Table of Contents:

1. Should I play Legends of Runeterra?

2. Tutorial and new player experience

3. Interface

4. Collection

5. Decks, resources, and content creators

6. Competition and improvement

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Should I play Legends of Runeterra?

I am new to card games, should I play LoR?

The best way to answer this is to try it out. LoR's business model is to be so generous that you give them money out of appreciation and/or guilt. You can form your own opinion without fear it's really a scheme to turn you into a slot machine addict (there are no paid slot machines in the game).

It will begin by showing you some basics and then you'll play a run of the single-player rogue-like mode. If you like it, you can play more of PvE or explore PvP. (You might want to skip to the Tutorial and new player experience section below.)

I have played other card games, how is PvP in LoR?

You summon units and cast spells to reduce your opponent's health to 0. LoR features Champions, which are units that can Level Up into a powerful form once you fulfill a condition.

LoR has a lot of strategic and tactical depth and low-medium randomness. It's great for players who enjoy a more skillful game but it can be a bit demanding for players who just want to relax and do cool things (but see PvE, below). While a few decks have cards with random effects that can sometimes have a large effect on the game, the game mostly does not have that much randomness outside of the card draws.

Legends of Runeterra heavily features units, with unit protection spells generally being stronger than in other card games. Spells that kill units are generally weaker than in other card games, although the game's core mechanics make them stronger than they appear.

How is the balance?

LoR has relatively good balance. Some patches have been more unbalanced than others, but even in patches with poor balance, decks almost never exceed 15% play rate and 57% win rate on ranked ladder.

LoR has a large variety patch with both buffs and nerfs every two months. Emergency hotfixes are rare but made when needed. Developers are usually pretty good about listening and communicating with the community.

One thing to note is that refunds are not provided when cards are nerfed, mostly because the game is designed around players having a large collection for free (see free-to-play question below). Some nerfs remove cards from viability but the developers try to avoid doing that. You'll often see cards that have been nerfed still being played.

What about PvE?

Legends of Runeterra has a rogue-lite Path of Champions game mode. You start with a set deck and add new cards and card modifiers (items). Some levels are challenging and you will have some bad/unlucky losses, but this can be a better fit for casual players who want to build a crazy combo and do cool things.

Path of Champions is especially F2P since it is single player and you can only unlock additional starter deck options, not power. Path of Champions also gives you the same XP as PvP for card rewards.

Just be warned the AI will savagely taunt you with emotes.

How is the draft mode?

Expeditions is the draft mode in Legends of Runeterra. Instead of choosing cards one-by-one, you choose buckets of 2 or 3 cards. You do not keep the cards you draft; instead, you are awarded 5 cards with one guaranteed to be an Epic or better, and additional shards and wildcards based on how well you did.

You get one free token for Expeditions each week with a Level 2 weekly vault. Each entry gets you two drafts. You earn XP for each draft but the end rewards only depend on your better run (so if your first is a 7-win run, the second run doesn't matter except for XP rewards). After your third paid entry per week, you can play it freely but it does not reward additional cards over the normal XP you get.

Expedition is less popular than draft modes in other games, especially because the rewards aren't that good and constructed is so accessible without drafting, but there are people who like it.

How free-to-play is LoR?

Legends of Runeterra is extremely generous in giving out cards. You get well over half of the card pool and roughly a third of the Champion cards (the rarest card type) with one-time rewards over your first 1-4 months of play. With regular play, you will also get almost two Champion cards of your choice every week. Decks in LoR can have at most 6 Champions so you will earn new decks of your choice every 3 weeks if not much faster.

Path of Champions is also very much free to play. You need 2 copies of a Champion card to play it in this mode. You start out with 2 copies of many Champion cards with a new account and it's not hard to unlock additional options with the weekly vault (which is progressed by PvE as well as PvP). The developers said they will make paid content for this in the future, but the current free mode is fun without that.

