Legends of Runeterra - Catch all

I was surprised to not see a thread for this excellent game here, so starting one of my own!

Official Website
Mobalytics website - you'll find a nice game companion, meta decks and guides here
Swim's Webstie - guides, decks and other useful material here

Some personal thoughts:

* I have no previous experience with League of Legends, so no nostalgia factor for me. My opinion of the game is solely based on the gameplay and what it has to offer.
* Coming from Hearthstone & Duelyst, this game definitely seems more complex & less intuitive at start
* For example: there are several types of mana, there are defense turns and attack turns, there are turns within turns (as in - you and your opponent can respond to every action, even if it isn't your turn), there are several 'speeds' for spells, etc.
* There is a nice tutorial (which I'm sure will improve after the beta) and the learning curve is worth it!
* The game gives you three full pre-made decks to play with, I suggest doing the prologue missions, then a few games vs AI and then unranked vs a human opponent
* Once you get the hang of it, the gameplay feels great. Matches are interesting and so far I didn't run into that oh so familiar 'what is this RND bullsh*t!?' feeling
* Progression system feels great and rewarding. I'm still early in the game but it feels like I can just earn a lot of cards by simply playing and doing daily quests
* Each faction can be leveled up separately. It is told that the most efficient way is to level up each one to level 4 and the take it from there
* There are weekly rewards that can also be leveled up by playing, pretty cool!
* The development team believes that the money should come from cosmetics and the cards should be acquired through playing... so while it is possible to buy some cards with real life money, that option is very limited and resets per week. I have never seen a game that limits you with money you can spend. I like it!
* You can't drop in rank once you reach it... takes the anxiety factor away, I like it too!

First gameplay story.

I literally added this card to my deck before the game.
I'm still experimenting and think this card is very situational, since if you reach 10 mana - late game, one can assume that the opponent will usually have higher than 3 attack units. Unless you managed to survive aggro up until turn 10, which was the case here

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/K6ornOI.jpg)

So the weekly rewards were delivered today and I leveled up my reward chests up to level 10 (out of a possible 13?) fairly easily by simply playing a few rounds a day and doing daily quests. Boy, a weekly reward in LOR feels better than a monthly in HS. That's crazy. I was able to craft my first real 'meta' deck

Also, a new patch should be delivered today.
The team communicates it's strategy and thoughts very clearly, this is something I really appreciate considering past experience with similar games.

I love everything about this game, the art, deckbuilding opportunities, gameplay, I really hope it will last longer than ESL and have a wider following than ESO

Here's a nice review from PC Gamer.

Card games are a relatively new interest for me (thank you Slay the Spire), so I haven't had too much experience with similar titles besides playing 5-6 hours of Hearthstone when that released. I *do* have tons of prior experience with League of Legends, so that plus all the positive buzz and magical price point of 'free' made this a no-brainer to check out. I'm glad I did, as I've been playing this almost nightly since starting a few weeks ago. Unsurprisingly, the production elements are all top notch. The card art is beautiful, the champion level up animations are vibrant but brief, and all of the voice quips and minor animations going on during each turn really make the board feel alive.

I remember that part of what put me off of Hearthstone back when I tried it was the simple back and forth nature of it. You move, they move, you move, and so on. I totally understand why the simplicity of that system was such a big hit, but I didn't enjoy the pacing of it. For LoR, it took me most of the tutorial to wrap my mind around the structure of a match, but now that I have, I really enjoy the flow. Both players take actions multiple times on each other's turns, offensively and defensively. It makes defense feel just as involved as offense, and unless your opponent is using every last bit of the clock available to them, it rarely feels like you are waiting to do something for extended periods of time.

sonny615 wrote:

So the weekly rewards were delivered today and I leveled up my reward chests up to level 10 (out of a possible 13?) fairly easily by simply playing a few rounds a day and doing daily quests. Boy, a weekly reward in LOR feels better than a monthly in HS. That's crazy. I was able to craft my first real 'meta' deck

Also, a new patch should be delivered today.
The team communicates it's strategy and thoughts very clearly, this is something I really appreciate considering past experience with similar games.

It seems like just finishing your daily quests should be enough to hit rank 10 and secure an expedition token, which is even nicer when you consider that you can hold up to 3 daily quests at once. So you could only play 2-3 times per week and still easily hit rank 10 on your weekly vault.

Riot has always been great about monetization and community communication. It doesn't at all surprise me that the LoR monetization seems so generous, and I also love how they are narrowing the divide between F2P players and those willing to dump cash through a more generous F2P floor and weekly restrictions on the paying ceiling. I have yet to feel like I lost because I was outspent.

On community communication, bi-weekly patches have been a thing in League of Legends for ages. They carried that mantra over when Teamfight Tactics was released last year. I'm glad to see it's alive and well in LoR as well. Relative to most big developers, they are very transparent with their decision making processes, and they are not afraid to admit fault and make quick changes when something doesn't work.

I've been running with a champion-less Demacian/Ionian Elusive deck for the last week or so, as it was one of the first decks I where I was able to get everything I needed without spending many wildcards. It looks like it was nerfed pretty substantially in this patch (understandably...), so it's time for me to figure out something new to learn!

