Legends of Runeterra has been out for less than a month and is already seeing its first patch. This patch will not just focus on card changes but also many quality of life changes for the player. In a press release from Riot Games they have released all of the major changes coming in Patch 0.9.0 for Legends of Runeterra.
Developer Notes
To start the developers have stated what their goals are as they look to balance Legends of Runeterra.
- Every champion should have a deck where they’re the best fit and their “dream” can be realized.
- Non-champion cards should have at least one deck where they’re a good option.
- Regions should have at least one competitively viable deck.
- The meta should support the widest possible array of competitively viable decks.
They will do the normal nerfing and buffing but their goal is to never nerf something into the ground or over-buff anything. With this, they also announced that they will be doing seasonal releases, similar to Teamfight Tactics and Hearthstone. Essentially there will be new sets and balances with each. Here is what they project their timeline for each set to look like.
- New set of cards released.
- First balance patch: mostly “medium”-sized number changes based on our early sense of outliers.
- Second balance patch: Significant updates to underutilized cards, and the main patch where you can expect any major champion updates.
- Third balance patch: Limited number changes to stabilize any meta-issues.
- Next set of cards released.
There may be changes to this but, it looks like predicting when a new set comes out won’t be all that hard. Also that they may not patch this game like TFT and League of Legends are patched, which is every two weeks.
UI, Deckbuilder and Animations
This section lets players know that they are listening to their issues. They are starting to make UI and UX changes already but they are mostly small.
For the deckbuilder they are looking at how the card counts are displayed and how many cards can be seen on the screen. For the future, they are looking at more display-oriented changes for a player’s currencies, wildcards and overall crafting of cards.
Lastly, they want to make sure the game continues to look and feel good as they go on. With that they will have sped-up animations and the ability to make moves without being blocked by the already in-progress animations.
Card Updates
Champions
- Lux (Lv. 1)
- Power: 3 to 4
- Health: 4 to 5
- Lux (Lv. 2)
- Power: 4 to 5
- Health: 5 to 6
- Yasuo (Lv. 1)
- Level Up: You Stun or Recall 6+ units to You Stun or Recall 5+ units
Followers and Spells
- Back to Back
- Cost: 5 to 6
- Arena Battlecaster
- Health: 1 to 2
- Crimson Curator
- Health: 2 to 3
- Deny
- Cost: 3 to 4
- Inspiring Mentor
- Health: 1 to 2
- Grant an ally in hand +1/1 to Grant an ally in hand +1/0
- Jewelled Protector
- Power: 3 to 4
- Health: 3 to 4
- Kinkou Lifeblade
- Health: 3 to 2
- Commander Ledros
- Cost: 8 to 9
- Power: 8 to 9
- Cut the enemy Nexus Health in half to Cut the enemy Nexus Health in half, rounded up
- Blade of Ledros
- Cut the enemy Nexus Health in half to Cut the enemy Nexus Health in half, rounded up
- Rhasa, the Sunderer
- Cost: 7 ro 8
- Scuttlegeist
- Added Keyword: Fearsome
- Tortured Prodigy
- Power: 3 to 4
- Wraithcaller
- Removed Keyword: Fearsome
Watchlist
Fearsome
They will be watching fearsome because they want to make sure that like Elusive, it does not make the interactivity too low. They still want everyone to be able to actually play the game without being unable to make a move. The hope is that the patches to some of these cards might help to stem the tide of Fearsome decks.
Control
“Collectively, the card updates in this patch represent a general reduction in the power of tools that aggressive and midrange decks have to combat control strategies (specifically, ways to reach inevitability). While control decks haven’t been problematic so far during beta, we’ll be keeping an eye out to see if they’ve been overly powered up by these changes or their consequences.”
Clarity
- Units with effects that allow opponent reactions now have a “Skills” icon next to “Play” or “Attack” in the card text.
- Hovering on the icon will bring out a tooltip explaining that the Skill allows opponent reactions before resolving.
- Units with effects that do not allow opponent reactions will not have this icon.
- Created cards now have a tooltip that tells both players what created them.
Expeditions Archetypes
Demacian Steel has been consistently overperforming due to a full roster of units with strong statlines, so we’re adding in a common card that’s on the weaker side but mixes up what this archetype brings to the table.
- Added: Chain Vest
Battle Scars has proven great at pumping up the Power of its units, but could have a tough time actually closing out games, so the addition of Might will allow those units to go over the top of opposing blockers. Alpha Wildclaw is also being swapped in for Bull Elnuk to give the archetype a stronger late game.
