Legends of Runeterra's Senior Designer Tyler "RiotDurdle" Morgan has shared some insights on how the three new champions ended the way they did. In summary:

  • Kai'Sa was always planned to be a Keyword-related Champion.
    • They wanted a payoff through stats for the Keywords.
    • Designs that wanted to stack Keywords on board led to unwanted hoarding of units.
  • Gwen's (League of Legends) traits didn't feel fit to Legends of Runeterra's Shadow Isles.
    • The idea of permanent buff spot on board (=Hallowed) originates from early Lab brainstorms.
    • Initial version required the buffing unit to be alive on board.
    • The hallowed buff was initially +1/+1, but was changed as the extra health protected fragile threats like Elusives too well.
  • Spawning sacrificial prey units for Evelynn was selected in early playtesting, but it went through some iterations.
    • Initially they were Vulnerable units spawning for the opponent, but they were too easily abused by Overwhelm strategies.
    • Your opponent also had too many ways to counter the sacrificial idea (self-obliterating them, buffing when challenged etc).
    • Different "rewards" for killing Husks were tested, but Keywords were eventually selected for their utility and variety.

Quote From RiotDurdle

Hello! I will be your design-context-person for LoR's incarnation of Kai'Sa. Let's get started!

THE TEAM

Design: Myself

Art: @Ishu_Tani

Narrative: @Riot_fizzNchips

We knew early on that we wanted to Kai'Sa to tie into keywords and tried a bunch of different mechanics to pay them off. What became clear is that big stacks of keywords caused them to rapidly lose their identity.

Fearsome is much less impactful when that already has challenger and elusive. Several elements of the archetype seek to address this in different ways.

The thing that does make individual keywords come through clearly is stats. Notably, big chonky stats. 5's and 6's. The good stuff. So it was clear that we wanted to pay off keywords through stats in some way, but how?

We liked the idea of pursuing keyword diversity since it had natural hooks into a number of different strategies that already exist and gives some incentive to mix keyword-heavy-units with spells or effects that grant keywords.

We tried a number of designs in this space that cared about stacking keywords on board but they created a lot of incentives to hoard units and never trade unless absolutely necessary. Thus we came to Evolve.

Kai'Sa's Second Skin is a another method to help bring keywords through clearly. Having to locally source keywords from your own units means that you usually need to take advantage of those keywords to advance your game plan, independently of Kai'Sa.

She also tends to aggregate her keywords over several rounds (at least until Viktor or Pantheon gets involved) which gives your a round or two to savor their individual flavor.

Thank you for coming to my LOR talk. If you've got any LoR Kai'Sa related questions feel free to ask!

Quote From RiotDurdle

Thank you for subscribing to LOR Facts! Today we'll be talking about Gwen!

THE TEAM

Design: Me with some much needed help from @plinq

Art: Oliver Chipping

Narrative: @rnoelliams

Gwen presented a big challenge since many of her loudest traits (agility, protection) don't fit neatly into Shadow Isle's regional strengths. SI is notoriously cavalier with the lives of its units, so highlighting Gwen's immunity would have made for an awkward fit.

So we approached her a bit more abstractly. We really liked the idea of her hallowed mist as a zone where Gwen is more potent. So what are LoR's zones? Hand, deck, backrow and attack row are pretty common divides, but are there other ways to slice it?

The inspiration came from a brainstorm that we had in the early days of Labs. Back in the day we would have big brainstorms across many different disciplines including those that don't touch gameplay super often.

These would often result in incredibly wild ideas that broke free of boundaries that designers often unconsciously build around their design space. One such idea was shooting the board with a paintball that would leave a permeant marker on it, affecting the unit over it.

This was well outside of the scope of our 2-week labs but the thought stuck with me. Was there something to upgrading a tiny bit of your board?

The idea of buffing a bit of the attacking row seemed like a potential fit for Gwen, but how would the buff get there? We tried a bunch of different versions of units on board that would add stats to attacking allies but that led to some awkward tensions.

You needed 3 components to make that work - the supporting units alive on board, an exciting unit to put the buff on, and something else to keep you alive since you couldn't trade either of those effectively.

The buff also wasn't feeling super Shadow Isles - we tried giving ephemeral alongside a bigger buff to patch that up but that churned through your precious units even faster. So instead of looking for a output that felt SI, we tried making the input feel ghastly.

Which led us to the on-death-hallowed you know today. The buff was originally +1|+1 which was a more natural fit with Gwen's defensive mist, but it simply proved too effective at protecting fragile threats like elusives.

That's hallowed! Working with Ro and Oliver on these cards was an absolute treat. Are there any Gwen decks that you're excited to build when Forces from Beyond drops? Lemme know!

Quote From RiotDurdle

Hello! Eve story time!

THE TEAM

Design: Paul Sottosanti (with some work from me at the end)

Art: Oliver Chipping

Narrative: @Riot_fizzNchips

From our initial playtests we liked the idea of spawning units for Eve to prey upon, although their exact functionality took a bunch of iterations to get right.

We spent a lot of time iterating on versions where her followers spawned Vulnerable Husks for the opponent that would give you a benefit when slain. But this had a few problems.

First, they were a little too potent as "gifts for Renekton". Giving yourself a back door to the enemy nexus was extremely powerful, to the point that it didn't really matter what other value the husks offered.

Second, your opponents had a lot of ways to interact with the husks in ways that were really fun for them but not great from your side of the table. They could sacrifice them for value, obliterate them if their board was full, or just buff them as you challenged.

For the rewards we tried a few different outputs but ultimately landed on keywords as they provided a nice balance of utility and variety. When creating a mechanic with variance we often look for opportunities to let you seen the outcome before you make key decisions

Husks did this well since you could see what you would be getting before you chose what unit would consume it. We also intentionally made one of her cards kill an ally as a cost to give you a chance to reroll unappealing husks without feeling too bad.

So all of this brought Husks back around to your side of the board. They were immediately pretty exciting as they provided a cool way to "launder" temporary Buffs into permenant ones, along with introducing a bunch of exciting death synergies.

That's all for Evelynn! I hope y'all are enjoying the expansion! I'll be back soon-ish to talk to you about the next expansion!

Did Riot manage to capture the essence of Gwen in the new card? Let us know in the comments below!