Most complex and adaptable Champion to date, Aphelios has made his arrival in Legends of Runeterra. The Weapon of the Faithful brings with him a small collection of new cards as part of the Aphelios Champion Expansion.
For a deeper dive into Aphelios’s design and mechanics, check out new overview video with Design Director Riot Umbrage on the Legends of Runeterra YouTube channel tomorrow!
Praise the moon and get Aphelios as soon as he lands in Patch 2.1.0, and get a look at all of the cards coming in the expansion in the Aphelios Champion Expansion Card Gallery.
Break out the fireworks, it’s time for the Lunar Celebration! Log in over 7 days during the Lunar Celebration event period to earn rewards (starting with a free copy of Aphelios), as well as a new Lunar Celebration Quest each day for even more rewards! Complete all seven Lunar Celebration Quests to earn the Year of the Ox Card Back.
The release of Cosmic Creation introduced Zoe, Viktor, and Riven to the game. Now that they have had a chance to see them in action, they know Zoe has been making portals and taking names all across Runeterra. Viktor and Riven, however, could use a little bit more attention to help them perform their best. Patch 2.1.0 comes with a collection of card updates aimed at giving these Champions a chance to shine just a bit brighter, along with some non-Champion card updates to improve the overall health of the game.
Like with Viktor and Riven in this patch, as they move forward with future card updates, you’re going to generally see more attention paid to newly-released cards to ensure they’re performing at an appropriate level compared to previously-released sets. However, that doesn’t mean cards from Foundations, Rising Tides, or Call of the Mountain won’t see adjustments. This philosophy is specifically in regards to live design & balance, and has been established to ensure that they continue to promote meta health and deck diversity as they continue to add new sets and expansions in the future. With that, let’s look at what’s changing in Patch 2.1.0!
Miss Fortune (Level 2)
Change: Removed Overwhelm after leveling up.
Miss Fortune’s level 2 lethality does not quite line up with the difficulty of her quest. This slightly reduce her ability to immediately end the game given she levels up.
Viktor (Level 1)
Level Up Requirement (Viktor Level 1): You’ve played 8+ created cards. → You’ve played 7+ created cards.
Change (Level 1): Now creates a Hex Core Upgrade on both Play and Round Start.
VIktor (Level 2)
Change (Level 2): Now creates a Hex Core Upgrade on both Play and Round Start.
Viktor’s build up is often too slow to have realistic impact on the game a Champion should have. This speed it up and also provide more immediate impact and potential for Augment Allies and Viktor himself when deployed later in the game.
The Grand Plaza
Change: When an ally is summoned, give it +1|+1 and Challenger this round. → When an ally is summoned, give it +1|+0 and Challenger this round.
Grand Plaza has been a positive new tool for Midrange Demacia decks, but it’s stat distribution on top of challenger makes it too easy to make profitable challenge-trades while adding resiliency. By removing the health buff, they want to allow more wiggle room for counterplay and soften the ability to keep your plaza units alive after challenging with them.
War Chefs
Base Stats: 1|3 → 2|2
Originally, when they made this adjustment they had thought that retaining health was more powerful than attack. They were wrong about that, given the nature of Support units needing the ability to at least trade into more boardstates, so they are making a small adjustment to War Chefs.
Homecoming
Cost: 5 → 4
Adding some power to Ionia’s identity as the only Region that can Recall enemies. This adjustment should provide some more texture and potential for the usable spells within Ionia.
Greenglade Elder
Base Stats: 1|1 → 3|1
Like with Homecoming, they wanted to make a few small changes directed at improving some of Ionia’s core mechanics. The Elder’s stats made it impossible to be feasible, so this adjustment should provide hand buffing decks a bit more board presence and potential while setting up.
Captain Farron
Change: When I’m summoned, create 3 Decimates in hand. → When I’m summoned, create 2 Decimates in hand.
The direct damage output provided by Captain Farron can be overbearing in many games, and can also prevent certain Region combinations from effectively executing a slower game plan. Providing more breathing room while playing against Farron, while keeping his shape intact.
Blade of the Exile
Cost: 3 → 1
Blade of the Exile is a bit too clunky to be used effectively – and is often not used at all in games when it’s created. They generally only change spell speeds in emergencies, so they are reducing the cost by two to both provide payoff for turbo creating it early in the game and for general ease of use.
Blade Squire
Base Stats: 1|2 → 2|1
One of Riven’s weaknesses is having to dilute your deck with her followers which are generally weaker than other options. For Blade Squire, they want to flatly increase it’s viability with a better statline to give Riven decks a boost – and the card itself more satisfying play patterns.
Hush
Cost: 2 → 3
Hush ultimately counteracts too many strategies, often time’s doing it in a super efficient way. While avoiding overnerfing in the past, the overall play rate and amount of strategies it’s defanged, especially the champions from the Cosmic Creation’s expansion, makes it clear that a flat nerf is warranted.
Pale Cascade / Diana’s Pale Cascade
Change: Give an ally +2|+1 this round. Nightfall: Draw 1. → Give an ally +1|+1 this round. Nightfall: Draw 1.
While there are strong burst spells at similar costs, Pale Cascade provides all Targon decks efficient combat superiority and protection without much of the opportunity cost given it’s built in card draw. By reducing the overall damage, they are removing some of the potential to create better trades or push damage.
Patch 2.1.0 brings a new rotation to Multilab:
After countless hours of experimentation, Heimerdinger is finally ready to unveil his latest and greatest achievement:
Introducing… the appropriately-named Lab of Legends – our first Legends Lab, and another foray into the world of single-player adventures! First introduced in our 2021 Roadmap Update, Legends Labs are experiences that focus on progression, customization, and adaptation.
Building off of those themes, Lab of Legends gives you a choice between 8 different Champions, each with their own premade deck, and pits you against a series of increasingly-difficult encounters. As you progress, you’ll earn new cards, passive abilities, and items that power up cards in unique ways. No two runs are the same; expect to see some crazy combo possibilities emerge as you reach later stages. Don’t be reckless though, your Nexus health carries over between rounds and is only refilled after a Boss encounter, so be sure to pace yourself!
Emerge ‘Viktorious’ at the end of a run, and you’ll earn a unique icon based on your selected Champion. Fight hard, experiment responsibly, and try to collect them all!
Club Ox
The year ends, but the party never stops.
Lunar Beast
Appears once a year to wreak delightful havoc on mortals.
Personality: Rascally
Dislikes: Loud noises
New Card Backs are available for purchase in the Store:
Fortune’s Faithful
Celebrate with a whisper.
Fortune’s Bounty
Celebrate with a bang.
The Beast
Bring the boom.
New Emotes are available for purchase in the Store:
The Lunar Beast Bundle is available in patch 2.1.0 for 2394 Coins. Bundle includes:
Make the night last forever with the Night Hunters Deck Bundle, available in patch 2.1.0 for 1998 Coins (prorated for any excess card copies based on your existing collection). Bundle includes a collection of cards from Targon and Shadow Isles designed to bring out the full power of Nightfall!
Balance between the various archetypes continues to be in good shape overall, so with this patch they are just making minor changes to a number of archetypes, as well as focusing Fishbones more around an aggressive strategy. In addition the new cards that are debuting with the patch have been added to Expeditions.
Augmented Assault
Enlightened
Fishbones
Luminous Dusk
Mega Keg
Moonlit Heist
Scrapheap
Shadows and Dust
Spell Slingers
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