For all those who believe that competitive LoR is dying or dead.... Aegis Esports is organizing a new League dedicated to America:

Aegis logo.

I quote verbatim some concepts that I find interesting and that can be found in the official Discord of the tournament:

08/19: "We will be bringing back the league and tournaments for Legends of Runeterra SoonTM! The league will be a little different from previous iterations and that is with the focus of bringing the absolute top level of competition to the forefront of the league. We need a few more weeks to hash out final details and will release all info soon.

For players not interested in the league, we will be doing monthly tournaments in the Americas shard with NO COUNTRY LOCK! This will also be a little bit down the road but it won't be too long!"

08/20: "Signups will be released THIS Friday 8/23, with the Qualification Tournament taking place on 9/20.

Both Leagues will start on 9/27 and will end right around 11/22!"

08/21: "In partnership with Riot Games we will be working with partner TOs to bring weekly tournaments back to LoR!

Each tournament will start with a prizepool of $100 and 5,000 coins and will be tailored to serve as much of our community as possible!"

08/22: "BIG INFO DUMP ON THE NEW LEAGUES

Our new leagues will focus on the absolute top level of competition and in order to do so, we need to ensure that only the best teams are competing every week. We understand there may be a lot of teams who want to compete and so we will send everyone to the qualification tournament to figure out who belongs in which league. These leagues are open to anyone with an Americas account and is not officially supported by Riot (only the tournaments are).

Qualification Tournament: This is a one-day swiss tournament of collaborative sets. There is no entry fee for this portion of the competition and the top 16 teams coming out of this tournament will be seeded into one of our two leagues: The Champions League and The Ascension League.

Aegis Ascension League (AAL): This league will be for teams seeded 9-16 after the Qualification Tournament for this initial season and for future seasons, the qualification tournament will only determine the teams that compete in this league. This league will feature a $20 entry fee and will be a normal triple round robin league with cross group play. The top 2 teams in each group will qualify for playoffs and the winners of that first round will split the prizepool and qualify for the Relegation Tournament. Matches in this league will not be officially streamed but may be streamed by the competitors.

Aegis Champions League (ACL): This league will be for teams seeded 1-8 after the Qualification Tournament for this initial season and for future seasons, teams will only change based on relegation/promotion. This league will feature a $60 entry fee (and a much larger prizepool) and will be a normal triple round robin league with cross group play. The top 3 teams in each group will qualify for playoffs and the bottom team in each group will qualify for the Relegation Tournament. Every team in this league will be streamed every week.

Relegation Tournament: The top 2 teams from AAL and the bottom 2 teams from ACL will compete in a playoff style match to determine who will play in ACL next season. Losers of this match must compete in next season's Qualification Tournament.

Team Logos: Every team in our leagues will get to choose from premade team logos and names in order based on how they finished in the qualification tournament. Those familiar with the draft team logos can expect to see those return alongside 8 new logos made by the wonderful Kasai! A few of these new logos are slight homages to teams we have had in past seasons.

Season Length: Not qualifying for the league can be disappointing, to combat this we are aiming to keep our season length long enough to truly decipher team's skills but short enough to give more people a chance to compete.

We are still discussing league size and amount of promotion/relegation slots so if you have any ideas, feel free to share!"

08/23: "Here are the signups and rulebook for the league!

Signups: https://forms.gle/UohdwzG5CVspKj9HA Rulebook: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SrdQpUbdQ-15cCSFRnbxpCReCRgTzUMMT9Uy1GhNAgc/edit?usp=sharing"

09/04: "As mentioned before, we will be creating 8 new teams and logos for teams to choose from in addition to the 8 seen in the past. Here's a sneak peek at some of the (not so final) logos made by Kasai. (Again, these are not 100% final but should be indicative of the final product). Note: This was made by a real artist and not AI art! We ensure that all art used by us is made by humans!"

https://preview.redd.it/l045a6mh02nd1.png?width=1000&format=png&auto=webp&s=722e98130976a501d485d4329f20f6fd71bf6a06

https://preview.redd.it/fbsecjei02nd1.png?width=1000&format=png&auto=webp&s=c52bcbfcabd4f0ee878a0e2ff31352683251bc93

THIS IS GREAT NEWS FOR COMPETITIVE GAMING. RIOT SEEMS TO WANT TO CONTINUE SUPPORTING, WITH LESS ASSIDUITY BUT SUPPORT AT LAST.

Lor and Gwent stopping support, Yu-Gi-Oh and hearthstone awful balancing and p2w (same for marvel snap). MTG arena is meh. It seems popularity is turning to roguelike deckbuilders like sts and balatro.

Hi Friends! I'm GAY PORO, LOR's biggest tosser with over 80,000 mastery points on Maokai. Here’s a cool fun Maokai deck for you to try;

MAOKAI IONIA MILL

Your task is to hold the line as you toss off your deck and use followers as cannon fodder until Maokai can level up. Then send the opponent to their Watery Grave by destroying the remnants of their deck. If you like alternate win conditions, using your health as a resource, and tilting people into quitting the game, this deck might be for you.

