Legends of Runeterra, the new digital card game from branching out into many new genres, and at least for Legends of Runeterra they're bringing some of the polish and mechanics that has made League such a big hit.
Legends of Runeterra is set in the same fictional world as Riot's flagship title, and as such, it attempts to translate a good deal of League of Legends' MOBA mechanics into card game form. At its heart, though, the card game still has some of the same deckbuilding challenges as any other game in the genre, so here are some tips to help get started and with building your first deck.
Factions, Champions, and Having a Game Plan in Legends of Runeterra
The first thing you'll need to do when creating a new deck is to choose the Factions and Champions that will serve as the backbone of the deck. Each serves an important role in determining what cards you're going to use, as well as what your overall game plan will be.
The Factions in the game represent different regions in League of Legends setting Runeterra, and so they each have cards and mechanics that fit the overall theme of those places. The six factions are the rival kingdom of Demacia and empire of Noxus, the frozen Freljord, the mechanical cities of Piltover & Zaun, the mystical Ionia, and the cursed Shadow Isles. These factions take the place of classes or colors in other card games, so when building a deck you can only use cards from up to two of the six. Different factions' cards work together in different ways: for example, Noxus and Piltover & Zaun might make an aggressive deck with discard synergies, while Noxus paired with the Shadow Isles might be better equipped to make a deck that relies on the spider synergies in some of their cards.
Champions, on the other hand, will be some of the most powerful and synergy-heavy cards in your deck. You can only have up to six champion cards in a single deck (and only three copies of any given card, champion or no). Each champion represents a playable character from League of Legends, and they often come with more abilities and can all Level Up, becoming even stronger once you've satisfied a certain condition. As such, from within your chosen factions for a deck, choose champions that will synergize with the other themes and cards you've chosen for the deck.
Once you've got a skeleton of a deck idea in place and selected champions, the most important step is making sure that your deck has a cohesive plan. Each card in your deck should be working towards the same goal. For example, a defensive deck that wants to survive into the late game to play powerful allies and spells wouldn't want to use cards that can't block. If your deck relies on champions like Draven and Jinx, who both make use of discard synergies, make sure to include both cards that require discards to work and cards that play themselves when they are discarded. A hyper-aggressive deck peters out quickly, so think carefully before including high-cost allies, even if they are powerful, because they will often sit dead in your hand until the game is already decided.
Deck Balance and Curve in Legends of Runeterra
Beyond knowing the win condition of your deck, the most important part of deck construction is filling out your curve. A deck's curve is the number of potential plays it has on each turn of the game, especially the early turns, with the main purpose of using mana efficiently. Some decks, especially ones that care about deploying lots of threats fast, will want to make sure to fill up on 1-, 2-, and 3-cost allies, to ensure that they never miss a crucial turn as they are developing stronger threats onto the battlefield. Then, there should be fewer and fewer cards to play as the cost increases: one 9- or 10-cost card should often be enough to swing a game in your favor, and more will just clog up your potential plays, while your lower-cost cards will more often than not decide game after game.
Of course, like so many other things in the complicated decision point tree that is a deckbuilding trading card game, there are no hard and fast rules for what the exact number of cards for each cost on the mana curve should be, and this question is even further complicated when you take into Legends of Runeterra's spell mana mechanic, where up to three mana can be saved from turn to turn, but only for casting spells rather than allies. Your deck should consistently be able to make impactful plays on each turn, or at the very least respond to your opponents'. Generally speaking, though, the most aggressive all-in decks should top off their curve at 3 or maybe 4 to unload their hand and win as fast as possible. Slightly more midrange decks that seek to outvalue these sleeker aggro decks will want more 3- and 4-cost cards, with a few higher-cost cards to provide sustainability into the late game. And more controlling decks only need a few high-cost cards to win but will want to make sure to fill their with defensive cards and removal spells to ensure they can survive to the late game and take over.
Practice and Iterate in Legends of Runeterra
A lot of the more careful fine-tuning of a deck can't happen upfront; as with so many other things, it requires practice! Thankfully, before you've even built your deck Legends of Runeterra offers lots of opportunities to build your collection and learn some of the finer points of the game. The first thing to do is try all of the available tutorials, which should give you a better sense of the interactions between mechanics in this game and how they are similar to or different from other deckbuilding games. (For example, Runeterra's Quick Attack mechanic, an analog for Magic: the Gathering's First Strike, only applies on the attack and not when blocking.) Playing through these tutorials should unlock some nice rewards that will help fill out your collection (and nab some wildcards which can be redeemed for any card of the same rarity) and also nab you an Expedition Token, which will give you a chance to try out the Expedition mode, letting you practice building a deck from different pools of cards and earning you even more rewards.
Once you've completed these introductory steps, go ahead and build your first version of the deck you want to make! It won't be perfect on the first try, but playing with it will offer chances to see what cards are really working and what cards aren't. As you're trying out the first draft, ask yourself some of the following questions or come up with your own: Are there any cards that are often sitting unused in your hand? What allies are helping the most in combat? What enemy strategies seem to be strongest against mine? Am I able to keep up with my opponents' early game threats?
The best part about practicing with a deck that you've made is that you can learn just as much, if not more, from a loss as from a win! Keep playing, switch out cards as needed, make sure to maintain a coherent goal for the deck, and your deck will be able to improve with you.
Legends of Runeterra is in its free beta for PC now.