One player-friendly feature is daily quests can be completed in PvE, both Path of Champions and the "vs. AI" mode. You will never get a quest that can't be completed because you can't win PvP games with your limited collection.

Should I spend money on cards in LoR?

It's absolutely not required. If you ask, probably over 95% of the responses would tell you not to spend money for cards.

However, the paid economy is extremely fair. You buy exactly what cards you want. In my opinion, spending some money so you can play a deck you'll enjoy faster isn't a terrible idea and supports the devs. If you can get the common and rares for free, $50 could buy up to 3 meta decks of your choice. Again, this is entirely optional, and go into it knowing that buffs and nerfs will happen and because the game is so generous with cards, refunds are not provided.

The boards and emotes are pretty cool, you might want to check them out if you want to spend some money.

If I want to buy cards with money, how does it work?

You buy coins with money and directly spend coins on the cards you choose. You cannot buy random packs with money.

You can also buy wildcards with coins then spend wildcards on cards, but at the same exchange rate so this isn't needed. This is a vestige from the game's release where things worked a bit differently.

Tutorial and new player experience

What is the tutorial?

The game will teach you some basic mechanics in a couple simplified games, then throw you into a Path of Champions PvE run.

Is Path of Champions required?

Yes, you need to complete the Jinx Path of Champions run to proceed. While the presentation is clunky, the developers say their data shows this is beneficial for new players.

Can you help me beat the intro Path of Champions level?

Here's a quick guide for beating the introductory Path of Champions level. This may not apply to more challenging PoC levels: it should still work for most, but you may need to prioritize different things specifically for the boss fights. It obviously does not apply for PvP games.

Start your battle by moving to the location and hitting the Fight button in the bottom right.

The first thing you do in a battle is the "mulligan". You will be shown your initial hand of 4 random cards and can replace any of them for a new random card. Here's a simplified rule of thumb to get you started (this isn't optimal so adjust this as you get more experienced). Try to get 1x 1-cost unit or spell and 1x 2-cost unit or spell. Keep any you have and replace the rest. If you already have both, you should also keep a 3-cost unit or 2x of both 1-cost and 2-cost units. In later stages, you should also keep some of your 1-to-4 cost strong units with good items and possibly a copy of your Champion if it costs 5 or less.

In the first few turns of a battle, your goal is to remove your opponent's units while building your own board. Don't focus as much on dealing damage to the enemy Nexus during these turns: deal free damage but removing enemy units and preserving your units is more important. If you can do this successfully over the first few turns, you should snowball into a winning position over the next few turns.

When blocking, make sure you kill the attacking unit. It's a good block if you can trade 1 unit for 1 unit, but even better if you can kill the attacking unit without losing your blocker. You don't have to block every unit. It's OK to lose some health to avoid a bad trade, especially if you have healing.

When attacking, hold back units that would die without killing an enemy unit unless you are about to win or need to clear space to summon more units. Remember Quick Attack units strike first when attacking (not when blocking!).

Save the Pow-Pow spell to kill a bigger unit so your own big units can get favorable trades against smaller units.

Take your time to read cards and check the blue Oracle's Eye on the left before locking in your choices.

After fights, you will choose to add cards to your deck. Again, your goal in a battle is to remove your opponent's units while building your board, so here's a rough list of cards to prioritize:

1. Any 1-to-3 cost units with good statistics, meaning attack + health >= 2x mana cost, without the Ephemeral keyword. These are great units to stack with items. Prioritize making units with health equal to or slightly higher than attack because they can trade more than 1-for-1.

2. Any 1-to-3 cost spells that directly summon units with good statistics (see above, no Ephemeral keyword), or burst-speed spells that buff your unit's health >= the mana cost (Barrier and Tough counts), or spells that deal damage >= the mana cost, or spells that otherwise directly remove enemy units. These are also good to stack with items. Keep in mind some items let otherwise mediocre spells summon units!

