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Why Runeterra Has a Mana Banking System

Runeterra features a grab-bag of mechanics from other games like Hearthstone, MTG, and Artifact.

Which means that we can take a look at how those mechanics were implemented in those games to see what kind of game design challenges Runeterra might run into down the line.

Let's focus on one in particular.

The Mana system.

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Definitions:

Mana System (Hearthstone):

Mana starts at 1 and increases every turn. Non-land system.

No lands means that every card in a deck is a playable (creature/spell card).

(Compare this to MTG, where there are generally 22-24 lands in a 40 card deck.)

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Potential Design Challenges:

At first glance, increasing mana by 1 every turn doesn't sound like a big deal.

It makes sense on an intuitive level, it's easy to keep track of, and you get to bypass all of the annoyances from getting 'land screwed' in MTG.

But having a reliable increase in mana has a lot of consequences when it comes to valuing cards. Especially when you have a deck chock-full of playables.

And this is because...

Numbers are all about Percentages

The sequence of 1->2->3->4->5 is linear. +1 at every step.

But every step is not equal. Or rather, some steps are more equal than others.

Going from 1->2 is a 100% increase.

Going from 2->3 is a 50% increase.

Going from 3->4 is a ~33% increase.

Earlier numbers in the sequence have disproportionally large percentage differences between them.

And later steps of the sequence, going from 100->101 (+1%) is clearly not as significant as these earlier steps.

You can see this concept play out in Hearthstone, where going first confers a large advantage.

Going first means you get access to next tier of mana faster. It means you have the initiative to determine how trades between minions occur.

Which is significant, because a 2-drop is generally going to out value a 1-drop with mana efficiency to spare.

'Playing on curve' becomes a lot more important.

And in more extreme cases, drawing out the most value for stats per point of mana becomes more important than any outplays a Player can make.

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Runeterra's Solution

This is why Runeterra's 'mana banking' system looks so promising. It looks to drastically lower the punishment usually found in these kinds of games when you are unfortunate enough to miss playing on curve.

There's always 3 mana buffer that can drain over to other turns. This mana can only be used for "Spells", but it means that Players who have leftover mana in those crucial early turns can still make use of those resources. This system creates a better equilibrium for players who end up drawing poorly in the early turns.

Runeterra's 'mana banking' works to give a certain degree of wiggle room for players who draw poorly, especially on those early game turns where every point of mana matters more.

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