History VideoGame / LegendsOfRuneterra

** Darkin Decks: All three of them have Origin cards that require a particular card type to be played to bring them out faster (Kayn and Varus require you to play 4 and 3 Cultist cards respectively, and Aatrox requires you to equip or summon three Darkin cards), and all three of their decks revolve '''very''' heavily on equipments. An Aatrox deck, however, is particularly noteworthy in this because whenever he's summoned, the card ''World Ender'' is added into your hand; this is important, because ''World Ender'' costs a whopping '''16 mana''' right off the bat to play, and the cost is reduced by 1 every time a Darkin (or a Follower equipped with one) strikes. Once ''World Ender'' is played, not only will Aatrox level up, but any Followers equipped with a Darkin equipment will be Assimilated, meaning that they turn into the Darkin associated with their equipment (i.e. any follower equipped with ''The Darkin Blade'' will turn into Aatrox), which can make for a very devastating counterattack.

** Darkin Decks: All three of them have Origin cards that require a particular card type to be played to bring them out faster (Kayn and Varus require you to play 4 and 3 Cultist cards respectively, and Aatrox requires you to equip or summon three Darkin cards), and all three of their decks revolve '''very''' heavily on equipments. An Aatrox deck, however, is particularly noteworthy in this because whenever he's summoned, the card ''World Ender'' is added into your hand; this is important, because ''World Ender'' costs a whopping '''16 mana''' right off the bat to play, and the cost is reduced by 1 every time a Darkin (or a Follower equipped with one) strikes. Once ''World Ender'' is played, not only with Aatrox level up, but any Followers equipped with a Darkin equipment will be Assimilated, meaning that they turn into the Darkin associated with their equipment, which can make for a very devastating counterattack.

* ImmigrantPatriotism: [[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Captain_Farron_(Legends_of_Runeterra) Captain Farron]] is Zaunite by birth. But these days he is completely loyal to Noxus, and one of their fiercest warriors.

* ExcitedShowTitle: Excited Card Title, actually- it's not "Pix", it's [[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Pix!_(Legends_of_Runeterra) "Pix!"]]

** '''[[StoneWall Dema]][[HoldTheLine cia]]''' are a group of nominally weak units that, if allowed to build up properly, become an almost unbreakable fighting line that can wipe the floor with whoever you're facing. They emphasize raw combat over all else, and are designed around breaking the ranks of the other factions using Challenger, Barrier, and their plethora of extremely strong point buffs. They tend to face trouble when it comes to the factions that rely around debuffing like the Freljord or the Shadow Isles, who can engage Demacia in combat without having to fight one on one. Additionally, Demacia is more reliant on having units on board than every other region; nearly every spell they have is for interacting with their own units in the form of buffs and combat tricks, and even their removal options boil down to "make one of your units hit the enemy unit," either through Challenger or directly striking. As such, they can easily get blown out by powerful removal effects like those available to Noxus and Shadow Isles, with things like The Ruination being able to simply stop them dead. They can also spec into a powerful anti-magic role using the Mageseeker Cards and Purify, but that comes at a cost of making them far weaker in terms of offense. Besides Targon, they're the only other faction with Dragons bearing the ''Fury'' keyword, and Dragon-support cards.

** '''[[ThePowerOfTheSun Shur]][[BuildLikeAnEgyptian ima]]''', the third region added to the game after release, is a region that when played by itself has a focus on working towards restoring the Sun Disk to allow your Ascended champions (Azir, Nasus, and Renekton) to reach level 3, wherein each of them becomes a game-ending threat in their own right. A copy of Buried Sun Disk is drawn at the start of the game if the player's deck contains only Shuriman cards, which both helps set up the Ascended game plan, but also limits what kind of decks can be built around it, as it discourages dipping into another region. Shurima is also home to more landmarks than any other region, giving a distinct playstyle that involves setting up your board several turns in advance with the new Countdown keyword (Such as the Buried Sun Disk, Hibernating Rockbear, and Preservarium to name a few), or setting up traps that can't be removed as easily as units (using the unit Rock Hopper or spell Unraveled Earth to create Rolling Sands, a landmark that destroys itself to grant a newly summoned enemy vulnerable). Many cards in the expansion also involve summoning ephemeral Sand Soldiers, giving Shurima a strong offense but a weaker defence. Shurima is the first region that truly emphasises levelling up your champions, with several units that gain bonuses from having levelled a champion, and even a spell that outright levels up all Ascended allies to level 2. On the other hand, Shurima has virtually no removal aside from making enemies Vulnerable and forcing them to fight and are lacking in buffs to support their units, hindering their ability to respond to threats and retake the board after falling behind.

