Brightsteel Protector, and Screeching Dragon as well as the usual Shuriman suspects minus Ruin Runner. This list IMO shows a good amount of promise even if Shurima gets some nerfs as I doubt they'll go much further than nerfing Ruin Runner and Merciless Hunter initially, and combining Akshan with a more fair Demacia board control plan makes sense. (List is here: deck)


Then there's the undefeated player, which ran Plunder, Shen Jarvan, and Akshan Sivir. Except that instead of Ionia, it was paired with Targon. It plays a bit more Shuriman cards than the Ionia version, with it running 2 copies of the 5 mana Bruiser card as well as 2 Absolver and 2 Grappling Hook. The Targon is for 2x Mountain Goat, Pale Cascade, Hush, a copy of Ground Slam, and 3 copies of Our Boy Chipp. I'm guessing this list is better vs a lot of the other Ionia combat combo decks like Sivir+Ionia or the Ionia+PnZ Wayfinder deck thanks to the Hushes and potential Ground Slam. I'm not sure it'll catch on much on ladder, but I could see this being a solid option in tournaments. (Link is here: deck)

 

[Sande]

Spells that either target one creature (most burn/kill spells) or have a secondary effect that is conditional on the spell resolving (Drain, Vile Feast is specifically worded to work this way) fizzle when the target(s) become invalid. Spells that have another effect that is not conditional on the effect resolving (Statikk Shock, Decisive Maneuver) aren't impacted by the target becoming invalid. The templating is pretty consistent.

Also as someone who played back when SI was by far the best region in the game and Augmented Experimenter's skill fizzled if its damage target became invalid, that stuff being extremely widespread for all targeted effects is really not healthy for the game. It's a colossal buff to Glimpse Beyond (which is already an insanely good card) and makes those sort of effects even more swingy as they are borderline useless vs any deck that can reliably kill their own units in response. It's also REALLY lame to burn through all your cards in prep for Experimenter or throw a ton of 3 cost cards in your deck to power up Tri-Beam only for all that hard work to be countered by a 2 mana spell that every SI deck already wanted to play. I think it's much better for them to do it in a case-by-case basis like they're doing it now.



Noxus' main thing is that they have a bunch of different offensive tools to use such as attack buffs, Overwhelm, stun, and burn. They're not really the best at any of these things, but what makes them strong is that they have access to all of them and they're pretty reasonable at all of them. They shouldn't have the best combat tricks in the game.

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100% agree on all of this. Those mega-fizzleable effects only made sense for cards like Double Up and Culling Strike where the risk-reward is the point.

 

[Deleted member 28523]

lol i'm not saying fizzling was removed. i am saying new cards dont fizzle when they should. Death from Below, Go Hard, Homecoming and Blades, etc. They all do not fizzle as the card reads. I care about the wording and consistency which Riot was been poor at in the 18 months since the beta.

 

[Dahbomb]

Wait Homecoming should fizzle if you kill the enemy unit being recalled.

 

[Dealan]

Death from below and go hard not fizzling is consistent with their wording. Homecoming not fizzling if applied to blades (if that's what you mean) is kind of an edge case where it would make sense to me if it was ruled either way.

 

[Deleted member 28523]

Wait Homecoming should fizzle if you kill the enemy unit being recalled.

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If the unit is a Blade it is not recalled back to hand because it is obliterated when it leaves combat. It still recalls the opponents unit. It does not function as stated in the game.

Death from below and go hard not fizzling is consistent with their wording. Homecoming not fizzling if applied to blades (if that's what you mean) is kind of an edge case where it would make sense to me if it was ruled either way.

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Go hard says "and" when it should say "then" but it's not consistent. Death from Below should have a period. These cards do not have the correct text.

 

[Dahbomb]

Oh yes I definitely agree that Riot's wording is definitely not consistent.

 

[TheWorthyEdge]

What I don't understand is the inconsistency in blocking when units are killed on the board. Sometimes a unit stays on the board after being killed as a "ghost blocker" but then other times they just go away…though I feel like I've seen the "ghost blocker" way more than a unit simply disappearing from the board altogether. I was playing a match yesterday, would've survived but the unit was deleted from the board entirely. No "ghost blocker" at all. Is there a consistency behind this?