Eternal: CQDACBAFB4AQQBI6AEEQELIBBECQ2AQCAUEAUAYGAUICWLQFAEBAKBYBAQBBIAIGAUSQCCAKAYAQSARVAMAQCARRAEAQKMIBAMBBI

Standard: CQDQCBAFB4AQQCQGAEEAKHQBBECQ2AQCAUEAUAQGAUICWAQJAIWTKAYBAQBBIAIGAUXACCAFA4BQCAICGEAQGAQUAIAQKAJR

Quick Guide

When Maokai levels up, he destroys all but four non-champion cards in the enemy deck. The spell Watery Grave destroys the bottom 6 cards of the enemy deck. With these combined, you’ll force your opponent to run out of cards and loose the game. 

Scattered Pod is a follower which can draw you a Slow, Fast, or Bust spell from your deck. Since Watery Grave is the only Slow spell in your deck, you can make it really likely that you draw this essential card before accidentally tossing it.

Deadbloom Wanderer is a strong lifesteal unit which will keep you alive while also tossing cards for Maokai’s level up. It’s really good to duplicate using Iron Conquest. Sea Scarab and Mr Root are useful for tossing and drawing, and Boisterous Host is a cheap unit which can help Maokai summon saplings (and even helps them get more attack to kill higher health enemy units).

Mulligan

Deadbloom Wanderer and Iron Conquest are the best cards for progressing Maokai’ level up while keeping him alive. I try to keep cheap cards which will help me stay alive, unless they’re clearly playing a slower deck.

It’s a bit greedy to keep Watery Grave in the opening hand, but if you can afford to then it guarantees you have one to win the endgame (but will you make it that far?). You can’t toss champion cards, so you’re guaranteed to draw Maokai eventually. He’s another greedy keep; your first task when playing this deck is staying alive. You’ll probably draw Grave and Maokai eventually.

Tips

Iron Conquest

If you manage to duplicate a Deadbloom Wanderer with Iron Conquest you’re in a REALLY good position. If I have Conquest, I will wait for the opponent to have no mana for removal before I play Deadbloom (or I can protect it with spells). 

You can use Iron Conquest’s 3rd story effect to trigger Maokai’s sapling summon at burst speed, which is good for getting many blockers out at once, or for removing enemy units with challenger on the open attack.

Try to have a Deadbloom die before your Iron Conquest hits its 3rd story proc, so that it summons Deadbloom. I will waste an ephemeral Deadbloom, or take an otherwise wasteful block, to ensure I can summon a Deadbloom on story 3. Careful - if you’re deep and a Sea Scarab has died, it will summon this instead of Deadbloom. I still get tripped up by this all the time.

Blooming Bud

Blooming Bud is an AMAZING spell for stalling the opponent. You can cast it on enemy units to stop their attacks, and then use Portal Pioneer’s “Destroy a Landmark” spell to permanently remove that unit. I pretty much always pick “Destroy a Landmark” from Pioneer because of this combo (and because Story landmarks are prevalent and strong).

Blooming Bud remembers the state of the unit it Sleeps. So if you’ve already triggered Maokai’s effect that round and Sleep him, next turn he won’t be able to summon a sapling for you. So I try to save Maokai in other ways than sleeping him.

You can use Blooming Bud to sleep one of Maokai’s allies so it summons and triggers his sapling summon on round start.

Boisterous Host

Boisterous Host is a good card for triggering Maokai’s sapling effect cheaply. Hallowed helps Maokai’s saplings get to higher attack, so you can kill healthier units. Hallowed is also good for getting more life steal from Deadbloom Wanderer.

Watery Grave

You’ll probably draw Watery Grave. I used to try not to toss too much before I’d secured it, but now I don’t sweat it too much. You can watch what cards you toss throughout the game, and use that to help you figure out if you need to slow down tossing / use Scattered Pod ASAP to ensure you draw Grave. 

A common way for opponents to add cards back into their empty deck is if they have a champion on the board, they can use its champion spell to shuffle a copy into the deck. If you use Blooming Bud on the enemy champion before using Watery Grave, they won’t be able to save themselves with a champion spell. Deny and Nopeify also help stop champion spells shuffling back in. Sometimes it’s good to just have two Graves to play around champion spells.

Like many I was part of the "competitive is dead" exodus when they got rid of worlds. In the wake of that I've looked for other TCG/CCGs I realized my lifestyle needs a digital game not physical if I'm to be competitive (otherwise I'd probably be on FaB and happy). In the digital realm of competing games it's bleak. DBZ has one of the most offensive economies I've ever seen and isn't really that great, well over HS, Pixelborne/Lorcana is dead, and now I'm back to MTG Arena depressingly playing it and remembering how much better LoR is as a competitive game (high level MTG is vastly over hyped for depth). So I'm stuck here REALLY wanting to return, it just IS the best digital game...but I'm also a competitive player (I shoot for Worlds when I play card games)...

So is there a side community of tournaments still thriving? Hope of Competitive return? It's really hard to be so competitively minded and not have a goal besides ranked ladder to climb (which ultimately is more a time sink than skill at a certain level). Sell me on coming back... these other games are very underwhelming T_T.

As the title says removing Darklorn from standard makes Lissandra feel way more underwhelming. I feel as if this card was very balanced and made Liss some-what viable.

Is there a guide anywhere because I'm starting to get tilted as I can't seem to grasp on which card to keep when, also which cards to never keep..

