Legends of Runeterra

[Lorini]

Gonna re-post the Something Awful OP I did this AM. The open beta starts at 11AM PST.

Legends of Runeterra is the new digital Collectible Card Game (CCG) from Riot Games, makers of League of Legends. This post is basically a placeholder until the community can fill it up with suggested videos, pointers to meta discussions, and other places of interest on the internet. It especially needs a real thread title

In the meantime here are some links that I found to be helpful:

https://playruneterra.com/en-us/ Main page
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TezYh0Hg0D0Great guide to how to play the game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_xeAB2gepo#t=1s Best way to get cards (note, importing a deck through a code doesn't seem to work at the moment, you'll need to build the decks from scratch).
https://mobalytics.gg/blog/hearthstone- ... runeterra/ Says Hearthstone guide but really it's good for anyone who is familiar with digital CCG's.
https://www.pcgamer.com/Legends-of-rune ... s-economy/ Guide to the Runeterra economy, highly recommended before you start spending.

A little about me: I have the oldest known DC number for Magic the Gathering (11) and I was the first judge outside of WotC so I've been in this space for a bit although I no longer play MtG. I've been a Hearthstone player since 2013, highest rank is 9 mainly because I'm a casual player and don't care enough to 'git gud'. I've looked at some of the other digital CCG's out there but none seemed that good and/or had a great chance to have a large player pool.

Runeterra on the other hand will have a large number of at least potential players and the commitment of Riot Games. Brian Kibler (the famous MtG/Hearthstone player and streamer) said on stream that he had friends who have been working on this game for 10 years.

What I really like about the game is that the game is fast. I love the lack of summoning sickness and the fact that you can cast minions nearly anytime throughout play. That is so cool. I also like the MtG like spell play, that's so much more dynamic than HS, noting that not all spells (burst) can be responded to. I think (but this could simply be lack of familiarity) the is way more thinky than HS, but probably not as deep as MtG.

The graphics are nice, the animations are fine, the voicing is poor (imo of course).

[donaldmcdonald]

My day on experience was pretty boarding and my day two experienced is unacceptable.

That is because Ive advance to the point were Ive enough cards to seriously tweek my deck but not really put together an entirely new deck and now Im basically playing an evolved starter deck against full-on meta decks in every other Q. It's not just that Im loosing, it's the fact that you basically know every card in opposing deck by induction by turn 3, and are getting horrible missmatches that result in a turn 5 surrender every other game. Is this something I really want to grind through after having already set myself back with some impulse picks?

There are a host of other issues mostly stemming from lack of depth, and the small pool of cards and Im sure these will mostly be smoothed out as more cards are introduced and game is refined, but in it's current state the grind simple isnt fun. It's a choir that ebbs from frustrating and futile to just plain dull, and Im personally not willing to grind another 2 or 3 afterwork hours for the rest of the week just to get my foot into a game that might get good.

[Sudy]

wonderpug reminded me this exists. I've played the tutorial and about a dozen AI matches. I like it, but it's just another spin on MTG-lite. Which isn't a bad thing; no one seems to have gotten it quite right yet. I haven't played some of these titles in a while, but the hierarchy as I remember it in terms of complexity and "trueness" to MTG is as follows: MTGA > Hex > Eternal > TES: Legends > Heathstone. There are probably also a couple I'm forgetting. And I'm not counting the many games which diverge heavily from the MTG model. (Or MTGO, which is MTG itself.)

I think Runeterra ranks to one side of TES: Legends. It does a fair bit to differentiate itself (as does TES: Legends, with its two lanes), perhaps most notably with regard to its payment/unlocks model. If you want a quicker game pace and you don't want to have to pay for virtual packs, Runeterra may be the way to go. I think you lose out on the CCG pack-busting "rush", but you can't have it both ways, and that was always exploitative to begin with. You still do plenty of capsule/chest opening which is kind of the same thing. But it appears the only thing that stands between you and a complete card set is lot of gameplay (that one might or might not think of as grinding), and it looks like you could still rush things along by buying wildcards if you really wanted to. I think I still prefer Eternal overall, as it finds a good balance between the traditional experience and consumer friendliness, but it's definitely a much slower game. I might recommend Eternal if you want a modernized MTG that doesn't rip you off, and Runeterra if you prefer a faster-paced variant and want to have the option of being completely F2P. But these are just random musings, I haven't played a single PvP match yet and don't think I've touched any of these other titles in over a year.