** [[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Yasuo/LOR Yasuo]] in particular is built around this. While he's a strong unit on his own, if he's allowed to level up he becomes exceptionally dangerous, as his "annoying-but-manageable" effect of dealing two damage to any recalled or stunned enemy evolves into a "potentially-match-ending" effect of getting a free attack on every stunned or recalled enemy. The problem is that a solid Yasuo deck is a very draw reliant setup that requires careful management of your stuns and recalls, and while you can have a ton of really scary units (including Legion Rearguard and Fae Bladetwirler) it's possible for you to get blown over before Yasuo can get strong enough to consistently clean house.
** [[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Twisted_Fate/LOR Twisted Fate]], moreso than any other champion, requires careful precision to use while being able to single-handedly win games. He has a difficult level-up requirement (seeing you draw 9 cards) while being one of the weakest champions in the game at only 2/2, despite his costly 4-mana price tag. But once you have him leveled up, you've pretty much won unless your opponent can remove him ''immediately'' (and you don't have another copy) because the amount of value he generates is simply insane. The most popular deck built around him (the "Casino deck") is generally considered the single hardest deck to play properly in the entire game, but is also one of the most powerful when it works.

** Introduced in the Call of the Mountain expansion, Dragon is a new tribal keyword. Some are otherworldly creatures of power and magic, some (such as [[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/The_Infinite_Mindsplitter_(Legends_of_Runeterra) The Infinite Mindsplitter]]) bordering on EldritchAbomination status while others are more mundane-appearing giant monsters. They tend to have the Fury keyword, powering up whenever they kill something. Due to EarlyInstallmentWeirdness, [[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/The_Empyrean_(Legends_of_Runeterra) The Empyrean]] and [[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Eye_of_the_Dragon_(Legends_of_Runeterra) Dragonlings]] did not have this type until a few patches later.

** By contrast with the other minotaurs seen in the game so far (and an example of exactly how far minotaurs can actually climb in Noxian society), the [[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Thorn_of_the_Rose_(Legends_of_Runeterra) Thorn of the Rose]] is a female minotaur called Lady Aelana who is a member of the Black Rose. While still [[https://twitter.com/PlayRuneterra/status/1381653341042708480/photo/1 much taller than the average human]] (and [[GlassCannon quite dangerously strong, albeit fragile, with a 5/1 statline]], suiting her role as a Black Rose assassin), [[BizarreSexualDimorphism she's significantly smaller and slimmer than any of the male minotaurs seen before now]].

** The new 'Invoke' keyword added with the Targon expansion adds a considerable deal of RNG, by having the player choose 1 card from a selection of 3, and the selection itself is taken from 22 Celestial cards, which otherwise cannot be added to a deck. Almost all of the celestial cards will have ''some'' use, even in a sub-optimal situation. However, the most popular Invoke cards filter the list of Celestial cards to a range of 3 mana (such as [[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Solari_Priestess_(Legends_of_Runeterra) Solari Priestess]] who invokes a Celestial card that costs 4-6 mana), considerably reducing the level of randomness involved- in fact, unrestricted Invoke cards like [[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Moondreamer_(Legends_of_Runeterra) Moondreamer]] are almost never used because of the RNG.

** The [[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Towering_Stonehorn_(Legends_of_Runeterra) Towering Stonehorn]] is a 6-cost follower card that has an effect which makes them immune to damage from spells or skills. As a result, this card cannot be widdled out unless it is silenced. With that said, however, while it is immune to damage, it can still be destroyed from effects that kill or Obliterate a unit like Vengeance or Devourer of the Depth's Devour skill.

