Predictions for Bandle City, the Last Legends of Runeterra Region

"It's the region that's everywhere and nowhere, full of magic, whimsy, mischief and a lot of Yordles. We are going to Bandle City. In Beyond the Bandlewood, we'll journey through portals with Yordles, and meet tons of champions, across all of Runeterra. Wherever their curiosity leads, they'll discover new friends, and reconnect with old ones along the way. Keep an eye out for the tricksters, though, and, maybe, pull a few pranks of your own."

Recently, Riot announced in the video below that the tenth and last Legends of Runeterra region will be the home of the Yordles, Bandle City. From info we have in the game, we can try to guess some of the mechanics that may come with the region, which according to the Seasonal Tourney calendar, will come August 25th. We can also theorize that we will start to see the new cards around the 15th or even earlier.

The Yordle City is in the spiritual world, so it is not in Runeterra as we know it. The inhabitants of the material world (and we players) know little about Bandle City, but it is said that it is a city full of magic and trinkets that the Yordles have collected from the material world in their travels through it.

A lot of portals to the city are scattered across the material world, at least one in every known region. These portals carry so much spiritual magic that they change the fauna and flora of the region. The portals are secret and are only known by Yordles, but from time to time somebody ends up finding one of them and ends up in the city. These people, if they can go back, tell all the sensations are amplified in Bandle City: the food is better, the scenery prettier, the sun shinier. Besides that, the people look older than they were when they disappeared.

The icon we have for the region represents one of these portals, which are called Bandlewood.

One of the first persons to theorize that Bandle City would be the 10th region was TheSkilledRoy, in this video in english. Besides predicting the region, he also suggested that it would be possible through the launching of double regions for some cards. As we already have a few Yordle Champions in game (Fizz, Teemo, Heimerdinger and Lulu), Bandle City would be very limited in the matter of champion number, with only 5 remaining, and with double regions that wouldn't be a problem anymore.

Double Regions would allow certain cards work as if they were from two different regions, for instance: Teemo could be Piltover&Zaun/BandleCity, so it could be used in a Piltover/Freljord deck or a BandleCity/Ionia one. If that happens, we will see cards that create shrooms in Bandle City, so Teemo is viable. That doesn't mean we will see three regions in a deck, just that some cards might count as a region or another at the time of deckbuilding.

All regions in game have at least one strongly linked Yordle to them, with the exception of Targon, as Shadow Isles will get Vex soon; But Yuumi might be the Targon Champion as it matches the support mechanics and also because she knows Alune, Aphelios' sister. The updated list would be:

• Bilgewater: Fizz

• Demacia: Poppy

• Freljord: Gnar

• Shadow Isles: Vex

• Ionia: Kennen and Lulu

• Piltover and Zaun: Heimerdinger, Teemo and Ziggs.

• Shurima: Rumble and Amumu

• Targon: Yuumi

So, we can assume all Yordles can be in Double Regions, something that would represent well the presence of portals and their global presence. Double regions would also match really well with what has been said about the region being everywhere and nowhere.

Another clue that we can see Double Region mechanics is Senna, which has already been announced in Legends of Runeterra. The promoted artwork matches the Shadow Isles pattern a lot, with the green scenery, but Riot will probably want Senna to be played with Lucian without limiting the deckbuilding, so she should have Double Region with Demacia and Isles, which matches her story a lot.

Bandle City is a region with a lot of magic and mischief. It is the region most connected with the spiritual world and magical creatures. So, it will probably be a region with a lot of spells and whimsical tricks, which is something we haven't seen in the previously launched regions. Targon and Shurima are two regions which don't have a lot of spells that can be used reactively, just burst combat tricks. The strength of these two regions is not in control spells that can be used reactively, having only 5 fast spells among them. Therefore, I think in this aspect Bandle City will be more like Ionia and Piltover, with lots of spells of varied effects to gain advantage over opponents, such as Whimsy! or Hextech Transmogulator which look like pranks, weakening the opponent.

Another important trait that I imagine for the region is that the units will be, in general, weak with good effects. The Yordles are all small and fragile. In LoR, the Yordle Champions we have are all low cost and low in numbers. Heimerdinger is the most expensive with 5 mana and 4 health, which are numbers quite below the mark for this cost. So, I imagine other champions will follow this line, except Rumble which uses a giant mecha robot.

With the connection to magic, the first hypothesis is that we will see more units with Attune, which is a rare keyword. But all units with Attune are in a way associated with water, so it might be only for aquatic creatures from the region. In the matter of pranks, I imagine we will see some elusive units also, and one or two swapping places spell, such as Syncopation. With the presence of portals, I would like to see the summoning of random units, something like Bilgewater does or Concurrent Timelines.

But the expansion will also bring new mechanics, so let's theorize a little. In the Region's description made in the announcement video, they also mentioned finding new and old friends, so I imagine we might see a card capable of bringing units directly from the hand or the deck. Another possible mechanic we might see is related to the fascination that Bandle City creates in humans. Might be something called Charm that forces an enemy to start a free attack, as if an inverted Cataclysm. That would match Ahri, which might be released with the new expansion, for instance.

We can expect a lot of new things that will come with the new region. Riot has launched new mechanics which are quite fun and allow deckbuilding. It might be that none of these predictions come true, but for sure we will be very pleased with the new expansion, which is getting closer every day.