May 25, 2020
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.
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
Card Updates
Champions
Vladimir (level 2)
Attack: For each other attacking ally, deal 1 to it and 1 to the enemy Nexus. → For each other attacking ally, deal 1 to it and drain 1 from the enemy Nexus.
While this patch is focused on numbers changes, Vladimir has been falling short of the play rate, gameplay satisfaction, and champion resonance levels we strive for in our champs, so we’re making a more complex change by making Vlad’s level 2 effect a drain. In addition to making Vlad feel even more like a life-draining battle mage, this change should provide Vlad decks with additional utility and a more exciting and impactful payoff for his level-up requirement.
Karma (level 1)
Cost: 5 → 6
We want Karma to be both more difficult to protect and more taxing on your immediately available mana, so we’re bumping her cost to put more constraints on what else players can do on the turn they play Karma.
Karma (level 2)
Cost: 5 → 6
Shen (level 1)
Power: 2 → 3
Shen has been among the least-played champions for some time, especially as he tends to require including Demacia in your deck to really shine. For now, we're boosting his power to make him more of a threat on his own and easier to plan profitable attacks around.
Shen (level 2)
Power: 3 → 4
Vi (level 1)
Health: 5 → 4
While Vi doesn’t offer a particularly game-warping effect like some Champions, she’s overperforming in multiple decks due to the raw strength of her baseline stats. We want to adjust her to be less of a generalist, best-in-slot champion for Piltover & Zaun, while retaining most of her power in decks that synergize with her kit.
Vi (level 2)
Health: 6 → 5
Hecarim (level 1)
Power: 4 → 5
Hecarim's statline sometimes made it a bit too difficult to find profitable attacks, so we’re bumping his power to help him attack into more board states and improve his gameplay satisfaction and overall effectiveness.
Hecarim (level 2)
Power: 5 → 6
Followers & spells
Greathorn Companion
Power: 4 → 5
We want to move some of Grizzled Ranger’s former power (see below) up the curve, giving dedicated Scout decks more viable options. Of course, this is also a slight buff to Remembrance when it pulls you a Greathorn.
Grizzled Ranger
Power: 4 → 3
(also see Loyal Badgerbear)
Grizzled Ranger is among the most value-heavy followers in the game. Not only is it resilient, but Scout allows the Ranger to push a ton of damage, force opponents to make suboptimal trades, and ultimately allow Demacia players a mid-game advantage that’s been feeling a bit too “free.” We're reducing Ranger’s power (and Loyal Badgerbear’s) to allow players more flexibility and counterplay in deciding when and how to block him.
Laurent Chevalier
Health: 1 → 2
Laurent Chevalier was a bit too fragile for its cost to realistically chase the dream of multiple triggers. It deserves a boost on its own, and we’ve got a good opportunity given that Demacia is seeing a few nerfs in this patch.
Loyal Badgerbear
Power: 4 → 3
This change overlaps with the one to Grizzled Ranger, though Badgerbear has proven problematic on its own, particularly in Expeditions where it was pushing Demacia's general strength in raw stats a bit too far.
Stand Alone
Cost: 3 → 4
Stand Alone can lead to undesirable gameplay patterns, particularly when one player goes all-in on one unit as early as round three, leading to deterministic games that undermine decision-making and turn too sharply on whether the opponent has the answer (or is even playing the right region). We’re pushing Stand Alone’s early game potential back with a cost increase that cuts off the ability to attack on round three with a three cost unit + Stand Alone combo.
Legion Rearguard
Health: 2 → 1
Rising Tides has introduced much more direct Nexus damage into LoR (more commentary in the watchlist below), and we’re seeing a bit too much consistency in the most powerful variants of burn / aggro decks, particularly in their favored matchups. We’re making targeted adjustments to Legion Rearguard and Boomcrew Rookie (below) to rein in some of these decks’ early snowball power.
When looking at the data for burn / aggro decks utilizing Legion Rearguard, we saw that a round one Rearguard often gave decks a significant boost in win rate compared to other cards when played on curve. In the right decks (or against them), Rearguard provides too much punishment potential for a simple one drop, and we don’t want players to feel so consistently and immediately behind (or that they’ve already lost) for lack of a suitable round one answer. This adjustment also evens out counterplay to Rearguard among the various regions.
