It’s the day before a new Legends of Runeterra patch, which means Riot Games has released the patch notes containing all the updates and changes coming to the game. This time around, it just happens to be the game’s big 1.0 patch, with the game finally releasing after a few months of being in its open beta phase.
Along with an overview of all the new mechanics, cosmetics, and rewards, Riot has revealed that they’re changing the way players interact with a full board. Right now, when a player’s board has reached its six-unit limit, they’re completely unable to play more units until at least one of those units die. This leads to some situations where your decision to play a unit in a previous turn limits options in your current turn.
It seems Riot has recognized this and will now allow players to put units into play when they have a full board, at the expense of “Obliterating” a selected unit that’s already in play. Riot states that this “won’t trigger Last Breath effects, because the replaced unit doesn’t die.” Additionally, if the new unit you just played usually spawns more units as a result of being summoned, Riot says that those units will simply not be spawned because they will “overflow.” In simpler terms, Riot explains that “you can’t make more space beyond the unit you’re replacing.”
As far as their reasoning, Riot doesn’t want to limit late-game decision making 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.” In some situations, this change makes Legends of Runeterra a less punishing game since you’re no longer penalized for playing a unit when you probably shouldn’t have. In a way, the change arguably puts a little less emphasis on planning ahead since you can just replace a sub-optimal unit with a more appropriate one depending on your current needs.
Full patch notes can be found here. Legends of Runeterra launches April 28 on PC, and April 30 on mobile.
