Starting a new game can be daunting sometimes, but here at Out of Cards, we've got you covered! Here's everything that you need to know to dive right in and start playing the hottest new digital card game, Legends of Runeterra. Open beta starts this Friday (1/24) and everyone who wants to play will be able to participate.
Play in the open beta to get this Moonstruck Poro guardian.
How to Begin
- Register an account. Go to the Official Website and create a Riot account.
- Download the client. You should have a link in your registration email.
- Once the open beta begins on Friday, January 24, you can start playing!
The Basics of Legends of Runeterra
- Decks are 40 cards, can only contain 6 Champions (up to 3 of each), and only include two Regions.
- Champion: These are your heavy-hitters and you should use them wisely.
- Follower: These are all other units in your deck.
- Spell: You’ve got 3 different kinds of spells – Slow, Fast, and Burst. They can be cast at different times, with Slow spells happening outside of combat.
- Keywords: You’ll find a lot of similar mechanics to existing card games. If you’re not sure about a keyword, you can always count on the in-game tool tips to tell you exactly what it does.
- Card Stats: Much like other games, you will find familiar Cost, Power, and Health on cards.
- Your Nexus has 20 Health and the game ends when it reaches zero. Protect it!
If you've played other digital card games you will be familiar with a lot of basic gameplay.
The Regions of Legends of Runeterra
Below we've got an article for each region, containing its background, mechanics, and play style.
Legends of Runeterra Rewards & Economy
- There are no randomized packs to purchase in the game.
- You can decide which Region to unlock first. This will influence where your primary drops come from.
- Every Tuesday the Vault unlocks, which contains more rewards, depending on your progress. Reaching level 10 will guarantee you a Champion.
- You can also be rewarded with Wildcards, which can be used to craft any card of corresponding rarity.
The reward system is generous and you don't have to deal with randomized packs.
Legends of Runeterra Tools & Resources
Check out the different tools we have to offer to make your experience with Legends of Runeterra better.
Comments
So some people are saying here that Shadow Isles might be the best region for starters. Do you mean starters of the game, or starters of card games overall? As HS since beta and legend player, does it really matter which region I open first? I'm really looking for the game and will start tomorrow. Haven't really studied the regions yet, so don't know which kind of builds are possible to do, but some kind of tempo or control deck could be my thing.
What cards/decks do you start with? I realize this may be impacted based on the region(s?) you choose.
Can I play the tutorial and/or the AI in the beginning to acquire cards/wildcards or do I need to jump into multiplayer?
I apologize if this was explained above and I missed it : /
The game has no packs of random cards, but you do get a bunch of random cards from the Vault every week. Does it really feel different, or is it marketing spin?
Not a market spin because those random cards are obtainable only with in-game progression. All you can buy with real money are Wildcards which you can choose any card to craft and expeditions like arena of hearthstone and those expeditions are also giving 1 champion Wildcard.
So no, it is not a market spin.
Thanks! I’m looking forward to trying this out
Does anyone know if it's possible (will be possible) to play this on a Mac with Wine shenanigans?
I know they will do a Mac client at some point, but just curious.
Some guys were talking about they are playing it in their tablets with a program, on reddit so maybe it might possible with something in Mac too. Search reddit a bit. There was a thread about mac, i didn't read it because i never used Mac but maybe there might be more information there.
I'm so excited for this game, you have no idea: this game has a lot of potential, I hope the development team has good ideas for the game moving forward. The foundations are there, let's hope they can make some interesting things with them
You should explain what the "eye" does, since imho it's one of the best things ever in a card game. Counting no longer needed! 😂
The Oracle's Eye is a pretty cool feature! When you hover over it (it sits between each player's Nexus on the board) it will show you how much damage the enemy Nexus and all units will take in the current attack, if no other spell or effect is played.
I saw one streamer actually use the eye, which showed an enemy champ getting boosted to lethal, but the streamer was using it to look at something else, so he failed to block the lethal and acted all surprised when he died. Tragicomedy at its finest!
The moral of the story is that you should look at the entire board when you use the eye. It could save your life!
Yeah, nice feature to check current state of the board when you are confused.
What a nice time to quit Hearthstone.
I don't get the downvotes. It really, truly is the perfect time. With another rotation coming up and -- let's be real -- an utter shitshow of balance problems for the majority of the Year of the Dragon, I'm happy to cash out my gold on the adventure and say farewell.
I'm ready to spend my money on things I actually care about (cosmetic items) rather than a gazillion duplicate cards from random packs.
I'm ready for games where the spell-mana bank smooths out the early curve every time, so it's much less likely you'll lose to a bad mulligan.
I'm ready for strategy-defining Champion cards that are much less likely to hide at the bottom of the deck than a Hearthstone legendary, while still remaining unique.
I'm ready for a game with no neutral cards!
Any thoughts about which regions might be better/worse for F2P players to pick to unlock first?
Thanks for all the advice, all! I was leaning towards Shadow Isles before I wrote this based on the below reasons; your replies clenched it.
I think you will be much happier if you pick a region you like rather than trying to optimize your payload.
Playing a region that doesn't suit you will just make it feel like a slog, and you may actually end up playing less than you would have played in a region you actually care about.
It doesn't make a lot of sense to level up a "fast" region, then try to transition into a slower, more interesting one, when you could have been earning the slower region's cards all along.
PLUS, the strict caps on wildcard purchases should keep paying players from getting too far ahead. You will have a playable deck very quickly whether you pay or not, no matter what region you pick.
While I agree with the above in terms of speed-of-unlocking, if you're instead looking for benefit-for-time-invested you should in my opinion lean towards either Shadow Isles (aggro), Freljord (control) or Demacia (mixed). These regions have, in my view, more splashable cards meaning you're more likely to want to use them in multiple different decks, while the other regions are more focussed (and so will see more use in single, specific deck archetypes).
Note that the above is my personal opinion and also entirely based on what we've seen of the game so far!
If your goal is to rake in as much XP as possible, you want to win and win quickly (to have time for more matches). This means an Aggro deck, which mostly means Noxus. Ultimately, though, you should be picking the region that interests you the most from a gameplay-perspective, enjoying the process rather than coldly hoovering up XP.
Well, I wouldn't say noxus because of the hyper aggro/token part of Shadow Isles.. ehm.. Cursed Keeper.. ehm
I would suggest to give Elise-Dawnspeakers deck a go which I have a version in the site which I also tried and felt it being solid in previews.
https://outof.cards/legends-of-runeterra/decks/27-the-crawling-pursuit
I can guarantee that none of these cards will change in open beta unless they change them right now because I know almost all of the changes and none of the cards in this deck changed according to current leaks.
There is also a variant of swimstrim which has no Lucian in it. You can find it around web. That will be also a wise choice to start since game will give us 2x copies of Elise in starter decks after we played prologue.
Also choosing shadow isles as an aggro starter will give you an opportunity to play some control variants as well so I think best choice will be Shadow Isles for start.
But hey ! I'm a fan of Ionia so I will start with them simply because of Deny