 

[Dahbomb]

What I don't understand is the inconsistency in blocking when units are killed on the board. Sometimes a unit stays on the board after being killed as a "ghost blocker" but then other times they just go away…though I feel like I've seen the "ghost blocker" way more than a unit simply disappearing from the board altogether. I was playing a match yesterday, would've survived but the unit was deleted from the board entirely. No "ghost blocker" at all. Is there a consistency behind this?

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Ghost blocking is standard, however if the attacker is an Overwhelm unit then you can't "ghost" block it because all damage goes through anyway.

 

[Dealan]

Go hard says "and" when it should say "then" but it's not consistent. Death from Below should have a period. These cards do not have the correct text.

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You're right about Death from Below, I actually thought it was two sentences. Go Hard though does not fizzle and correctly says "and", no?

The blade thing is weird and I wouldn't necessarily call it "wrong" per se. You can interpret the situation as either "a unit was not in fact returned to hand so the effect should not go off" or "a unit was 'returned to hand', it just happens to get obliterated when it leaves the field so the conditional part of the effect still applied as far as the card is concerned".

Although the first reading is the most literal one, the second reading makes more sense to me, as it avoids ruling messes like "why can you even cast Will of Ionia to a blade if it can never be recalled". But such edge cases are pretty much unavoidable in sufficiently complex card games.

 

[ZeroX]

Lost my first last chance gauntlet, got absolutely hammered in the final game sigh

Triple aggro rolled over my TK Soraka

 

[Sande]

Homecoming doesn't say "if it was recalled", so it just needs to be a valid target for the effect. That is consistent. Kind of like how Vile Feast doesn't care if actually drains anything (due to barrier, tough etc), just that it can target a unit.

Death from Below is just classic vague Runeterra wording where you simply have to know.

 

[Excelsior]

The 10th region has been announced, along with a HUGE PvE update:

What’s Next in 2021 | Dev Video - Legends of Runeterra

See what’s in store for the rest of 2021. Discover the final region joining Legends of Runeterra, explore a leveled-up Lab of Legends, and mark your calendar...

www.youtube.com

 

[Lil Peanut Brotha]

The 10th region has been announced, along with a HUGE PvE update:

What’s Next in 2021 | Dev Video - Legends of Runeterra

See what’s in store for the rest of 2021. Discover the final region joining Legends of Runeterra, explore a leveled-up Lab of Legends, and mark your calendar...

www.youtube.com

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/TellThePeopleWhatYouHaveSeen
Excited for the rest of this year! Also hopefully I can climb more consistently instead of being trapped in gold 3 for a month like I am now haha

 

[AWizardDidIt]

The new PvE mode looks so fucking rad. I would love to see them keep iterating on this.

Excited for Bandle City. As a proud Yordle Enjoyer, it was my personal preferred region over Ixtal and Void.

 

[jon bones]

The 10th region has been announced, along with a HUGE PvE update:

What’s Next in 2021 | Dev Video - Legends of Runeterra

See what’s in store for the rest of 2021. Discover the final region joining Legends of Runeterra, explore a leveled-up Lab of Legends, and mark your calendar...

www.youtube.com

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so good!!

 

[Boat Times]

Oh man that new PVE content! And an entire PVE EXPANSION?! Man I'm hyped! I will say, knowing almost nothing about the lore (I always mean to read the lore website but never get around to doing it), Bandle City feels weirdly redundant? Like the art just feels like a mix between P&Z and Ionia to me. Probably because that's where most of the Yordles are already in LoR. I'm interested in seeing how they make it feel different from those two (and every other region, ha).

 

[niaobx]

This game's pace when it comes to updates and features is fucking crazy. They just don't stop with the new things. So good.

 

[Dahbomb]

Sweet new PvE mode!

I hope it doesn't completely replace the old Lab of Legends with all the new heroes. That one is still fairly fun with all the different heroes you can try.


Also is it me or is the next set only going to have 2 Expansions? I only see 2 card based expansions for Bandle City.

 

[Boat Times]

Sweet new PvE mode!

I hope it doesn't completely replace the old Lab of Legends with all the new heroes. That one is still fairly fun with all the different heroes you can try.


Also is it me or is the next set only going to have 2 Expansions? I only see 2 card based expansions for Bandle City.

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No, it's three. The third set is in February. Kind of a big gap between August and then the second part of Bandle City coming out in December.

Also wow, the video made it seem like the new PVE mode was coming later but it's coming out tomorrow?!

https://playruneterra.com/en-us/news/game-updates/patch-2-13-0-notes/

 

[Evolution of Metal]

Muh Void...

One more reason to dislike yordels.

