Competitive 2.0

Mar 14, 2023

Updated May 4, 2023

In just a few weeks, we’re launching the first official competitive season of 2023, featuring more competitive opportunities, formats, and rewards.

Competitive seasons will begin at the start of each expansion and last three months, lining up with our Quarterly Release Cycles. Each season will be full of ways to compete, including Daily and (New!) Ruthless Rumbles lasting the entirety of the season, and a Runeterra Open each month. Plus, this Season will be the first opportunity for players to earn Runeterra Points, our brand new yearly point system used to qualify players for the World Championship. If you need a refresher you can check out our Competitive in 2023 Article.

With this update, we want to highlight the competitive side of LoR by creating more opportunities than ever for players who want to prove their mettle. Whether you’re playing a match in the Finals of a Worlds Qualifier Open, or playing for your sixth win in a Commons Only special format Daily Rumble, games should feel higher-stakes than playing in Normal or Ranked (don’t worry, we’ve still got plans for Ranked play).

With each release, we’re directing our team's collective power towards new features. For Patch 4.3, our main updates are:

• New Formats
  • Standard
  • Eternal
  • Commons Only
• Runeterra Open Day 2
  • Cash Prizes
  • New Tournament Format
• Daily Rumbles
  • Reward Updates
  • Ruthless Rumble
• Ladder
  • Runeterra Points Added to Ladder
• Worlds 2023
  • Qualification Paths to Worlds
  • Tournament Format
  • World Champion Follower Card

New Formats

These are the new formats introduced to tournaments this season. Keep your eyes out for the Gauntlet Schedule in the client for more details:

• Standard
  • Standard is our newest competitive format, featuring fewer cards than Eternal, to create a new way to play. Expect to see many Standard Rumbles and Opens, as well as a Standard Ranked Ladder. This fresh format will let new cards shine.
• Eternal
  • Eternal is essentially a new name for the LoR format we know today, where all of the epic archetypes that have shone through LoR’s history can battle it out. It consists of all cards that are in the game; expect Eternal Rumbles and Opens later this season!
• Commons Only
  • Commons Only is a new, affordable and fun Rumble format where players compete with decks built of only Common cards and up to four champions! Commons Only Rumbles will allow use of Eternal Cards, allowing any Common card to be played in this format.

Editor’s Note: We’d love to get your thoughts and gauge interest in these! Please feel free to leave feedback on Reddit, Twitter, etc. and let us know your opinions.

Runeterra Open Day 2

There will be three Runeterra Opens this season consisting of Open Rounds on Saturday followed by a Top 64, Day 2 on Sunday:

Standard Bo3: 4|15 & 4|16

Standard Bo3: 5|13 & 5|14 (Worlds Qualifier Open)

Eternal Bo3: 6|10 & 6|11

(BONUS) Eternal Bo3: 6|17 & 6|18

Day 1 of the Runeterra Open will be from 7:00AM-9:00PM Shard Time on Saturday.

We’re looking to create a wide enough window so that all players may finish their run and start and stop as they please. We recognize this is a shorter window than beta season. We’ve shortened up the time frame to help ensure players are finding healthy matches. Additionally, we want the event to end early enough for players to be informed if they’ve qualified for the Top 64. Considering this can affect player’s plans for the following days, we are placing an importance on alerting players in a time frame that is as time zone friendly as possible.

Day 2 Qualification

Runeterra Opens will cut to the top 64 players for Day 2 and from there be put into a randomized single-elimination playoff bracket with rounds starting at specific times. It will also use a Tournament Lobby where you can view opposing decks before banning a deck.

In order to make a Top 64 cut we’ll qualify players with the best overall record. For example, all players who are 9-0 qualify, then 9-1, then 9-2, then 8-3, then 7-3.

Dev Note: We’re aiming for players with a 9-1 or better record to make it to Day 2, with the potential for some 9-2 players to qualify. This may vary based on region and what type of Open, so we’ll be closely monitoring and potentially making changes in the future if issues arise.

Tiebreakers

The first tiebreaker is a player’s game win-percentage in the Open (Prime Glory wins will count as 2-0 wins). Players with the highest game win-percentage make it in.