CECQCAICFIAQIAQOAEDAKJQCAYBAGCIFAECQUDAVC4VAIAIBAUDQCAYFAQAQSBINAIDAKKJNAA

Personally I moved to Shadowverse and Ariokan (where I can create my own balanced cards). I see many moved to Snap too. Anyone who moved to something as interesting as the aboves?

I know this sub is mostly dead now but, new cards! What have you had success with?

It was suddenly removed from my discord and when I tried to join with my backup account the invite link wouldn’t work?

Question for Riot representatives here on Reddit: I don't want to seem naive and I know the current situation of LoR, but never before has the game needed to unite the user base, do you think it's feasible to merge the various servers?

Introduction

Hey Friends! Davebo here coming at you with another guide. This time it's for everyone's favorite deck, Bandle Tree!! (It's not cringe I promise!)

I've played this deck more than anyone else this season, it's my favorite deck to play in a long time! I'm currently sitting at rank 1 in eternal playing pretty much only this deck. The deck is really quite flexible and has a lot of different gameplans. It can play for the landmark wincon, bandle swarm pressure, or just grinding the opponent out of cards.

General Idea and key notes

There are three game plans for this deck, and they all kind of play into each other. You don't necessarily have to commit to a single wincon, and often forking the opponent between two can be very advantageous. I win with each of the three strategies about 1/3 of the time each, so don't tunnel vision on only winning with tree wincon!!

• Bandle Tree Wincon
  • The good old alternate wincon. For this plan you want mayor, Norra, and (obviously) bandle tree. You usually don't want to drop tree on 3, even when the tree is how you expect to win since it's pretty easy to run into handsize issues with this deck, and you don't want to fall behind on board.
  • A big note is that the explorers and weaponmasters being in the mayor pool give this deck a lot more options for hitting the regions you need, especially the targon/si explorer getting you 2 of the three regions we don't maindeck can really accelerate the bandle tree wincon.
• Bandle Tempo Swarm
  • For this plan, you want cards like Poppy, mayor, and Norra to put pressure of a wide board winning the game with big swings. This is usually my go to plan against something like ryze or Karma Sett, as the landmark wincon is unreliable. If the opponent can't answer poppy, she can win the game very quickly with a wide enough board. You generally don't want to play bandle tree when going for this wincon, but it is sometimes correct when you need more gas.
  • A key component of this strategy is that you have very mana efficient removal, so you can remove the opponents threats and get up on tempo with mayor to start putting pressure on the opponent mid game.
• Good old Grinding
  • This plan just plays to have more gas than the opponent: remove all their important threats and chump block the rest. You don't really mulligan for this plan, as much as just most of the cards in the deck replace themselves. Portalpalooza, Mayor, and bandle tree all help advance this plan.
  • With how much landmark removal there is in the game right now, a lot of games end up start going for bandle tree but then end up winning off just outvaluing, especially if your opponent lets you generate 3+ cards off of tree. Random cards are good!
  • A note for playing against this deck, you generally want to kill tree ASAP or the value of the free cards will provide a ton of options. Sometimes I see people wait until I'm at 10/10 before removing the tree, which is crazy to me.

Deck List and card motivations

https://runeterra.ar/lor/decks/code/CQDACAQDBEAQMAYOAEDQUCIBBABQYAQGBIHRCBIFBJ2JQANGAHBADRQBAEBAKCRJNIBACCADDUBAKCVBAHKQC

((CQDACAQDBEAQMAYOAEDQUCIBBABQYAQGBIHRCBIFBJ2JQANGAHBADRQBAEBAKCRJNIBACCADDUBAKCVBAHKQC))

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https://preview.redd.it/u3cnlhe4wirc1.png?width=937&format=png&auto=webp&s=3def7ace2dcb2c5ae930aaeeb448cff17ae2b467

• 3x Norra

Norra is just a great card that fits right into all 3 gamesplans. The portals help advance bandle tree, get you tempo (a free 2/3 mana unit!) and generate value, especially if norra flips. Note that Norra can flip decently often because the units from bandle tree and mayor also advance her level up. Probably the only card I will keep in every single matchup, unanswered Norra on turn 2/3 makes you very likely to win.

• 1x Gnar

A fine card. generates a pokey stick which is nice. Sometimes Gnar flips and can start applying pressure that way. Better than Poppy when trying to grind the opponent out, but worse than Poppy when trying to tempo swarm.

• 2x Poppy

Holy moly Poppy is great. Historically bandle tree decks were on 1 poppy and 2 gnar, but poppy can just single handedly win the game so often. You can often kill the enemy units blocking poppy on the stack to enable her to keep attacking and buffing again and again! I don't think I've ever lost after flipping poppy, so it can be worth investing resources to keep her alive. 10/10 card.

• 3x Bandle Tree

As mentioned above, Bandle Tree is not the only wincon in this deck!!! I think about this card a lot like sunken temple. It gives you a free card every turn, but it is very tempo negative so you want to be judicious about when you play it. I will almost always rather play a mayor on 3 than bandle tree, just to get ahead on tempo.

• 3x Armed Acquisitioner

This card is nuts! Gets you 2 regions for bandle tree, and generates cards that are fantastic. Against decks with key landmarks, try to delay playing him until after your opponent drops their key landmark (temple etc.) to get the tempo win of using 2 mana to answer their 5 mana. The equipment removal is key for the jax ornn and akshan sivir matchups, and the remove keywords is great into a lot of overwhelm and elusive decks. Lastly the heal is fantastic into aggro, negating a lot of reach the opponent may have.