3. Any 4-to-5 cost spells that directly summon units, or burst-speed spells that buff your units' health >= the mana cost, or spells that deal damage >= the mana cost, or otherwise spells that directly remove enemy units. Cost-reducing items are fantastic for these cards.

4. Prioritize a few sources of card draw (Invoke and Manifest count) and healing if your deck does not already have them, and if you already have some strong cheap units. You can take them on weaker units or spells. Card draw can help win games by avoiding running out of steam. Healing won't win you games but can help you recover from a bad draw or take favorable trades instead of throwing units away on bad blocks.

5. Units that cost 4-to-6 mana and spells that cost 6+ mana can be considered, but each additional mana makes them much worse. They must give you a strong advantage or your other options must be pretty bad. Cost-reducing items and mana-generating powers are especially strong for these cards.

6. Landmarks are clunky and usually bad, but ones which summon good units immediately or quickly give you mana can be useful.

7. Units that are more expensive than 6 mana, spells that have other effects, and landmarks that don't give you extra mana or immediate units should be given low priority.

For items, the best are mana reduction and raw stats (for units; ideally the end result should have health slightly higher or equal to attack) or unit summoning (for spells). Card draw and the Quick Attack + Challenger combo are also good. Fury and Tough can be good on units with good stats. Some healing is good to have in your deck.

The best powers make your units on the board larger (especially health), repeatedly give you units for free, give you more mana or make your cards cheaper, or repeatedly draw you more cards. Weaker powers include one-time unit summoning or card draw effects, and powers that deal Nexus damage like giving your units Overwhelm.

Where can I learn more about keywords or other mechanics?

"Play -> Challenges" contains more tutorials that each feature one mechanic or keyword. These are highly recommended for new players.

Pay special attention to the "Overwhelming Force" tutorial and how Overwhelm interacts with blockers removed from combat.

Why am I not getting daily quests?

As a new player, you'll need to complete the new player reward road before you get daily quests. I recommend trying to complete this as soon as possible if you can.

What is one strategy tip you can give to new players?

Unlike many other card games, sometimes the best play is to not spend all of your mana every turn. It can be important to save mana to remove a key threat your opponent could play, or to be able to protect your units with combat tricks. Remember that up to 3 unused mana is banked as spell mana for future turns, and sometimes it is important to save up that spell mana.

What about another strategy tip for Path of Champions?

In later levels, you should build towards the hardest stages. For example, you may want to

Interface

How do I buy cards?

Either go to the Collection -> Decks tab and create or edit a deck, or go to the Collection -> Cards tab. Be sure to click the "Show Unowned" button on the top of the screen. When you select a card, you can purchase copies with Coins (paid currency), Shards (free currency), or Wildcards (usually gained for free) on the left.

You should spend Wildcards before Shards because Shards are not tied to a specific rarity.

How do I check my collection?

On the home screen, click on your circular player icon in the top left, then click the Collection tab.

Can I build decks with missing cards?

Unfortunately not at this time. You can do this through third-party sites and import it into your collection, however, and it will show you what cards are missing.

How do I turn off Autopass?

In a game, click on the gear icon in the top right to bring up the options menu. In the General tab, uncheck the "Enable Autopass" box.

Any other helpful tips?

In-game, you can mouse-over/tap the blue Oracle's Eye on the left side to see what effects spells or combat will have after they resolve before locking things in.

Collection

How do I get cards?

Cards are mainly gained through XP, so just play games. You get daily XP bonuses for the first three games of both PvP and Path of Champions separately.

Can I delete/dust cards in my collection for crafting resources?

No. LoR is designed around you getting most of the cards for free.

Is there duplicate protection?

Champion and Epic cards have duplicate protection. For region-locked rewards, if you have every Champion or Epic card in that region, you will get a random one of a different region.

Common and Rare cards turn into shards worth 1/4 of the cost for duplicates (you can quickly get more Common and Rare wildcards than you need, so this isn't a bad thing). That is the same for Epic and Champion cards if you have all of them.

Any tips for getting cards faster?

