Legends of Runeterra - Riot Games' Hearthstone

Surely there’s a P&R thread for this shit.

Thought so too. But since Kerzain had to tell the “joke” twice…

In other news, I have worked my way through most of the tutorials but haven’t had much of a chance to play real matches. Looking forward to trying the Expeditions draft mode though. The way you pick cards in groups of 2 or 3 and can even trade them for others at some steps is pretty different and interesting.

There is a free token for the first run. That will be one of my first goals for this week. Have you had a chance to play it?

I haven’t yet, though I plan to at some point in the next day or two. It seems similar to Shadowverse’s Take Two Arena or Eternal’s Forge Mode. You make a deck of 30 or so cards by picking cards from several random choices. Great way to really get familiar with the card pool.

Apparently you get one expedition token each week from the vault, as long as you make level 10. Which should be pretty easy…I’m at level 8 now, and I’ve played 15-20 pvp games so far.

Relax, it’s not a joke. They just hate women.

A good friend of mine worked at Riot for a while. I’ll ask him.

Yes, but for context, that came after this:

Riot has a lot of work to do. They’re making the right noises now, but culture is hard to change if you aren’t truly committed to it. It’ll be some time before we know how it actually shakes out.

Totally agree with you. But that wasn’t the point I was answering.

LOL, they might want to rethink the “instant-concede for xp” strategy. It’s quite a lot of xp for very little effort, and I don’t imagine it makes for a great experience for your opponent.

They give XP for conceding before turn 1 is taken?

It’s hard to know when it’s fine to concede. Experienced players will see how things are mid game and look at their hands and might justifiably conclude the game is lost. I don’t know whether MTG:A gives anything for a concede.

Yep. You get 100xp for every loss (including insta-concedes) up to 5. Then it’s 75 up to 10, then 50 up to 20.

I find in LoR, the games are quick enough that I just play it out to the bitter end. I have a couple of outs in my main deck (most particularly the AoE attack that hits all of your enemies for your highest attackers damage…that one has caused a few instant concedes from my opponents) that can turn the tide pretty quickly.

(MTGA gives quest progress, but no xp or gold.)

Rather than play through pre-made decks, I decided to try to make a cheap Freljord (I love playing Braum in League) / Ionia deck that’s quite fun to play.

It’s a control / buff / overwhelm deck. The general idea is that my low cost units tend to buff up other units in my deck. Some of those buffed units have regeneration and self heal at the end of a round.

Add a few board clears (avalanche that hurts all units) and a few cards that buff hurt units (good after combat and avalanche, and even better on the regen units) and you suddenly have big stat units that hit for a lot. Sure the enemy might have elusives or spiderlings. But I’m generally done with them before they have deployed a board. Also, Braum can challenge units, so takes blockers out of the pool.

I’m low in ranked (EDIT: Ha! You start in Iron like in League. So I’ve risen to Bronze IV. What an achievement :) ), but this deck is unexpected enough that it seems to be doing well. And it’s quite fun to bring out the monster units.

The deck has been built with generally 2 of each card as I had to use a few wildcards for the ones I had only 1 of and I didn’t want to overspend.

If you fancy taking a peek, import this code:

CEAQGAIBCYXDMAQGAEBAMGQ6EUYTSCABAEAQSEYUDYQCUMQBAMAQCIRHFE

So, I’ve just recently started playing LoR since it moved out of beta. Or into open beta, or whatever they’re calling this phase. The important thing is that I can play it on my Android tablet, which apparently is fairly new. I’ve only played the intro stuff and a few live matches with pre-con decks, but thus far I’m enjoying it. There are certainly some rough corners, and I’ve had a couple game crashes, but that’s only to be expected at this early stage. I like the Champions that level up as you play, and the alternating attack rounds, and the one-per-turn-increase handling of mana or power or whatever they call it. For now, it’s filling that void left when I stopped playing Hearthstone, so I’ll probably stick with it for a while.

This is getting good reviews. Is it better on the PC or on a tablet? Edit: I guess it’s best on tablets? I like using my iPad Pro for card games, so I’ll give it a try.

I play it almost exclusively on my tablet. I installed the PC version a while back, but there’s no real difference in functionality, and the tablet is portable. The only downside is that it takes a lot of space by tablet standards, something like 2.5 GB.

The latest thing they’ve done is an adventure mode called the Path of Champions, which I really enjoy. Kind of a roguelike thing, think Slay the Spire.

