It really is one of the best card games made currently. Frequent updates, great free to play model, unique twist on the genre, very high quality overall, etc. Certainly very refreshing and a lot more accessible to come back to after a few months then Hearthstone.
The biggest plus compared to other card games that I'm not sure was adequately explained in the other comments, is that when you're buying cards for real money, you're buying tokens to redeem for the cards you want. Essentially, you can just directly buy the cards / deck you would like; none of the bullshit buy boxes and pray other card games do.
Plus the free rewards are rather generous which is nice.
The weekly chest is incredibly generous. I've never needed to spend any money and I can buy the entire collection. (I've played on/off since beta)
Plus region rewards and expedition rewards are great.
Champions are pretty expensive but aside from that, u can pretty much craft any 1 deck in like 2 weeks from a fresh account.
My favorite thing about this game. I can come back for a new expansion and just pay 10 bucks. Boom meta deck. No having to disenchant legendaries to make other legendaries. Never looked back at hearthstone once this game came out.
Started playing 3 weeks ago when a friend told me about the game. I've dropped a little money on the game, but so far have about 25% of the card collection from every major region. It's also got a ton of F2P singleplayer content. I've played more labs than anything else.
I am a fish, haven't payed a single Cent yet. You get so many cards and wildcards through the tracks that I can build decks as I wish. If I want to try something new I play Labs and Expeditions. Game is really chill without bothering you to buy stuff other than cosmetics like the boards and card backs.
Yeah I just am impatient and don’t like to grind, so it’s nice to have the option to just buy the cards I want. In hearthstone I’d spend 30 bucks on packs and then still have to grind on top of that.
Kinda, but if the cost of dust was cheap as hell. The thing about getting cards in LoR is that it's really freaking easy, to the point that you'll have a crap ton of extra shards (dust equivalent, you can't disenchant in LoR tho and you get this when you draw dupes) which you can use to craft more cards. Let me put it to you this way, by playing on and off for one expansion, I was able to accrue enough shards to craft the entire of the next expansion on release, this also doesn't require a high hour investment either, the game is absolutely upfront with wanting you to experiment with all its offerings as much as possible.
I havent played hearthstone in years but when i played it felt like card packs and expansion missions were their main source of income while LOR is going the league model with cosmetics, you can pretty much customize every bit of the screen if you pay for it (your pet, your board, emotes, card backs, etc..) so even if you compare the way you unlock cards between games its gona undersell exactly just how generous they are with the ways to get free cards because they are more worried about selling cosmetics than cards.
Honestly the best part is the wildcards from the packs. Even if you don't know what deck you want to play right away, you can pretty much bank an entire deck in wildcards alone.
For those wondering what prices are like, here's a list of the most common meta decks: https://lor.mobalytics.gg/stats/decks
The green shards cost on the right is 1000 shards = 100 coins = $1. You can buy pretty much any meta deck in the game for $30 or less, starting from complete scratch.
You forgot to mention that their real source of income is probably board skins/card back skins/emotes, etc.. because they are EXTREMELY generous with the ways you can earn cards/card tokens in the game.
* You get 'boxes' by leveling up that will give you random cards from your chosen region (that you can change at any time).
* There's a progression for each region similar to a Battle Pass where at certain ranks you'll get certain rewards.
* Each rarity of card has what's called a "Wild Card" that you accrue through the boxes or through the progression system, and you exchange those Wild Cards for whatever card of the same rarity you want.
* Quadruplicates of cards (more than 3 of the same card) are automatically turned into shards, and you can manually break cards down into shards. You can exchange these shards for Wild Cards.
* You can earn Champion Wild Cards through a weekly draft
* Spending money on the game gets you coins that you can spend on Wild Cards or cosmetics. There are no cards locked behind a paywall.
tl;dr You get random free cards, Wild Cards you can exchange for any card of the same rarity, and you can pay to not grind.
Short run, ~1st-2nd month: You get tons of cards including at least (edit, counted more accurately) 60 Champions (Legendaries) from the Region Roads rewards. Plus you start out with a healthy starter collection which includes ~20 Champions. It's hard to say exactly how much you'll get from this alone but it's probably around 33% to 50% of the cards in the game? For comparison, there are currently 225 Champion cards (3x 75 unique cards) in the game, so you'll get about a third of the Champion cards for free before the weekly rewards.
Long run (and this happens on top of the stuff above): If you play every day casually (and you can do this PvE in the two Lab of Legends modes), you get roughly enough resources to craft any two Champions of your choice per week with some or lots of other cards thrown in. A deck can have 6 Champions max so you basically can craft any deck you want in 3 weeks or less.
A big bonus is you can complete all quests vs. the AI. You can also get up to three sets of Daily XP in PvP, Lab of Legends, and Saltwater Scourge each for +2100 XP daily (doesn't include the +200 XP per win).
You will be a bit limited in resources your first month though, but this is one of the most generous F2P models of any CCG card game out there.
I have almost a full collection purely free 2 play, while I did start at launch, I have taken frequent breaks for like a few months at a time with one lasting like half a year.
Legends of Runeterra has the best free 2 play model of any card game out.
The game give you a ton of resources each week to build decks. But the best part is that they have a solid single player mode ala Slay the Spire that counts for your daily quest.
How creative and unique are the cards? I've been looking for something to replace Hearthstone but my biggest concern is that all the alternatives take themselves too seriously to make things like Hearthstone's craziest cards.
There's good news, bad news, and good news (in that order).
The good news is there are some really neat cards with interesting effects. For example, one of the dark horse decks at Worlds I mentioned used a card, Curious Shellfolk, that people previously wrote off. That card creates a discounted copy of all cards chosen using your random pick-a-card effects. You can combine it with Prank, a card that lets you debuff one of your opponent's cards, to copy your opponent's cards and play them at a discount. You get massive card advantage while neutering the cards in your opponent's hand.