Kindly Tavernkeeper
Power: 2 → 3
Healing is part of Freljord’s regional identity, but hasn’t been as available to non-ramp decks as we’d like. A general usability boost for Tavernkeeper should make it appealing as a flex slot for a wider range of Freljord Decks.
Deep Meditation
Cost: 4 → 5
Deep Meditation provided too much overall value at its old cost, offering high redundancy, card advantage, and consistent spellcasting. While this card should be a high-performer in dedicated spell decks, it was doing a bit too much all around, even at its regularly-costed “floor.” Given that Ionia has a large variety of efficient and powerful tools, we want the high access to them offered by Deep Meditation to be more difficult for general Ionia decks to tap into.
Boomcrew Rookie
Health: 4 → 3
Boomcrew Rookie is a standout card in burn-based aggro decks, with its high health and attack trigger allowing for consistent Nexus damage over time. Decreasing its health makes the Rookie more answerable through both removal and combat, giving opponents a better shot at preventing multiple triggers from hitting their Nexus.
Brood Awakening
Cost: 5 → 6
We’re reverting a change we made to Brood Awakening during beta, where we wanted to buff spider decks in the wake of nerfs to Mark of the Isles, Crowd Favorite and Frenzied Skitterer. In the end, this change overly pushed the raw efficiency of Brood Awakening, to the extent that it’s become overly potent as a defensive tool in control decks or “kill your own units” combo decks.
Longtooth
(Chum the Waters / Fizz’s Chum the Waters)
Health: 1 → 2
We’re adjusting Longtooth to allow Chum the Waters to be a bit less punishable and more reliable, especially in Expeditions where associated decks have been struggling. Chum the Waters can now also be played without an enemy unit in play—while this is actually a bugfix, it should allow for added versatility.
Monkey Idol
Health: 4 → 5
Giving Monkey Idol the potential to create another Monkey should make the effect more meaningful and create more interesting and satisfying decisions around when to play it.
Slotbot
Power: 0 → 1
Health: 3 → 4
We're giving Slotbot a simple stat boost to help get the reels spinning a bit more quickly.
The watchlist
Unyielding Spirit
Unyielding Spirit has been among the more contentious cards in Rising Tides due to its powerful Burst speed effect and ability to circumvent opponents’ interaction. This card offers some unique challenges in adjusting, as a quick numbers change is more likely to just push the card out of playability rather than addressing any core issues, so for now we’re watchlisting it while considering adjustments.
Pilfered Goods & Card Stealing
Losing against your own cards when an opponent draws from your deck can be a frustrating experience, especially if you’re playing with deck-buffing Freljord effects. Pilfered Goods is a particular culprit as its power level is rather high, and drawing multiple cards is more likely to create “stole the perfect card” situations. We’re investigating possible adjustments that can ease some of the pain surrounding the mechanic.
Nexus damage in Rising Tides
Rising Tides thematics and mechanics (pirates, Plunder, Noxian siege weapons, etc.) have significantly increased the amount of direct nexus damage available to players. We’ve seen some problematic, potentially overloaded nexus damage decks arise as a result, and have made some targeted adjustments in this patch aimed at making early damage more preventable. Access to healing is another potential lever for the regions that boast it, and we’ve adjusted a few cards to provide better options.
The scope of this issue is rather large, so we’ll continue to monitor it (and the effect of the changes in this patch) over time.
Karma and Ezreal
We shared some thoughts on these two towards the end of beta, detailing some of our problems with their existing designs. We’ve adjusted Karma in this patch, and Ezreal has seen a drop in win rate since the release of Rising Tides, so at the moment we’re just continuing to monitor both champions
Rules text clarity
We’re updating rules text on a bunch of cards for clarity; thank you (as always!) for your feedback since launch on improvements we could make. As we’ve mentioned before, we expect to continue making similar (hopefully smaller) updates over time, especially as we add new content. Highlights in this batch include changes to clarify “enemy” targeting, as well as various cards that draw from your opponent’s deck now correctly calling out that they only draw "non-champion” cards.