[Sudy]

I've discovered the interface, while pretty, leaves something to be desired. Escape doesn't do what I expect it to, and rarely does anything at all. I have to go looking for the "x" or toggle. As well, the deck building interface just isn't intuitive. Clicking doesn't always do what I want it to. I know I'll figure it out in time, but I could honestly use a tutorial just for this. Deck building is the true barrier to entry in games like these. Especially since you can't import meta decks off the bat. (I.e., you can import them, but you won't have the cards.)

[Sudy]

I'm continuing to really enjoy this. They definitely seem to have found a balance between the more traditional MTG-like games and the quicker simplifications that make good use of the digital play space. Their take on draft is quite interesting, with each entry buying two runs, and you get the reward for the better of the two. You pick curated bundles of two or three cards instead of individual ones, and get additional options after each match. (At least, the initial ones... I haven't gotten too far yet.)

If I have a gripe, it's that it still kind of sucks to be a new player with a very limited card pool, even if I'm gaining new cards quickly. You just can't build most of the interesting or powerful decks at first, and it can get kind of boring grinding it out with what you have. That said, I threw together a mediocre deck of what I had in Demacia/Freljord and stomped my way through the first ranked tier. I wasn't tracking initially, but I've probably gone something like 20-5, which surprised me. It's still a much better experience than when I joined late-beta MTGA and it felt like I was playing with a couple mediocre red and green decks for weeks.

[wonderpug]

If I have a gripe, it's that it still kind of sucks to be a new player with a very limited card pool, even if I'm gaining new cards quickly.

A lot of times the Lab mode helps address this. They often offer (or force) pre-built decks for this mode, so you can play with a bunch of cards you don't yet own. The next expansion might be arriving as early as Dec 15th, and when new cards arrive they usually have a Lab with prebuilts to showcase the new cards and game mechanics.

[Sudy]

I've continued to play this daily and continue to have a really good time with it; even Labs, which I wasn't expecting after Hearthstone's Tavern Brawls used to be a waste of time. I won my first ever Gauntlet, which was cool. Expeditions continue to be fun, but I don't find myself quite as into them as draft in other games due to their length and what feels like underwhelming rewards. I'm also frustrated with the "let's draft an actual good deck vs. let's experiment" conundrum, but that isn't unique to Runeterra. And I guess the two-run format gives you extra excuse to dink around on the first draft if you want.

I'd been having decent success in Ranked between cheap-ass Elise Burn and Garren Elites decks and before/after the reset I was probably winning close to 70% of my games in Iron and Bronze. However, I built some additional ultra-budget decks from here, and now all of a sudden I can't win, even with the old decks. I've probably gone 5-15 the past couple of days, it's a bit demoralizing. I seem to get run over by Go Hard every frigging game. That or The Grand Plaza eats me alive. (But I'm running one of those decks too.) But, it's a CCG. Variance happens. Or maybe the meta's just shifted.

I've spent $0 on the game so far, but have been thinking about getting a set of cosmetics. Having missed no quests and completed my bonus XP games almost every day now for almost a month, it looks like I have 48, 23, and 22% respectively of each of the first three sets. I have five varied and seemingly decent budget decks to play. And I still have 5 champion wildcards I haven't decided what to do with. I could have crafted at least one top-tier meta deck rather than making additional budget ones, but variety seems more enticing at this point. I can probably still craft one of the ones that uses some of the champions I already have.