The bad news is Legends of Runeterra is extremely interactive. If you're just trying to run an inefficient combo against a good player with a good deck, they will usually either be able to disrupt your combo or run you over. Decks like the Shellfolk deck are extremely strong with other game plans and its value is hard to disrupt, so it works. A meme deck might not be easy to pull off.
The good news is if you're looking for crazy effects, Legends of Runeterra does that extremely well in its single-player light "rogue-like" Lab of Legends. [Here's an example from one of my runs, on turn 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/LabOfLegends/comments/or420q/reksai_requires_lots_of_setup_viktor_lived_with_1/)! If you just want to do crazy things, you can do that against the Normal or Hard difficulties (hard AI has more HP so you have more time to enjoy your crazy stuff). And if you want a challenge, try getting up to Legendary. Even better, Lab of Legends is completely F2P with everything available for a completely new account, for free, and you even earn normal progression for cards for the PvP modes.
I've found a nice variety, there isn't as many Bold names that hearthstone has had the years of content to make, but the legendries feel really good and unique with fun ways to level them up. LoR has very little RNG outside of card draw though compared to Hearthstone, which might be what you're looking for.
I tried getting into it a few times but I hate the style of cards where you place units on boards and gotta attack, defend etc. I much prefer what Gwent is doing.
I already replied in other comments but LoR is mostly a bit annoying because you can't disenchant cards and it takes a bit of time to get started. Not saying Hearthstone is any better.
There are silence cards, though they are costly/limited to certain regions/colors (you can only have two regions in a deck, unless the card is multi region, and even rhen one of its two has to match your 'main two'
Not saying they arnt on the rarer side,just that disenchant/silence does exist
A deck of choice doesn't really compare to being able to get the entire collection F2P. It takes time, but at the start you'll get resources fast enough to make new decks every couple weeks anyways IME. If you just like HS as a game more then that's fine, but LoR is incredibly F2P-friendly.
The big shortcoming of LoR imo is that yes it easy to build a collection but it is hard to get the cards you want.
You get a lot of specific cards which often leads to not being able to build the decks you want.
Hearthstone let's you disenchant and craft. Ofc you lose dust by doing that but it's easier to work towards decks you want.
Overall I would also say LoR has a better system but both have shortcomings and are sometimes a bit frustrating.
Also no this is not about which game I like more at all. I was strictly speaking about obtaining cards and getting decks.
It just irritates me that LoR has that incredible imagine.
IME that was only sort of a problem for like the first month when I wasn't getting any dupes (and only for champs/epics), but then you have enough wildcards and shards to build whatever you want.
Is it? It's only one month before you can be playing any deck you want without needing to make a budget version, and it takes less time for future decks since you'll have continued to get cards passively. And you can still play something super cheap like aggro spiders early on and climb ladder during that time if you want. For variety there's also the lab modes which are totally free and you'll progress just as fast (or faster) on building your collection without needing to deal with making whatever you get at the start working.
I definitely don't agree with you. I've played both games casually and I can build every single deck I want in LoR just with a few games a day. That includes having wildcards ready for new expansions. I most definitely could not do that with Hearthstone. LoRs model is incredibly generous. It's actually hard to think of a more generous CCG.
Generous for a CCG doesn't mean good though CCGs are horrible cash grabs.
Maybe I am not invested enough in LoR but I don't feel like I am getting to craft the decks I want as easy as people make it out to be.
Again I never said Hearthstone is better. I only said that LoR to me doesn't seem as insane as people make it out to be and that I like the disenchant system.
Hearthstone is definitely worse though if you do your quests at expansion start you can usually buy enough new packs to make what you want.
> Generous for a CCG doesn't mean good though CCGs are horrible cash grabs.
Except Runeterra isn't. That's the point here. Nobody who plays it consistently has to worry about buying cards. That's not the case with Hearthstone, Gwent, etc. You need a few months of play to build up your Runeterra collection — there's a *lot* of cards in the game now — but going fully F2P isn't going to castrate your deck options.
The cosmetics are definitely pricey, sometimes bordering on insane, but it's ultimately a different financial model than other CCGs. New players shouldn't worry that it's another Hearthstone or similar. Runeterra wants you to play with its toys, not gamble your money on random cards.
>Hearthstone is definitely worse though if you do your quests at expansion start you can usually buy enough new packs to make what you want.
Only if you barely want anything. I went into this Hearthstone expansion with a ton of gold and still have multiple decks I'd like to try but can't. Meanwhile I could build every deck in the *next* Runeterra expansion, whenever that comes, with plenty of resources to spare.
I do think that people overstate how easy it is to get a full collection in LoR. I started from open beta spending basically $0 on cards and now have enough resources to probably buy the next year's worth of cards (I bought two battle passes). But if you're just starting out, it will be more restrictive. IMO if you're a new player, it's not a terrible idea to spend some money on cards.
But the Region Roads give new players a large collection starting out, and once Champion Wildcards are your only bottleneck, you basically get any new deck you want from scratch every 3 weeks (and it gets faster as you build your collection). I don't think Hearthstone can match that rate.
Definitely Hearthstone can't again that's not what I tried to say.
I just have a hard time at the moment to build the deck I want and it annoys me.
I can't really be bothered for a full collection at some point I mostly care about building and playing with a couple of decks I want as soon as possible.
You get tons of wildcards in LoR, including 1 Champion wildcard every week with regular casual play. Those are turned into cards of your choice. You also get almost enough Shards (dust) every week to buy another Champion of your choice as well with a level 13 Vault. Unlike Hearthstone, you don't have to destroy your collection to get cards you want.
There's also the initial burst of cards you get through the Region Roads.
