In League with the Legends - Expeditions

When it comes to card games, I tend to latch heavily onto Constructed formats, where players can build decks out of a specific pool of cards designated by the format in question. It suits my style better, allowing me to take the time to do research on what the most popular decks are and either netdeck or use them as inspiration to create my own recipes. It brings me a certain joy to analyze the trends and see how decks new and old fair as cards are brought in or removed from legal play.

But any card game player knows that Constructed formats are only one way to engage, the other being Limited formats. Rather than come into a game with a deck build ahead of time, Limited formats require players to improvise and built decks based on what they pick from a random or semi-random selection of cards. Drafting is one of the most common variants, opening a pack, picking one card from it, and passing it to the next player in rotation so that they can make their own pick.

So instead of coming at you with another set of decks to try, this time I thought it might be fun to check out Legends of Runeterra's equivalent of a booster draft, called Expeditions. Let's build our own deck and see how well it holds up.

While I've drafted in other card games like Magic, and participated in Sealed Pre-Release Events before Covid put an end to any such large gatherings for the time being, I've never had any luck with those formats before. So when I did my first Expedition early on, just to see what it was about, and managed to make it to the very end and win my final match the first time, it came as quite a surprise.

A large contributing factor, if I had to make an educated guess, on my improved success here compared to other limited events, is that Expeditions does just make players select from a single card at a time. Rather, we select individual "kits" of cards that belong to a common theme. Since our first choice also comes with a Champion appropriate to that theme, we start off with a solid framework from which to build the rest of the deck.

And to smooth out any rough edges, we're also able to trade out cards and make further modifications to the deck as we play matches with it. While there's still a large degree of randomness inherent to any Limited format, these slight changes allow players to better control for it for the sake of a stronger, more synergistic deck than would be otherwise possible.

This way, even someone as unlucky as me can create a decent deck, making up for any deficiencies by playing it to the best of my abilities.