The purple expansion color in the video clearly suggests a void event though.

 

[Excelsior]

No, it's three. The third set is in February.

*snip*

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It's actually four! The video shows that November will also be a BC expansion.

 

[Sylvee]

I was expecting them to have a big PVE expansion to be coming at some point with how insanely successful Lab of Legends has been, but I honestly thought it would still be a couple months out. Kinda crazy that they've gone from Journey to the Peak last September to this in less than a year.

Bandle City seems to be framed a bit more about them exploring the world of Runeterra, which means that I imagine a lot of the BC cards could just be non-yordle champions that the yordles meet. Gameplay-wise I think there's definitely enough interesting stuff you can do with the region, but TBH I'm afraid they're just going to make Ionia 2.0 which doesn't exactly excite me because Ionia is probably the region I like fighting against the least. At any rate BC makes sense as their 10th region because it's pretty well-known and doesn't have massive champion issues like the Void.

I'm pretty disappointed that Ixtal isn't going to be a region though. The lore of League is mostly pretty good (Ruination event not withstanding) but the biggest issue with it is that the world is so massive that it can take years for certain storylines to be furthered. So far with Ixtal all that they've done is establish its existence back in 2019 with the release of Qiyana but literally nothing has happened since then. It becoming a Runeterra region would have forced its storyline to move forward, and a lot of the various things that they set up previously like its powerful elemental magic (Ixtal is where the drakes from League come from) and Ixaocan potentially revealing itself to the world would have to be expanded upon so they had enough content for it being a region. But since at this point the only major Ixtal champ is Qiyana they can just throw in her and a handful of followers and spells and call it a day.


Some people are upset that there wasn't balance changes in the patch, but I think people were completely missing the point in why Riot said they don't want to do balance patches every 2 weeks. The point is to let the meta have a chance to evolve and adapt to itself before figuring out what needs to change and what is mostly fine. The meta had a shakeup 2 weeks ago with the champ expansion so the only post-release info they would have had would have been during the time when everyone is playing bad decks so they wouldn't have had much useful info.

 

[Boat Times]

It's actually four! The video shows that November will also be a BC expansion.

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But that's a PVE expansion (what PVE expansion is in regards to Runeterra, who knows?). Presumably it means the cards can't be used in PVP, so sort of it's own thing.

 

[Evolution of Metal]

Really sceptical of Bangle city being the last region:
• Region locks out other regions. I would probably not care if I knew that Void/Jungle were still possible as separate regions next year.
• We already have yordels in different colors, the "traveling" concept works very well being representated by other regions
• I am unsure how would you tie a color to the traveling city, colors are tied to physical boundries and land at the moment, mechanics are driven from those lands.
• I cannot think of cool mechanics for Yordels, something that would unify the color as 3-4 themes, nothing as flavorful as Void with blinking/lurking/manaburning/voidling calling etc. You also heard my ideas about cloaking and ambushing enemies with "jungle" colors.
• Just a bias disliking the proportions/presentation of yordels, never fits a more grounded fantasy, fits more like an anime or pixar movie tone
• Quite a low number of heroes to pick from

Rumble belongs with PnZ, something like Augment flavor.
Poppy feels like a Demacia thing with barriers and toughness.
Tristana can join pirates, or perhaps I just remember the skin too much
Ziggs PnZ
Kledd is already Noxus
Kennen for Ionia
Don't know Veigar lore but he could be Void?
Nunu goes to the FJ
Rammus/Amumu already Shurima

I don't know if the game needs a support (Not Keyword Support) region who seems to be composed of champs that would fit in other colors both lore-wise and mechanically.

I should look on the bright side, they have done so much right, perhaps I should leave it to them. Void will invade LoR, we will probably have Rengar vs Khazix event too. Probably another KDA event too (fuck, that 4th purple expansion graph could be KDA too).

But that's a PVE expansion (what PVE expansion is in regards to Runeterra, who knows?). Presumably it means the cards can't be used in PVP, so sort of it's own thing.

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I think you are wrong.

In the video, he says Expansion is coming with a major PVE event. It should not be understood as a PVE Expansion.

 

[Sylvee]

They said in the video that the BC cycle is getting 4 expansions, I have no clue why the November one isn't listed on the roadmap but there is supposed to be an expansion there:

 

[Dahbomb]

They said in the video that the BC cycle is getting 4 expansions, I have no clue why the November one isn't listed on the roadmap but there is supposed to be an expansion there:

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Isn't the November expansion supposed to be the PvE expansion or did I misinterpret that?