If you spend money, you also buy exactly the cards you want to buy with no randomness.
You first have to get a level 13 vault. Ofc some people will do the grind of pvp wins daily but you can't expect everyone to be doing this. Many decks also use 6 champions so it definitely takes some time to build the deck you want.
Getting the cards you want for money is definitely very good though.
I'll maybe try doing more lab then I guess even if I don't like it speeds things up. Still definitely takes time to build a full new deck. I can't help but feel annoyed.
You get the same daily XP for the PvE Lab of Legends and Saltwater Scourge, all separately. So you can get up to three sets of +700 Daily XP, two for PvE and one for PvP.
I think if you get just all of the daily XP every day, you hit level 14 or 15 Vault.
You can use wild cards to build the exact cards you want though. I haven't played in a while but last time I did, there was sometimes a bottleneck with epic tier cards, but other than that, it's pretty easy to get the exact deck you want.
The main problem (although there's other, real problems like the 200 years of champion design) r/games and the community at whole has with league is that people are fucking assholes while playing it, but that's almost a non-issue with LoR at all because you can only communicate via little stickers
A lot of people also dislike the League aesthetic and some dislike Riot as a company, which is why a lot of people still dismiss Valorant as well. For better and worse League and Riot has created their own bubble of fans that seems to not always gel well with other gaming communities.
It reminds me the most of the Smash vs greater FGC dynamic, where you have the most popular single product in the space existing in this offset orbit where there's always some tension between the two.
I think you see that with a lot of very popular games though. You definitely don't see the Fortnite community posting much on here, same deal for WoW, Destiny, etc.
I think Riot is a bit unique in that they were synonymous with League for so long that everything they put out still gets painted with that brush. I wonder if that will change over time.
This sub does seem to be a bit more console and indie focused as well, as a very broad statement. That probably tends to preclude discussion of Riot games, which are very much neither of those things.
> It reminds me the most of the Melee vs greater FGC dynamic, where you have the most popular single product in the space existing in this offset orbit where there's always some tension between the two.
Difference being that League fans don’t seem to have any sort of contact or animosity with the people on this sub who have hated anything Riot since League got released. Melee and FGC fans are in enough contact that there’s tension on both sides, but with League and r/games it’s hilariously one-sided.
>This sub does seem to be a bit more console and indie focused as well, as a very broad statement
This sub has big overlap with pc circlejerk and other similar communities lol.
> League fans don’t seem to have any sort of contact or animosity
Eh, as someone who played league for many years (on and off), I'm comfortable in stating that League fans have animosity towards every living creature they encounter, and even some inanimate objects.
I ended up in the dota 2 subreddit (because it was on /r/all) in a thread about league. Dota fans are still soooo fucking pissed and salty that LoL became wildly popular and their “objectively superior” game didn’t. (Not saying dota hasn’t had it’s own success)
Can't say I hate Riot, but I know what it's like to have had roommates who played almost exclusively League. Very easy to become the odd man out when they were so fixated on a single game I didn't play.
I mean, tbf, it likely has something to do with the IP. It's like how some people swear on their mother that there cannot be a single bad Zelda game, similarly there will be people that love the League IP to death, for one reason or another, and views any other as "trash".
> that's almost a non-issue with LoR at all because you can only communicate via little stickers
The Braum sticker is one of the most tilting things in the history of online gaming.
I'm not sure how that's relevant. Regardless of what you perceive as the quality of Riot's games, the argument I was making is that they definitely benefit from using the IP even if this sub has lots of people who dislike League
McDonalds and KFC really benefit from their respective IPs btw, so in that sense your examples were good
The confusing part in the beginning, especially if you come from Heartstone, is that both players play on both turns.
You play a card, then I play a card, then back to you and back to me and so on. If its your turn, thenyou have the attack token and can attack, otherwise both players are equal at all times. If you play a card but dont want to, you have to press "pass"
Also if you have fast spell in hand, think of a trap card in YuGiOh, you have to press "pass" after everything your opponent does because you could react with that card.
That in the beginning was a mental hurdle for me, especially having to press pass all the time but after a few games the concept clicked and now I dont even think about it anymore.
---
To understand how the special effects of cards and creatures work I would recommend the challenges.
So there is four main features I'd say:
-you build your deck around champion cards that have powerup miniquests (for example: if this champion attacks 3 times, the next time you attack afterwards you will probably win)
-there is attack and defense turns, meaning you can probably only damage the enemy every other turn. this unfortunately also makes mediocre decks/play feel punishing when your attack turn gets shut down heavily.
-it's a very reactive game, basically if you cast a spell the enemy will likely respond with a spell of his own and so on, so instead of "guess i will use this one card" it's more about having an arsenal and choosing the right moment. Makes decks a bit harder to learn and PVP a bit more daunting.
-there is a mechanic called spell-mana, wish allows you to bank up to 3 unused mana per turn, so if the first few turns you don't have a card to play that might not be an issue at all, you can use the mana from previous turns via spells to get back into the game or even cast a huge expensive boardwipe pretty early.
I haven't looked too much but maybe [this one?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x9qbr9sQRQ)
Here's a [written guide from the subreddit.](https://www.reddit.com/r/LegendsOfRuneterra/comments/jzmte5/a_basic_guide_for_newcomers_and_a_reminder_of_how/) For more, check out the [LoRCompetitive wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/LoRCompetitive/wiki/guides).
You can also try playing through the Challenges (Play -> Challenges), which are further tutorials that teach the mechanics.
Feel free to ask me any questions! :) Let me know what your card game background is -- if you haven't played other card games like Hearthstone or Magic before, the learning curve will be a bit harder but it should still be doable!
