LoR Developers Ask Community for Buff and Nerf Suggestions

The design and development team for Legends of Runeterra are in close discussion with the community, asking us players which balance changes we want to see.

One of the biggest appeals for many players is that Legends of Runeterra applies a lot of effort to their live balance. This was one of the founding principles of the game, according to Design Director Andrew Yipp who wanted to avoid “metas that get solved way too fast” with “frequent updates and balance changes”. This frequency has been inconsistent but largely there, with the majority of balance changes ultimately for the game’s benefit.

The next balance update is scheduled for January – once the November, Arcane-themed expansion and the December ‘Magical Misadventures’ expansion have both settled into the card pool. As well as fine-tuning potential under- or over0performers among those cards, many players will be hoping the current card pool receives needed changes. The development team has opened discussion with players.

Alexz Lee is a Senior Game Designer and Design Lead for Card Releases on Legends of Runeterra, and this message from him was posted on both Twitter and the Runeterra Subreddit, calling for suggestions on cards that could be changed in the January Balance Update.

Shortly after, Aleco Pors, a member of the LoR Game Analysis team opened up another discussion thread on Twitter. You can find that tweet right here.

The discussion between the devs and fans opened up very quickly and is still ongoing as of the time of posting this article. Follow up posts from Alexz Lee commented on some of the recurring themes being brought up by players.

They say that “Poppy, Lecturing Yordle, and Bandle City Mayor” are all cards they’re aware are a problem, and will likely be addressed in the balance update.

Sion is a card that the balance team is also considering, but Minimorph is not. They may be buffing more removal options to compensate for that.

With those changes on our mind, the community was able to put many very interesting balance updates onto a number of cards, that drew the attention of both developers.

UK Runeterra content creator Lanup asked for a mana cost reduction on Vault of Helia, which opens the card up to many interesting combo potentials, akin to Birthing Pod in Magic the Gathering.

On Lee’s Reddit Post calling for community suggestions, Reddit User TheLastPiMaster suggested changing Azir to say “Level Up: You’ve summoned 13 allies or landmarks”. This is a very unique balance change that would make him a relevant inclusion alongside Xerath in Mono-Shurima whilst keeping his level up requirement slow when paired with Irelia.

Twitter User @Gloomistic asked for a general Kindred buff, but also asked for Lee’s input in how the card would be adjusted. Lee declined to answer how they’d adjust Kindred specifically, but agreed that Kindred was being considered for an amendment, citing that the balance team must “be pretty careful about how we adjust them tho because their play pattern can do a lot of weird stuff if it’s strong”.

The discussion is ongoing; the community, and members of the team here at RuneterraCCG have added their two cents. This balance patch is coming January 2022, and is expected to have many card changes.