Riot has announced the next region, expansion and set coming to Legends of Runeterra. Since launch, Riot has announced it would be releasing cards in a different manner and has now given the details on what this means. Expansions will arrive with each major patch, about every two months, while a set is “thematically and mechanically cohesive group of cards released over one or more expansions.”
Sets are named after the first of these expansions, so the next set and expansion coming to Legends of Runeterra is Call of the Mountains. The new region; Targon.
Make sense?
Riot has stated cards released in August, October and December will all form part of the Call of the Mountain set and the expansion released in August is also Call of the Mountain. Riot has also announced a new Ranked season begins whenever a new expansion is released.
Call of the Mountain
For the Call of the Mountain Set, the three expansions will add a total of 169 new cards with 89 of those releasing in the first expansion. The following two expansions will both include 40 cards. The Call of the Mountain expansion will add seven champions and 82 non-champions with both subsequent expansions adding three champions each and 37 non-champions each.
When a new set is released, a new champion will be added for each region and every expansion will include new cards for each region. That being said, some regions will receive more cards than others, based on the theme of the expansion etc.
Riot has promised that by the time all three expansions have released for a set, all regions will have an equal share of champions and nearly the same number of cards overall. Riot has also promised that when a region doesn’t get a new champion, the cards added will support “classic strategies or introduce new twists on old favorites.”
Following the release of Rising Tides, Riot knew it needed to release cards and expansions differently. Although Rising Tides was a success and added 120 new cards and a new Region, devs internally had been discussing a new, better way to release cards.
We spend a lot of effort trying to keep LoR’s metagame fresh for as long as possible—to stay in that sweet spot where there’s an array of decks and nothing feels solved. This leads to design decisions like establishing a tighter range for card power level, building strategies around champs so they’ll all have a home in at least one deck, and investing in a “live design” team that actively works to maintain the environment.
Another decision the design team had considered since very early in the game’s development was—you guessed it—more overall card releases. One of the simplest (and exciting) ways to shake up a meta is to just add more cards, more frequently; but that comes with a cascade of additional design decisions and tradeoffs. Call of the Mountain was our first opportunity to explore how a full set could fit into different expansions, and how that new structure might work for future sets.
https://twitter.com/PlayRuneterra/status/1293215598898548742
The Targon regions and the Call of the Mountain set were in development before Riot even announced Legends of Runeterra and so, the team has had a long time to fine-tune and get things right. Card reveals have started and in the tweet above, you can see a new keyword and four new cards.
Call of the Mountain and Targon will be added to Legends of Runeterra on August 26.