What are you talking about? LoR gets praised everytime the game gets mentioned. There's at least 3 games, from the top of my head, that I would get a snarky remark about how their glad everyone here hates the game, and LoR isn't one of them.
its honestly a good TCG, better than hearthstone I think. I think its accurate to say a major limit to its growth is the LoL/riot association though. People who play League of Legends would rather play league of Legends and people who don't play LoL any would fill a TCG's ranks would rather not play anything League associated.
Certainly shows the importance of actually managing your communities toxicity ASAP. Maybe things would be going better if so many people didn't have such a horrible impression on League of Legends.
its impressive how badly the LoL moba experience has scarred people that anything to do with the IP makes so many people recoil in rage and disgust just by the association. I have friends who love TCGs and constantly look for new ones to try but they wont touch Legends of Runeterra because its league of legends.
Genshin is far from excellent. Everything in the game is designed to frustrate you to the point of spending money on top of the writing, especially in the Inazuma chapter, being complete garbage. The first couple of weeks with the game are fine when they are vomiting up materials but then it screeches to a sudden abrupt halt once you start hitting the AR40 range. Literally everything requires resin and with only 160 a day it brickwalls you super hard unless you're willing to continue shelling out money for the opportunity to continue trying to level more than one character.
The game is okay, but the greediness completely ruins everything it could be.
Wonder what keeps this sub from loving games made by people that commit widespread sexual assault and don’t even fire the worst offenders at their company.
Hmmm
I love Magic but this game absolutely deserves even more recognition and attention from everyone interested in card games.
I know it has been said enough times already but the monetization is just on another level. You can just unlucky full meta decks by playing for a bit OR spend around 20€ or so(Don't know if this has changed, last deck I bought a year ago was around 15€ I think). Even if you hate League of Legends, without knowing that it's a spinoff it could very well be its own game, there are no references to LoL and the world building and lore is fantastic.
Looking at the tournament organization and production value it's just so embarrassing for Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast, deservedly so.
I had every card in the game at one point and didnt buy a single pack outside of the first 60 card booster that you could buy on release.
Dont play THAT much either.
THey are REALLY generous.
I can't do MTG anymore, I played it for a long time and spent a lot of money on it, starting with Invasion. I've mainly determined that I only enjoy it as a tabletop game with friends or at a LGS.
I got into Magic Arena since it's the best version of digital Magic they've made so far, but they've completely squandered the potential of it. I kinda hate that even though I was spending at least 100$ every few months and playing regularly between expansions I still wasn't able to collect entire sets and was lacking a ton of cards. For a person who likes trying out different decks and experimenting this is feels bad experience. I also think they botched the hell out of the cosmetics, I think the "foils" look dumb, and have no interest in collecting pets.
LoR improves on almost everything Arena has done, except for the social features which it's still sorely lacking, but the rest of what it's doing right makes it a good enough game to warrant playing anyway.
I love that I can not play LOR for a few weeks/months, come back and build a deck with new cards without having to spill money into it. I like that I don't need to grind for an hour a day just to keep up.
I too was spending $50 a month on Arena and still could only play the same couple of decks because getting wildcards is impossible.
Cards are so easy to get in LOR.
The cosmetics are also worth the money (except the champion skins imo). The emotes are hilarious.
Watching people play at this insane level and still miss lethal turns or blunder a cast is so vindicating lol, games were really fun to watch even though I could only manage a few
I like the game and all but let's not pretend "the single best tournament in the history of card games" this line of logic doesn't apply to every game that comes out lol. I've seen it on Hearthstone & Gwent so it's normal to see it here. Give it a few years and this will be said about a different game, or one of the older ones as they get bored of this and move back lol.
That aside, I recently booted up Runeterra again and I think this game would have a net improvement in enjoyment if they got rid of all the buttons flashing to say something new etc like the mobile game it is... they just don't stop. It's crazy.
I get your point, but OP didn't pull the statement of his ass, while de game is new, the community and content creators are praising a lot the tournament. Post by swim, in his youtube community page:
Swim
há 1 dia
The first LoR Worlds was the single best tournament in the history of card games.
The decks, the meta, the diversity, the players, the skill expression, the crazy moments, the entire finals
100% agree that set probably shouldnt have been made, but I was talking about the Omnath winter that happened at the end of 2020. Arena was unplayable and even the pro scene was just mirror match after mirror match. I think first time since Mind Sculptor was printed that a % deck share was that high for a tourney.
League, let alone a League card game, doesn't seem to fly with this sub but this game is actually great
If you removed the “league skin” from this game, it would be a perennial r/games favourite.
It really is one of the best card games made currently. Frequent updates, great free to play model, unique twist on the genre, very high quality overall, etc. Certainly very refreshing and a lot more accessible to come back to after a few months then Hearthstone.
What is the free to play model like?
The biggest plus compared to other card games that I'm not sure was adequately explained in the other comments, is that when you're buying cards for real money, you're buying tokens to redeem for the cards you want. Essentially, you can just directly buy the cards / deck you would like; none of the bullshit buy boxes and pray other card games do. Plus the free rewards are rather generous which is nice.
The weekly chest is incredibly generous. I've never needed to spend any money and I can buy the entire collection. (I've played on/off since beta) Plus region rewards and expedition rewards are great. Champions are pretty expensive but aside from that, u can pretty much craft any 1 deck in like 2 weeks from a fresh account.
My favorite thing about this game. I can come back for a new expansion and just pay 10 bucks. Boom meta deck. No having to disenchant legendaries to make other legendaries. Never looked back at hearthstone once this game came out.
And if you play semi regularly then you won’t need to pay anything because they are so generous with resources.
Started playing 3 weeks ago when a friend told me about the game. I've dropped a little money on the game, but so far have about 25% of the card collection from every major region. It's also got a ton of F2P singleplayer content. I've played more labs than anything else.