- Rules text on the following cards (collectible and non-collectible) updated for clarity:
Mageseeker Investigator | Absorb Soul | Shatter | Avarosan Marksman | Bullseye | Chempunk Shredder | Face-Melter | Shunpo | Withering Wail | Augmented Experimenter | Reckless Research | Captain Farron | Corina Veraza | Final Spark | Vile Feast | Ezreal | Yeti Yearling | Island Navigator | Fizz | Pool Shark | Imperial Demolitionist | Black Powder Grenade | Death's Hand | Strong-arm | Double Up | Armored Tuskrider | Caught in the Cold | Noxian Fervor | Dragon's Rage | Lee Sin's Dragon's Rage | Miss Fortune's Make it Rain | Make it Rain | The Dreadway | Black Market Merchant | Pilfered Goods | Yordle Grifter | Chief Mechanist Zevi | Concerted Strike | Riptide Rex | Vladimir's Transfusion | Terror of the Tides | Super Mega Death Rocket! | Aurora Porealis
Personalization
Rainbow Poro Guardian + Emote
The new Rainbow Poro guardian and accompanying emote are available for free until July 7, when they’ll disappear from the store. To permanently unlock your guardian and emote, just head to the store and “purchase” the bundle for 0 Coins.
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Rainbow Poro
Personality: Accepting
Loves: Love
Rainbow Poros are known for having the biggest hearts and brightest colors in all of Runeterra.
Boards
Arcade
Take your board to the next level with pixel powerups and chiptune chimes.
Emotes
- 4 new emotes available for purchase:
Card Backs
Arcade
Take your game to the next level.
Expeditions Archetypes
First, we’ve removed the bonus chance to see Rising Tides archetypes, so all primary archetypes will now have the same chance of showing up in the initial Champion Picks.
- Rising Tides archetypes no longer twice as likely to appear in initial Champion Picks.
We’ve also begun using trade pick data to improve the quality of the trades that the shopkeeper is offering, and we’ll continue doing so across patches going forward, even when it isn’t specifically called out.
With regards to balance, we’ve been relatively happy with where the new archetypes have landed (yes, even Deep), although one region in particular has continued to stand out as a formidable choice: Demacia. With that in mind, rather than focusing nerfs on a particular archetype, we’re adjusting almost all of the archetypes from that region with the goals of reducing consistent access to efficient statlines and increasing the prevalence of situational utility cards.
Demacia adjustments
Relentless
- Added: For Demacia!, Ranger's Resolve, Reckless Trifarian
- Removed: Greathorn Companion, Grizzled Ranger, Trifarian Hopeful, Vanguard Sergeant
Retribution
- Added: Chronicler of Ruin, En Garde, Hapless Aristocrat, Mobilize, Purify
- Removed: Absorb Soul, Ancient Crocolith, Back to Back, Scribe of Sorrows
Scout it Out
- Added: Chain Vest, For Demacia!, Mobilize, Ranger's Resolve
- Removed: Back to Back, Vanguard Sergeant, War Chefs, Ye Been Warned
Shield Wall
- Added: Blinding Assault
- Removed: Greenglade Lookout, Grizzled Ranger, Herald of Spring, Laurent Protege, Sonic Wave, War Chefs
Suit Up
- Added: Detain, En Garde, Plucky Poro, Radiant Strike, Ranger's Resolve, Scarthane Steffen
- Removed: Alpha Wildclaw, Greathorn Companion, Loyal Badgerbear, Riposte, Single Combat
Other major adjustments
Cloning Program
- Added: Vi
- Removed: Ezreal
Death's Door
- Added:Black Spear, Hapless Aristocrat, Shady Character, The Rekindler
- Removed: Brood Awakening, Funsmith, Deadbloom Wanderer, Trail of Evidence
Disruption
- Added: Darius, Navori Highwayman, Jeweled Protector, Shadow Assassin
- Removed: Swain, Ghost, Retreat, Scaled Snapper
Fishbones
- Added: Gotcha!, Hired Gun, Monkey Idol, Mystifying Magician, Patrol Wardens, Shellshocker, Thermogenic Beam
- Removed: Boomcrew Rookie, Brash Gambler, Jury-Rig, Pocket Aces, Sump Dredger, Vault Breaker, Zaunite Urchin
- Fishbones champion packs will now always include both Jagged Taskmaster and Professor von Yipp. This may force you into a tri-region deck, which is a known issue we’ll fix in a future patch.