This continues to be a really good F2P experience, but one month in I'm still a long way from having a lot of the champions and epic cards I'd like to experiment with. It seems like the complete opposite end of the spectrum in terms of business models. I think I'd like something more balanced, like Eternal (though I haven't looked at their store in a while). I'd like to pay a small, reasonable amount for some packs and tickets. Maybe a pass/subscription type deal. The cosmetics model seems to work for them somehow; I think that's a real positive for them as a studio, and as a way to continue provide work to artists. But frigging $14 CAD for a board is too rich for my blood... at least outside of tax refund time and a wish to support the game. For that amount of money I want something related to gameplay, even though my mind tries to remind me I'm already getting that for free. Wouldn't they make far more if boards were $5? But, I guess they've crunched the numbers and found the balance that works.

[Lorini]

Thanks for the update, especially regarding the F2P experience. I need to get back into it.

[Sudy]

Dang! I got the usual champion wildcard from my level 11 (I think?) weekly vault this week, but I also got a Zoe and Miss Fortune! I think that's the first time I've gotten any champion upgrades from the weekly chests. That definitely helps me feel like I'm making good progress.

I thought I was going to win the first run of Gauntlet again last weekend, but I think I lost on the final game. It was funny though, because everyone kept banning my Elise Fearsome Burn deck, but then I'd stomp them with my non-meta Garen Elites Midrange one. Elites isn't particularly nuanced, but it's still very satisfying to boost and play big things.

[Sudy]

Finally got my first 7-win Expedition. No losses, to boot. It was 2x Soraka, Yasuo, Zed deck, but Soraka and the Star Spring monument did 95% of the work. I honestly didn't think this deck would get anywhere at all... stuns don't seem consistent enough in draft because you can't usually build around them, and self-recall punishes your board if you don't have the right cards to take advantage of it. Heal just seems... underpowered. But I wound up with with one or two buffed units that just wouldn't die, and Soraka and her six health were usually just out of reach of my opponents, so she tended to stick around for the full game. Two copies of Starshaping were usually there to provide a big celestial in the late game to cement the win. I was sure I'd lost at least half these matches before stabilizing late game.

Edit: Got an Aurelion Sol as part of the reward, too!

[Sudy]

Well... I just spent almost all my wildcards (including 8 champion ones) and about 20,000 shards to craft five meta decks and one variant so I have something better to play in this week's gauntlet. We'll see how this goes lol.

[Sudy]

Wow! I actually achieved prime glory this week (getting to seven wins in Gauntlet on my first attempt). It was very, very close... I thought I was dead in my final game, not realizing that Fury activates sequentially on "strike another" cards like Judgment. Otherwise my dragon wouldn't have had the necessary power to wipe my opponent's board. I actually had to use two Judgments to win. Turns out that people almost always ban Go Hard decks; that's fine with me, I built one to learn how to play it, but I don't particular like it. Instead, I usually got to play the "Grand Targon" Aurelion Sol/Garen big/midrange deck. I love midrange.

I also feel the need to praise Runeterra's Expedition (draft) and Gauntlet elimination formats. Until the final game, lose two in a row and you're out. But if you win after a loss, you recover and can continue on. It really softens the impact of variance and bad beats, as well as giving new players a little cushion.

[Sudy]

Wow, and two champions--Taric and Zoe--in an epic capsule region reward just now!

I'm realizing I really miss text chat in games of this sort. I realize that it helps prevent toxicity and harassment and wouldn't be practical in the mobile versions, but I remember it in Mojang's Scrolls and rarely had a bad experience. Plus you made some real connections. Wasn't that supposed to be one of the reasons PC gaming was superior? Six emotes isn't enough to adequately express yourself, and a lot of people just use them to try to make you feel bad, anyway. It's to the point that my fragile ego has taken to muting the other player whenever it looks like I'm going to lose. I don't mind losing; but every time they flash a "GG"-style emote before the game is actually decided, it really pisses me off. And you can't even call them out for it (and they're unable to explain if they didn't mean it that way).

The current cooperative Lab is challenging for similar reasons. There are bonus emotes for the event to help you communicate, but it's not really sufficient and I worry conversely that players are going to call me out for unideal play considering there are still a lot of cards/interactions I haven't mastered. Though I appreciated a player that gave me the thumbs up emote when they sensed I was hesitating with committing defenders. Or maybe they were just pissed off I was taking so long lol.