With the altered Legends of Runeterra’s patch schedule to fight developer crunch, Riot Games has introduced a new temporary lab to holdover until Patch 1.10 goes live. The micro-update for Patch 1.8 brought a lab, named Invent, that will last until next week.
In this lab, players are given a 40-card deck which is made up entirely of an “Invent” spell. This burst card costs one mana and lets you pick one card out of three random cards to add to your hand. After choosing your card, the selected card is made one mana cheaper.
Since the majority of this lab is random, trying to figure out strategies and optimal cards will improve your overall win rate. In the early game, trying to find early proactive plays will allow you to get on the board before your opponent, making your opponent need to waste cards in response. Once you establish a lead, picking up reactive cards during every other Invent, like Will of Ionia or Withering Wail, will help you to stay ahead. Besides understanding how to adapt your curve to the cards you’re given through Invent, knowing which cards are absolutely busted within this format will allow you to prioritize picking them over others.
Cards that are strong in this format are usually most champions that are generally good, like Sejuani and Garen. But even with their high quality in a limited format, there are some champions that go beyond this like Lee Sin. Due to the raw amount of spells being cast, leveling up Lee Sin is trivial, and once you reach level two with him, you can easily snowball and remove any threat with ease.
Players have until LoR’s upcoming patch to experiment with Invent before the next Lab experiment arrives. LoR Patch 1.10 is set to go live next week, Sept. 16.