Grand Moments (previously Spellbound)
- Added: For Demacia!, Redoubled Valor
- Removed: Riposte, Vanguard Sergeant
Shadows and Dust
- Added: Yusari
- Removed: Claws of the Dragon, Deep Meditation, Eye of the Dragon, Mark of the Isles, Rush, Sonic Wave
Smash and Grab
- Added: Eager Apprentice, Hired Gun, Jaull Hunters, Lure of the Depths
- Removed: Boomcrew Rookie, Brash Gambler, Pick a Card, Pilfered Goods, Rummage, Salvage, The Beast Below
Spell Slingers
- Added: Deny, Ki Guardian, Pocket Aces, Spirit's Refuge, Ye Been Warned, Yordle Grifter
- Removed: Bubble Bear, Greenglade Duo, Razorscale Hunter, Shipwreck Hoarder
Minor adjustments
Ancient Evil
- Added: Stalking Wolf
- Removed: Ruthless Raider
Cataclysm
- Added: Shadow Assassin, Horns of the Dragon
- Removed: Recall, Guile, Shadowshift, Brash Gambler, Funsmith, Insightful Investigator
Crimson Guard
- Removed: Unyielding Spirit
Demacian Steel
- Added: Vanguard Firstblade, En Garde
Discipline
- Added: Keeper of Masks
- Removed: Recall, Shadowshift, Retreat
First to the Draw
- Added: Jagged Butcher, Slotbot
- Removed: Brash Gambler, Hunting Fleet, Pick a Card
Shroom and Boom
- Added: Patrol Wardens
- Removed: Amateur Aeronaut
Terrors from the Deep
- Added: Golden Narwhal, Hunting Fleet
- Removed: Hired Gun, Darkwater Scourge
Total Recall
- Added: Amateur Aeronaut, Windfarer Hatchling
- Removed: Used Cask Salesman, Fae Bladetwirler, Shadow Flare, The Empyrean
Language Support
We’ve added additional language support to LoR—new players should be correctly auto-detected, while existing players can swap languages in their login screen settings.
- Polish now supported.
Miscellaneous
- Due to a rare bug that could cause it to show incorrect information, we’re temporarily disabling Oracle’s Eye from functioning while it’s your opponent’s turn to act (i.e., while you can’t do anything). Functionality remains normal while it’s your turn to act. We’ll fix the bug with Patch 1.3 in two weeks and revert this change.
Bugfixes
Hotfixes since last patch
- Fixed an issue where players could receive less XP than intended when simultaneously receiving it from multiple sources.
- Players who are caught mid-game during a service interruption will no longer receive a loss. If both players get disconnected, the game won’t count.
- In French, Eye of the Dragon’s text now matches its function.
- Vi no longer counts Overwhelm damage duplicatively, and properly sheds her base buff after leveling up under all conditions.
New fixes
- Fixed an issue where players could sometimes enter a different queue than the one selected.
- Fixed a bug where music from your previously used board would play at the start of a new match.
- The "This Spells Trouble +" quest now correctly rewards 1500 XP.
- The Bilgewater home screen background now appears in the regular rotation with all other regions.
- Fixed an issue on the VS screen where your opponent's icon would incorrectly mirror your icon.
- Various level ups (Swain, Elise, Vlad) should now function correctly when using Turkish or Russian language settings.
- Fixed an issue preventing Shellshocker and Strong-arm from showing up during Expeditions picks.
- Flyout description added to Ye Been Warned.
- Vi's Vault Breaker now properly links to Vault Breaker.
- Removed rarity gem from various non-collectible Rising Tides cards.
- Chum the Waters can now be played without an enemy unit in play.
- The Box no longer deals extra damage to units that have been played multiple times, and now interacts properly with control-changing effects like Possession.
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