- Added: Might, Alpha Wildclaw
- Removed: Blood for Blood, Bull Elnuk
Suit Up has also been overperforming due to the consistency of Challenger units backed up by Frostbite and Barriers, so we’re enabling the Battle Scars changes by making the opposite unit swap here.
- Added: Bull Elnuk
- Removed: Alpha Wildclaw
Shroom and Boom has been struggling lately, leading us to remove some underperforming cards like Get Excited!, which isn’t as exciting when you’re hoping to use your Mushroom Clouds to actually put shrooms in the opposing deck. In their place we’re adding Assembly Bot and Plaza Guardian to reward you for casting Mushroom Clouds, as well as Statikk Shock as a flexible removal spell that helps you not run out of cards.
- Added: Assembly Bot, Statikk Shock, Plaza Guardian
- Removed: Academy Prodigy, Chempunk Shredder, Get Excited!
Finally, we’ve also made some minor improvements to the way the shopkeeper selects trades, so you’ll more often be offered compelling choices.
- Shopkeeper trade logic improved.
XP & Expeditions Rewards
“Play the way you want to play” is an incredibly important goal for our progression systems—we want players to feel LoR respects their time regardless of whether they prefer to climb Ranked or jam AI games. With the help of your feedback, we identified some tuning issues that encouraged players to play in ways they might not want to simply because it was the optimal way to get XP.
First up, end-of-trial bonus XP was too high relative to other modes. The bonus XP is meant to account for the slower pace of Expeditions matches and time spent drafting, but it was so high that it was really just the optimal way to grind XP. We don’t players to feel forced to grind Expeditions to build up their collections, so we’re reducing the XP granted when completing a trial.
- End-of-trial XP reduced:
- 0 wins: 100 → 50
- 1 win: 300 → 150
- 2 wins: 500 → 250
- 3 wins: 700 → 400
- 4 wins: 900 → 600
- 5 wins: 1200 → 800
- 6 wins: 1500 → 1000
- 7 wins: 2000 → 1500
To complement this change, we’re tweaking daily adjustments to PVP win XP to help out folks looking to heavily grind XP or just play a ton. We want to make sure constructed PVP wins always offer a reward, and that players don’t feel forced to play AI matches just because they’re out of PVP XP for the day.
- Reduced XP adjustments for daily PVP wins—you’ll now receive more XP at high numbers of PVP wins in one day, and will always receive at least 100 XP for constructed PVP wins.
- Base PVP win XP: 200 in Normal / Ranked, 100 in Expeditions (no change)
- 1-10 wins: full XP (no change)
- 11-15 wins: -50 XP → full XP
- 16-20 wins: -100 XP (no change)
- 21-30 wins: -150 XP → -100 XP
- 31+ wins: -200 XP → -100 XP
We’re also re-designed the XP structure for Friend Challenge. While we want matches against friends to be rewarding, the previous values overly encouraged snap concessions and win / loss trading to reap full PvP XP.
- Friend Challenge wins now grant 100 XP for the first 5 wins, and 0 XP for 6+.
- Friend Challenges losses / ties now grant 0 XP.
- Friend Challenge matches no longer count towards daily PVP wins / losses or first wins of the day bonuses. They still count for quest progress.
Moving on to Expeditions rewards, we’ve heard some frustration that a 6-win run rewarded only 33% of the Shards (1000) needed to play another Expedition. While we believe overall Expedition rewards are in a good spot, we’re shifting some of the rewarded Shards from 7 wins to 6 wins to make sure the latter achievement still feels appropriately rewarding.
- 6-win Expeditions reward now 1500 shards (was 1000), as well as a random champion card and golden chest (unchanged).
- 7-win Expeditions reward now 3000 shards (was 3500), as well as a champion capsule (unchanged).
Thoughts
This definitely seems like a larger patch for actual quality of life changes as much as anything. They are not making many drastic card changes and more watching to see how things play out. Also, this confirms that they will be releasing content at scheduled times which should be good for fans. They can plan for when changes might be on the way. While the dates are not set they will be able to know that after a certain patch, a new set will be the next thing to come.
Lastly, they are listening to players. Many of these changes have been asked for and they are listening. This should allow for the game to improve and make the changes as they see necessary. With this being patch 0.9.0 it will be interesting to see if they go straight out of beta and into 1.0.0 or if they stick around in 0.9 for a bit. Either way, the full release will likely be coming soon for not only PC but likely Mobile too, so get ready.
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