Despite being a "small" patch, Runeterra Patch 1.15 brought with it a wealth of features: player profiles, new cosmetics, turn timers, and more. But it's possible that it also brought something that wasn't listed in the patch notes -- a clue for when the next expansion will go live.
So far, Riot has only officially announced that it will be sometime in December and it will include 3 new champions and 37 non-champion cards, but observant players will have noticed something peculiar about the title page for the new Lab: the running "Days Remaining" countdown is implying this lab will last 3 weeks instead of the usual 2.
In the past, atypical countdown values have heralded changes to the patch cadence -- we saw it this week when the Hexperimentation countdown foreshadowed patches moving from Wednesday to Tuesday and with the "1.8 Micro-update" that occurred the week between the Patch 1.8 release of Call of the Mountain and Patch 1.10.
So When Does the Next Runeterra Expansion Launch?
The Lab countdown implies a new patch will go live on Tuesday, December 15th (circa 11 am PST). There are a few compelling reasons to believe that this patch will release the new expansion:
- Call of the Mountain and Monuments of Power were both released with corresponding "try the new cards with these premade decks" labs, so that timer is likely counting down the release for a similar lab prepared for the new expansion
- If they did want to release the expansion before the 15th, there really isn't much runway for their reveal season. They'd probably need to start this weekend, which is a major US holiday
- There also isn't much time after the 15th -- the next Tuesday is only 3 days before Christmas and the Tuesday after that is 3 days before New Year's Day. Presumably, they'll want the release to happen during a week when they have staff available to address technical support issues and develop emergency patches if necessary.
- Sunday, December 13th is the day of the seasonal tournament playoffs, so launching the expansion that same week will provide a smooth transition as well as some cross-promotional opportunities for both events.
Are you excited for the upcoming expansion? Let us know below!
Comments
Nice ;)
So you are telling me Riot makes decisions that make sense?
Great date deduction BTW. Quite excited for the completion of CotM set with the remaining 3 Champs.
Aww, I was really hoping for a December 8th release and reveals this weekend, but the evidence for December 15th is very strong. Despite the changes in the last patch I'm still kind of bored with LoR right now, so I was hoping that the next expansion could come soon and add some cool strategies, such as a mono-Targon Celestials deck with Zoe, some kind of damaging or Blade Tokens archetype with Riven, and a cool PnZ focused deck with Viktor. I'm looking forward to PnZ in particular because they haven't really gotten any new archetypes since launch (Vi hasn't really created any decks other than meme ones trying to give her Overwhelm). Also, if Zoe has discard synergy I'll be really happy because then a PnZ/Targon gems discard deck could be a real thing. I have pretty much no idea what Riven will do, but her cards seem to be able noncombat damage to allies and enemies, so maybe she'll work with Vladimir or Swain (her working with Vladimir could also explain him getting so few buffs).
Vi may not have created any decks, but man is she good in a poro deck. I actually hit Diamond for the first time yesterday (after playing for 6 months), using a mono-Vi poros deck.
Thanks for the suggestion, I hadn’t thought about how she’d synergize with the Poro Generation cards.
If you click through to my profile, I have two different decks like that. The one without the big guide is better.