Tried Expedition mode this week and it was an absolute blast.

First, the drafting is really fun because you get to build your deck as you go. You even have a chance to replace cards.
Then there's the climbing system: you basically can't lose two matches straight. Lose one then win one and you're back on track as if nothing happened. If that isn't enough, if you lose, you get another trial with a clean draft!

The highest climb of the two counts towards your reward. Speaking of rewards, you get a champion card (Hearthstone legendary equivalent) even with 0 wins!
As Dyni mentioned, hitting rank 10 on the weekly quest should be fairly simple and that means a free expedition run every week.

I hit 5 wins on both trials and for a first run, I'm pretty happy with that

Almost all my time playing this past week was in the expedition mode too. It was a blast. I was happy to learn that you can still earn your daily pvp win bonuses and complete daily quests while playing in expedition mode. And since you get a guaranteed champion card at the end of your run, you don't feel like you wasted your entry fee, even at zero wins.

sonny615 wrote:

Then there's the climbing system: you basically can't lose two matches straight. Lose one then win one and you're back on track as if nothing happened. If that isn't enough, if you lose, you get another trial with a clean draft!

I think that's my favorite part of how it's constructed. It's so generous. I expected the trial to end after 2 or 3 losses, but instead, it only ends after you lose 2 games in a row. During my second trial, I lost 5 matches, but I still managed to make it all the way to the final battle because I never lost two in a row.

I ended up making it to 6 wins on both of my trials, which really surprised me. I'm pretty confident in my ability to figure out how to use a deck once I have it, but the deck construction is the part where I'm mostly clueless. The way they bundle cards together in themed stages to guide you was really helpful. I ended up constructing Freljord decks themed around Ashe and Frostbiting for both trials. I guess the structure of the drafting phase helped me make decks that were pretty damn good, even with my limited knowledge.

From hitting 6 wins on each trial, I ended up with 2000 crystals, 2/3 of the way to another expedition. Between those winnings and the weekly token, I will likely end up playing in expedition mode the majority of the time.

Well, any confidence I built from expeditions last week was quickly shattered this week! I played two expeditions. In the first, I won 0 in trial one and 1 in trial two. In the second, I won 0 in trial one and 2 in trial two. A far fall from my 6/6 in the previous week. As I suspected last week, I'm still getting a feel for what to look for in the drafting phase. I found this handy little chart on reddit that should serve as a good starting guideline for what cards to prioritize and what to avoid next time I draft.

Thankfully, since you are guaranteed a champion card for simply entering an expedition, I don't feel like I wasted my resources for losing so early.

Nice.
Keep in mind it's almost a month old. Things might have changed.

I had quite a downfall myself. After 5/5 last time I ended up with 0 (due to a computer restart, f'ing Windows update) and 3.

I honestly love being in the learning stage I'm at. I want to *at least* reach the level I had in HS, where I know every card, can often anticipate plays and think several steps ahead.
In LoR, I still make silly mistakes like forgetting that a certain unit can't block, not knowing how rally works (I thought you couldn't use it after you attacked), not knowing which card belongs to which faction and so on.
Once I make a mistake, however, I generally don't repeat it and kind of build my knowledge & experience level. I finally manage to make plays 2-3 turns ahead and although extremely far from where I want to be, it does feel nice to improve (all the way to Silver III...).

BTW, XP has been increased for playing vs a friend, so feel free to add me if you want to trade wins :p
there moc

sonny615 wrote:

Nice.
Keep in mind it's almost a month old. Things might have changed.

Yeah, for sure. It's from a streamer that regularly gets to 7 wins, so it seems like a good starting point, if nothing else.

I also made several mistakes similar to the one you outlined with Rally on the way to my defeat. I had a frostbitten Yasuo one game and lost because I didn't realize he wouldn't do damage to stunned units at zero power. Like you said, it's a good learning experience, but a little frustrating in the moment.

I'd be happy to trade a few wins for easy daily xp if we're on at the same time That'll make it more realistic to get to the level 12 or 13 chest. I should be either Dyni or Dynimight on there. I'll look for you next time I log on.

Edit: Not sure what your Riot ID and region code are. Mine is Dyni NA1 if you want to add me.

Friend request sent!

What region are you in? I'm in EU West and I think we can only play if we're in the same region.

BTW, what weekly rank do you usually reach? I got 13 for the past two weeks. Daily quests (was a little lucky getting those 1500 points ones) + doing the extra xp bonus matches + 1 expedition are usually enough.

I'm in North America, so we might be out of luck on playing together. We can always test later.

I have been hitting 11 or 12 most of the time. I got to 13 last week. I have not been particularly lucky with the 1500 dailies, so it's really dependent on whether I feel like spending 10 minutes grinding out a loss xp while watching a YouTube video The extra rewards you get after the level 10 chest seem pretty minimal, so I'm just making sure to at least hit that.

I made it to Gold! What makes me happy is that I made it with my own, non meta deck.