 

[Sylvee]

Isn't the November expansion supposed to be the PvE expansion or did I misinterpret that?

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Ok, so the exact words in the video are:

"I'm also really excited to tell you about an extra November expansion that'll follow up the Bandle Wood, bringing a major PVE event unlike anything we've tried before."


So I suppose that it's possible that the November expansion is purely PVE cards. But I think that would be kinda weird to word it as a new expansion, and that would mean that after Bandle City there's a 4 month wait for the next batch of cards to come in which I think seems pretty extreme. I'm guessing it might be smaller in scope and will also be when they introduce dual-region cards into the game. They could add in a smaller amount than a usual expansion would, but combine that with previously existing cards getting a new Region to play with. (Big ass prediction: dual region champs will get champ spells for both regions, and which ones you're allowed to play depends on which region you're running. If you have both regions you get to choose one of the two) Also worth pointing out they didn't tease any Champ expansions this time around so the November expansion could be replacing that.

The other theory is that November is when the next set for TFT is coming out and maybe it'll tie into that. But I doubt that they'd do a crossover event with just TFT, I think it would have to include League PC as well to be worth doing.


Some basic math, next expansion is almost assuredly coming August 11, 2 weeks from tomorrow. If there's a 12 week (6 patch) gap from that release to the November "expansion," that would put the release date on November 3rd. 8 weeks from there would be December 29th, and 8 from then would be February 23rd. I'm guessing that pending some catastrophic shake-ups this is likely what the upcoming patch cadence will be.

 

[Boat Times]

I think you are wrong.

In the video, he says Expansion is coming with a major PVE event. It should not be understood as a PVE Expansion.

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In this roadmap it says PVE Expansion.



It also mentions a "mega event pass", which would presumably be different from a regular event pass. Maybe it crosses over to LoL or TFT as well? But yeah, seems like something big is coming regarding PVE come November. I'm really excited about that! Also September and October seem pretty empty right now, but honestly that seems like a good thing to me (at least September being empty). If the Bandle City major expansion is coming in about two weeks time, with it's own event pass right off the heels of this Ruination event that came right off the heels of another expansion....man I need some time to breathe!

 

[Dahbomb]

Shouldn't we be seeing spoilers soon? Maybe they start up tomorrow or on Friday.

 

[Excelsior]

could be possible they delay the next patch a week? think they took a whole week off last year

 

[ZeroX]

well there's that Lab of Legends patch I was asking for

I'm very happy

 

[Sylvee]

Shouldn't we be seeing spoilers soon? Maybe they start up tomorrow or on Friday.

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Empires of the Ascended's Trailer and spoiler season started the Thursday after the patch before its release. So that would be 7/29.

could be possible they delay the next patch a week? think they took a whole week off last year

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They took the week off during the Holidays, so if they do take another break it would probably be then. They also probably wouldn't be revealing the next expansion this early if it was delayed. They typically start the spoiler season for big expansions 2 weeks before release.

 

[Excelsior]

Empires of the Ascended's Trailer and spoiler season started the Thursday after the patch before its release. So that would be 7/29.



They took the week off during the Holidays, so if they do take another break it would probably be then. They also probably wouldn't be revealing the next expansion this early if it was delayed. They typically start the spoiler season for big expansions 2 weeks before release.

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[Sylvee]

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I think I vaguely remember them doing this last year too, I just forgot about it lol. This is potentially part of why the 2nd expansion is so delayed compared to the first one. If they start previews on Thursday then it's pretty safe to assume it's dropping as scheduled and the break will impact stuff that happens after the release. They should be back by the time the expansion drops so they can address stuff then. They might wait until after the break to start the season though which if that happens strap in because the community is going to get really fucking ugly lol.

 

[niaobx]

https://www.thegamer.com/riot-games-100-million-revenue-mobile-wild-rift/

I wonder how accurate this is, 16m in revenue is nothing really

 

[ZeroX]

https://www.thegamer.com/riot-games-100-million-revenue-mobile-wild-rift/

I wonder how accurate this is, 16m in revenue is nothing really

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That would exclude PC revenue but yeah it ain't much

That said Riot haven't shown any concern or any particularly predatory monetization, they've been super generous bar the price of skins

 

[Sylvee]

That said Riot haven't shown any concern or any particularly predatory monetization, they've been super generous bar the price of skins

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This is probably the biggest takeaway for me. The game isn't making much money relative to the number of players, but I think that if Riot was more concerned with that they'd be putting more effort into stuff they can monetize rather than stuff like the PVE expansions they're doing. Riot already makes infinite money from League and they seem to be fine not making much money in other areas if they're making something they like so I don't think I'd be too worried about it being cancelled tomorrow or anything.


