Legends of Runeterra Treks Into The Desert Region of Shurima In Latest Expansion

Empires of the Ascended, the latest expansion for Legends of Runeterra went live earlier today, adding the desert region of Shurima to the game, as well as new keywords and over a hundred new cards.

The expansion implements the new Champion Mastery system, which Riot Games previewed last week. In brief, you'll gain Mastery by playing certain champions, which grants you impressive-looking Mastery Crests to show off your prowess with that champion.

The three new keywords are Countdown, Predict, and Reputation. Countdown cards start with a number that ticks down by one every round, or by more when certain conditions are met. When the timer reaches zero, the card's listed effect happens. Predict lets you choose one of three cards in your deck to place on top of it, and Reputation effects trigger if allies have struck for five or more damage at least four times in the game. New challenges and quests have been added to familiarize players with these new keywords.

The new region of Shurima is reflected in the new AI decks and AI opponent pool, and there's a new region road for it as well. The region roads for Demacia, Noxus, Freljord, and Shadow Isles have also been extended to account for their newest champions.

There's a new event pass to go with this expansion, offering card backs, emotes, and more, and this update also kicks off a new competitive season and introduces five new archetypes to the Expeditions pool. Learn more about Empires of the Ascended expansion, and everything else in today's Update 2.3 in the patch notes on the Legends of Runeterra site.