** Once either Nexus reaches 0 health, the winner is decided in that instant. If there are still spells or attacks remaining in the stack, they will continue to play out for no effect. A true MutualKill must be exactly simultaneous, such as from [[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Caustic_Cask_(Legends_of_Runeterra) Caustic Cask]] or drawing cards at the round start. This also means that you can't be brought to 0 life or below and then recover with life gain to survive, making the order of actions in a stack of pivotal importance.

** '''[[StoneWall Dema]][[HoldTheLine cia]]''' are a group of nominally weak units that, if allowed to build up properly, become an almost unbreakable fighting line that can wipe the floor with whoever you're facing. They emphasize raw combat over all else, and are designed around breaking the ranks of the other factions using Challenger, Barrier, and their plethora of extremely strong point buffs. They tend to face trouble when it comes to the factions that rely around debuffing like the Freljord or the Shadow Isles, who can engage Demacia in combat without having to fight one on one. Additionally, Demacia is more reliant on having units on board than every other region; nearly every spell they have is for interacting with their own units in the form of buffs and combat tricks, and even their removal options boil down to "make one of your units hit the enemy unit," either through Challenger or directly striking. As such, they can easily get blown out by powerful removal effects like those available to Noxus and Shadow Isles, with things like [[KillEmAll The Ruination]] being able to simply stop them dead. They can also spec into a powerful anti-magic role using the Mageseeker Cards and Purify, but that comes at a cost of making them far weaker in terms of offense. Besides Targon, they're the only other faction with Dragons bearing the ''Fury'' keyword, and Dragon-support cards.

* AngelicAbomination: [[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Mihira,_Aspect_of_Justice_(Legends_of_Runeterra) Mihira, Aspect of Justice]] -- after years of ambiguity in Kayle and Morgana's shared backstory -- is revealed in the game to be this. While Kayle and Morgana [[OurAngelsAreDifferent are effectively just normal humans with wings]], their Aspect mother is a colossal, abstract mass of gold and flames with [[MultiArmedAndDangerous three pairs of glowing humanoid arms]], three pairs of enormous angel wings [[EyesDoNotBelongThere with eyes on them]], and surrounded by a wheel of fire.

** The first expansion of "The Darkin Saga" "Awakening" was released on August 30th 2022, introducing Equipment cards to the game.

** The decks revolving around ''Buried Sun Disc'', a 1-mana landmark that automatically jumps into your hand on turn one if you play pure Shurima. It needs 25 turns to be restored (which is sped up by 10 turns if your Ascended Champion levels up while it is on the field.) Once you restore it, your Level 2 Ascended Champion will become a '''Level 3''' Ascended champion, each with monstrously high stats and different effects:

*** Xerath deals 5 damage to your opponent's weakest unit every round and whenever your landmark is destroyed, ravaging their board over time. If they have no units, his 5 damage goes to their Nexus instead.

** The second expansion for "Worldwalker", "Forces From Beyond" was released on July 20th 2022.
** The third expansion, "The Darkin Saga: Awakening" was released on August 30th 2022, introducing Equipment cards to the game. Unlike with previous expansions, this is apparently not the final part of "Worldwalker", as it kicks off a separate arc of its own with the set.
** The fourth expansion, "The Darkin Saga: Domination" was released on October 12th 2022.

** One of [[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Anivia/LoR Anivia's]] lines when casting her Glacial Storm skill is [[Theatre/KingLear "Blow winds, and crack your cheeks!"]]

** Tri-Beam Improbulator is a 4-cost slow spell the deals 1 to a unit and summons a random 1 cost follower. In addition, when the card is in hand, playing a 3 mana card causes the damage and mana of the summoned card to go up by one, to a max of 10. However, a fair amount of the units it can summon are either underpowered or come with debilitating effects (as with the above example). As a matter of fact, most 10 mana followers are extremely underpowered cards for their initial cost.