If the list of players is still greater than 64, our second and third tiebreakers are Gauntlet Trophies and then Ladder Rank (We know this isn’t a desirable tiebreaker and hopefully they don’t come into play, but will be able to better assess with data after we run more Opens.)

If you qualify for Day 2 of the Open, you’ll have to sign in via the Tournaments Tab before that tournament begins. Playoffs have a separate deck submission from Day 1 and a randomized bracket.

Prizes

Editor’s Note: The mystery event is… a mystery! This is an experiment we’re running to offer rewards for competitive play that feel prestigious. We’ll reveal more information about this in the future, but at this event there will be an opportunity for participants to interact and even collaborate with the LoR development team.

Editor’s Note: Runeterra Open Day 2 Titles can level up!

2x ‘Champion’ -> ‘Legend of Runeterra’

5x ‘Top 8’ -> ‘Hall of Famer’

5x ‘Top Cutter’ -> ‘The Consistent’

Daily Rumbles

Daily Rumbles are small-scale tournaments that happen every day. Daily Rumbles should:

• Empower players to experience a variety of formats that differ from Ladder
• Create daily competitions with a competitive feel
• Give players a practice ground for Runeterra Opens

Coming out of the Beta Season, we wanted to address three major points of feedback:

• Play window
• Rewards
• Competitiveness of formats

As noted in the 4.2 Patch Notes, we’ve extended the play window of Daily Rumbles for the entirety of this Season to 10AM-2AM Shard Time.

Dev Note: We’re not quite ready to open Dailies to be played all day, but will consider these changes in the future. Time windows help with matchmaking and also provide open queues and maintain a tournament feel.

We heard player concerns around the price point for Rumbles come our launch. As a result, we’re adjusting the price for daily Rumbles to 800 Shards, instead of the planned 2,000. We’ve also added Green Shards to the rewards, with hopes to make participation in Daily Rumbles more sustainable.

With Shards as a reward, we hope this helps enable players to participate more by making them more of a worthwhile investment, for both new and experienced players. This is a new tool for players to fill out their collection– if they can rank high enough.

Ruthless Rumbles

We’re also experimenting with a new form of Daily Rumbles for players who are looking for an extra layer of competition—Ruthless Rumbles. These are not for the faint of heart, so come prepared!

The Ruthless Rumble is a new, hyper competitive Daily Rumble that is only available the weekend before each Runeterra Open. These new rumbles will challenge you to prove victorious in five matches, but if you lose two matches, you’re out! The format will be Standard and feature best-of-three matches.

With Ruthless Rumbles requiring coins to enter, we wanted to award players Rumble Tokens to allow all players to participate. Earn Rumble Tokens through the Season Reward Track, or by performing well in Ruthless Rumbles! We’d love to work with the community to create sustainable tournaments to keep competitive LoR around for a long time to come.

Season Reward Track

To go along with the individual Rumble reward changes, we’re also implementing a new Season Reward Track, with five new Season Badges, three new Season Titles, two Prime Glories, Ruthless Rumble Tokens, and more! Prime Glories earned will grant wins in every Runeterra Open this season. Since this season is longer than Beta, the track will require 550 trophies to complete this time!

Ladder

Ladder will feature the new Standard format and will be available all season. (Seasons will be roughly three months in length). During the last month of the season, both Standard and Eternal Ranked Ladder will be available for play.

Ladder Runeterra Points:

• Top 10
  • 5 Runeterra Points
• Top 25
  • 4 Runeterra Points
• Top 50
  • 3 Runeterra Points
• Top 100
  • 2 Runeterra Points

This point system gives players who consistently perform on Ladder a healthy bonus, but it’s not a necessity for players chasing worlds who perform consistently well in Tournaments.

We’ll once again have specialized player titles for the top 10 and top 100 Ladder finishes this season, but we can't quite reveal their names yet. We’ve also added a new title level up for players who push and get top 10 titles in 3 different ranked seasons, for the Teddy’s and J01’s of the world.

All of your awesome feedback led us to the decision to run both Eternal and Standard during the last month of the season. With this in mind, players may get Runeterra Points from their best Ladder finish in a season (Standard OR Eternal), but not both.

