“The Ruination” is a new event coming to Legends of Runeterra and with it comes some amazing new cards. Each day until the beginning of the event – July 14th, more cards will be revealed. Some are stronger than others, though. The whole focus of the event is around the Shadow Isles it seems, and as the event name implies, The Ruination. The Ruination is an event in the League of Legends lore, where the Blessed Isles and the Kingdom of Camavor were destroyed. This led to the creation of the Shadow Isles that we know today. A vile place of death and destruction, it also heralds the arrival of The Ruined King. That’s right, Viego is confirmed to be one of the cards in The Ruination event for Legends of Runeterra. Don’t worry though, there are non-Shadow Isles cards in this event.

Is Viego going to be worth it? In a word – yes. This event is supposed to be huge, and we’ve seen at least 14 cards, and more are on the way. There seems to be an Event Pass confirmed, with a free and premium track. A variety of cosmetics will be available in it. We cannot confirm what’s in it yet, but we’re sure to see Guardians, Emotes, Materials, Icons, and maybe even some Prismatic Cards. Perhaps the best card to be revealed though is Viego. With that in mind, let’s talk about the new cards in Legends of Runeterra’s The Ruination event. We’ve seen awesome new cards in past events, this should be no exception.

Viego is, of course, a Shadow Isles card. He brings with him some truly interesting new gameplay styles and mechanics. For any other faction, he would be dangerous. Why is that? Because he needs your allies to die. In order to level up, Viego must see 20+ total power worth of allies die. In Shadow Isles, that’s for sure easy. He’s a 5-cost Champion and a 5/4 with Fearsome. What’s he do that’s so special though? Each round, the first time an ally dies, you summon an Encroaching Mist minion. So we want allies to die as often as we can manage.

Encroaching Mist is a 1/1 for 1 with Ephemeral. When it’s summoned, all allied Viegos and other Encroaching Mists everywhere gain +1/+1. Now you can probably see where it’s going. We’re going to buff these Mists, and every time they come into play, they get bigger and bigger. Since they’re going to die anyway, we want to be aggressive as we can with them (unless you have a card that needs a sacrificial target perhaps). It’s not going to be very hard to level him up, as you can imagine. Camavoran Soldier also summons an Encroaching Mist when summoned, so we’ve got another bit of access to this useful minion. Level Two Viego is a game-winner though.

Level Two Viego is a 6/5 Fearsome, and each round, the first time a unit dies (not even an ally), summon an Encroaching Mists. Now it’s more powerful! Each Round Start, he steals the strongest enemy this round. If it’s a champion, kill it instead. Goodness. That’s vile. It’s a deck where we’re going to want to win as quickly as possible since several of these cards target our own Nexus! Speaking of that, Viego’s spell, Despair fits that mold. It’s a 4-Cost Slow Spell and picks a unit to strike your Nexus. Then you kill that unit. If you have Level One Viego, you’ll probably want to target an ally, to help trigger his level up. Level Two Viego though is a different matter.

There are other ways to help Viego power up though. Crawling Viperwyrm is a 3/2 with Fury for 2, for example. When you play it, it either strikes an ally or deals 3 damage to your Nexus. This could be a great way to make sure you lose one or two allies to the grave for Viego (when he’s in play). Remember, Viego has to see the deaths occur. Camavoran Dragon is another Dragon with a similar trait. When it is played, it strikes an ally or deals 3 to your Nexus. While the Viperwyrm has Fury, the Camavoran Dragon has Fearsome and Fury. When it slays a unit, you drain 1 from the enemy Nexus, so you get some health back.

So with Viego in play, we want to make certain things on the board are dying.  Kadregrin The Ruined is a 6/cost 6/6 Dragon with Fury that is here to help. When it enters play, you grant an allied Champion or Dragon Challenger. Could be just what you need to make Viego hit level 2. You could always just use it on Kadregrin itself to be a Challenger/Fury card. Even at Level Two form, this is also amazing, since you could just snipe something weak, summon a Mists, and power up your Viego and the Mists.

