Runeterra‘s a weird one. The card game itself is solid yet unexciting (at least once you’ve performed it for a dozen hours), however for me (and unusually for me) that’s made up for by charming presentation. More ideas like that may be present in my Legends Of Runeterra review, however my much less outdated ideas are: yeah, I received bored. I simply had a fast go together with the brand new Gauntlet mode, although, and I can see the way it would possibly deliver me again. Every week, you get to enter a particular competitors the place you attempt to win seven games with out shedding two in a row, during which case you get knocked out. The twist is that the foundations dramatically change each week. Right now it’s only a straight up ‘see how well you can do with your favourite constructed deck’, however future plans sound extra fascinating.
This is a part of Patch 1.4, which additionally brings large modifications to an entire bunch of playing cards and introduces the brand new ranked season. But I’m nonetheless pondering ’bout Gauntlets.
Gauntlets are solely open from Friday by way of to Monday, “with each weekend featuring a single format from the Gauntlet rotation”. The first one kicked off at present, and builders Riot Games say they’re treating the present, quite simple one as a solution to “test-drive the underlying tech”. They additionally say we’ll get one other variant known as “Singleton” on July third, the place you “build a deck using no more than one copy of each card”.
There is potential right here. I actually like how the format lends stakes to games I wouldn’t in any other case be invested in – I used to spend practically all my time taking part in Expedition mode, which has the identical ‘2 losses and you’re out’ deal, however the place you at all times draft from a collection of picks. Gauntlet mode looks like a great way of capturing among the finest facets from that, then heading off to a playground the place there’s loads of room to experiment. If I don’t play each weekend, I’ll most likely nonetheless test to see if the most recent Gauntlet sounds fascinating.
Riot additionally speak about particular beauty rewards for Gauntlet mode, however w/e. Unless there are fancy emotes. Oh, there is likely to be fancy emotes.
They’ve additionally tweaked Ranked mode so it’s simpler for high-level gamers to see the impression of their multiplayer matchmaking ranking, and made vital modifications to many, many playing cards. They clarify that they’ve particularly gone after playing cards of Epic rarity, which “are generally intended to be exciting cards with compelling, unique, and powerful effects”, however they felt “some of them [were left] feeling overly expensive or unwieldy to use”. The Freljord faction specifically have seen buffs.
Videogames appear to maintain placing me on this place this week, however there are too many modifications for me to speak about. I do discover they’ve made Anivia even stronger, the monsters.
I’ll depart you to pore over the patch notes for your self.
You can nab Runeterra free of charge here.
