Riot overhauls the economy in Legends of Runeterra

When Riot launched Legends of Runeterra open beta a few weeks ago it seemed that everything was in place to deliver to the players a great experience, but as the collectible card game gets more popular some issues have started to appear. Card balance problems have been addressed already by tuning the performance of several cards that were either overused and too powerful or not interesting enough to fit in any deck. Champions like Hecarim and Kalista are two good examples of that, and they have been changed to better fit in the game, but there have been other cards that have been modified in the latest 0.9.2 patch, whose complete notes you can read here.

But League of Legends creator is not satisfied with the rate at which players are getting cards in Legends of Runeterra, especially because the way it works now gives a certain advantage to players that have been playing for a while. It's obvious that if you are a new player you will have a smaller card pool to create your decks, but the current system limits the number of cards that you can purchase from the shop. That limit is being removed, allowing those players that want to spend money in the game to catch up with older players faster. 

What if you don't plan on spending money on the game? Well, Riot has good news for you too. The main way of getting cards for free right now is through the weekly vault, which rewards you with cards depending on the exp you have made through the week. It's rather easy to level up the weekly vault just by completing daily missions and now you are getting extra rewards for it. Level 2+ rewards will include an Expedition Token, level 5+ will grant you a random Champion card, and level 10+ comes with a Champion Wildcard. Considering that Champions are the most expensive cards to unlock and the base of most Legends of Runeterra decks this change is great for the players. The cost of Expeditions, (a gameplay mode similar to Hearthstone's arena) will be reduced to 2000 shards too, allowing players to get cards even more easily. All those changes will contribute to making Legends of Runeterra more accessible to the players by allowing new players to unlock more cards faster.

Legends of Runeterra has managed to establish itself in a very good position among other popular games in the genre. It is true that the huge player base of League of Legends contributes to make popular a game that is based on its world, but it´s also true that Riot has created a very solid game able to compete at the same level of the top games in the genre. It's quite likely that the same will happen when Valorant becomes playable.