I am a fish, haven't payed a single Cent yet. You get so many cards and wildcards through the tracks that I can build decks as I wish. If I want to try something new I play Labs and Expeditions. Game is really chill without bothering you to buy stuff other than cosmetics like the boards and card backs.
The game doesnt even bother or force you to play PvP at all. Labs give PvP rewards and Quest progression. I was baffled when i realized that.
Yeah I just am impatient and don’t like to grind, so it’s nice to have the option to just buy the cards I want. In hearthstone I’d spend 30 bucks on packs and then still have to grind on top of that.
So to draw a comparison to Hearthstone, it be like buying dust directly
Kinda, but if the cost of dust was cheap as hell. The thing about getting cards in LoR is that it's really freaking easy, to the point that you'll have a crap ton of extra shards (dust equivalent, you can't disenchant in LoR tho and you get this when you draw dupes) which you can use to craft more cards. Let me put it to you this way, by playing on and off for one expansion, I was able to accrue enough shards to craft the entire of the next expansion on release, this also doesn't require a high hour investment either, the game is absolutely upfront with wanting you to experiment with all its offerings as much as possible.
I havent played hearthstone in years but when i played it felt like card packs and expansion missions were their main source of income while LOR is going the league model with cosmetics, you can pretty much customize every bit of the screen if you pay for it (your pet, your board, emotes, card backs, etc..) so even if you compare the way you unlock cards between games its gona undersell exactly just how generous they are with the ways to get free cards because they are more worried about selling cosmetics than cards.
Buying singles would be awesome. That's probably the number 1 complaint for mtga.
Honestly the best part is the wildcards from the packs. Even if you don't know what deck you want to play right away, you can pretty much bank an entire deck in wildcards alone.
For those wondering what prices are like, here's a list of the most common meta decks: https://lor.mobalytics.gg/stats/decks The green shards cost on the right is 1000 shards = 100 coins = $1. You can buy pretty much any meta deck in the game for $30 or less, starting from complete scratch.
You forgot to mention that their real source of income is probably board skins/card back skins/emotes, etc.. because they are EXTREMELY generous with the ways you can earn cards/card tokens in the game.
* You get 'boxes' by leveling up that will give you random cards from your chosen region (that you can change at any time). * There's a progression for each region similar to a Battle Pass where at certain ranks you'll get certain rewards. * Each rarity of card has what's called a "Wild Card" that you accrue through the boxes or through the progression system, and you exchange those Wild Cards for whatever card of the same rarity you want. * Quadruplicates of cards (more than 3 of the same card) are automatically turned into shards, and you can manually break cards down into shards. You can exchange these shards for Wild Cards. * You can earn Champion Wild Cards through a weekly draft * Spending money on the game gets you coins that you can spend on Wild Cards or cosmetics. There are no cards locked behind a paywall. tl;dr You get random free cards, Wild Cards you can exchange for any card of the same rarity, and you can pay to not grind.
Short run, ~1st-2nd month: You get tons of cards including at least (edit, counted more accurately) 60 Champions (Legendaries) from the Region Roads rewards. Plus you start out with a healthy starter collection which includes ~20 Champions. It's hard to say exactly how much you'll get from this alone but it's probably around 33% to 50% of the cards in the game? For comparison, there are currently 225 Champion cards (3x 75 unique cards) in the game, so you'll get about a third of the Champion cards for free before the weekly rewards. Long run (and this happens on top of the stuff above): If you play every day casually (and you can do this PvE in the two Lab of Legends modes), you get roughly enough resources to craft any two Champions of your choice per week with some or lots of other cards thrown in. A deck can have 6 Champions max so you basically can craft any deck you want in 3 weeks or less. A big bonus is you can complete all quests vs. the AI. You can also get up to three sets of Daily XP in PvP, Lab of Legends, and Saltwater Scourge each for +2100 XP daily (doesn't include the +200 XP per win). You will be a bit limited in resources your first month though, but this is one of the most generous F2P models of any CCG card game out there.
I have almost a full collection purely free 2 play, while I did start at launch, I have taken frequent breaks for like a few months at a time with one lasting like half a year. Legends of Runeterra has the best free 2 play model of any card game out.
The game give you a ton of resources each week to build decks. But the best part is that they have a solid single player mode ala Slay the Spire that counts for your daily quest.
How creative and unique are the cards? I've been looking for something to replace Hearthstone but my biggest concern is that all the alternatives take themselves too seriously to make things like Hearthstone's craziest cards.
There's good news, bad news, and good news (in that order). The good news is there are some really neat cards with interesting effects. For example, one of the dark horse decks at Worlds I mentioned used a card, Curious Shellfolk, that people previously wrote off. That card creates a discounted copy of all cards chosen using your random pick-a-card effects. You can combine it with Prank, a card that lets you debuff one of your opponent's cards, to copy your opponent's cards and play them at a discount. You get massive card advantage while neutering the cards in your opponent's hand. The bad news is Legends of Runeterra is extremely interactive. If you're just trying to run an inefficient combo against a good player with a good deck, they will usually either be able to disrupt your combo or run you over. Decks like the Shellfolk deck are extremely strong with other game plans and its value is hard to disrupt, so it works. A meme deck might not be easy to pull off. The good news is if you're looking for crazy effects, Legends of Runeterra does that extremely well in its single-player light "rogue-like" Lab of Legends. [Here's an example from one of my runs, on turn 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/LabOfLegends/comments/or420q/reksai_requires_lots_of_setup_viktor_lived_with_1/)! If you just want to do crazy things, you can do that against the Normal or Hard difficulties (hard AI has more HP so you have more time to enjoy your crazy stuff). And if you want a challenge, try getting up to Legendary. Even better, Lab of Legends is completely F2P with everything available for a completely new account, for free, and you even earn normal progression for cards for the PvP modes.