* PowerupLetdown: [[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Yasuo/LOR Yasuo]] turned out to have an unforseen but crippling WeaksauceWeakness in his level 2 form which his level 1 form doesn't share- Frostbite. Level 1 Yasuo does 2 damage to any stunned or recalled enemy, while level 2 has him strike them instead (doing 5 damage by default). While this is normally a straight upgrade, if Yasuo is affected by Frostbite, his power is reduced to 0 for a turn, completely negating his level 2 effect. And since 2 of the most popular Frostbite cards that can affect Yasuo ([[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Flash_Freeze_(Legends_of_Runeterra) Flash Freeze]] and [[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Harsh_Winds_(Legends_of_Runeterra) Harsh Winds]]) are Burst speed spells, Yasuo players can find themselves in a position where they play what should be a board-clearing [[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Intimidating_Roar_(Legends_of_Runeterra) Intimidating Roar]], only to find it doing no damage and their Yasuo still on 0 power, unable to capitalise (although the Frostbite in turn can be negated with a timely [[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Elixir_of_Wrath_(Legends_of_Runeterra) Elixir of Wrath]] or other Burst-speed buff spell).

** The ''Sentinels of Light'' event features many cards that are ruined by the Black Mist and became possessed monsters that serve Viego, such as [[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Ruined_Dragonguard_(Legends_of_Runeterra) Ruined Dragonguard]] and the [[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Ruined_Rex_(Legends_of_Runeterra) Ruined Rex]]. Even some champions aren't safe, as Draven, Shyvana, and Karma were ruined by the Black Mist and brought destruction to Runeterra.

* BalefulPolymorph:
** Like in ''[=LoL=]'', Lulu's signature [[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Whimsy!_(Legends_of_Runeterra) Whimsy!]] spell turns an enemy Follower into a harmless 1/1 [[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Squirrel_(Legends_of_Runeterra) Squirrel]] until the end of the round. Unfortunately it can't affect Champions in this game.
** [[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Minimorph_(Legends_of_Runeterra) Minimorph]], on the other hand, is both permanent and works on champions. (It's more expensive, though.)

* WarElephant: The [[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Armored_Tuskrider_(Legends_of_Runeterra) Armored Tuskrider]] are warriors who rides an mammoth-sized warbeast into battle. Its special ability is that it cannot be damaged by enemies with 4 or less Power.

'''Jarvan IV:''' What does he ''see'' in you?![[note]][[MsFanservice The tight black leather, thighs that could crack a coconut, and bosoms like basketballs]] probably has ''something'' to do with it...[[/note]]

** '''[[LightningBruiser Io]][[FragileSpeedster nia]]''' revolves around outsmarting your enemies and manipulating the flow of the battle, as well as building up your strongest units into deadly powerhouses. Ionia tends to revolve around the Barrier and Recall mechanics, allowing them to be deceptively tanky and remove enemies from play. This is their modus operandi- [[CombatPragmatist control the battlefield through deception and tactics to achieve victory]]. Because of this emphasis on manipulation and stealth, many Ionia units capitalize on techniques over raw skill, and are the central faction revolving around the Elusive mechanic. Elusive units cannot be blocked except by other Elusive units, which are rare to the other factions. This means that if you're clever, you can run a deck of nearly impossible to hit foes. Lifesteal also plays a large part in the faction as does Barrier, which makes Ionia very versatile at whatever tactic you want to implement. The problem is that their individual units are often weak and fragile. While their assassination and misdirection mechanics are indeed strong, it's possible for them to be outdone by Piltover and Zaun, Demacia and the Shadow Isles forgoing subtlety and simply [[WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer attacking them back with more force]] or outright ignoring their Elusive mechanic to target them directly.

** '''[[StoneWall Dema]][[HoldTheLine cia]]''' are a group of nominally weak units that, if allowed to build up properly, become an almost unbreakable fighting line that can wipe the floor with whoever you're facing. They emphasize raw combat over all else, and are designed around breaking the ranks of the other factions using Challenger, Barrier, and their plethora of extremely strong point buffs. They tend to face trouble when it comes to the factions that rely around debuffing like the Freljord or the Shadow Isles, who can engage Demacia in combat without having to fight one on one. They can also spec into a powerful anti-magic role using the Mageseeker Cards and Purify, but that comes at a cost of making them far weaker in terms of offense. Besides Targon, they're the only other faction with Dragons bearing the ''Fury'' keyword, and Dragon-support cards.

** [[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Unspeakable_Horror_(Legends_of_Runeterra) Unspeakable Horror]] also gives the AI fits for some inexplicable reason, as half the time it decides the best target to use the spell on is ''its own unit''. Even if the player has a 1-health follower that's just begging to get pinged.