Legends of Runeterra is a collectible card game available for free for PC, Android and iOS users. The game was released on April 30, 2020, and before that the project had been at the stage of open beta testing for quite a long time. The studio that created the game is Riot Games, which is known to everyone in the world for the game League of Legends and the recently released shooter Valorant. Despite the fact that CCGs are no longer perceived as something interesting, Legends of Runeterra will be able to surprise you with a new look at the card games familiar to everyone.
Features of the new CCG from Riot Games
Speaking of Legends of Runeterra, one cannot fail to mention League of Legends, since both of these games take place in the same game universe. The characters that can be found on the maps came straight from LoL, but this is not the most important feature. The important thing here is that Riot Games is actively working on the lore of their games, and Legends of Runeterra is proof of this. The game has a lot of references to what happened to the heroes in the League of Legends, as well as other important events from the world of Runeterra. This seemingly insignificant part helps to delve deeper into the history of the game world.
Legends of Runeterra will be constantly compared to Hearthstone, this is inevitable. Many will call the new Riot Games game a simple plagiarism, but this is fundamentally not so, because the game offers many new mechanics that have not been previously seen in any CCG. Of course, the gameplay of the game repeats Hearthstone and other similar games, but unlike Hearthstone, you can and should save mana here. In addition to the main indicator of mana, there is also a reserve one, consisting of 3 cells. It fills up whenever you haven’t used up mana at the end of a round. You can use the accumulated mana only for existing spells, that is, you will not be able to summon characters to the playing field. This adds a lot of new opportunities to the game to win.
Another distinguishing feature of the game is the mechanics of improving champions under certain conditions. For example, suppose you have a card that gets stronger when you have 15 cards in your deck. And there are many similar conditions for improvement. In addition, after fulfilling the conditions, the card may have an additional ability. All this fundamentally changes the typical CCG and takes the gameplay to a new level, it becomes much more interesting and dynamic, which will definitely appeal to those who are already tired of Hearthstone.
Random, donate and how to get new cards
Most CCGs have trouble dealing cards at random. Because of this, many players bypass LoR and other similar games by the side, because everyone wants to win only thanks to their own skills. Riot Games have tried to rework a similar function, and also made the maps more balanced. There will no longer be such that a hero with a huge attack will drop out to you, which will take out all the opponent’s cards and bring you victory. In the game, the developers are constantly trying to implement new mechanics that make the game completely different from patch to patch, which does not let the players get bored.
One of the main advantages of the game is that there is no donation that gamers do not like so much. Donate in LoR can only purchase cosmetic items that will change your side of the board in the game.
New cards here need to be obtained exclusively by fighting other players and earning experience. Experience can be exchanged for chests, from which cards drop. If you get an unnecessary or an existing card, then you can easily replace it.
The League of Runeterra is definitely worth a try as it can breathe new life into the CCG genre. The project will appeal even to those who have not played such games before. And fans of the world of Runeterra must take part in the battles to learn a lot about the lore of the universe.