One thing I think that's worth mentioning though is that compared to Riot's other games the Digital Card Game space is extremely competitive and a lot of other big players have tried and failed to make their mark on the genre. Hearthstone basically established the Digital Card Game genre and has actually gotten a bit better in the past couple years, and MTG literally created the TCG genre, has 25+ years of legacy behind it, and is bigger now than it's ever been. Legends of Runeterra has the best production values of any card game I've seen, has an extremely generous economy, and is attached to one of the biggest IPs in gaming, which is much more than most other card games can say. Even Valve couldn't manage to break into the genre, and I believe they got in before Magic Arena was widely available. Riot's created a great game and carved out their own nice, and IMO with the general direction MTG as a whole has been going the past couple years I think there might be some time down the road WOTC does something stupid again to piss off a huge chunk of their playerbase, and when that happens there be some people who will check out and potentially stick with Runeterra due to dissatisfaction with MTG. It's already happened a couple times.

 

[Dahbomb]

Looks like Bandle City is going to be August 25th. That means spoilers should start next week.

 

[Sande]

The new lab doesn't really seem like what I was hoping to get. Runs go on forever and seem pretty easy. It's the kind of thing you might beat once with the 3 champions and move on.

The main motivator this time around is getting the best score in terms of hoarded money, deaths and some third stat I didn't even unlock, which isn't nearly as compelling to me as the old lab.

 

[Boat Times]

The new lab doesn't really seem like what I was hoping to get. Runs go on forever and seem pretty easy. It's the kind of thing you might beat once with the 3 champions and move on.

The main motivator this time around is getting the best score in terms of hoarded money, deaths and some third stat I didn't even unlock, which isn't nearly as compelling to me as the old lab.

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I have to imagine this lab is the ground work for something much bigger (much like the original Lab of Legends was pretty bare bones as well until it was iterated on). I did a run as TF and had fun, but yes it definitely is longer. It's feeling more like a deckbuilder rogue like- ala Slay the Spire. Seems like they may be ultimately heading towards a Slay the Spire like within LoR- which sounds awesome to me.

 

[Sande]

I have to imagine this lab is the ground work for something much bigger (much like the original Lab of Legends was pretty bare bones as well until it was iterated on). I did a run as TF and had fun, but yes it definitely is longer. It's feeling more like a deckbuilder rogue like- ala Slay the Spire. Seems like they may be ultimately heading towards a Slay the Spire like within LoR- which sounds awesome to me.

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Yeah the promise of what this can become is amazing. Right now though it's much weaker than the old lab was even at release imo.

A simple thing that would already improve it substantially is the option to skip new cards. Most of the time I didn't want any of the random options, and they just ended up ballooning my deck to a random pile of 5+ regions.

 

[Boat Times]

Yeah the promise of what this can become is amazing. Right now though it's much weaker than the old lab was even at release imo.

A simple thing that would already improve it substantially is the option to skip new cards. Most of the time I didn't want any of the random options, and they just ended up ballooning my deck to a random pile of 5+ regions.

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I think the ballooning of the deck is part of the "strategy". It's kind of a "should I do another fight to get more exp, but at the same time get more cards that I don't want at this point?" give and take sort of thing, I think. At the healing locations you also have the option to cut cards from your deck instead of heal, so it's a choice you need to make (what I didn't like about that was it only gave you 3 random options of cards to cut, instead of letting you choose which card to cut).

 

[Evolution of Metal]

This is probably the biggest takeaway for me. The game isn't making much money relative to the number of players, but I think that if Riot was more concerned with that they'd be putting more effort into stuff they can monetize rather than stuff like the PVE expansions they're doing. Riot already makes infinite money from League and they seem to be fine not making much money in other areas if they're making something they like so I don't think I'd be too worried about it being cancelled tomorrow or anything.