New update from riot. Coming from Hearstone, both rate and transparency of these updates feel wonderful.

Another quick and transparent update. Important changes to the economy and reward system. This was a good read (and a good change).

Launch Trailer! Mobile version April 30th!

sonny615 wrote:

I made it to Gold! What makes me happy is that I made it with my own, non meta deck.

That's awesome. Congrats

sonny615 wrote:

Launch Trailer! Mobile version April 30th!

Nice! Also, "And most exciting of all: LoR will launch with a brand new set of 120+ cards, including a new region!" From here.

It looks like the floodgates are opening for marketing efforts. These are both from the last two days:

Hopefully they plan to continue doing champion card spotlights for all champions.

In other news, I finally made it to 7 expedition wins this week. I made it to 6 wins in one of my two trials for each of the last 4 weeks, but I kept losing that 7th match. It felt pretty great to finally hit it.

Edit: Missed one, a region showcase:

Oooook. I need to brag about this one, because it may be the only time I ever pull it off:
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/MvfNMay.png)

Also, more videos:

And first new card reveals for the new set!

Dyni wrote:

Oooook. I need to brag about this one, because it may be the only time I ever pull it off:
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/MvfNMay.png)

That is amazing! How are the rewards now?
I understand expedition rewards were nerfed due to the weekly quests buff.

sonny615 wrote:
Dyni wrote:

Oooook. I need to brag about this one, because it may be the only time I ever pull it off

That is amazing! How are the rewards now?
I understand expedition rewards were nerfed due to the weekly quests buff.

I'm not sure. That was off a token I started before the expedition nerfs went through, so I got the pre-nerf rewards for it.

Sejuani reveal:

This just officially launched, along with a mobile version that I'm hoping to test out tomorrow.

I've been eagerly following all the new card reveals and can't wait to mess around with many of them, especially decks centered around Miss Fortune and Twisted Fate. I'll just post links to the rest of the new champions instead of spamming the thread with videos.

Version 1.0 Trailer:

New champs from existing regions
Demacia: Quinn
Freljord: Sejuani
Shadow Isles: Maoki
Noxus: Swain
Piltover and Zaun: Vi
Ionia: Lee Sin

And showcase + champions from the new region

Fizz
Nautilus
Gangplank
Twisted Fate
Miss Fortune

Deep decks in expeditions seem preeeeeetty busted. I bet they nerf that quickly.

I'm really enjoying Twisted Fate and Miss Fortune so far. Swain also seems like a powerhouse with the right support.

I'm slowly starting to get the hang of the new cards... Still missing a ton. Got one viable deck so far, or at least it feels like it: Elise. It's much more on the aggro side and not really my style of play but that's what I got and hey, winning is fun

Also, absolutely love the fact that it's on mobile now. So nice to be able to kill a dead moment here and there. Too bad it's not out on the Amazon app store since I have some old Amazon coins there laying around from my Hearthstone days.

I've also been leaning into agro to start the new set. I'm currently running with this Miss Fortune/Quinn hybrid.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/IGmNHY4.png)

MF has been easier to level up than I anticipated. She's also a removal magnet, but that works out fine for this deck because it's still pretty common to overwhelm the board without her. Those damn Badgerbears and Grizzled Rangers are such ridiculous value for their cost.

Also, I've already managed to use Ranger's Resolve to negate a couple of Withering Wails. That just feels dirty.

Here's my deck, ~70% winrate so far (although not that many games).

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/SGsNART.jpg)

I started playing this weekend and I was completely overwhelmed. My brief history with card games is limited to Magic in the early days of the new milenium.

I must be very bad at this game because I can barely win the first round of the expedition and get crushed, --crushed-- on the second battle.

I've played the tutorial a few times and I'm starting to get my head around certain mechanics (scouts took a while to understand).

I really liked that the tutorial doesn't hold your hand, rather pushes you to figure out the lessons to be learned.

The anxiety factor is still high, so I only play vs the AI. I win most games, but the expedition killed me so hard I'm hesitant to play vs other human beings.

----------------EDIT------------------
were you guys able to log into Runeterra with your LOL account?

I was completely overwhelmed myself when I started playing. I played HS in the past and this game is more difficult and in some parts, not very intuitive.

I suggest to keep trying... play vs AI and complete all the tutorial, then head into games vs real players in unranked with the premade decks. You will probably lose a lot at first but the purpose is to learn the game so it is fine. In time your brain will get used to the game and things will become much easier (and fun!).

The game is super generous when it comes to quests and rewards, so it shouldn't take too long until you have your first competitive deck.

My biggest tip is to just give it time and enjoy the learning curve. Enjoy the losses and learn from them. It'll be worth it in the long run.

Edit: I never played LOL, more of a Heroes of the Storm guy

Agreed, the learning curve seems harsh, but playing with the initial decks is highly recommendable.
I'm enjoying it.. just the "right" amount? I don't see myself getting hooked, but I will enjoy the occasional game.

I'm still too anxious to actually play online with real ppl. I keep to kicking the AI's but and getting mine kicked in the Expeditions for now

You don't often see spammers that take the time to upload an avatar picture.