• 2x grumble slug

This card is basically just a 1 mana 2/3. A very high tempo play that plays nicely into a swarm gameplan, and has another region for bandle tree. Fantastic card against aggro, and pretty good into everything else. If you're not worried about aggro I would consider swapping these for a conch.

• 3x Bandle City Mayor

My favorite card to play on turn 3, is a tempo engine with the discounts, and a value card since it makes you a free card! An absolutely brutal line is if you're attacking on 5, playing norra on 2, mayor on 3, mayor + grumble on 4, and poppy on 5 to just swing for stupid damage while having mana to ping flock something. Fantastic card, definitely would never cut.

• 3x Aloof Travelers

Stops the opponent from getting to drop their late game bombs, fantastic into threat light decks such as swain or kaisa decks. Also it draws us a card so it helps give us more value! Try to play this right before the opponent has the priority to play a key threat if you can.

• 3x group shot, pie toss, and pokey stick

Jeepers that's a lot of pings! Grouping these together since they all kinda do the same thing. Very easily end up becoming a vengeance or a deal 5 with flock or disintegrate. Try to save group shots for when you have 4 units on board, but it's not the most critical thing in the world.

• 3x flock and disintegrate

Generally used to combo with pings to kill a big threat. Extremely mana efficient removal to slow the opponent down. Often when playing disintegrate, you'll want to do the combo in 2 actions if the opponent has protection (recalls/deny etc.). Even if you don't have a second ping, you'll make the opponent really think if it's worth denying your group shot.

• 1x Kashuri Swipe

I think of this card as the real noxian tellstones :) Imagine you had a tellstone that could give you a 2 mana slow speed scorched earth or a drop the bomb, that card would be pretty good! Gets worse with more copies since it's flexibility is less valuable, but I think it's a fantastic 1-of! Great for killing akshans or any big threat the opponent plays

• 1 x wallop

A great card to help you survive that one extra turn for bandle tree or giving you time to draw removal. Could potentially go to 2x but there's a lot of matchups where it's useless so I think 1 is the right number.

• 3x portalpalooza

Great for Grinding out games, eventually is practically free with the 2 portals being worth about 5 mana. Typically never want to keep in the mulligan since it is pretty slow.

Alternative cards

• Conchologist

I feel this card is pretty mediocre. It seems to often that I just get a totally bricked option, and I just played a 2 mana 2/1. That said, there are some matchups where it's good, but I don't like playing it. I swapped them out for group shots a while ago to just make sure I always had enough pings, which feels fantastic

• Bandle tree synergy cards

Lumping together grandfather fae, house spider, and loping telescope here as they all help you win faster off bandle tree, but I find them all to be pretty mediocre. Grandfather fae is probably the best one in this list because of the great mayor synergy, but I don't think it's quite good enough to make the cut.

• Yordles in Arms

An alternative way to try to close out games with swarm pressure. I don't like the card for a couple reasons.

1. It only helps the swarm game plan, and does nothing for landmark wincon and very little for value wincon
2. It's the only good deny target in the deck, so against ionia and shurima it ends up giving value to cards that would otherwise be pretty bad for the opponent.

• Lord Broadmane

Considerable, but only really helps to grind out the opponent, so I'm not a huge fan. Would give some game into some bad matchups (big demacia), but I don't think it's worth it.

Mulligan Guide

Pretty Much Always Keep:

Norra and Mayor are the only 2 cards I pretty much always keep.

Usually keep:

Generally you'll keep acquisitioners and grumbleslug. I'll also usually keep a ping unless I know it will be useless in the matchup. Flock/disintegrate if they are relevant for the matchup. Poppy is also in this list for some matchups. Bandle tree is fine to keep if the opponent's deck doesn't looks to aggressive, but kick it against things like annie jhin or azirelia

Never/rarely keep:

Portalpalooza, aloof travelers, gnar, kashuri swipe, and wallop. The first three are really value cards which you don't want to play early, and the last 2 are too inefficient.

Tips and Tricks

• Don't Tunnel Vision and Bandle Tree Wincon!!!!

I know I've said it before, but this deck can win lots of different ways. Just play a tight efficient game, removing the opponents key threats, and you can win pretty easy peasy.

• Identify if you are the beatdown and play accordingly

Against decks like ryze or seraphine, you want to be applying pressure through lots of cheap units to try to apply pressure and force answers out of the opponent. Even though the bandle tree wincon can happen in this deck, that's really the wincon you want to go for when playing control, so I would think of it more as a value generation tool in those matchups. I have overwritten an 8/10 bandle tree with an aloof traveler to make sure I can swing for lethal on my next open attack.

• Think about what you want from mayor before you play it

Mayor can pretty reliably hit explorers or weaponmasters, which can both be great depending on the matchup. Sometimes an extra explorer can come in clutch. Also the noxus +2 attack to all other units and the bilgewater summon a short tooth can both apply a ton of pressure when swarming. Think about how the card you get will play out in the next couple turns and whether you want an explorer, value, or tempo.

• Try to play mayor before playing multi region units, but don't tunnel on it.