Wow! I can see why Apple declared this the iPad game of the year. I had a fantastic first experience.

OK, the four brief tutorials left me a little befuddled, but then the game threw me into the Path of Champions you mentioned, starring Jinx, and I grokked it a lot better. So fun! I suppose it was a tutorial Path of Champions, as the first fights gave the AI a very small er home-base thingie. But what a hoot! It was cool to be a roguish criminal instead of a boring paladain, hehe. Everything happens so fast that it’s a bit overwhelming at first, but I like the fast pace. I also like the young-adult vibe. All the flashbang makes Hearthstone seem staid and pokey by comparison.

Edit: I do have one gameplay question. If I’m on defense, and the AI plays a card to its bench, then I get a chance to play a card too. But if the AI declares an attack, then I can’t summon a follower to my bench; I have to declare blockers or cast spells. So there’s an interesting decision sometimes: if the AI does play a card to its bench, do I use all my mana on my biggest card so that I have a good blocker out? Or do I hold it back, not showing my hand and protecting the big card from a nasty spell. More than once, I wished I’d played my bigger card first. But once I did that and the AI promptly nuked it with a spell. Anyway, the attacking player has some control over how many cards get played to the bench before combat, right?

I’d still be playing but my iPad needs to charge. Can’t wait to fire it up again tomorrow. :)

Pretty much. There’s four speeds of card play: slow, fast, burst, and focus.

  • Slow is playing any unit or any spell that says slow or attacking, and you can only do it when it’s your action (think MTG sorcery speed). Once you’ve resolved your slow action, your opponent gets a chance to do one.
  • Fast can be played either whenever you could play a slow action, or in response to a slow action, attack/block, or another fast spell - including your own, so you can play multiple at the same time. Then your opponent can do the same, then you can play more, etc until you both pass. Once the chain starts to resolve, they all happen - no responding in the middle of the action.
  • Burst is the same as fast except that it happens immediately, no response possible. And you keep priority, so you can keep on playing stuff if you want.
  • Focus is like burst but can only be played when nothing else is active (i.e. not in response to anything).

So when you’re talking about slow actions, including unit summoning, the player going first gets to choose. They can attack right away - thus giving the opponent no chance to play additional blockers before combat. Or they can do a different slow action - thus allowing the opponent to do their own slow action, such as a blocker - before their next opportunity to attack (or other slow action).

Edit: Fixed fast section, had the response bit wrong, and clarified burst.

Thanks for that superb summary. I didn’t realize playing a unit was an example of “slow,” and I hadn’t heard of Focus at all. So I appreciate the help!

So can I attack only once when it’s my turn?

Also, I’m a little confused about how ‘rally’ works. I tried it once, while I was the defender, and that gave me an attack icon – but the original attacker also kept their attack icon. I went ahead and attacked, and they blocked. Could they have later chosen to attack back, if they’d had units remaining on their bench? I assume they can’t attack while I’m attacking.

Still really enjoying this. Lots to do, including a fair bit of PvE, it seems! I don’t mind some PvP, but PvE is less stressful.

You can attack whenever you have the attack token (the little sword on the right). You get one of those for free on each turn when you’re the first player. You also get one when you Rally (but if you already have one, they don’t stack, so playing a Rally when you already have the attack token is wasted). You can also get one when you attack only with Scout units (once per turn).

The way this plays out most of the time is that you simply attack once each turn that you’re the first player. But occasionally you’ll have Scout units and can attack with those, which then gives you a second attack token, and then attack a second time (with any or all of your units). And even less common, you may have a card or unit that gives you Rally, so you can attack, then use the Rally, then attack again.

Thanks; that clears it up.

So I did some of the Challenges, many of which are puzzles that introduce various keywords and abilities. Good stuff in small to moderate quantities. The Paths of Champions are more fun, and they’re getting a bit more challenging, which is good.

I haven’t even looked at the half-dozen decks I’ve earned. I’d have no idea how to build a deck, either. But that’s okay! I’m looking forward to learning the game better. Lots of fun to be had here. And it seems generous with free-to-play rewards.

That is certainly true. The daily quests can all be done whether you win or lose (though some are faster if you win), you get yet more stuff if you do manage to win games, and there’s rewards for both PvE and PvP. Plus a weekly vault that gives a bunch of cards and an “expedition token” - expedition being the limited format. I gave them $10 at one point for a cosmetic just because I wanted to support the game, but other than that I’ve spent nothing.