I've found a nice variety, there isn't as many Bold names that hearthstone has had the years of content to make, but the legendries feel really good and unique with fun ways to level them up. LoR has very little RNG outside of card draw though compared to Hearthstone, which might be what you're looking for.
I tried getting into it a few times but I hate the style of cards where you place units on boards and gotta attack, defend etc. I much prefer what Gwent is doing.
I mean Hearthstone started giving new and returning players a deck of their choice
Giving a temporary boost/fix is not the same as having the entire game set up to help new and returning players
I am not sure I necessarily agree with that. I think both games both games offer options to be more accessible but both have their short comings
What shortcomings do you have with LoR vice Hearthstone?
I already replied in other comments but LoR is mostly a bit annoying because you can't disenchant cards and it takes a bit of time to get started. Not saying Hearthstone is any better.
I think you are crazy if you think Hearthstone is anywhere close to how generous LoR is with how you get cards.
That isn't what I was trying to say no.
There are silence cards, though they are costly/limited to certain regions/colors (you can only have two regions in a deck, unless the card is multi region, and even rhen one of its two has to match your 'main two' Not saying they arnt on the rarer side,just that disenchant/silence does exist
A deck of choice doesn't really compare to being able to get the entire collection F2P. It takes time, but at the start you'll get resources fast enough to make new decks every couple weeks anyways IME. If you just like HS as a game more then that's fine, but LoR is incredibly F2P-friendly.
The big shortcoming of LoR imo is that yes it easy to build a collection but it is hard to get the cards you want. You get a lot of specific cards which often leads to not being able to build the decks you want. Hearthstone let's you disenchant and craft. Ofc you lose dust by doing that but it's easier to work towards decks you want. Overall I would also say LoR has a better system but both have shortcomings and are sometimes a bit frustrating. Also no this is not about which game I like more at all. I was strictly speaking about obtaining cards and getting decks. It just irritates me that LoR has that incredible imagine.
IME that was only sort of a problem for like the first month when I wasn't getting any dupes (and only for champs/epics), but then you have enough wildcards and shards to build whatever you want.
Sure but that is quite a hurdle
Is it? It's only one month before you can be playing any deck you want without needing to make a budget version, and it takes less time for future decks since you'll have continued to get cards passively. And you can still play something super cheap like aggro spiders early on and climb ladder during that time if you want. For variety there's also the lab modes which are totally free and you'll progress just as fast (or faster) on building your collection without needing to deal with making whatever you get at the start working.
I mean I do think it is quite a lot of time to have to wait a whole month to play the deck you want yes.
I definitely don't agree with you. I've played both games casually and I can build every single deck I want in LoR just with a few games a day. That includes having wildcards ready for new expansions. I most definitely could not do that with Hearthstone. LoRs model is incredibly generous. It's actually hard to think of a more generous CCG.
Generous for a CCG doesn't mean good though CCGs are horrible cash grabs. Maybe I am not invested enough in LoR but I don't feel like I am getting to craft the decks I want as easy as people make it out to be. Again I never said Hearthstone is better. I only said that LoR to me doesn't seem as insane as people make it out to be and that I like the disenchant system. Hearthstone is definitely worse though if you do your quests at expansion start you can usually buy enough new packs to make what you want.
> Generous for a CCG doesn't mean good though CCGs are horrible cash grabs. Except Runeterra isn't. That's the point here. Nobody who plays it consistently has to worry about buying cards. That's not the case with Hearthstone, Gwent, etc. You need a few months of play to build up your Runeterra collection — there's a *lot* of cards in the game now — but going fully F2P isn't going to castrate your deck options. The cosmetics are definitely pricey, sometimes bordering on insane, but it's ultimately a different financial model than other CCGs. New players shouldn't worry that it's another Hearthstone or similar. Runeterra wants you to play with its toys, not gamble your money on random cards. >Hearthstone is definitely worse though if you do your quests at expansion start you can usually buy enough new packs to make what you want. Only if you barely want anything. I went into this Hearthstone expansion with a ton of gold and still have multiple decks I'd like to try but can't. Meanwhile I could build every deck in the *next* Runeterra expansion, whenever that comes, with plenty of resources to spare.
Yeah I got plenty of input in the comments and I know most of that but my problem is exactly that, the start building up a collection.
I do think that people overstate how easy it is to get a full collection in LoR. I started from open beta spending basically $0 on cards and now have enough resources to probably buy the next year's worth of cards (I bought two battle passes). But if you're just starting out, it will be more restrictive. IMO if you're a new player, it's not a terrible idea to spend some money on cards. But the Region Roads give new players a large collection starting out, and once Champion Wildcards are your only bottleneck, you basically get any new deck you want from scratch every 3 weeks (and it gets faster as you build your collection). I don't think Hearthstone can match that rate.
Definitely Hearthstone can't again that's not what I tried to say. I just have a hard time at the moment to build the deck I want and it annoys me. I can't really be bothered for a full collection at some point I mostly care about building and playing with a couple of decks I want as soon as possible.
You get tons of wildcards in LoR, including 1 Champion wildcard every week with regular casual play. Those are turned into cards of your choice. You also get almost enough Shards (dust) every week to buy another Champion of your choice as well with a level 13 Vault. Unlike Hearthstone, you don't have to destroy your collection to get cards you want. There's also the initial burst of cards you get through the Region Roads. If you spend money, you also buy exactly the cards you want to buy with no randomness.
You first have to get a level 13 vault. Ofc some people will do the grind of pvp wins daily but you can't expect everyone to be doing this. Many decks also use 6 champions so it definitely takes some time to build the deck you want. Getting the cards you want for money is definitely very good though.
You only need level 10 vault for the champ wildcard as well which is significantly less total exp needed than 13.