If you’re worried about not getting enough Encroaching Mist on board, you can cast Invasive Hydravine, and he’ll fix you right up. When it’s summoned, or on Round Start, it summons an Encroaching Mist. Just keep a slot open on the board for these, even though they’ll disappear at the end of the turn (Ephemeral and all). This way, we constantly buff all Mists in the late game and keep powering up Viego. That’s just what we need right? A constantly inflating champion? I know I need it anyway. It’s definitely a useful card, and I’m glad to see it. It does however cost 7 mana, is Fearsome, and is a 7/6. So that all winds up balancing into a useful, powerful creature.

We’re going to endeavor to keep this as up-to-date as possible with the awesome new additions coming to the game. Don’t worry, Shadow Isles aren’t the only faction to get some love. For example, we’re seeing a possible new game-winner within Freljord. The Rimefang Denmother is a 6-cost for example and is a 5/5. That’s neat, but it also summons a Rimefang Pack, which gains +1/+1 for each time you’ve triggered Frostbitten this game. The Rimefang Pack is a 1/1 base with Overwhelm. Consider that, with cards like Ashe you could easily drop this into play as a 15/15 Overwhelm. I really like that as a late-game bomb, after you’ve spent time slowing the game to an absolute crawl.

Shurima received a similarly strong card in Thrumming Swarm. A 7-cost that’s an 8/4 with Overwhelm, it can really drop some pain on an enemy. If you’ve leveled a champion this game, you create a copy of this in hand. That means you can just keep bringing these Thrumming Swarm cards into play each turn until you simply win by overwhelming the other player with damage. Overwhelm and Fury seems to be very popular in this event, as with Fearsome.

Shurima’s newest champion, Akshan is also going to be one of the cards in Legends of Runeterra thanks to the Ruination event! When Akshan (2/2, Quick Attack) is summoned or strikes, he summons a Warlord’s Palace, or advances it 1 round. When it finishes that countdown, Akshan levels up. Warlord’s Palace is a card that has Countdown 8: Create a Relic of Power in hand. When you target allies, advance it by 1. So you can buff allies to make this go down faster.

Ruined Rex comes to the game for Bilgewater, and it can absolutely devastate an enemy. A 3/3 for 5, Ruined Rex casts Cannon Barrage on randomly targeted enemies for each card you’ve drawn this round. This has a max of five times. So you can get five casts of Cannon Barrage! That spell deals 2 damage to a unit. If that unit is dead or gone, it deals 1 to the enemy Nexus instead. You just have to be able to eliminate those targets before the damage, to deal it to the Nexus. It’s a fantastic mid-game potential board wipe though, so I’m excited to see what would happen if this is used.

Ionia’s got a new card that benefits from Enlightened – the Scattered Pod! A ⅚ for 6, when you play this, you draw a Slow, Fast, or Burst spell. It has Attune, so you refill 1 spell mana when you summon it too. But what makes this fun for me, if you have 10 Mana (Enlightened), it has Elusive! Now it’s almost a guaranteed 5 damage a turn (until you buff it). 

If you thought Noxus would get left out of the fun, you’d be sorely mistaken! Ruined Reckoner is an amazing way to get free attacks, at least one or two. A 4/3 for 4, creates a 0-cost Midnight Raid spell when summoned. Midnight Raid is a slow spell that gives an ally a free attack! So that’s certainly a positive. It’s something you can do a lot with in Noxus. You can also combine this with Retired Reckoner, which is a baseline 2/6 Overwhelm for 5. Whenever you target the Reckoner, it gains +1/+0 permanently. In a deck where you constantly buff/inflate your allies, that’s definitely what Retired Reckoner is looking for. 

Oh. My. Goodness. Piltover & Zaun have an incredible new tool. Did your opponent just summon something that’s a 10/10? 12/12? 20/20? Would you rather have those stats for yourself? Defective Swapbot is a 4/3 for 4, and when you play it, you swap its stats with another unit. It doesn’t specify your unit either. That means if your opponent is incredibly confident that they played a game-winning creature, suddenly, it’s not so effective. I’m a huge fan of this card, not even gonna lie.