Legends Of Runeterra

LoL developer makes a play for the crowded card game market

- Alistair Jones

The lack of a second title in Riot Games’ roster has been a community in-joke for many years. The League of Legends developer has dined out on the success of its smash-hit MOBA for a decade, but for its tenth anniversary, it’s finally adding a new cardshaped arrow to its quiver.

Legends of Runeterra is a card game set within the League of Legends universe, drawing on characters found throughout that game’s expansive lore. Long-term fans will already be familiar with the setting; Runeterra is the continent on which LoL and the political machinations that underpin it take place.

While League of Legends’ 140-strong roster of characters hail from every corner of its world, Legends of Runeterra’s first card set will feature only 24 of them – four from each of six factions – whose strengths and weaknesses are shaped by the nations that they call home.

Noxus, a warmongering state that values strength above all, is represented by characters such as Darius and Draven, whose brute force makes them terrifying to face one-on-one, but which are often unable to cope with a unified assault.

By contrast, peaceful Ionia opts for harmony, drawing on the combined strength of multiple units, while the inhabitants of the Freljord’s icy wastes use their own resilience – or strength-sapping ice magic – to survive.

While the world and characters of League of Legends underpin the game, CCG veterans should recognise many of the ideas which have helped shape it.

The influence of both Magic: The Gathering and Hearthstone is immediately apparent, but Riot’s not relying solely on League of Legends’s personality to set Legends of Runeterra apart.

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