It would appear that there’s enough of a fanbase for the in-development League of Legends CCG Legends of Runeterra that Riot is accelerating some of its plans. The game has officially announced its open beta will kick off on Friday, January 24th, in response to player demand.
According to the video announcement, the number of people who pre-registered for a hands-on look at the core game and the Expeditions draft mode was well beyond the number of people Riot could actually invite, and so the team worked to get Legends of Runeterra in an open beta state to allow everyone to get in.
The open beta will include a ranked mode, which will feature progression similar to LoL, but earning a new rank will be kept the moment its achieved, meaning there’s no ranking downward on a loss. The competitive season will last the length of beta into launch, with updates promised to improve the meta and reduce grind. The beta will also have a friend challenge feature, which lets players challenge anyone on their social panel to a friendly match. And don’t worry about trying to amass a friends list for Legends of Runeterra; your LoL friends list will be in the CCG.
The video also touched on Legends of Runeterra’s cash shop, stressing that there won’t be any pay-to-win shenanigans since cards are earned by progression. Therefore, the game’s cash shop will feature cosmetics like Guardians and region-themed game boards with their own unique music. Additional cosmetics on the way will include more of these, plus emotes that can be shown off mid-match. Speaking of adding things, there will be new expansions released over the next twelve months that add new regions to the game.
