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Legends of Runeterra patch 1.0 notes - Rising Tides, 120 new cards, and more

Legends of Runeterra is almost here - and the patch 1.0 notes have landed

Ahead of Legends of Runeterra‘s arrival in just a few short days, Riot Games has unveiled the first batch of patch notes for the card game’s 1.0 launch – and its new expansion, which is called Rising Tides. The expansion brings an entirely new region called Bilgewater, as well as 120 new cards (60 for the existing six regions; 60 for the new region), 11 new Champions, six new keywords, and more.

“In the treacherous harbour of Bilgewater,” Riot says, “locals live and die by one code: take whatever you can. Pirate gangs never pass up a chance to plunder, swindlers and rogues keep the next big score in their sights, and monsters of the deep devour entire ships without warning.”

Bilgewater offers a whole bunch of new deckbuilding opportunities for players, giving you the chance to “take enemies by surprise and shoot holes in their plans”, as the studio announces. “You win by bombarding your opponent with attacks they just can’t deal with, and when it’s time to sink or swim, you’ll have all the firepower you need to pull it off.”

As for those shiny new additions, you can head to Mobalytics here from today to go get a look at the massive new raft of cards. There’s also a brand new Champion for each of the six pre-existing regions coming to the game with the new patch: Miss Fortune, Fizz, Gangplank, Twisted Fate, Swain, Quinn, “and more!” Riot reveals.

Plus, there are launch and first-week login rewards, Region Road updates, balance changes, and loads more to get a good look at ahead of the game’s arrival.

Read on to check out the Legends of Runeterra patch 1.0 notes in full below (via Riot Games):

Moonstruck Poro Launch Reward

As a special thank you to beta players and everyone who joins us at launch, all accounts that log in to LoR by 11:59 PM, May 7 PT will receive an exclusive Moonstruck Poro Guardian.

The next day, we’ll begin distributing the reward, and you should see it in your collection within 24 hours. If you still don’t see your guardian after 48 hours, please contact Player Support. Don’t worry, your poro pal will wait for you.

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First-Week Login Rewards

To help get new folks started in LoR, we’ve added a one-time per account track of first-week login rewards. All existing accounts as of Patch 1.0 will get to run through the track—enjoy!

  • New LoR accounts (and those existing as of Patch 1.0) can now redeem login rewards each of the first seven days they log in:
    • Day 1: 1x Capsule
    • Day 2: 1x Expedition Token
    • Day 3: 1x Golden Chest
    • Day 4: 1x Commander Ledros, 2x Atrocity
    • Day 5: 1x Champion Capsule
    • Day 6: 1x Platinum Chest
    • Day 7: 2x Ashe, 1x Rimetusk Shaman, 1x Icy Yeti, 2x Icevale Archer, 2x Shatter
  • A new starter deck (Freeze and Decay) will be added to your collection, based on the above 8 cards plus others acquired in the Prologue starter decks.
  • While we’re turning this track on for current players, there is one known issue—players who own duplicate copies of Day 4’s rewards (2x Atrocity, 1x Commander Ledros) will have them converted into shards without a visualisation or duplicate protection. All Day 7 rewards ARE covered by duplicated protection (and fully visualized).

Region Road Updates

Bilgewater joins the regions of Runeterra with its own Region Road, and all Region Roads are now extended so you can pursue all the new cards (and regional card backs!) in Rising Tides. New and returning players (or those who just like to take their time) can now earn extra XP for early levels in the original regions.

  • Bilgewater Region Road added.
  • All Region Roads extended from 20 to 25 levels.
    • New levels for existing regions will only drop Rising Tides cards (until you unlock them all).
    • Levels 1-20 can now drop Rising Tides cards.
    • The last level for each region rewards a regional card back!
  • “XP Boost Level” system added—earn extra XP towards completing early Region Road levels.
  • From Patch 1.0, the first 12 levels on the original six Region Roads (i.e., not Bilgewater) will multiply XP applied toward them by 50%.
  • System will be adjusted over time—for example, to include Bilgewater levels, or to advance further down Region Roads with future releases.

Personalization

Rising Tides ships with all-new emotes and card backs as well as a Bilgewater-inspired board and two new guardians. Emotes and card backs are available in the store, or you can unlock regional card backs in the extended Region Roads.

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Boards

  • Slaughter Docks
    • For legends who take bold risks for big rewards.

Guardians

 

  • Powder Monkey
    • Personality: Cheeky
    • Hobby: Hot Potato
    • Hanging out with this one is a blast.
  • Baley
  • Personality: Innocent
  • Hobby: Staring contests
  • The most adorable omen of death you’ll ever see.

Emotes

  • 10 new emotes now available for 190 Coins each.
  • Emote selection now customizable.
  • Emotes section added to Collection and Store.
    • Original six emotes converted to Collection items automatically owned by all accounts.