Sometimes it's much more important to get key units down (Norra, Poppy, an explorer to kill their landmark). That said, free mana is great so if you can get away with it try to play mayor first.

• Rarely play bandle tree on turn 3.

Typically I end up playing it on turn 5-6, but it depends on the matchup for sure. A lot of the benefit is just getting you cards every turn, so you usually want to play it a turn or 2 before you run out of units to play.

• Be flexible

You can often get into some bandle shenanigans with this deck, so look for weird wincons as they come up. I've won games off of using pokey stick to draw a card to go deep for lethal after getting a sea monster off of a jaul hunter from a portal. I also won a game with an aram from a telescope generating absurd value after the opponent removed 2 bandle trees

• Explorer spells are MVPs

All 4 explorer spells are really useful, and you can get a lot of explorers from mayor as well so if they're strong in the matchup look out for them. The keyword removal explorer spell is probably my most common take, since it is useful in almost every matchup. It's also handy for popping spellshields on key threats. Landmark destruction is situational, but absolutely incredible in the matchups where it hits. Heal I mostly only take against aggro like Annie Jhin where nothing else is particularly useful.

Matchups

• Morgan Elder Dragon Mobilize (30/70)

Unfortunately we lose pretty bad to what is probably the best deck in the game. Your best hope is to aggressively remove their stuff to try to make their combo turn worse. if they get a cithria down with 2/3 other units on board we're pretty doomed.

• Azir Irelia (80/20)

Hard to lose. You can efficiently remove everything they have, and generate infinite chump blockers even if things go poorly. Look for pings, flock, and acquisitioner. Grumble slug is also great.

• Sivir Akshan Elder Dragon (50/50)

Pretty close matchup. Explorer spells are great for killing weapons or akshan landmarks. Rare matchup where you keep kashuri swipe to kill akshan on 2. Unfortunatley they can use arrika to reset our bandle tree, but we can still often win by grinding them out.

• TF Nilah (50/50)

Grumbleslug very efficiently answers a nilah on 2. Look for explorers aggressively in the mulligan to kill temple You HAVE to kill temple on sight or they will kill you very quickly. Try to avoid playing the explorer until after they drop temple, to bait them into wasting the mana.

• Annie Jhin (70/30)

Just kill their stuff :). Look for pings in the mulligan and just don't let them get any board presence until they run out of cards.

• Sun Disc Azir Xerath (70/30)

They generally just concede if I play acquisitioner on turn 2.

• Ryze (60/40)

Removing their first landmark slows them down a ton. Plan A is to win with poppy, plan b is to grind them out. It is possible to grind out ryze decks, especially if you remove their world runes quickly!

Conclusion

In general, just have fun! This deck generates a ton of random cards, so it's pretty fun since every game can play out differently!

I'll be around in the comments so if you have any questions don't hesitate to reach out!

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I was Diamond way back in mid-2020. Haven't played any significant amount of ranked for a while. Thought 'why not' and queued up for eternal ranked as an Iron IV player and was immediately matched against a player currently Masters in both Standard and Eternal. Does MMR really never decay?

Hi guys, i managed to reach masters on Eternal just right now. It makes me 5# master in europe :D
it took 100 / 51 W/L. After reaching masters on standard i was waiting for eternals to be one of the fastest masters and we have it.

My nick: N9E2uibmekoqxmAV

Hello everyone! I just posted this article on Mastering Runeterra and thought I would share it here. For the TLDR members of the community are coming together to create a new Digital CCG. I've pasted it below for ease of access if you want to see the original you can find it here: https://masteringruneterra.com/goodbyes-and-new-beginnings/

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“The path to success is usually paved with the bricks of failure.”

― Molly M. Cantrell-Kraig

The End?

Wow…. It’s hard to believe I am writing this article. I want to start by thanking everyone that supported us over the years, all of our subscribers, viewers, and those that played in our tournaments. The amount of love and support we’ve gotten is nothing short of humbling. I owe a huge thank you to all of our writers, editors and tournament organisers. Mastering Runeterra would not have been the same without all of your endless hard work, dedication and talent. I also want to thank the people at Riot that tried so hard to make this amazing game for us. There were key members of the team that really went above and beyond;  even though the project didn’t succeed in the end, their efforts should be celebrated. Mastering Runeterra will stay up for the foreseeable future; you never know what the future holds. It represents a time in our lives that I don’t want to see go away just yet. 

Going down memory lane, this is what the site looked like when we first launched it. I had spent countless hours learning how to make a website and everything that goes into it. On October 1st, 2021, this is where we started:

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It wasn’t the prettiest and (god forbid) if you tried to view it on mobile, but it was ours and it started the journey that grew into something so much larger. Over the next two and a half years, 750,000 individuals would visit our little site over 13 million times. I miss those early days with endless chats and games played in the MaRu Discord. I also miss the streaming, creating Youtube videos, podcasting with Majiin and the MaRu teams. I enjoyed preparing for those early Seasonals as it was beyond fun and playing in them felt so electric. We were in a golden age for a while and we didn’t know it. 

