LoR Competitive Update: Prize Pool, New Formats, and a New Path to Worlds!

Legends of Runeterra has just announced more details regarding their new competitive system for 2023.

After vowing to revamp the system completely back in January, the game entered its "Beta Season", which meant they would be testing out a few of the systems they were ready to implement and upgrade it after collecting player feedback when it was time to go into the actual first season of the year in Legends of Runeterra, which is set for March 29th.

To prepare the player base for what's to come, a new article was released, containing more information about the new system. Let's check out a few of the most important highlights of that article!

After announcing the new competitive format, players were thrilled to know what would be the prize pools for the new competitive events. Though it wasn't written in any official article on the game's main website, it was confirmed on Twitter by Rubinzoo, the main driving force behind the new system, that these events would have actual money prize pools.

It's two months later, and the numbers are here:

These two events will be the new pillars for the competitive scene. The Runeterra Open will reward Runeterra Points, which will be the main tokens for Worlds qualification, and the Worlds Qualifiers will grant direct qualification for the grand winner.

There will be 2 Runeterra opens and 1 Runeterra Worlds Qualifier per season, so, at the end of the year, 3 spots will be reserved for the winners of the Runeterra Worlds Qualifier per each season. The 3 players with the highest number of Runeterra points per season, plus the 2 "Last Chance Qualifier Event" champions, an event that is still yet to be revealed, will add 11 more spots to this sum. In total, that will be 42 out of the 64 spots for the group phase in the Legends of Runeterra World Championship.

To complete the 22 remaining spots, Aragornn, the 2022 World Champion + the World Ender seasonal champions for each region will take up 4 more spots. The 18 remaining spots will go to the 18 players who have gathered the most Runeterra Points overall in the year globally.

Alongside the details for Worlds and the prize pools, Riot also announced a few extra modes and competitive events for the new system. Namely, the "Commons Only" format, the "Ruthless Rumbles", and the aforementioned "Last Chance Qualifier Event".

The Commons Only format will now be included as a Rumble format that will only allow Common rarity cards and up to 4 copies of Champions, all Eternal-legal cards.

The Ruthless Rumbles events will feature a harsher, more difficult event on the last weekend before the Runeterra Open, allowing players to practice and get Shards rewards to complete their collections. Check out below more details about the rewards and the entry fee:

As for the last event mentioned, the "Last Chance Qualifier Event", there are not that many details, but hope is that this will be an event happening twice a year to guarantee a few more spots into Worlds.

Worlds is now played in a Double Elimination format

"We’re laying the groundwork for the most competitive and skill-intensive Worlds yet! Worlds will have a significantly larger international group round, which will cut down our top 64 players into 16. From there, our Grand Final will be a double elimination top 16 bracket."

Tiebreakers

A much discussed topic for anyone in the competitive scene, the subject of tiebreakers has been long since discussed and beaten to death at this point by competitive players. Players expressed their desire for a new tiebreaker system that wouldn't involve Ranked ladder points, and they were heard:

"The first tiebreaker is a player’s game win-percentage in the Open (Prime Glory wins will count as 2-0 wins). Players with the highest game win-percentage make it in."

"If the list of players is still greater than 64, our second and third tiebreakers are Gauntlet Trophies and then Ladder Rank (We know this isn’t a desirable tiebreaker and hopefully they don’t come into play, but will be able to better assess with data after we run more Opens.)"

New Rumble Cost

Another change that was suggested by players over the Beta season, the Daily Rumbles cost has been updated to better serve the community as a whole:

"We heard player concerns around the price point for Rumbles come our launch. As a result, we’re adjusting the price for daily Rumbles to 800 Shards, instead of the planned 2,000. We’ve also added Green Shards to the rewards, with hopes to make participation in Daily Rumbles more sustainable."

Standard and Eternal Ladder and Runeterra Points

The Ladder season for these formats was also properly announced in the article. Whereas the Standard Ranked season will last roughly 3 months, the Eternal season will last only 1 month, alongside the Standard's last ranked month. They will reward Runeterra Points for up to the Top 100 players.

Ladder Runeterra Points:

- Top 10

5 Runeterra Points

-Top 25

4 Runeterra Points

-Top 50

3 Runeterra Points

-Top 100

2 Runeterra Points

Besides having the Eternal and Standard ranked seasons running together during the last month of the season, some details about how Runeterra Points would work for these queues were revealed:

"All of your awesome feedback led us to the decision to run both Eternal and Standard during the last month of the season. With this in mind, players may get Runeterra Points from their best Ladder finish in a season (Standard OR Eternal), but not both."

Special Rewards for Worlds Top 16 and Grassroot Tournaments Support

The team also revealed exciting rewards for those who make into the Top 16 at the World Championship:

"In addition to the cash rewards for the top 16 World Finalists, an opportunity to collaborate with LoR developers on future content will be up for grabs for the top two players."

And Follower skins!

What this might mean for the future is still uncertain, but considering the past "collaborations" in other TCGs as rewards for their competitive players, it certainly looks like a bright future for Runeterra.

Considering Grassroot Tournament support, something that was also hinted at in January, the team shared hope there would soon be more to come for any community tournament organizers:

"Dev Note: We’re also exploring ways to incorporate Tournaments run by individuals outside of Riot with a new Grassroots Tournament Program. We’re not quite ready to roll it out just yet, so expect more details in the future."

This could mean an in-game tournament structure for organizers to create, promote and have tournaments using the game itself, or even Runeterra Points rewards for the grassroot tournaments that are held throughout a season. Whatever it is, it is definitely something organizers should look out for.

Finally, a few more promises were made by the team, making up a full list of incredible future features, events, and releases for Runeterra:

> Matchmaking Improvements for Rumbles

> Free Build and other new formats

> Friend Challenge for existing Rumble formats

> Updates to Masters Ranked LP Formula

> Adding Tournament Style Open Decklists to Best of 3 Rumbles & Opens

> Improving ways to show off your collectible rewards

> Experimental mystery event

> Grassroots Tournament Program