Neither a magic clone nor a hearthstone clone but has elements of both. Good combat system and good f2p elements. More details soon

i've been enjoying it a good deal

Attacking is like in Magic - you choose what creatures to attack with, the opponent chooses what blocks what. But there is no multi blocking. But damage doesn't wear off at end of turn, so you can wear a creature down over a few turns.

Both players get priority windows on any turn to cast creatures and sorceries, but the attack token that lets you attack alternates players each turn. Whoever has the attack token has first priority window that turn, so if they attack immediately then the opponent won't be able to get out any new blockers. Or they could use a few windows to cast things, giving the opponent an equal number of windows, and then attack. (All creatures have 'haste' and 'vigilance').

Mana is like in hearthstone (max mana increases by 1 automatically each turn up to 10). Up to three unspent mana each turn can be carried over to the next turn, but carried over mana can only be spent on instants / sorceries / interrupts rather than on creatures.

Champions are just special kinds of creatures which level up into stronger forms when certain conditions are met and you can't have more than 6 champion cards in your deck. (Decks are exactly 40 cards with up to 3 copies of each unique card).

There are 6 colors, and no colorless cards. Decks can have at most 2 colors.

You can complete daily quests by playing against the AI or against other players, which earns you xp that you can put towards any particular color to get more cards of that color, as well as shards and wildcards that can be used to unlock whatever cards you want. You can't voluntarily disenchant cards into shards, but any copies in excess of 3 automatically get disenchanted.

it also has some pretty art

I don’t have time to free to grind these kinds of games; but this one also won’t let you spend money on it on lots of cards. I’m not sure how they are going to actually make their money.

It reminds me of similar games that I’ve played that have tried to find a compromise between selling cards and being P2W. That doesn’t really make either side of the audience happy. And here it’s artificial enough that it’s nothing but another barrier to entry.

They stated their main goal in gating how quickly people could get cards was in keeping the meta fresh for as long as possible. They didn't want individual players to be able to build too many decks too quickly because it would result in the meta getting stale faster and they probably see the meta being unsolved for longer periods after the release of a set to be they key point in increasing engagement with the game, which is probably good from both a gameplay perspective and a monetary one.

I don't think the decision to gate purchases was at all motivated by "not wanting to be p2w".

The pace of f2p card acquisition is a good deal higher compared to most of the other ccgs i've played and being able to target specific factions makes the grind feel a lot better as well. I can't comment on how far your dollar goes compared to other games because I typically don't spend money on these sorts of games.

All the gating does is punish paying players and arbitrarily reward strategies that need fewer legendary cards. It won’t drastically increase the time it takes to solve any meta; because the game isn’t complex enough for that; and it just prevents someone like me from playing whatever I want with older cards that have been out for a while. Because I can’t afford the time to grind and would use money to bypass that.

After visiting the game’s Reddit and forums; I do not believe the grind is reasonable the same way it’s never been reasonable in other ccgs. There is simply too much complaining about the game’s economy and meta for it to be better than something similar.

I'm not sure I'd consider not being able to buy something a punishment.



This is true, at least when the meta is young. Its another thing that will probably extend how long the meta stays fresh.



I think that like pretty much any ccg, the game is incredibly complex. There's no easy way to solve a card game like this. Its typically done via semi-informed experimentation by a large group of people over a large period of time while collecting stats and then compiling and analyzing them to see which archetypes perform the best. The system riot has devised for this ccg should slow down that process. Even if they only get an extra week or two of player engagement out of it, that's potentially a pretty big impact on their bottom line.



We'll see how they handle this once there are older cards that have been out for a while, but for now this is only a concern for the future and not an issue with the game as it currently is. It does prevent you from playing with whatever cards you want to play with though. The end-goal of that is to increase player engagement and based on what i know about game design i think that limiting how quickly people can unlock new content to prevent them from burning themselves out probably does accomplish that, although disliking that sort of thing is also respectable.