 

Card Backs

  • 7 regional card backs can now be earned through the updated Region Roads.
  • 3 new champion card backs now available for 490 Coins each.
  • The Loose Cannon (Jinx)
  • The Might of Demacia (Garen)
  • The Unforgiven (Yasuo)
  • Card Backs section added to Collection and Store.
    • Default Summoner’s Rift Card Back converted to a Collection item automatically owned by all accounts.

Per-Deck Loadout

To go along with all the new options, we’ve added the ability to customize and save individual deck loadouts for boards, guardians, emotes, and card backs. Whether you want to make sure your favorite guardian is always along for the ride or accompany your strategy with the perfect theme, you can now set up every deck just right.

  • Loadout preview and selector added to the deck info panel when selecting a deck (in either Play or Collection).
  • Click on the icons to adjust a deck’s loadout—choices now customize options on a per-deck basis (rather than for all decks).
  • Expeditions also get their own loadout—edit it once and it will last until you next update it.
  • Newly created decks will start with the loadout of your last-played deck.
  • Decks created before Patch 1.0 will be set to your last used loadout from before the patch.
  • Various associated UI cleanup.

Ranked

Launch also brings the end of the Beta Season and the start of LoR’s first post-launch ranked season—the Season of Plunder. Beta participants will earn a Beta Season-exclusive icon based on the highest tier they reached. Beta ranks will be partially reset for the new season, then you’ll have about two months to climb as high as you can before the Season of Plunder ends and the next Ranked reward is granted (reward details coming soon).

  • Beta Season will end at approximately 9 AM, April 28 PT.
  • Beta Season ranked rewards will be granted with your first login after Patch 1.0.
  • Ranked queue will be disabled for approximately 24 hours, then we’ll start the Season of Plunder around 10 AM, April 29 PT.
  • Ranks partially reset:
  • Master accounts will drop 800LP (8 divisions).
  • Diamond and Platinum accounts will drop 750LP (7 divisions + 50LP).
  • Gold and Silver accounts will drop 675LP (6 divisions + 75LP).
  • Bronze and Iron accounts will reset to Iron IV.

Playing Units on Full Boards

 

  • Having a full board of 6 units no longer prevents you from playing additional units—you may now do so and select a current unit to be Obliterated, with your new unit replacing it.
  • This won’t trigger Last Breath effects, because the replaced unit doesn’t die.
  • If the new unit you played makes more units after being summoned, those will still “overflow” and be Obliterated—you can’t make more space beyond the unit you’re replacing. (You can also still play spells that generate units on a full board, but they’ll “overflow” too, so maybe don’t do that!)

We made this change so that longer games will retain more interesting decisions even late into the game when boards are filling up. We want you to be able to keep playing the sweet units you draw, if you want to, and until this patch, you were essentially locked out if you had a full board of 6 units—you couldn’t play any more from your hand. Now, you can replace one of your units on a full board with the new one played from hand—choose the one you want to replace and it gets Obliterated.

Expeditions Archetypes

We’ve got a ton of Expeditions updates for Rising Tides, with both eight new archetypes to draft and updates to all existing archetypes.

  • Eight new Rising Tides archetypes added to the Expeditions draft pool.
  • This includes six new archetypes for every existing region paired with Bilgewater and one for solo Bilgewater, as well as one new bonus archetype featuring Jinx and Fizz.
  • Rising Tides archetypes will temporarily be twice as likely as they would be otherwise to appear in the initial Champion Picks. We’ll even out these chances in a later patch.
  • Card lists have been adjusted for all existing archetypes, primarily adding cards from Rising Tides and in many cases removing older cards to make room for them.

New Player and AI Adjustments

We’ve made a variety of adjustments to smooth out the new player experience, and added new challenges and AI decks for Rising Tides.

  • Added 6 new challenges based on Rising Tides keywords and mechanics.
  • New Rising Tides AI decks added.
  • Various AI decks adjusted.
  • Starter deck card lists, names, and art updated.
  • Various tweaks to the first few new player games vs the AI, such as guaranteed AI deck matchups, adjusted draws, and modified AI behavior.

Language Support

We’ve added additional language support to LoR. New players should be correctly auto-detected, while existing players can swap languages in their login screen settings.

  • Traditional Chinese now supported.
  • Russian now supported.
  • Turkish now supported.

Miscellaneous

  • Silverwing Scout renamed to Silverwing Diver.
  • Ezreal (Level 2) art flipped. For those who saw the Rising Tides previews, we also flipped Maokai (both levels).
  • Quests adjusted for Rising Tides content.
  • Expedition Trade screen UX adjusted—the swap button will now always swap between options, while “Skip this trade” toggles to “Accept this trade.”
  • Fixed an issue where Epic Capsules from Expeditions rewards incorrectly displayed as an Epic Card (visual bug only, contents were correct).
  • In-game mail system added (for rewards distribution and other uses).
  • Player support can now fully migrate accounts with incorrectly assigned regions of residence—more info here.

That’s all we’ve got for the very first post-beta LoR patch notes for now! The Legends of Runeterra release date is set for April 30 on PC, so you’ve only got a couple more days to wait before you can get stuck into the game and all its new content.