Thoughts on Why LoR Failed

Now to the nitty gritty. As I sit here trying to write this part of the article, “gutted” seems like the most accurate word to describe what I am feeling (and I’m sure many of you are feeling too). I truly loved this game and this community. Watching it be mistreated or mishandled, it was (and still is) very painful. I could see the massive amount of potential that it had and wanted to help it reach those heights; I can’t help but feel it didn’t have to be this way. I’ve never been entrenched in a game and had it die before. I know it might be more common for some of you that didn’t come from MTG, the never ending behemoth. Even though a lot of us sort of saw the writing on the wall, I had always thought there would be a last gasp or if the right people were empowered, the game could make a comeback. Magic the Gathering has had many ups and downs over its long history but always managed to bounce back even higher than before. At the very least, I thought we’d have another year or two. I have been wanting to write an article about the issues and ways I thought they could be solved, like I have in the past but I was under a NDA. I was also afraid of how it might affect Mastering Runeterra’s working relationship with Riot as it wasn’t just me that my words could potentially affect. That’s more than moot now but for some catharsis for myself and hopefully others, I want to share a few thoughts on why I think we ended up in this position.

There were a lot of mistakes made at the beginning of the game's launch and that continued on for its entirety. I was hesitant to say mistakes, but frankly if a game as good as LoR with the backing of a company like Riot can’t make it, there have been a lot of mistakes made. However, I think you can boil them down to two major issues. The first is that Riot is a giant corporation and thus comes with A LOT of red tape. For example, situations such as the legal department trying to make sure their butts are covered or needing a million sign offs to do any initiatives. From the outside looking in, it seemed like there were constant nonstarters. Even trying to get a tweet out, it was a whole massive process. This is why we saw things like late announcements and a lack of timely communication. 

The second issue  was that they needed to hire more LoR players. From what I could tell, a lot of the team were not LoR players and were not card game players. This is excluding most of the development team. This is pretty easy to see play out. I often think if I was hired at a game like League how much I would have struggled. But take it a step further, what if I worked on Hearthstone? I’ve been playing card games for twenty five years and I’ve played Hearthstone before. However, the amount of time that it would take me to know the game, the community and the history at a deep level would take years. Even then, I wouldn’t be nearly as knowledgeable as someone that had played since launch or closer to it. Magic the Gathering has shown this to be true as well. Magic has hired the best players from their Pro Tour for years. Their draft and sealed formats have been amazing since they hired the best limited players to be on their team. On the flip side of the coin, Magic also hired some ex-Rioters that had worked on LoL esports to try and run their own Magic Pro League and it was a disaster. For some reference here, they decided to film the MPL matches and then stream them weeks later AFTER a new set had come out and the metagame that the pros had played was dead and gone. As you can imagine, the viewership numbers were horrible. If you come from a typical esport, this might make sense to you. But any tournament level Magic the Gathering (or card game) player could have told you immediately why this wouldn’t work well. 

What Comes Next?

When I read the announcement, my first thoughts were of dread but then I realised this also presented us with an opportunity. We together represent a massive community that wants a game like LoR. As well, there is also a gap in good online digital card games. MTGA is expensive and Wizards of the Coast has mistreated its community for years but gets away with it because they have a great game. Hearthstone is old and has similar issues. With the current state of digital card games, why not create a game ourselves? A game made by the players for the players. Let’s unite to bring our passion together for a game that we want! I quickly started making calls and organising a team. We have been hard at work ever since and today I am proud to share with you the early fruits of that labour AKA Chrono! 

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Much of what I will share with you today is still in production and could change over time. This is why we’ve held off on announcing anything until now. But this is a community project and we will be bringing everyone along for the ride, including playtesting the game with us. We will have a lot more updates coming soon and are planning to launch our Kickstarter between mid April and May 2024. We have an experienced game development studio that has worked on digital card games before lined up to build Chrono. Below I will try and answer some of the common questions that we have received.  

Is Chrono an LoR Clone?

We are not going to be LoR 2.0. Chrono is its own unique game, but our guiding star is to look at all the most beloved CCG’s of the past, run with their greatest strengths, discard their weaknesses, and add what is essentially our own (Bruce Lee Y’all!). As such, Chrono has many of the same gameplay mechanics that Runeterra Fans know and love like saving mana for future turns, a priority system, a stack, and a cap on units in play, as well as other unique and exciting mechanics that you’ll get to learn along the way.

Who is designing the game?

The man, the myth, the legend himself, WhatAmI, is the Head of Game design currently joined by Madruin and Phansora. They have already done some amazing work. The first test set has been completed and we’re already looking to begin testing and iterating with our Cards, Mechanics, and Design.  

What is Chrono about?

Chrono’s story is that of six different Syndicates all struggling to impose their will on the timeline. As the great conflict rages each of them gather immense amounts of power to send “Divers” back in time to key moments, hoping that they can influence tiny specks of history in just the right fashion as to leave them and only them in control of the future they all attempt to create.

Of course, with each Syndicate having different plans for the universe, each moment of attempted control becomes a battle to the death for the Divers sent back. Unlikely alliances form and shift as teams of Divers control their agents on the scene in an attempt to destroy the enemy Core, destabilising and destroying their foe’s power source and sending them hurtling off beyond time and space.

Boards

All the boards in Chrono will be tactile aka clickable. We are working with some of the same artists that worked on Runeterra’s boards and are excited to share them with you when they are done.

Artwork

All of the art for the cards will be made by humans and we will continue to support our amazing artist community. Here was our first mock up of our card frame design. Note that this is just placeholder art, but we are working with very talented artists and I look forward to sharing their work when it's ready!

