Runeterra Reforged Gameplay Overview

With our return to Runeterra we’ve got some familiar faces who’ve found themselves in unfamiliar places. In this article I’m going to cover a few of the go-to comps that have risen amidst the Convergence storm. If you want to hear more about our learnings from Monsters Attack!, give the link a click! Alright, let’s get into it with my new one-trick All Void Baron!

Void: 3/6/8

As our premiere vertical summon trait, Void requires your utmost dedication, and some power leveling. Void Champions summon the Void Egg. Once your team loses 40% of their health, the egg hatches into a creature, knocking up nearby units. Each Void unit star level increases the summon's Health and AP by 25%. You’ll summon the following units across Void’s three trait breakpoints:

(3) Void Remora

(6) Rift Herald

(8) Baron Nashor

This comp runs the entire Void roster:

Malzahar: Tier 1 Sorcerer

Cho’Gath: Tier 1 Bruiser

Kassadin: Tier 2 Bastion

Rek’Sai: Tier 3 Bruiser

Vel’Koz: Tier 3 Multicaster, Sorcerer

Kai’Sa: Tier 4 Challenger

Bel’Veth: Tier 5 Empress

To reach Void 8 and summon the big bad of the set, Baron, you’re going to need to hit a Void Emblem via an Augment, or Tome of Traits. Since you’re typically going for a fast 8 anyways, be sure to pick up a Yasuo (Ionia Challenger) as a secondary carry to complement your primary carry, Kai’Sa, with the Challenger trait. Void Kai’Sa has a similar ability to her Gizmos & Gadgets counterpart, but this time it’s got a hefty Mana cost and doesn’t scale as well with Attack Speed. That being said, Spear of Shojin and Morellonomicon will be her go-to items.

But the real star of the Void trait is Bel’Veth, the Empress. Bel’Veth’s ability, Endless Banquet, has her lash out at the lowest-Health enemy multiple times. Each lash deals physical damage and 1% of the target's max Health as true damage. But her real power comes from her true form. Bel’Veth’s Empress trait has her killing blows leave behind a Void Coral that she will consume. The first consumption transforms her into her true form, increasing her maximum Health and dealing a small portion of her maximum Health as magic damage around her. Future consumptions restore a small portion of her Health and deal the same damage.

Noxus (3/6/9)

With Noxus, when you win a player combat, your opponent becomes Conquered. Noxus units gain Health, Ability Power, and Attack Damage, increased for each player you have Conquered (beaten in Combat).

Samira: Tier 1 Challenger

Cassiopea: Tier 1 Shurima, Invoker

Swain: Tier 2 Sorcerer, Strategist

Kled: Tier 2 Yordle, Slayer

Katarina: Tier 3 Rogue

Darius: Tier 3 Juggernaut

Sion: Tier 5 Bruiser

I like to run Noxus as a reroll comp when I can’t hit the Spatulas or Augments needed to make them a full vertical. With the core Noxus units, you can slow roll (only rolling down to 50 gold) at Level 7 to star up as many 3-cost champions as possible, picking up copies of Ekko (to slot in at level 8) and Aatrox (Garen or Nasus will do here before you hit level 8) along the way. You’ll be running six of the Noxus units listed above, with Darius being your primary carry, and Katarina taking your extra AP items.

Darius’s Noxian Guillotine deals a ton of damage with very high AD scaling to one target, BUT if he kills them, he immediately casts again, dealing reduced damage. Make sure to give him AD items like Infinity Edge, Deathblade, or Giantslayer, along with a Bloodthirster to keep him topped off and popping off. Since you are indexing heavily into damage here, be sure to add another Juggernaut to boost his defenses. Be sure to give your AP items to Katarina here as a secondary carry.

If you can manage to get Sion, be sure to slot him in for a weaker Noxus unit. Sion’s Glory in Death ability has two components. The active component has Sion charging the furthest enemy within a couple hexes, dealing physical damage to any enemies hit and stunning them. But the real Glory comes from the passive component: After Sion dies, he reanimates with 50% Health, which decays each second. He can no longer use his ability, but he does become immune to crowd control and gains Attack Speed. Both his spell and his enhanced Attack Speed benefit from AD items, but you’re going to want to prioritize defensive items in most cases to keep Sion disrupting your foes, stomping through your Honeyfruit patch, and living (or dying) to do it all again.

