LoR: Ideas to Upgrade the Game's Premium Card Styles

Legends of Runeterra is one of the best digital card games of all time. One of the game's main goals, when it was released, was to address some other issues that other card games in the market had, such as predatory economies, too much RNG, and outdated competitive circuits.

We can say nowadays Runeterra has the best economy system out of all the card games, and is the most "free to play" game of all of them, with a consolidated competitive scene. However, there is one area in which Runeterra, out of all card games, is severely disappointing: the game's premium card style content.

Let's discuss what are our premium content options in the game, and suggest a few ways we can upgrade it.

All card games have some sort of premium variation to their cards, be them foil or golden, or even animated. Runeterra has prismatic cards, which are nothing more than an attempt at a Runeterra version of foil styles for the original cards, but with a thicker border, and a style foiled with a rainbow animation.

Don't get me wrong; these styles are beautiful, particularly the ones that have some sort of skyline in their artwork, such as Targon's Peak.

We also have Buried Sun Disc.

And my favorite, Nasus with his "Corrupted" skin.

As much as these are cool cosmetics, Runeterra unfortunately is very behind other games when we compare it to other game's premium content, as it seems a bit lazy. Not to mention prismatic cards have an annoying sound when you open them by clicking on them with the right button.

What we are missing in Runeterra are animated cards - as Riot themselves have shown us in the following link, on their official account.

Tweet on Legends of Runeterra's Main Twitter Account.

This tweet guarantees it is possible, yes, to animate cards, and make them incredible. But we might not ever have this type of content in the game.

In a recent interview, the game's Head of Product, Eric Shen, commented that animated skins and animated content in the game are problematic due to the memory excess they create in the game.

Here's the full interview, if you want to know more about it:

Hence, I am here to give you a few upgrade suggestions to the game's premium content, not necessarily animated - that could be great alternatives without inflating the game's memory, and also make everything quite accessible to everyone.

"Frame Break" Cards

Look at this incredible art piece in a "Frame Break" style.

This "Frame Break" Zoe was created by Jorge/Shadowbox Artis, or @jorge_junjun on Twitter.

This Zoe card created by the artist @jorge_junjun was the inspiration behind this article - obviously this art piece isn't a card and instead is a type of box, but I think it would look pretty cool in Runeterra. The best example we have of that are Marvel Snap's "Frame Break" cards.

Hearthstone itself has its own "Frame Break" version with diamond cards.

"Frame Break" variants could work independently of prismatic styles, and be an entirely different type of premium rarity. Cards could have a "Frame Break" style and "Prismatic" style at the same time, or only one or the other. Check out this Ahri "Frame Break" piece created by the artist @78Undeadplayer:

"Star Foil" and Other "Foil" Variations

In other card games, such as Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG, for instance, we have "Foil" variations, such as "Star Foil". Runeterra's prismatic cards are their own version of foils, so, why not create other versions of this type of premium style?

Marvel Snap has different Foil animations for its cards: they can have a foil finish or prism finish, for instance.

"Ink" Styles and Monochromatic Variations

Premium variations that completely alter the card's color to monochromatic shades, like Marvel Snap's Ink variants, seem easy to create, and could be very successful in Runeterra.

Pokémon's Golden Rare cards are also beautiful, and seem simple to create. Certainly, Runeterra cards would look gorgeous with this Golden touch!

If you read this far, now you know which are my suggestions to upgrade Runeterra's premium content. Comment your own suggestions down below as well!

Don't forget to share this article on social media. See you next time!