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First Draft

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First Draft

And here is our current state of Card Frames that are still being worked on.

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Newest Draft

Limited Play

Chrono is being built with Draft and Sealed in mind. Limited formats will be an integral part of Chrono’s ecosystem to give players additional ways to play the game and collect cards.

Organized Play

As many of you know, Organized Play is a passion of mine. We will make sure there is a clear ladder to be climbing in terms of progressively larger and more prestigious tournaments to be playing in. We will have unique in game items (Card Styles, Pets, Boards etc) that can only be won in tournaments or by grinding the Ladder. We will also be taking a page out of Dota 2’s playbook and will be putting a percentage of sales towards the Prize Pool for our Championship Series to create some of the largest ever prize pools for any CCG.

Monetization

Cards will be released in booster packs tied to individual sets. We plan to have two in game currencies, one that can be bought and one that will be rewarded for completing quests. Our aim is to have Chrono be as affordable as possible while still making sure that the game is financially stable for years to come. 

How do I get involved?

Chrono’s website and stats are being built by Vivo, the brains behind Runeterra.ar. We will have social accounts up soon as well and you are always welcome to message us on Twitter or Discord. We have had an outpouring of support from the community already and we will be looking to bring people on from within the community as we continue to grow. So if you have experience that you think is relevant or just want to be more involved please reach out!

Signing Off

I’ve just scratched the surface of what we have in store. We will be releasing more information in the coming days and weeks. Be sure to follow myself and WhatAmI on Twitter as we roll out our website and socials.

Made it to master from D2 11W 1L

Mulligan tip: Just mulligan for 1/2 removal and play on curve

Dragon deck

CUCACCAABUAQQCI6AIAQAGQ5AMBQAAQIBMCQCAYAAMAQIAAUAECQADYBA4AAKAYIAAFBSGQFAEAQABYBAIAAKAIGAASACCADAMAQQDAO

After the end of competitive has come, still more lies Beyond the Grey...

With the Beyond the Grey community Open!

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Description

Date: March 2nd, Starting at 1:00 pm est

Entry Fee: $5 USD, all of which goes to the prize pool

Prize Pool: Entirely based on entrants, with rough pool distribution as follows

1st = 40%

2nd = 20%

3/4th = 10% each

5-8th = 5% each

Server: This tournament will be played on the NA/Americas shard.

Format: Eternal Best of 3 (Formerly known as Riot Lock) format. Single elimination.

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Full details, rules, and sign up link can be found here

https://matcherino.com/t/beyondthegreyopen/

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If you have any further questions, comments, or suggestions, please reach out to myself here, at greg@masteringruneterra.com, or through discord at gregorythegrey

Hello everyone, Sorry here! I've teamed up with DotGG (owners of RuneterraCCG) to keep the Runeterra Meta Report going!

I'm still experimenting with this one, but I'll mostly share decks that are solid choices to take on the ranked ladder. Basically, the top performers for this week!

LoR Standard Best Ladder Decks - Patch 5.1, Week 2

Overview:

• Gwen Zed has the highest play rate on the ladder, followed closely by Annie Jhin.
• The Pyke Rek'Sai players are keeping the archetype relevant in the meta. There's just no stoping those players!
• Morgana Galio Elder Dragon is still hanging in there! A lot of players are cutting out Mageseeker Inquisitor and Sai'nen Thousand-Tailed.
• Master Yi Nami is struggling to hold a 50% win rate.
• Shyvana Morgana Elder Dragon is showing up with great numbers!
• The Overwhelm hitter, Darius Gnar slams down on many popular meta decks, reminding everyone that it still exists.
• Miss Fortune Quinn and Teemo Tristana Elder Dragon are two underrated decks.
• Despite Ashe LeBlanc struggling against Gwen Zed and Annie Jhin, it's still maintaining a 56% win rate.
• Kennen Jinx is looking like a great to choice against the top performers!

How is the meta feeling after the new patch? Your opinion matters a lot to help improve the content! If there's any specific content you're looking forward to or changes I should consider for this specific page, let me know!

Had an interesting dilemma while playing ranked ladder earlier today. It’s worth noting both that I had cast a Glimpse Beyond killing an Undying earlier this turn and my opponent has cast 1 Deny, 2 Tag outs and 1 Retreat this game.

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Howdy folks,

As most of you are surely aware, LoR will shift focus from PvP to PvE. Riot's CEO has clearly stated (and LoR's latest State of the Game video reiterated) that the game will focus on Path of Champions – and many of the LoR devs, including perennial GOAT Steve Rubin and Gwen's favorite dance partner plinq, have already been fired.

Perhaps there's a long-term future in which Path becomes the Champion we need, manages to turn things around, and LoR grows to a point in which PvP can once again be fully supported (and I really, really hope that's the timeline we'll eventually find ourselves in!)...

… but, until then, it is time for this weekly column to follow suit and come to an end.

We had a really good run (more than two years, when at first I would have been happy with just two months!), but, well… the times, they are a-changing.

Thank you for reading, commenting, and providing feedback all these months!!

It's been a joy being a small part of the community's efforts to discover and popularize the huge variety of decks most LoR metas had to offer, and I hope you've found at least a couple of good, fun brews in these reports.

