How to earn keys in League of Legends

Free loot? Who can resist?
Five LoL champions ready to fight
Image via Riot Games

League of Legends has quite a lot of ways to reward you—Prime Gaming, Twitch Drops, and Essence Emporium, but nothing is better than getting a Hextech or Masterwork chest and opening it proudly to find a skin you’ve been eyeing for weeks. But, before you can start opening chests like Christmas presents, you need to get a Hextech Key.

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In most cases, I see players with more chests in their Loot tab than keys, and here’s how you can get keys in League and get that sweet, sweet free loot.

What are Hextech Keys

Hextech Keys in League are a special type of keys that can be used to open both Hextech and Masterwork Chests. While Masterwork Chests are tied to the cash shop and normally require you to spend money on it, Hextech Chests can be obtained throughout the season mainly by getting the S grade on champions.

How to get Hextech Keys

Before we dive deep into how you can get your keys in League, it’s essential you understand keys can come in one of two forms—readymade keys and Key Fragments.

Readymade keys aren’t that prevalent in the game, but still have a couple of sources. These keys can come from special Riot Games events like beginning of the season, battle pass milestones, battle pass shop for event tokens, or purchasing them together with chests from the RP shop.

Image of Masterwork Chest unopened.
You need keys to open Masterwork and Hextech Chests. Screenshot by Dot Esports

Key Fragments, on the other hand, are a bit more accessible to common players and can come from a wide variety of sources—playing games and getting Honored after the match comes to a close, honor orbs, champion orbs, Hextech Chests, various missions during events, and event shops.

Related: When is the next LoL Essence Emporium?

To be perfectly honest, the best way to get keys and fragments is via events and event shops. League events normally have free quests and you end up with 300 event tokens after you complete them all. Key fragments cost usually 20 event tokens and keys are 60 tokens. So, if you don’t spend your tokens on anything else in that event, you can get up to five keys.


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Author
Rachel Samples
Managing Editor. In 2018, Rachel graduated from the University of Texas with a bachelor’s in Rhetoric and Writing and first entered the esports industry in the same year. Her favorite games include fast-paced FPS titles, deckbuilders, and the entire Mass Effect franchise. Need any calibrations?
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Jerome Heath
Jerome Heath is a senior editor at Dot Esports.
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Izabela Tomakic
Staff Writer & World of Warcraft lead. Izabela has a long history with writing and games like World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Fortnite, and The Sims. Before finding her home at Dot Esports in 2021, Izabela was an English teacher and a freelancer at Hotspawn, GGRecon, and Gameranx. In her free time, you’ll find her writing novels, wandering Azeroth, or inting on Summoner’s Rift.