The Peak of Card Game Excellence - Legends of Runeterra Review
Legends of Runeterra is the best digital card game I’ve ever played. I say that boldly and confidently as someone who’s spent over five years dabbling in Hearthstone, and most of my life before that playing classic physical card games like Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokémon, and Vanguard. After spending so much time and money on Hearthstone in particular, it pains me to admit that Riot Games has created a better digital card game than Blizzard. But even I know when to concede a match that’s already been lost.
Of course, the few weeks I’ve spent playing Legends of Runeterra doesn’t come close to matching my time with other card games. However, I’ve gotten enough of a taste to acknowledge its impeccable design.
In most collectible card games, narrative is basically nonexistent, serving as mere background dressing for cool card art while the focus is all on mechanics. But that genre standard all changes with Legends of Runeterra. If League of Legends is the cornerstone for Riot Games and its expanding League universe, Legends of Runeterra is the archive that holds all its knowledge.
Every single card that I played in Legends of Runeterra was built on a base of relevance and purpose within the wider Runeterra universe. Showing off small moments of interaction between cards is a common trick for digital card games that leans into something that can’t really be done in a physical card game. Legends of Runeterra is unparalleled in its use of this world-building tool, though.
To give one example, despite a decade of experience with League of Legends, before jumping into this game, I had no clue that there were actual god dragons in Runeterra. Legends of Runeterra not only introduced me to this new and intriguing wrinkle to this vast universe, but it did so in a way that felt immersive and not overwhelming.
Legends of Runeterra also sets itself apart from the digital card game competition with its faster gameplay flow. Yes, the combat is still turn-based, but it’s more dynamic. While the core structure of matches follows a similar formula to most digital card games, it combines the best parts of Hearthstone and Magic: The Gathering.
Where Legends of Runeterra differs slightly is the way that it constantly keeps cards moving on the battlefield throughout each round. Alternating turns allowed me to counter an enemy’s move and build tactics off the ever-changing state of the battlefield, which felt distinct from slower-paced card games.
It took me some time to get used to Legend of Runeterra’s flow since rounds can get quite drawn out during the end game phases. Kindly, the game provided a feature that automatically ended my turn if I couldn’t perform any more moves, which helped keep things moving a little faster.
Any time I could shave off of games was appreciated, because Legends of Runeterra proved to be quite the time sink in terms of making me carefully consider my every move, both during games and when putting my decks together. At this point in the game’s life, with numerous expansion sets under its belt, I was facing down dozens of potentially viable card combinations and lethal effects to play with. I’m not ashamed to say that I spent more time playing around with all the cards, effects, and abilities, and wondering at the best possible synergies, than I did actually grinding out matches.
Despite the depth offered by its many strategies, I wouldn’t call Legends of Runeterra a particularly confusing or difficult game to get started in. It starts your gameplay experience off slowly down a path of highly-detailed tutorials and beginner-level matches. There’s also a story mode that allows you to explore the world of Runeterra and acquire cards, which is reasonably easygoing and comprehensive. The story mode provided me with tons of experience points, which were useful for unlocking vaults that rewarded resources and cards.
The new player experience got me to a point where I’d learned all the gameplay mechanics and collected enough cards to craft my own unique deck, rather than being stuck with the pre-built decks the game hands out. Only once I disembarked from this learning stage, though, did the real ride begin. It was at this moment that I was able to explore the limits of Legends of Runeterra’s gameplay.
Don’t feel daunted, though; whether I was rolling with simple strategies or crafting decks that required a lot more brainpower, I never felt like the skill curve was insurmountable. In Legends of Runeterra, I didn’t need to search guides online for the best decks or cards. Scouring the web for the latest overpowered decks from the best players has been a daily ritual for me while playing Hearthstone; to my relief, that habit didn’t feel at all necessary in Runeterra.
I’ve played card games long enough to know there’s a major distinction between plainly riding the meta with netdecks and exercising creativity to build your own unique, intricate decks. These distinctions differentiate subpar pay-to-win games from the card games that actually support and reward skillful play. In the perfect digital card game, no one should need to spend money to win games or climb ranked leaderboards, and I’m over the moon to say that Legends of Runeterra lives up to this golden rule.
Legends of Runeterra rewards players with new cards at a generous rate through completing weekly missions. The game also features a system of “wildcards,” which can be exchanged for any card of a matching rarity. This means tracking down that one last epic card you need to complete your deck is a much less painful process, as it isn’t just left to blind chance while you toss down money to open packs over and over.
Legends of Runeterra does feature microtransactions, of course, but they don’t feel forced. Whenever a new expansion hits in Hearthstone, I feel like I need to seriously consider selling my kidneys (and maybe a leg or two) just for the honor of opening fifty packs and maybe getting a single legendary rarity card that I might care about. By contrast, Legends of Runeterra offers a much more realistic path for players to acquire a full set of every card over time. And most of those cards have fit in multiple decks or archetypes.
Legends of Runeterra is the perfect example of a card game that goes beyond the standard expectations, gives more than it takes, and inspires strategic gameplay and creativity with its mechanics. It’s also proof that it’s possible to make a collectible card game that isn’t just a money pit—and can even be realistically played totally free-to-play. My only real complaint about Legends of Runeterra is that I didn’t start playing it a lot sooner. Maybe I could have saved myself from some particularly embarrassing bank statements.
SCORE: 5 STARS OUT OF 5
PLAY IF YOU LIKE:
• Hearthstone. If you love Hearthstone as much as I do, you will most likely feel the same way about Legends of the Runeterra. Plus, if you’re used to Hearthstone’s rapidly growing array of semi-forced microtransactions, Legends of Runeterra will feel like a fresh breath of air.
• Magic: The Gathering. If you’ve spent some time with the godfather of collectible card games, you’ll get accustomed to Legends of Runeterra’s gameplay quite easily.
💬 Have you played Legends of Runeterra? If so, do you love it as much as I do? How do you feel about Legends of Runeterra’s story mode, and do you enjoy exploring the vast universe of Runeterra?
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