Piltover (3/6)

Piltover is the econ trait that you’ll want to keep running even after you cash out! The trait revolves around a summon unit, the T-Hex, who will start out as a baby raptor and gain XP each time you win a round. If you lose a round, that XP is banked, and if you keep losing, the XP grows even more, allowing you to create an all powerful T-Hex upon winning after significant loss streaks. While keeping T-Hex around till the victory screen is its own reward (they grow up so fast!), you can always sell T-Hex and gain loot equivalent to its XP—but how heartless would you have to be to sell the T-Hex you’ve been raising since stage 2-1?! Well, I AM heartless, so I’ll answer it here—selling T-Hex allows you to do full pivots into late game comps that don’t run Piltover units. But even if you send them off to live on the Scrapyard, T-Hex will always love you.

You’ll need a Piltover Emblem to reach 6 Piltover, which will grant you additional rewards with each win, but here are the other 5 champions from the City of Progress:

Orianna: Tier 1 Sorcerer

Vi: Tier 2 Bruiser

Jayce: Tier 3 Gunner

Ekko: Tier 3 Zaun, Rogue

Heimerdinger: Tier 5 Yordle, Technogenius

Piltover 3 can be added to many comps, but the most synergistic (at least, lore-wise) is to combo it with Zaun and use Gunners (Jayce, Jinx, and Zeri) as your backline carries. Gunners are simple ranged carries that gain stacking Attack Damage with each attack. Keep them safe in your Piltovan comp once you start turning your loss streak into a T-Hex BOSS streak!

Add some more Bruisers for a solid frontline and stack Gunner (2/4/6) to watch the fireworks:

Tristana: Tier 1 Yordle

Jinx: Tier 2 Zaun

Jayce: Tier 3 Piltover

Zeri: Tier 4 Zaun

Senna: Tier 5 Shadow Isles, Redeemer

Of course, we can’t talk about Piltover without their biggest-brained and shortest-statured 5-cost, Heimerdinger. Heimerdinger’s got his own trait, Technogenius, that gives him access to a placeable Apex Turret that he can improve by purchasing upgrades in the shop for 8 gold apiece. Three total upgrades can be slotted onto the Apex Turret!

Shurima 3/5/7/9

The time to rebuild Shurima has come! Upon activating Shurima, a Sun Disk forms, radiating life by emitting a pulse that restores Health to Shuriman units every few seconds. After 2 pulses, select Shurimans Ascend, gaining bonus Health and Ability Power. As you hit trait breakpoints, more Shurimans will Ascend AND eventually they will Ascend at the start of combat as well. Double Ascensions make for some powerful late game teamfights!

Here’s who you’ll be sifting through the sands to find:

Renekton: Tier 1 Bruiser

Cassiopeia: Tier 1 Noxus, Invoker

Taliyah: Tier 2 Multicaster

Akshan: Tier 3 Deadeye

Nasus: Tier 4 Juggernaut

Azir: Tier 4 Strategist

K’Sante: Tier 5 Bastion

Shurima can be played a couple of ways. You can only run 3 Shurima and run one carry or AP scaling frontliner, or—the emperor’s preference—you can power level and try to go deep into the vertical using Azir as your carry and Nasus as your primary frontliner. If you don’t hit any Shurima Emblems, you can stop at 5 Shurima and add some extra frontliners, like Jarvan IV for the Strategist bonus.

Azir’s Arise summons sand soldiers near his current target, which deal magic damage whenever he attacks. He can summon a maximum of four sand soldiers, after which his spell will instead make his existing sand soldiers deal a burst of magic damage. Due to the nature of his spell, Azir needs time to ramp, so make sure to focus on getting a powerful frontline—whether you go deeper into Juggernaut or invest in lots of tank items.

Also with Shurima comes K’Sante, who makes his debut in TFT as a Legendary unit complete with a ton of tankiness, CC, and the ability to launch targets off the board entirely—see ya!

K’Sante’s Path Maker does it all!

Yordle 3/6

Get your roll on and star up Yordles to one, two, three, FOUR stars! Yordles gain Attack Speed per star level. Yordles can become 4-star units, gaining a wacky spell upgrade! At 3 Yordles, if you have three 3-star champions, your strongest 3-star Yordle champion becomes 4-star, and at 6 Yordles, two 3-star Yordle champions can now become 4-star units!

Here’s who you’ll be fielding when you run a hordle of Yordles:

Tristana: Tier 1 Gunner

Poppy: Tier 1 Demacia, Bastion

Teemo: Tier 2 Multicaster

Kled: Tier 2 Noxus, Slayer

Heimerdinger: Tier 5 Piltover, Technogenius

Since their trait synergizes with 3-star champions of ANY trait, you can slot Yordle 3 into just about any 1 or 2-cost reroll comp. Hyper roll for 1-costs at Level 5 and keep an eye out for Maokai to provide Bastion 2 alongside Poppy. As a simple yet greedy frontliner trait, Bastion units gain Armor and Magic Resist that is tripled for the first few seconds of combat.

