Legends of Runeterra devs tease 3 rotating champions, Eternal format details

Riot Games is following through on its plan to implement a rotation for the card game Legends of Runeterra. Three champions getting rotated were revealed today, along with how the Eternal format will be supported. 

As the Legends of Runeterra card and champion pool continues to expand and grow, the rotation of cards into an Eternal format has become a reality. Players have known about rotation since the last LoR roadmap, voicing concerns and questions as to how a rotation in Legends of Runeterra will work. Devs attempted to answer those questions today through a rotation update, providing five reasons why LoR must have a rotation worked into its gameplay systems. 

• Too many cards equal too many choices.
• Available design space shrinks.
• Champions that can’t compete in the meta never get played.
• Playtesting and bug fixing becomes increasingly complicated with each new expansion.
• Balancing individual cards becomes harder and can have inconsistent results.

In addition to answering the question of “why must LoR have a rotation,” the dev team dropped three champions that are definitely getting rotated: Irelia, Twisted Fate, and Vladimir. Twisted Fate is the ideal example of a champion who restricts design since card draw is essential in a card game and any new card draw designs will have Twisted Fate breaking the meta. And Vladimir is another good example of a champion who doesn’t see gameplay in a Standard format but could in an Eternal one with his balance nerfs reverted. 

An Eternal format in LoR, created by rotating cards out of Standard, will have competitive support, according to Riot. A majority of balance patches will focus on Standard, but the Eternal format will get balance support too, specifically prior to rotation. 

No dates for an LoR rotation have been announced by Riot at time of writing but it’s expected prior to the new year. And devs are still taking suggestions through a survey that is only in English.