Legends of Runeterra Patch 0.9.3: Full notes and updates

While there aren’t any card changes in sight for the upcoming patch to Legends of Runeterra, Riot Games is tweaking the economy of the game. A bunch of card text updates and fixes, as well as a slight quality of life fix for those in Master Tier, are also set to hit the servers tomorrow.

Economy updates

The Vault

You can now earn improved and unlimited Vault rewards.

Level 2+ now rewards an Expedition Token (previously level 10+).
Level 5+ now rewards a random Champion card.
Level 10+ now rewards a Champion Wildcard (replaces level five random Champion card).
After Level 13, you can now earn additional, unlimited capsules for 4,500 XP each. Each capsule contains at least three Rares and two Commons (all with a random change to upgrade as normal, including the capsule itself).

Win XP

You can now earn unlimited XP via PVP and AI wins.

PVP wins in Normal / Ranked and Expeditions net you 200 and 100 base XP (respectively), every time. First wins of the day bonuses still apply.
AI wins now always provide at least 50 XP:
AI wins one to 10: 100 XP
AI wins 10+: 50 XP

Wildcards and Direct Card Purchase

You can now purchase unlimited wildcards.

No more weekly wildcard stock in the store.
You can now directly purchase cards in the Collection tab using Coins (cost is identical to that of the equivalent wildcard).

Expeditions

You can now more easily and consistently play Expeditions (Riot has reduced both cost and rewards by approximately 33 percent).

Expedition cost adjusted to 2,000 Shards or 200 Coins (was 3,000 or 300)
Expedition rewards updated:
Zero wins: Epic Capsule
Epic Capsules contain an Epic, 2x Rares and 2x Commons, all with a random chance to upgrade (including the capsule itself).
One win: Epic Capsule, 100 Shards
Two wins: Epic Capsule, 200 Shards
Three wins: Epic Capsule, 200 Shards, Common Wildcard
Four wins: Epic Capsule, 300 Shards, 2x Common Wildcards
Five wins: Epic Capsule, 500 Shards, Rare wildcard, Common Wildcard
Six wins: Epic Capsule, 1,000 Shards, Rare Wildcard, Common Wildcard
Seven wins: Epic Capsule, 2,000 Shards, 2x Rare Wildcards

Additional details:

Expeditions started prior to 0.9.3 (with the previous higher costs) will provide previous reward values.
As 0.9.3 goes live, Riot will grant players 1,000 Shards per Expedition Token already in their inventory (to compensate for the now reduced rewards value of those tokens).

Please note that there will be no “ceremony” to call this out, but the Shards will be added directly to your Shard total.

Prologue Rewards tweak

Riot is making some minor changes to the Prologue Road rewards. New players will be introduced to more cards in early levels and then receive spendable currency after they’ve got a bit more experience.

Level two reward adjusted (Rare WC + 200 Shards → Epic WC + 200 Shards) and moved to level nine.
Levels three to nine rewards bumped up one level each (so they’re now levels two to eight).

Card Update / Fix: The Harrowing

Riot had a change to The Harrowing slated for 0.9.4 (next patch), but it accidentally slipped out with 0.9.2 (last patch). Additionally (and as some of you noticed), while the functional change went live, the updated card text to reflect it didn’t. Riot prefers to bundle balance changes as a whole, but given that it’d shortly be changing the card back anyway, the company has decided to just leave the new functionality in place for 0.9.3 and update the card text to match.

Generally, Riot doesn’t want players stealing or using opposing champions. LoR’s champion-centric design and deckbuilding can make it extremely frustrating to have your own champions used against you and Riot especially didn’t love that The Harrowing’s old design let players circumvent the usual investment required to get the payoff of a leveled-up Champion. This change brings The Harrowing in line with Riot’s general philosophy while focusing it on the Shadow Isles’ core theme of profiting off your own units’ deaths.

The Harrowing card text updated to reflect that it now only revives allies (rather than any units).
Old rules text: Revive the six strongest units that died this game and grant them Ephemeral.
New rules text: Revive the six strongest allies that died this game and grant them Ephemeral.

Card text clarity

As Riot also mentioned in the State of the Beta article, the company views in-game clarity as something of a never-ending task where it can always improve. One consistent point of feedback Riot has heard during the beta has been the various examples of confusing or misleading card text. The opportunity was clear enough that it’s taken a pass on all of its card text, which left Riot with a batch of changes to some of the worst offenders to more explicitly explain card functionality.

Rules text on the following cards was updated for clarity:

Ancient Yeti, Arena Bookie, Ashe, Blade of Ledros, Commander Ledros, Corina Veraza, Crimson Curator, Dawnspeakers, Draven’s Biggest Fan, Draven’s Whirling Death, Eggnivia, Elise, Eminent Benefactor, Flash of Brilliance, Garen’s Judgment, Garen (level two), Health Potion, Heimerdinger’s Progress Day, Iceborn Legacy, Insight of Ages, Iron Harbinger, Jinx (level two), Jubilant Poro, Judgment, Karma, Karma’s Insight of Ages, Katarina, Kindly Tavernkeeper, Laurent Chevalier, Legion Marauder, Lonely Poro, Lucian (level two), Lux, Minotaur Reckoner, Mistwraith, Noxian Guillotine, Poro Snax, Progress Day, Purify, Rimefang Wolf, Rimetusk Shaman, Ritual of Renewal, Scaled Snapper, Single Combat, Statikk Shock, The Undying, Troop of Elnuks, Trueshot Barrage, Warmother’s Call, Whirling Death, Wyrding Stones, Yasuo (level two)

Master Tier

When Riot launched the Open Beta, LoR’s rating system was locking down high-level MMR way too tightly, way too quickly, resulting in extremely static Master Tier rankings. Riot has made a quick initial change to give the system more freedom to adjust MMR based on game results. But it turns out Riot went a little too far and it’s heard frustration about how punishing losses in particular could be. The company is tightening things up again (though not to start-of-beta values) to reduce some of the variance.

Master Tier players should see smaller swings in rank (both up and down) after each game.

Bug fixes

Fixed a crash when playing a Burst spell that ends the game (e.g., by drawing from an empty deck).
Fixed an issue where players could take a never-ending turn if they kept generating and casting Burst spells.