Playing for an hour a day, you probably get something like 10,000 dust worth of cards per week of gameplay, in a combination of cards, wildcards, and dust. This will slow down over time as you get closer to completion and start opening more duplicates. I feel like this is probably something like 5-10x times higher than it was for hearthstone (even after considering that dust is worth less in runeterra than in HS) when i last played hearthstone (a long time ago). Unlike in hearthstone, your ability to target cards is also significantly higher in this, with probably around half your value being in cards and the other half being in dust/wildcards. Whether or not you consider that reasonable or unreasonable, I think its a lot better.

Just started playing this and can weigh in on the idea of meta shifts:
The expansions largely only offer alternative strategies, but as near as I can tell, they aren't substantially better or worse than previous strategies, though it does disincentive the idea of mixing older and newer strategies in a singular faction. It really focuses on opening synergy across those factions instead.

the strongest decks shift pretty heavily over time as far as i can tell, but i haven't been playing the game religiously or anything. I think the bulk of what causes decks to rise and fall in strength has more to do with the regular buffs/nerfs though, with the expansions making a bigger splash but hitting much less regularly.

Its true that the card design in runeterra is very parasitic but there's still a lot of room for creative deckbuilding, i've found (though it doesn't really hold a candle to magic). Even if you're starting with a forced archetype like "self-damage" probably only up to half the deck is going to remain staple through all the variants of the deck, with the other half of the cards changing. There are also plenty of decks that don't solidly fit into one of riot's pre-envisioned archetypes.

I really like the spell mana system. You get to get rid of mana screw while also giving you alternatives that aren't just dropping everything on curve or hopelessly falling behind, and combat tricks actually get played in Constructed due to it. Overall, I found the game great.

Running Noxian+Freljord with Scargrounds, and so far the biggest gripe I have is how overloaded the Shadow Isles faction is.

Hard unit removal in vengeance, hard unit sweeper in The Ruination, a fling in Atrocity, situationally unblockable units that are part of a go wide aggro strategy in Spiders, Last Breath units where it is better for the unit in question to die, a super revive in The Reckoning which is pretty much back breaking late game, several sacrifice a unit for some effect, including draw, more hard unit removal that doubles as landmark removal, damage bases removal, and even something as bizarre as killing a unit then reviving it, life gain on removal in grasp of the undying, withering wail, and vile rebirth, and finally, as of the KDA stuff, a drain 1 removal spell that replaces itself in the deck and becomes a 1 mana one-sided 5 damage to the opposing nexus and their units.

Sorry for ranting, and I realize black in MtG gets a lot of this as well at times, but the pacing of MtG's mana and draw systems keeps it in check, especially so aggro doesnt get to have access to a sweeper just in case.

I guess that you are apparently right I have been enjoying it for the last 2 weeks. Great game, true. But it can't be compared to Path of Exile, my opinion. Especially in terms of the wide range of boosters available. Simply compare this https://overgear.com/games/poe to any other similar store related to Legends of Runeterra.

Apologies for the necro; but it's still on page 1 and the topic is relevant since I started playing again.

Had the most hilarious win with my Illaoi+Swain deck against a Sump Monument "control": they managed to get an early Monument out so they didnt take any damage from my own spells or attacks, but they otherwise couldnt maintain control of the board and wound up getting 499 Puffcaps in their own deck thanks to Nagakabouros, Illaoi, and a 12+ Power Tentacle Spawn. They finally lost when they drew a card with 25 puffcaps on it and dealt that much damage to themselves.

Given the similarities, I wonder if I could make a casual Army deck in Magic?

It's great to see so much interest in Legends of Runeterra! I've been playing for a while now, and I have to say, the game's unique mechanics and beautiful artwork really set it apart. For anyone interested in maximizing their gaming experience, I recommend checking out Gamer Choice. It's a fantastic resource for getting tips, finding deals, and connecting with other players. Whether you're looking to enhance your deck or just need some advice, Gamer Choice is definitely worth a look. Happy gaming!

dead game btw.