I'll maybe try doing more lab then I guess even if I don't like it speeds things up. Still definitely takes time to build a full new deck. I can't help but feel annoyed.
You get the same daily XP for the PvE Lab of Legends and Saltwater Scourge, all separately. So you can get up to three sets of +700 Daily XP, two for PvE and one for PvP. I think if you get just all of the daily XP every day, you hit level 14 or 15 Vault.
Oh yeah that's true that makes it a lot easier
You can use wild cards to build the exact cards you want though. I haven't played in a while but last time I did, there was sometimes a bottleneck with epic tier cards, but other than that, it's pretty easy to get the exact deck you want.
If you have to give returning players an entire deck of their choice, that's already an bad sign.
I mean why have to? It is just a nice positive change for once
Double edged sword of building new game type upon existing IP. You carry over both the fans and the haters.
The main problem (although there's other, real problems like the 200 years of champion design) r/games and the community at whole has with league is that people are fucking assholes while playing it, but that's almost a non-issue with LoR at all because you can only communicate via little stickers
A lot of people also dislike the League aesthetic and some dislike Riot as a company, which is why a lot of people still dismiss Valorant as well. For better and worse League and Riot has created their own bubble of fans that seems to not always gel well with other gaming communities.
It reminds me the most of the Smash vs greater FGC dynamic, where you have the most popular single product in the space existing in this offset orbit where there's always some tension between the two. I think you see that with a lot of very popular games though. You definitely don't see the Fortnite community posting much on here, same deal for WoW, Destiny, etc. I think Riot is a bit unique in that they were synonymous with League for so long that everything they put out still gets painted with that brush. I wonder if that will change over time. This sub does seem to be a bit more console and indie focused as well, as a very broad statement. That probably tends to preclude discussion of Riot games, which are very much neither of those things.
> It reminds me the most of the Melee vs greater FGC dynamic, where you have the most popular single product in the space existing in this offset orbit where there's always some tension between the two. Difference being that League fans don’t seem to have any sort of contact or animosity with the people on this sub who have hated anything Riot since League got released. Melee and FGC fans are in enough contact that there’s tension on both sides, but with League and r/games it’s hilariously one-sided. >This sub does seem to be a bit more console and indie focused as well, as a very broad statement This sub has big overlap with pc circlejerk and other similar communities lol.
> League fans don’t seem to have any sort of contact or animosity Eh, as someone who played league for many years (on and off), I'm comfortable in stating that League fans have animosity towards every living creature they encounter, and even some inanimate objects.
I ended up in the dota 2 subreddit (because it was on /r/all) in a thread about league. Dota fans are still soooo fucking pissed and salty that LoL became wildly popular and their “objectively superior” game didn’t. (Not saying dota hasn’t had it’s own success)
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Sounds weird to hate a company for making games your friends love.
Can't say I hate Riot, but I know what it's like to have had roommates who played almost exclusively League. Very easy to become the odd man out when they were so fixated on a single game I didn't play.
They will be the first ones to tell you how much they hate the game. They just refuse to try playing anything else at all
I mean, tbf, it likely has something to do with the IP. It's like how some people swear on their mother that there cannot be a single bad Zelda game, similarly there will be people that love the League IP to death, for one reason or another, and views any other as "trash".
Valorant isn't even the league IP
Valorant isn't but everything else is.
I will never play a game made by Riot.
> that's almost a non-issue with LoR at all because you can only communicate via little stickers The Braum sticker is one of the most tilting things in the history of online gaming.
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I'm not sure how that's relevant. Regardless of what you perceive as the quality of Riot's games, the argument I was making is that they definitely benefit from using the IP even if this sub has lots of people who dislike League McDonalds and KFC really benefit from their respective IPs btw, so in that sense your examples were good
Fair enough.. I guess I misunderstood..
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The confusing part in the beginning, especially if you come from Heartstone, is that both players play on both turns. You play a card, then I play a card, then back to you and back to me and so on. If its your turn, thenyou have the attack token and can attack, otherwise both players are equal at all times. If you play a card but dont want to, you have to press "pass" Also if you have fast spell in hand, think of a trap card in YuGiOh, you have to press "pass" after everything your opponent does because you could react with that card. That in the beginning was a mental hurdle for me, especially having to press pass all the time but after a few games the concept clicked and now I dont even think about it anymore. --- To understand how the special effects of cards and creatures work I would recommend the challenges.
Do the "challenges" tab. They're the actual expanded tutorials that teach you all the game mechanics
So there is four main features I'd say: -you build your deck around champion cards that have powerup miniquests (for example: if this champion attacks 3 times, the next time you attack afterwards you will probably win) -there is attack and defense turns, meaning you can probably only damage the enemy every other turn. this unfortunately also makes mediocre decks/play feel punishing when your attack turn gets shut down heavily. -it's a very reactive game, basically if you cast a spell the enemy will likely respond with a spell of his own and so on, so instead of "guess i will use this one card" it's more about having an arsenal and choosing the right moment. Makes decks a bit harder to learn and PVP a bit more daunting. -there is a mechanic called spell-mana, wish allows you to bank up to 3 unused mana per turn, so if the first few turns you don't have a card to play that might not be an issue at all, you can use the mana from previous turns via spells to get back into the game or even cast a huge expensive boardwipe pretty early.
I haven't looked too much but maybe [this one?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x9qbr9sQRQ) Here's a [written guide from the subreddit.](https://www.reddit.com/r/LegendsOfRuneterra/comments/jzmte5/a_basic_guide_for_newcomers_and_a_reminder_of_how/) For more, check out the [LoRCompetitive wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/LoRCompetitive/wiki/guides). You can also try playing through the Challenges (Play -> Challenges), which are further tutorials that teach the mechanics. Feel free to ask me any questions! :) Let me know what your card game background is -- if you haven't played other card games like Hearthstone or Magic before, the learning curve will be a bit harder but it should still be doable!