So long, take care, and good luck out there! =)

###This is an open thread for any short questions pertaining to competitive Legends of Runeterra.

These will be posted twice every week.

Ask any quick questions, such as asking for feedback on a deck, suggestions on how to mulligan against specific matchups or any basic gameplay question.

And as always:

• Be courteous to one another.
• Provide brief explanations for any links you provide (YouTube, tier lists, etc.)

Resources:
LoR Community Discord

Mastering Runeterra

Collection of guides and tools

Collection of recurring community tournaments

Hello Woke here-Old Tournament organizer and NYC LoR meetup organizer
Yesterday news was an infuriating series of events and a tragic end to many events in the LoR community. With many players who wish to leave and tell their story in LoR, I will compile their stories into this google drive of what LoR meant to them.
People interested can upload it into this google drive or dm me through discord. You can also send an email to tkg1ra2@gmail.com.
Discord ID:Sleeppingt

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/14ccvhhN2XZ6d7HR3ITlRea8-OaAXTLmw?usp=drive_link

Discuss what you are playing, what you’re having success with (or failures with), and any new/cool ideas you’ve been experimenting with, etc. The point is to share what you’ve been playing, and how it’s going, good or bad - there are no other rules or requirements.

These will be posted twice every week.

Some ideas on what to post/share:

• What you’ve been playing and its successes (or struggles). Stats are not required. There is no minimum rank required, though sharing what rank you’ve been playing at is preferred. It is helpful to mention the format Standard or Eternal you are playing in.

• Deck adjustments you made or are planning to make in reaction to the meta or as new innovation. E.g. “I saw 30% of deck X, so I made Y changes to help deal with deck X.” (change)

• Showing off a deck you achieved Masters with and wanting to share it without having to write a guide

And as always:

• Be courteous to one another.
• Provide brief explanations for any links you provide (YouTube, tier lists, etc.)

Resources:
LoR Community Discord

Mastering Runeterra

Collection of guides and tools

Collection of recurring community tournaments

###This is an open thread for any short questions pertaining to competitive Legends of Runeterra.

These will be posted twice every week.

Ask any quick questions, such as asking for feedback on a deck, suggestions on how to mulligan against specific matchups or any basic gameplay question.

And as always:

• Be courteous to one another.
• Provide brief explanations for any links you provide (YouTube, tier lists, etc.)

Resources:
LoR Community Discord

Mastering Runeterra

Collection of guides and tools

Collection of recurring community tournaments

​

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Howdy folks!

For those not in the mood for data-crunching, here are the Eighteen Best Decks right now.

Depending how you look at it, the biggest news this week for the LoR meta is Lurkers' sudden spike, with Pyke Rek'Sai returning to the top of the charts…

… or, well, how Riot has kind of brutally found a way to make Elder Dragon un-unstoppable.

In case you've somehow managed to miss the news, Riot's CEO has announced some very harsh cuts for the company as a whole, and LoR specifically, including a refocus on PvE.

But, for the time being, here are the current best-performing decks for the Legends of Runeterra ladder!

Decks showcased today:

• Juggernauts – Best Legends of Runeterra Decks for the Standard Ladder
  • Galio Elder Dragon Morgana
• Heavyweights – Strong LoR Decks for the Standard Ladder
  • Pyke Rek'Sai
  • Gwen Zed
  • Viego Elder Dragon Mordekaiser
  • Teemo Yuumi
  • Elder Dragon Morgana Shyvana
  • Mordekaiser Morgana
  • Annie Jhin
• Punching Up – Standard LoR Decks Doing Great
  • Elder Dragon Norra
• Your Mileage May Vary
  • Jinx Kennen
  • Frozen Caitlyn Teemo
  • Darius Gnar
  • Seraphine Sett
  • Fizz Yuumi
  • Teemo Tristana Elder Dragon
  • Miss Fortune Nilah
  • Master Yi Riven
  • Morgana Riven

Any questions, comments or feedback, or specific data you may be after, please feel free to drop a comment, poke me on Twitter (@HerkoKerghans), and you can find more writings on substack: https://riwan.substack.com/

Depending on how you look at it, the biggest news this week for the LoR meta is Lurkers' sudden spike, with

Discuss what you are playing, what you’re having success with (or failures with), and any new/cool ideas you’ve been experimenting with, etc. The point is to share what you’ve been playing, and how it’s going, good or bad - there are no other rules or requirements.

These will be posted twice every week.

Some ideas on what to post/share:

• What you’ve been playing and its successes (or struggles). Stats are not required. There is no minimum rank required, though sharing what rank you’ve been playing at is preferred. It is helpful to mention the format Standard or Eternal you are playing in.

• Deck adjustments you made or are planning to make in reaction to the meta or as new innovation. E.g. “I saw 30% of deck X, so I made Y changes to help deal with deck X.” (change)

• Showing off a deck you achieved Masters with and wanting to share it without having to write a guide

And as always:

• Be courteous to one another.
• Provide brief explanations for any links you provide (YouTube, tier lists, etc.)

Resources:
LoR Community Discord

Mastering Runeterra

Collection of guides and tools

Collection of recurring community tournaments

Casual pvp has a bit more hope, but we're screwed so:

It's been a pleasure

https://playruneterra.com/en-us/news/game-updates/state-of-the-game-2024