Patch 1.2 Notes

Patch 1.2 features our first balance changes since the debut of Rising Tides, as well as a bunch of card clarity updates. Also, for a limited-time you can permanently unlock an exclusive Rainbow Poro Guardian and accompanying emote for FREE—just head to the store and “purchase” the bundle for 0 Coins.

As a reminder, starting with this patch we’re adjusting how we patch LoR to make sure everyone gets to play on new versions as simultaneously as possible, regardless of platform or location. The short version is we’ll continue to “patch” every other Tuesday ~10 AM PT, but you usually won’t see changes until about 24 hours later. Full details here.

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    Dev Notes

    What’s next for LoR

    Executive Producer Jeff Jew and Design Director Andrew Yip are almost ready to share the details on what’s coming up next for Legends of Runeterra—look for the video at 10 AM PT on May 29. 

    Balance in Rising Tides

    During open beta we learned some important things about live design and balance (thanks again for the feedback!), and we’re using those lessons to add some additional metrics to our existing arsenal we use to help us decide what to change, and how we do it. And since we have some new players (welcome again!), I’ll first recap our existing goals and metrics, then cover what’s new.

    Our overall goal for live balance remains to maintain a fair and diverse metagame, where every champion’s gameplay dream can be realized. It’s important to note that we don’t expect all champions to be equally competitive at the highest level. However, we do want achievable gameplay moments for all of them. 

    In order to achieve this, we’ll continue to update cards for balance once a month (every other patch) in order to cultivate a healthy metagame over time. When deciding on changes, we look to a number of metrics (and your collective feedback), with particularly key ones including individual card win rates (especially in their most ideal region pairing), deck win rates, and champion play rates. We also want every card to have a home, which, taken with the above framework, helps us decide which specific cards to test and ultimately change (though again, this doesn’t mean we expect all cards to be equally competitive or prevalent across modes). 

    Now for the new. For Rising Tides, we’re updating some of our internal metrics to better cover metagame health. For example, we’ve begun looking at top meta decks over time to evaluate how well they successfully test player skills such as within-game decision making, deck building skills, adaptability, etc. Similarly, we’re more broadly analyzing which parts of the meta are occupied by top decks, in order to help inform changes that encourage a wider variety of competitive archetypes.

    Thank you for your continued feedback on how to make LoR better, and we hope you enjoy the changes below!

    – RubinZoo, Live Design Lead

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    Card Updates

    Champions