You can switch between the early levels of the region roads to collect the early rewards faster.

You can reroll your 1000 XP daily quests to try for 1500 XP quests (remember you can complete quests vs AI, you don't need great decks).

You can get 3 wins in PvP and Path of Champions daily.

You can spend your Expedition Tokens and try to hit 7 wins.

What region reward track should I start with?

I recommend getting them all to level 8 then level 16. Take a look at the meta tier list and budget deck lists and try to work towards the ones you like (see below).

I like to recommend Spider Aggro for new players so prioritizing Noxus and Shadow Isles early can be a good idea.

What level of weekly vault should I hit?

Ideally you want at least level 5 for a random Champion card, or level 10 to upgrade that to a Champion Wildcard. That is easily achieved with casual play. Otherwise it doesn't matter too much, just play however much you want.

How fast do I get cards?

You'll get over half the cards and a third of the Champion cards in about 1-4 months of regular play. Besides the one-time rewards, you will get about enough resources for just under 2 Champion cards of your choice every week with regular play.

Decks, resources, and content creators

Where can I find strong decks and articles?

https://www.runeterraccg.com and https://www.masteringruneterra.com are the two best websites for meta tier lists and strategy articles. RuneterraCCG's meta tier list also has brief descriptions of each deck, which is great for learning about what the most common decks in the meta do for new and returning players.

Where can I find deck statistics?

https://lor.mobalytics.gg/stats is the most popular, followed by https://runeterra.ar

Where can I find decks for beginners?

https://www.swimstrim.com/runeterra/decks-and-meta has some 0-cost decklists for absolute new players.

I also have a list of budget decks: https://www.reddit.com/r/LegendsOfRuneterra/comments/ptv8hm/my_recommended_budget_decks_03_champion_wildcards/.

Where can I find a deck tracker?

There are three: Mobalytics, LoR Guardian, and LoR Master.

Who are some of the most popular content creators?

Swim (Swimstrim) and Mogwai (MegaMogwai) are the two most popular LoR content creators. On Youtube, Swim has more gameplay commentary and deck-building guides. Mogwai showcases a variety of decks, both competitive and casual.

You can also check out GrappLr for personality, and MajiinBae, Alanzq, and Freshlobster for competitive decks and gameplay.

I want deck recommendations, what info should I give?

Decks in LoR will play differently from decks in other games, and the deck archetypes in LoR are similar to but still somewhat different from other games. For example, there are combo decks of many different speeds, and there are decks that straddle traditional "midrange" and "control" archetypes with a medium/high amount of both units and removal. I recommend giving the following information to get the best recommendations, including which you care about and don't care as much about:

• Speed: fast, medium, or slow?

• Amount of interaction/removal: low, medium, or high?

• Amount of units: low, medium, or high?

• Synergy/combo: low or high?

Competition and improvement

When should I start playing Ranked games?

It depends how much you care about your rank. Normals has a hidden MMR so it will try to match you with similar players, but it can take a while to adjust. If you find Ranked gives you more enjoyable games and you're OK with losing a bit, you can even play it with your starter decks. For most people though, you'll probably want to jump into ranked once you've built a strong deck or two, or whenever you feel comfortable.

How do I learn what cards I should watch out for?

The best way is to play lots of games. Keep a list of cards which punished you, and things you could have done to play around it. If possible, have Mobalytics or Runeterra.ar open and search the most common version of your opponent's deck during the mulligan.

What is the competitive scene in Legends of Runeterra?

There is an in-client seasonal tournament every two months, where the top 700 ladder players and the first 324 players who win their first Last Chance Gauntlet qualify.

There is also a World Championship, but qualification details are forthcoming.

There are also regular community-organized tournaments. Details are often posted in the r/LoRCompetitive community.

What format are competitive games in LoR?

The format is best of 3 with 3 decks. Each player bans one deck and a deck cannot be played again after you win with it that round. Decks cannot share Champions or the same region combination.