Move over Legends of Runeterra! Riot Games has announced a brand new card game in the Runeterra universe, and its physical. The League of Legends Card Game, internally known as Project K, is making its way to a store near you for 2025.
They have been working on the game to immerse players at a physical table but although these are the same characters we've seen in Legends of Runeterra, the game is not based off the digital game.
- Each champion card has a thematic that goes along with them.
- Viktor tries to assemble small units.
- Starting fresh with a trading card game allowed them to design it to allow for multiplayer play and hardcore 1v1.
- Local game stores will be promoting the game via Riot's competitive ecosystem.
- There will be local events and national events.
- The game will launch with a staggered approach throughout the world, to ensure supply can meet each market.
- Riot also wants to make sure the game is localized in each area it releases.
- The game will first launch in China with a partner.
- The TeamFight Tactics open later this month in Macau will have a on-site demo.
- The Arcane Box Set will have pre-orders available early next year on the Riot Merch Store.
- Riot will detail the release schedule next year.
Riot was quiet about the mechanics of the game, but we did hear the terms Calm, Chaos, and Fury, which seemed to line up with the colors on cards. The card code, FDN, likely stands for "Foundations", the first set being released. There appears to be 298 cards in total in the set, and with Riot saying they want this to be collectible and trade-friendly, we can expect some cool looking cards. From what we've seen so far, the art is looking absolutely incredible, which Riot has been known for their amazing art and character designs, so its not exactly a surprise.
League of Legends Card Reveals
With this being a brand new game, we've already seen several new cards, though most are only partials.
Comments
I was excited at first but became more disappointed as I watched this trailer play out.
The white space on the cards and the rehashing of art from Legends of Runeterra and League splash art makes this look very cheap and tacky. One of the biggest appeals of a physical TCG is the fact that it brings out a lot of unique artistic takes often on familiar characters and from what I've seen in this trailer, there almost no new art that we haven't already seen. Not to mention this is using old pre-Arcane designs, which is really strange especially on Viktor.
Can't fully judge given the the gameplay hasn't really been shown but... not feeling it at all.
It is possible some of this is in-dev stuff so its printed to be playable and thats it. It's very easy for them to just pull out existing art assets from the universe, much like how Hearthstone started with WoWTCG art (which makes the base set so iconic imo).
We also didn't see any crazy foiling or special effects on any of the cards, which I refuse to believe Riot won't be having serious chase cards in the packs - the secondary market is so important for longevity whether we like it or not.
But yeah, I'm a bit disappointed they didn't just dive right into some real gameplay. I'm still interested though since the Runeterra universe is incredible and physical cards are so much more fun to play with than digital.
Welp, RIP Legends of Runeterra. I ended up dropping you off, but you put out a valiant effort. You ended up doing better than any Hearthstone contender would've ever dreamed of doing. I'm not gonna say that the game is going to go unsupported now, but it feels incredibly impractical to manage both a digital card game, and an entirely different physical card game.
Which also begs the question as to why they're trying to go into the physical card game market. Getting a successful physical card game is extremely hard because the genre is monopolized by the three TCG overlords that owe a lot of their existence to the fact that they were there first. Flesh and Blood has seen some pretty good success and Lorcana has been holding its ground alright, so it's not impossible, but most card games end up dropping out of market after a year or two. I guess if there's a chance, people will take it.
The way the cards are designed visually also looks a bit off since the non-hero cards just have this white space of nothingness on them. I realize this is still in development, so we might be looking at early versions of the card design and this isn't the final product, but it'd be really weird if it is. It feels as if part of it is still a blank sheet of paper, which make it feel a bit lifeless.