Legends of Runeterra shifts to unlimited wildcard purchases

Next week, there will no longer be a cap on wildcard purchases in Legends of Runeterra, Riot Games announced today. 

Beginning on March 31 with Patch 0.9.3, players will be able to purchase an unlimited number of wildcards. It’s been six weeks since the launch of the LoR open beta release and its predominantly been a success. But the community as a whole has never been happy with the wildcard cap decision, especially big-name streamers.

The LoR team has been open to making changes during the beta, though, reversing decisions that aren’t healthy for the game.

“Players will still be able to earn all the cards for free, and we’re no longer gating that experience so invested players can earn them even faster,” LoR game director Andrew “Umbrage” Yip said. “We are not, and have no plans, to ever introduce random packs of cards to the game, or to force players to spend incredible amounts of money to get a single card they want. In LoR, if you want that card you can either buy it directly or just play some games and get exactly what you want.”

Removing the wildcard cap doesn’t mean LoR will switch its monetization system over to booster packs, but it does allow new players to enter the game and craft any deck they want to build. The decision also allows streamers who want to spend money the option to purchase complete sets at one time. 

The initial goal behind the wildcard cap was to help the meta evolve at a slower rate. While it did that for the first few weeks, the same results won’t occur with the next set drop due to players hoarding wildcards and shards. The LoR team wants everyone to have an opportunity to compete without restrictions and uncapping wildcard purchases allows for this to happen.