Do Collectible Card Games Need World Championships? Legends of Runeterra Doesn't Have One in Sight

Riot shared a lot of exciting announcements for Legends of Runeterra during the recent Season 2021 Opening Day stream. One thing that several fans noticed wasn’t mentioned, though, was anything about Runeterra World Champions. While the in-game seasonal tournaments have been a rousing success, we still don't have a forum for crowning the very best in the world. Many fans have speculated that this lack of top-tier esports has discouraged big names from playing more Runeterra, which in turn has led to less exposure on platforms like Twitch and YouTube. TheBlevins, who many will recognize from his work casting and promoting Legends of Runeterra, captured this argument in a recent informal Twitter poll.

Quote From Blevins

If you are a pro player in an esport, what would entice you to switch games, assuming you'd likely be similarly good in the new game?

• Prize Money - 42.9%
• Dev supported esports - 46.8%
• I would never change - 2.6%
• Other (reply) - 7.8

77 votes

On the recent Runeterrable Radio podcast (Ep #51), TheBlevins, SaucyMailman, and special guest Boulevard discussed the topic in detail and compared the months between release dates and world tournaments for several other card games. 

*Assuming a World Championship would have appeared on the 2021 roadmap if it was planned during any of the months listed

Note that in the episode, Boulevard claims every major CCG has had its first world championship within 12 months of release. This doesn't exactly line up with our math presumably because of semantics about release dates -- for example, Boulevard claims "Yu-Gi-Oh actually had its first world championship the year before it released in America", so we're assuming he's referencing when the cards became more widely available and not the official release date of the Legend of Blue Eyes White Dragon set.

Of course, the counter-argument bears consideration: it is possible for a great game to succeed without world tournaments, but a world tournament will never redeem a mediocre game. When Riot has made official statements about world tournaments, the gist has been "we'd love to do them eventually, but right now we're focusing other things we think are higher priority instead."

You can listen to the entire podcast as Runeterrable Radio Episode 51 either through their website, your preferred podcast application, or the video embedded below. A big thanks to The Blevins and Saucy Mailman for some thought-provoking conversation!

Our Thoughts

Does LOR need a world championship tournament? Candidly, we're not so sure it does. While it certainly would be an exciting event, we're not convinced it would have the "honey pot" effect that so many are convinced it would. The huge names in CCG streaming right now -- Dogdog, Firebat, Brian Kibler, Trump, Kripparian, Amaz, etc -- all actively competed in world-level CCG tournaments at some point in their careers but have since moved on focus on casting and content creation. Frankly, if the goal was just to get those individuals to stream LOR, Riot would probably have much more success promoting some more Twitch Rivals showdowns. And then we also have the cautionary tale of Artifact 1.0, which put the proverbial cart before the horse when Valve decided to focus on a huge esports scene rather than their game. In the end, they ended up silently cancelling their ballyhooed million-dollar tournament once it became apparent their dwindling profits couldn't justify the expenses. So ultimately we're inclined to stand by Riot's approach of "it will happen when we're ready".