Worlds 2023

Worlds is set this year, and the best of the best will compete in a 64-player cross-region event, held shortly after our December Expansion. To qualify for the World Championship, you’ll need to accrue Runeterra Points through Runeterra Opens and Ladder play. Alternatively, you may take a more direct route by winning a Worlds Qualifier Open (held every three months) or a Last Chance Qualifier Event (details to come… later!).

We’re laying the groundwork for the most competitive and skill-intensive Worlds yet! Worlds will have a significantly larger international group round, which will cut down our top 64 players into 16. From there, our Grand Final will be a double elimination top 16 bracket.

We believe increasing rounds in international group play will allow us to crown the absolute best player of 2023.

For qualification, we’re heavily rewarding consistency with plenty of added opportunities to moonshot your way into Worlds with a singular superb performance. Check out the breakdown of the 64 qualification slots for 2023 Worlds Group Play:

Each Region has 14 slots up for grabs throughout the year:

• 3 Champion slots
  • Glory in Navori Worlds Qualifier Open Winner
  • Season 2 Worlds Qualifier Open Winner
  • Season 3 Worlds Qualifier Open Winner
• 2 Last Chance Qualifier Slots (Details to come later)
  • 1st Place
  • 2nd Place
• 9 Slots for Seasonal Runeterra Points Leaders
  • Top 3: Glory in Navori Season
  • Top 3: Season 2
  • Top 3: Season 3

Globally, there are 18 slots available regardless of region:

• 18 Global Top Yearly Runeterra Points Earners

4 slots are already taken:

• 2022 World Champion
  • Aragornn
• World Ender Seasonal Tournament Winners
  • Americas- FloppyMudkip
  • EMEA- Ultraman1996
  • APAC- Ă Â Đ Ê Ô Ơ Ư

While this will emphasize in-client official tournament play, we want to provide other avenues for players to earn Runeterra Points for a well-rounded structure. Points will be rewarded at the end of each season for Ladder Placement.

In addition to the cash rewards for the top 16 World Finalists, an opportunity to collaborate with LoR developers on future content will be up for grabs for the top two players.

Dev Note: We’re also exploring ways to incorporate Tournaments run by individuals outside of Riot with a new Grassroots Tournament Program. We’re not quite ready to roll it out just yet, so expect more details in the future.

Passdowns

On a more granular note, here’s how things will shake out if a player qualifies from multiple avenues:

Worlds Qualifier Opens

• If a player wins and is already qualified, that invite passes down to 2nd place. If 2nd Place is also already qualified, 3rd and 4th Place will compete in a sanctioned grudge match the next weekend through friend challenge to determine a winner. If 3rd or 4th place is already qualified, we pass the invite to the unqualified player. In the unlikely scenario that all 4 of the top 4 are already qualified, we pass it down by extending the Top 3 that season into the top 4 that season.

Seasonal Runeterra Points

• If a player has already qualified from Worlds Qualifier Opens, or a previous seasons Top 3, the spot will move down to the next in order. The tiebreaker will be highest overall finish at a Runeterra Opens that season, followed by Standard Ladder Placement.

Yearly Runeterra Points

• If a player has already qualified from Worlds Qualifier Opens OR Seasonal Runeterra Points, the spot will move down to the next in order. In the event of a points tie, we will run a round-robin play-in event with tied players to determine the slots.

What’s Cookin’?

The team is also working on a few new features and improvements to existing ones to deliver the best tournament experience to players. We want to be as transparent as possible here as to what we’re working on and get your feedback in between, so we can double check that we’re directing our small but mighty team to invest in what’s important to players.

We’ve got several things in the works, much of which is in active development, while others are still being investigated. We can’t go into too much detail at this time, but we’re working on:

• Matchmaking Improvements for Rumbles
• Free Build and other new formats
• Friend Challenge for existing Rumble formats
• Updates to Masters Ranked LP Formula
• Adding Tournament Style Open Decklists to Best of 3 Rumbles & Opens
• Improving ways to show off your collectible rewards
• Experimental mystery event
• Grassroots Tournament Program

The competitive team is a small, passionate team of developers who have been hard at work creating a new landscape for tournament play. We want to create the best possible experience and are always open to feedback to help build the system with players. Thank you for reading the giant wall of text and catch you next time!