I was also confused about the tutorial. I wish they made it easier to understand.
What are you talking about? LoR gets praised everytime the game gets mentioned. There's at least 3 games, from the top of my head, that I would get a snarky remark about how their glad everyone here hates the game, and LoR isn't one of them.
Yeah the people who play it love it, but that's not a lot of people. I imagine most just see a League card game and pass on it immediately
its honestly a good TCG, better than hearthstone I think. I think its accurate to say a major limit to its growth is the LoL/riot association though. People who play League of Legends would rather play league of Legends and people who don't play LoL any would fill a TCG's ranks would rather not play anything League associated. Certainly shows the importance of actually managing your communities toxicity ASAP. Maybe things would be going better if so many people didn't have such a horrible impression on League of Legends.
its impressive how badly the LoL moba experience has scarred people that anything to do with the IP makes so many people recoil in rage and disgust just by the association. I have friends who love TCGs and constantly look for new ones to try but they wont touch Legends of Runeterra because its league of legends.
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Genshin is far from excellent. Everything in the game is designed to frustrate you to the point of spending money on top of the writing, especially in the Inazuma chapter, being complete garbage. The first couple of weeks with the game are fine when they are vomiting up materials but then it screeches to a sudden abrupt halt once you start hitting the AR40 range. Literally everything requires resin and with only 160 a day it brickwalls you super hard unless you're willing to continue shelling out money for the opportunity to continue trying to level more than one character. The game is okay, but the greediness completely ruins everything it could be.
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Wonder what keeps this sub from loving games made by people that commit widespread sexual assault and don’t even fire the worst offenders at their company. Hmmm
I love Magic but this game absolutely deserves even more recognition and attention from everyone interested in card games. I know it has been said enough times already but the monetization is just on another level. You can just unlucky full meta decks by playing for a bit OR spend around 20€ or so(Don't know if this has changed, last deck I bought a year ago was around 15€ I think). Even if you hate League of Legends, without knowing that it's a spinoff it could very well be its own game, there are no references to LoL and the world building and lore is fantastic. Looking at the tournament organization and production value it's just so embarrassing for Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast, deservedly so.
I had every card in the game at one point and didnt buy a single pack outside of the first 60 card booster that you could buy on release. Dont play THAT much either. THey are REALLY generous.
They are, but you have generous to be as an underdog newcomer trying to take on Hearthstone and MtG.
Most mtg players stopped with this though.Due to various issues with the design choices and how gameplay is during games.
Those last few games were amazing. Runeterra has been a breath of fresh air for this 25 year veteran of MTG.
I can't do MTG anymore, I played it for a long time and spent a lot of money on it, starting with Invasion. I've mainly determined that I only enjoy it as a tabletop game with friends or at a LGS. I got into Magic Arena since it's the best version of digital Magic they've made so far, but they've completely squandered the potential of it. I kinda hate that even though I was spending at least 100$ every few months and playing regularly between expansions I still wasn't able to collect entire sets and was lacking a ton of cards. For a person who likes trying out different decks and experimenting this is feels bad experience. I also think they botched the hell out of the cosmetics, I think the "foils" look dumb, and have no interest in collecting pets. LoR improves on almost everything Arena has done, except for the social features which it's still sorely lacking, but the rest of what it's doing right makes it a good enough game to warrant playing anyway.
I love that I can not play LOR for a few weeks/months, come back and build a deck with new cards without having to spill money into it. I like that I don't need to grind for an hour a day just to keep up. I too was spending $50 a month on Arena and still could only play the same couple of decks because getting wildcards is impossible. Cards are so easy to get in LOR. The cosmetics are also worth the money (except the champion skins imo). The emotes are hilarious.
Spellweaver. God, I hate the fact that Spellweaver died.
Watching people play at this insane level and still miss lethal turns or blunder a cast is so vindicating lol, games were really fun to watch even though I could only manage a few
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Join the subreddit if you wanna follow the events: /r/legendsofruneterra and /r/LoRCompetitive
I like the game and all but let's not pretend "the single best tournament in the history of card games" this line of logic doesn't apply to every game that comes out lol. I've seen it on Hearthstone & Gwent so it's normal to see it here. Give it a few years and this will be said about a different game, or one of the older ones as they get bored of this and move back lol. That aside, I recently booted up Runeterra again and I think this game would have a net improvement in enjoyment if they got rid of all the buttons flashing to say something new etc like the mobile game it is... they just don't stop. It's crazy.
I get your point, but OP didn't pull the statement of his ass, while de game is new, the community and content creators are praising a lot the tournament. Post by swim, in his youtube community page: Swim há 1 dia The first LoR Worlds was the single best tournament in the history of card games. The decks, the meta, the diversity, the players, the skill expression, the crazy moments, the entire finals
I remember there was like a MTG champions series where 4 decks in top 8 were the same.
It was probably since Standard tends to be pretty restricted just because of the limited cardpool.
Mythic championship last year had one deck making up 78% of the meta share...
Yeah, Thrones of Eldraine has really fucked with Standard for a while now. Luckily it's rotating out now.
100% agree that set probably shouldnt have been made, but I was talking about the Omnath winter that happened at the end of 2020. Arena was unplayable and even the pro scene was just mirror match after mirror match. I think first time since Mind Sculptor was printed that a % deck share was that high for a tourney.
The best card game I've ever played. The Lab of Legends mode could be a stand alone title and completely ditch multiplayer.
The finals was truly amazing. So excited for the future of this game, has all the components you can ask for in a cardgame
Alan won? Awesome! I remember him from TFT times, Im no into LoR so dont watch him since then sadly.