Legends of Runeterra is starting the year off right: With a patch! LoR’s Patch Notes for 2.0 have been revealed, and we know what you can expect for this first update of the year. Don’t worry, this isn’t a major update, but there’s still some pretty cool stuff to expect. Our first major Legends of Runeterra PVE event, a new lab, and some minor changes are on the way. So let’s take a look at what you can expect in 2.0!

First off though, a pretty major card update is coming!

LoR’s Patch Notes 2.0 point out that the devs are looking to make balance changes based on their metagame analytics, and community feedback on a monthly basis. This may not happen every month, but that’s the aim. It may not always be necessary every single month though. There is a pretty interesting change in 2.0 though, with only one card seeing any adjustments. This was slated for 2.1.0 (February) but instead, it’s being done now: Pack Your Bags!

Go Hard isn’t changing, but Pack Your Bags is. When Pack Your Bags is formed, it often sets a situation that feels unmanageable. It has such a huge impact on the game for virtually no cost (1 mana). For what Pack Your Bags does, it should have a cost that makes it worth that impact. While you set up Go Hard for the transform, this should feel impactful and also have the power to be countered. I can imagine people are going to be upset at this, but it’s still something that likely needed to happen.

We did highlight a Go Hard/Pack Your Bags deck in our Cosmic Creation decklists! I have a feeling that after this change goes through, that deck is going to take a bit of a tumble down the list. If you’re curious what decks we think are the best right now, feel free to click that above link!

A brand new Lab comes to LoR in the 2.0 Patch Notes! This one’s called “United Front”, which arrives alongside Quick Draw and Welcome to the Jungle for the current rotation. Heimerdinger’s always looking for a new, exciting, dangerous experiment. There’s no better time to do something deadly than during a Noxian invasion, after all! So now we have United Front.

United Front is a new way to play Legends of Runeterra, in the first Co-Op vs. AI experience! You and a friend (via Friend Challenge, or a random person) go against an AI Noxian General. You pick a Champion to receive a premade deck, and team up to push the invasion back! I wonder if this will lead us to have 2v2 matches in Legends of Runeterra; this is exciting to think about! Please Riot Games, give us two-headed/three-headed giant in Legends of Runeterra! Look, I don’t ask for much. But if it’s based on League of Legends, we need a fun multi-player option like this.

Expeditions are apparently doing quite well right now, so that’s a positive. They did remove the offering bonus for Cosmic Creation decks in this patch though. Now, all of the archetypes have the same normal rate, no matter if they’re a primary or bonus archetype. The only major change is to Mending Touch:

• Removed: Bayou Brunch, Hunting Fleet, Divergent Paths, Sleepy Trouble Bubble

What about Bug Fixes though? Here’s a nice, brief list of what’s been changed:

• Fixed an issue that would cause an error message to be erroneously displayed when casting Judgment while switching blockers.
• Fixed an issue that could occur with Vault of Hella and units with the Last Breath keyword.
• Fixed an issue where occasionally level 2 Zoe would not share keywords.
• Fixed an issue where Heart of the Fluft would sometimes inherit negative keywords.
• Fixed multiple text inconsistencies across cards text and flyout.

The Mount Targon trilogy of updates was awesome. I wonder if this is going to be a method of releasing content going forward: Essentially, story arcs! The Mount Targon story arc took three updates, with certain factions getting new champions/cards each time. I sort of like this. Sure, some people probably feel left out, I get that. But your cards are coming. It could also be a way to get players to try stuff they normally might not. So far, I genuinely like where LoR is going, and though the Patch Notes for 2.0 are brief, I’m excited for 2021. You can also read the full patch notes here.

Patch 2.0 Patch Notes

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Card Updates

We will be aiming to make balance changes based on our metagame analysis and community feedback on a monthly basis. However, as will all live development, this may not be true for every single month – we may occasionally make off-cadence changes, such as this change to Pack Your Bags coming in 2.0.0, which was originally planned for a release in 2.1.0 in February:

Pack Your Bags Cost: 1 → 5

When players are able to transform Go Hard, the Pack Your Bags form frequently creates a situation which is unmanageable to play against given its board impact compared to cost. There should be a powerful payoff when players are able to successfully transform Go Hards – but it should give the opposing player more meaningful counterplay options leading up to Pack Your Bags.

New Lab: Co-Op vs. AI – United Front

Patch 2.0.0 brings a new rotation to Multilab:

• United Front (New in 2.0.0!)
• Quick Draw
• Welcome to the Jungle

Heimerdinger is always looking for his next great experiment, and what better time to try something new than during a full-scale Noxian invasion…?

United Front is a brand new way to play Legends of Runeterra as our first co-op experience! You and an ally (through Friend Challenge, or randomly paired through solo queue) will go up against a powerful AI Noxian General. Select a Champion to create a premade deck, and combine your forces to repel the invasion!

Personalization, Expeditions, and Bug Fixes

Guardians 

 

Ellie (Magical Elephant)

Can we address the magical floating elephant in the room?

Personality: Clumsy

Best Friend: Zoe

 

Expeditions

We’re quite happy with the balance of the various archetypes in Expeditions at the moment, with only Mending Touch requiring some tweaks to make it more consistently able to execute its core gameplan.

• Removed the offering bonus for Cosmic Creation archetypes. All archetypes are now offered at the normal rate based on whether they’re a primary or a bonus archetype.

 

Mending Touch

• Removed: Bayou Brunch, Hunting Fleet, Divergent Paths, Sleepy Trouble Bubble

 

Bugfixes

• Fixed issue that would cause an error message to be erroneously displayed when casting Judgment while switching blockers.
• Fixed an issue that could occur with Vault of Helia and units with the Last Breath keyword.
• Fixed an issue where occasionally level 2 Zoe would not share keywords.
• Fixed an issue where Heart of the Fluft would sometimes inherit negative keywords.
• Fixed multiple text inconsistencies across cards text and flyout.