If you’re hyper rolling for 1-costs, look to Tristana as your carry, whose Rapid Fire ability grants Attack Speed briefly and makes her attacks explode on impact dealing AOE physical damage. Be sure to activate the Gunner trait to get the most out of her ability! Her 4-star upgrade makes it so every 8th attack deals double physical damage and then ricochets to the largest clump of enemies, exploding and dealing AOE damage. Poppy’s ability, Steadfast Hammer, transforms from a single target damage and self-shielding ability to a knockback that will send her target into the largest clump of enemies, deal a percentage of their max Health as magic damage, and stun enemies hit.

Targon + Slayer

Okay, I’m cheating and about to do two traits at once, but that’s just because they have such great late game synergy. Targon is a splash trait that grants all allies increased healing and shielding. It works particularly well with Slayer even though they share no common units. Slayers gain flat Omnivamp and deal bonus damage that’s doubled against enemies below 65% Health. Let’s check out the rosters and then we’ll talk about how we’re using them.

Slay away the pain with these champions:

Kayle: Tier 1 Demacia

Zed: Tier 2 Ionia, Rogue

Kled: Tier 2 Noxus, Yordle

Gwen: Tier 4 Shadow Isles

Aatrox: Tier 5 Darkin, Juggernaut

And heal away the pain with these Targonians:

Soraka: Tier 2 Invoker

Taric: Tier 3 Bastion, Sorcerer

Aphelios: Tier 4 Deadeye

Running the two traits together greatly amplifies the inherent Omnivamp that Slayer grants, allowing you to go full offensive with Gwen and Aatrox. Late game, try running a Bastion frontline with K’Sante (Tier 5) and/or Shen (Tier 4) to complement your short-ranged carries. Speaking of short-ranged carries, Aatrox has a few tricks up his armored sleeve.

Aatrox’s World Ender has him transform for a few seconds upon cast, gaining Omnivamp and converting all bonus Attack Speed to Attack Damage. While transformed, his attacks hit even harder. While the Omnivamp from his ability and Slayer trait will keep Aatrox chopping away at his foes, his Darkin passive will provide even more survivability. Whenever Aatrox dies, his sword "The Darkin Blade" is equipped to the nearest ally champion with an open item slot. If the equipped ally gets a takedown, the blade consumes them and Aatrox is reborn with 500 Health plus the ally's current HP.

But there’s one more piece of this incredibly expensive comp: Senna. Senna is another Legendary unit, this time from the Shadow Isles, whose Redeemer trait makes it so whenever an ally gains a shield, Senna will grant them Attack Speed for the rest of combat. As you keep casting shields, this Attack Speed bonus will stack. Her ability, Dawning Shadow, will provide shields to stack this passive by firing a large beam at the furthest enemy, dealing physical damage to all enemies hit and granting a shield for all allies hit. Pair this with an Aatrox, who converts bonus Attack Speed into harder and harder hits, and you’ll get a powerful late game board. Granted, this board will be expensive and hard to hit.

Wanderer

Our last trait of the evening, or morning, or midday, or whenever you’re reading this, is Ryze’s exclusive trait, Wanderer. With Wanderer, Ryze’s spell, Realm Warp, will take on a new effect depending on whichever region you’ve traveled to.

In Ionia, Ryze can heal allies by Realm Warping Ionian Spirit Trees onto the battlefield. In Piltover, Ryze will Realm Warp a Hextech-powered zone that prevents units from leaving it. Or Wander over to the Shadow Isles where Realm Warp will bring back units (Baron counts here too) from the dead—they’ll be okay… mostly.

There’s still a ton to uncover with Runeterra Reforged, but you’ll need to wander a little yourself to find out the rest. Till next time—please don’t contest my Void units.

Runeterra Reforged is our most comprehensive set to date. It’s full of new mechanics, and scattered with displaced champions and traits from across Runeterra—there’s tons to explore here! If you’re itching for more words from your favorite devs, be sure to check out Mort’s Monsters Attack! Learnings article and check in with our Twitter as we reveal more and more of Runeterra Reforged each day. Finally, I know your busy schedules make it tough to keep all the dates for our release straight, so we had an artist mock this up for you!