One thing I think that's worth mentioning though is that compared to Riot's other games the Digital Card Game space is extremely competitive and a lot of other big players have tried and failed to make their mark on the genre. Hearthstone basically established the Digital Card Game genre and has actually gotten a bit better in the past couple years, and MTG literally created the TCG genre, has 25+ years of legacy behind it, and is bigger now than it's ever been. Legends of Runeterra has the best production values of any card game I've seen, has an extremely generous economy, and is attached to one of the biggest IPs in gaming, which is much more than most other card games can say. Even Valve couldn't manage to break into the genre, and I believe they got in before Magic Arena was widely available. Riot's created a great game and carved out their own nice, and IMO with the general direction MTG as a whole has been going the past couple years I think there might be some time down the road WOTC does something stupid again to piss off a huge chunk of their playerbase, and when that happens there be some people who will check out and potentially stick with Runeterra due to dissatisfaction with MTG. It's already happened a couple times.

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• I think they are making single-player stuff precisely to find new audience (which means new revenue stream). Single-player card game is a viable product, and building all-in-one product seems like the best experience. It is a much better launching point to capitalize on both LoL fans and card-game peopple who don't want to PVP.
• I don't think the part about money is also true. At the end of the day, this isn't a charity, and having the fanfare/loss-leader project will be scaled down if it doesn't even have a path to covering its own dev/support/marketing costs.
• MTG has surely wasted a ton of potential... MTGA was a really good start towards progressive and modern experience, but it somehow deteriorates and stalled. Eldraine was a mess of the expansion, beast expansion required an instant rule-change, and a lot of the flavor/stories are spinning wheels in either return-worlds or generic fantasy settings. BUT, there is a world where MTGA strikes back with single-player modes like LoR, two headed giant, Expansions that are balanced, fun and flavorful, and worlds that aren't just telling the lamest good vs bad stories... This is probably MTGA at its weakest. I am like -€100 in MTGA, but I have bailed around Runeterra. I collected all Godzilla cards, crossover was a nice cosmetic event, but fucking hell they doing DnD expansions now.
• Saying "Even Valve" is weird. Valve barely even tried: Gwent, Eternal or Shadowverse prove that there is a sustainable playerbase for more CCGs. Both Valve and Bethesda tried to enter the market without a good plan, they just kind of expected everything to work out...

My prediction is that LoR will be profitable, and it will be at least 3rd biggest digital card game, but it will never be a money printer HS or MTGA are. The way LoR's economy works is just not designed to be profitable from packs/singles, and the skin value is also bad. Collecting boards or pets is a niche thing, most people I play against (in Expedition) have the basic-bitch green board. Premium pets are rare, everybody either on free or Season Pass.

Being 1st or 2nd biggest game would be more on HS/MTG continuing to drop the ball. The playerbase has to reject those games first, and then look at alternatives, as opposed to try alternatives and then quit HS.

I am 100% onboard with LoR. Usual complains remain about half-assed limited, 2vs2 and the new one is: I really don't like Bandle city as the final region.

 

[ZeroX]

Time to try this new lab out

Also if they keep the event pass value what it is and just keep them going constantly, I don't know if it's an incredible money maker, but for $10 a month or w/e the coin price is you've got my cash

 

[Poodlestrike]

There's art for my girl Senna's champion card out there and it looks fire.

In other news, dual region cards are all but confirmed, and I'm still wondering how they'll interact with deck building restrictions. Does having one dual region card in your deck lock you into those two regions? That feels clunky. But letting you draft anything that shares a region with your dual region cards would obviously lead to abuse as people chain regions to build Goodstuff decks.

I think it'd be neat if Bandle City was basically a "colorless" region, sorta like artifacts in Magic, so you could put their cards in any deck. Prolly won't be tho.

 

[Dahbomb]

I would be shocked if stuff like Teemo, Lulu weren't changed to be dual region cards with Bandle City.

And I would imagine the dual region cards wouldn't restrict you to the two specific regions. Otherwise that would kill so many Lulu and Teemo decks for example if they were restricted to Bandle City. I think the point of dual region cards is to have more flexibility not less.

 

[ZeroX]

Yeah there's no way dual region cards are locked to those two regions, they'll be usable by both. This game ain't Magic. Changing existing cards to also be in Bandle City helps too, that means the new region can start with more stuff than it had before. Because what we desperately need is more puffcaps!

They *might* do dual region locked cards, but that'd be way in the future, probably bomb cards but only a few per set. Or like Allegiance that checks for both regions in your deck.

 

[Pundere]

The idea of dual region cards that can be played in either region does actually exist in Magic in the form of hybrid mana. Though I agree that it's probably too early for dual region cards that require you to play both regions.