By this point, it’s fair to say that I’m a fan of fantasy card games. From Slay the Spire to Magic the Gathering, there is a lot to love with this genre. Legends of Runeterra, and its Path of Champions, in particular, offers an experience unlike other card games I’ve played.
Put simply, Legends of Runeterra’s Path of Champions works because it rewards you for the time you invest in it. While there are downsides to the way Path of Champions works, I’ve found they are outweighed by its strengths.
The Path of Champions can be hard to get into. However, if you’re looking to discover an innovative card game that levels up with you, you’ve come to the right place.
The Allure of Path of Champions
Legends of Runeterra is a card game featuring characters from the League of Legends universe. You can either play against real opponents or in the single-player Path of Champions mode. This article will discuss the latter.
In Path of Champions, you’ll pilot a starting deck featuring a champion from League of Legends and their recruits. This concept is similar to the EDH/Commander format from Magic the Gathering. Then, you’ll embark on an Adventure and use your chosen character to attempt to clear enemies and bosses.
Path of Champions is at its best when you pick your favorite champion and play your favorite Adventures. As you continue in the Path of Champions you’ll find that your time with your favorite character is rewarded. Whether you’re new and just choosing a character that looks cool, or if you’re a fan of the lore or Arcane, this is an incredible way to play.
Path of Champions’ Best Mechanic
The best feature of the Path of Champions is the item system. Path of Champions rewards you for the time spent playing with your favorite characters by gradually unlocking items for the starter cards in your deck. These items add different effects to the cards that can drastically change how powerful they are. Sometimes the items add a minor buff to the card, but higher rarity items provide stronger effects.
The item system in the Path of Champions is unique and a great way to incorporate elements from League of Legends into a new format. Items in League of Legends can also give you powerful passive or even game-changing activated abilities. I haven’t seen this system in a card game before, and Path of Champions integrates it seamlessly.
Take the Jinx’s deck, for example. The starting deck focuses on small, low-cost creatures that can’t fight and are meant to discard your hand. However, as you level up you’ll unlock items that start attached to your cards. These upgrades slowly turn your low-cost creatures into tangible threats that can hold their own at higher difficulties.
For instance, Jinx’s deck has the card “Zaunite Urchin.” This card has 2 power and 1 health and discards a card to draw a card, making it synergistic in a Jinx deck. Unfortunately, it’s hard to attack or block effectively with. After reaching Level 2 with Jinx, you’ll unlock “Studded Leather” for “Zaunite Urchin.” This item gives the card one extra power and health, making it able to attack and block effectively and suddenly very potent for its cost.
Items, Items Everywhere
Items are a core part of gameplay and strategy in the Path of Champions. During adventures, you’ll encounter several opportunities to draft cards or buy them from shops. These drafted cards can potentially have attached items, with better items unlocked at higher champion levels.
A core strategy for building strong decks during adventures is to gather cards that have multiple items. One way to do this is by drafting a card with an item and then buying a copy of that same card with a different item from the shop. During adventures, you can also draft or buy cards from your starter deck that have additional items.
You’ll also be able to get relics from adventure rewards that can be attached to your champion. These relics are essentially items you can swap out before each adventure that augment the central card of your starter deck. They add synergistic abilities that make a champion more powerful.
Take, for example, the above load out on Jhin. Jhin’s ability cares about triggering other skills or casting certain types of spells. The two items attached (which were received via adventure rewards) increase the damage of skills and spells while also giving Jhin a powerful skill that triggers multiple times, which also synergizes with his abilities.
The proper use of relics can make your deck incredibly powerful. These relics also make the game feel very customizable as you’ll use your relics to maximize strengths, reduce weaknesses, or simply make your champion better all around. I love the system of items and relics in Runeterra. Together they keep the game fresh and reward you for leveling up and spending more time with your favorite champion.
Constellation Skill Trees
In addition to leveling up your champions by playing adventures, the Constellation system is another great game mechanic in the Path of Champions. The Constellation treads well-worn ground by introducing skill trees for each champion playable in the Path. Each rank unlocks passive abilities that enhance how you play your deck. Many of these passives are unique and perfectly complement and enhance the strategies of a specific champion’s deck.
Once more, Jinx is a great example of how this system works. Jinx’s first ability is called “What’s the Worst that Could Happen” and deals one damage whenever you discard or play a card. This is great, especially since Jinx’s starter deck features a lot of lower cost cards that can discard other cards.
Each Champion constellation features at least three passive upgrades to unlock. These upgrades can be anything from a signature ability, upgraded versions of skills, items unlocked for powerful cards, or more resources during runs. The upgraded version of Jinx’s signature Path ability is “What’s the Worst that Could Happen II,” which deals the damage from the boon to a creature and the Nexus.
As you play through the Path of Champions, you unlock resources that allow you to unlock abilities further down the Skill Trees. While you won’t be able to unlock every upgrade for a champion at once, I’ve found that this is a minor downside. Even two upgrades into a champion’s Constellation make your deck incredibly powerful and incredibly fun to play.
Path of Champions isn’t Perfect
While Path of Champions is a great game mode that I’ve had a ton of fun playing, it’s not perfect. There are two major shortcomings of the Path of Champions that are worth discussing.
The Path of Champions Wants You to Play Every Champion
There are currently 59 playable champions and decks you can pilot in the Path of Champions… and the game wants you to play all of them. Or at least, that’s certainly what it can feel like.
In order to advance in power in the Path, it becomes vital to play and replay adventures using champions from different regions. Completing adventures is one of the easiest ways to access vital resources like relics, shards that unlock abilities for champions, or experience that gives you account-wide buffs.
Because of the way that Adventures are set up in the Path of Champions, this system can turn the game into a slog. To play higher difficulty and more exciting adventures in the Path, you’ll need to complete previous adventures with multiple Champions. Your champion will get experience from completing an adventure no matter what. However, if you want to tackle harder challenges, you’ll need to swap between multiple champions to even unlock them.
This system in the Path often means that you’ll need to play adventures with champions or decks you don’t like to advance. Playing more adventures does mean you’ll be able to unlock more champions to your liking, but it doesn’t eliminate the slog. The Path of Champions is at its weakest in the early stages of the game when many game modes remain unlocked. While I’m having much more fun after getting past the opening slog, it certainly killed my enjoyment, and it was hard to continue playing.
The Path of Champions isn’t Actually Finished
As you explore more adventures and champions in the Path of Champions, you will realize that not everything is finished. Some champions only have three tiers in their Constellation, while others have a fully developed tree of 6+ skills. Some champions also have personal quests, but the final stage of the quest may say it hasn’t been added yet.
Sometimes, this can be pretty disappointing. Two of my favorite champions are currently stuck with three-star Constellations instead of a full skill tree. The two act quests that don’t have an ending can also feel underwhelming as they lack a proper ending.
However, while this is something to be aware of, new patches continue to come out that add more content to Path of Champions. Shortly after my last article about Legends of Runeterra, Patch 5.6 came out and gave a full constellation to Yasuo. At the time, he had been one of my higher level champions, and it was great to see him get a full Constellation.
It is disappointing when a feature in a video game isn’t quite complete, especially if it’s a feature that affects your favorite character. However, as long as the Path of Champions continues to improve and round out its content, I have high hopes for its future.
All Journeys Come to an End
The Path of Champions is an incredibly fun time that I keep returning to. Both the items and Constellation system make this a card game where your deck levels up with you. In this way, the more time you spend, the more it feels like you get out of the game. If you’re looking for an innovative card game that’s still growing and adding content, try out Legends of Runeterra’s Path of Champions.
