“The path to success is usually paved with the bricks of failure.”
― Molly M. Cantrell-Kraig
The End?
Wow…. It’s hard to believe I am writing this article. I want to start by thanking everyone that supported us over the years, all of our subscribers, viewers, and those that played in our tournaments. The amount of love and support we’ve gotten is nothing short of humbling. I owe a huge thank you to all of our writers, editors and tournament organisers. Mastering Runeterra would not have been the same without all of your endless hard work, dedication and talent. I also want to thank the people at Riot that tried so hard to make this amazing game for us. There were key members of the team that really went above and beyond; even though the project didn’t succeed in the end, their efforts should be celebrated. Mastering Runeterra will stay up for the foreseeable future; you never know what the future holds. It represents a time in our lives that I don’t want to see go away just yet.
Going down memory lane, this is what the site looked like when we first launched it. I had spent countless hours learning how to make a website and everything that goes into it. On October 1st, 2021, this is where we started:
It wasn’t the prettiest and (god forbid) if you tried to view it on mobile, but it was ours and it started the journey that grew into something so much larger. Over the next two and a half years, 750,000 individuals would visit our little site over 13 million times. I miss those early days with endless chats and games played in the MaRu Discord. I also miss the streaming, creating Youtube videos, podcasting with Majiin and the MaRu teams. I enjoyed preparing for those early Seasonals as it was beyond fun and playing in them felt so electric. We were in a golden age for a while and we didn’t know it.
Thoughts on Why LoR Failed
Now to the nitty gritty. As I sit here trying to write this part of the article, “gutted” seems like the most accurate word to describe what I am feeling (and I’m sure many of you are feeling too). I truly loved this game and this community. Watching it be mistreated or mishandled, it was (and still is) very painful. I could see the massive amount of potential that it had and wanted to help it reach those heights; I can’t help but feel it didn’t have to be this way. I’ve never been entrenched in a game and had it die before. I know it might be more common for some of you that didn’t come from MTG, the never ending behemoth. Even though a lot of us sort of saw the writing on the wall, I had always thought there would be a last gasp or if the right people were empowered, the game could make a comeback. Magic the Gathering has had many ups and downs over its long history but always managed to bounce back even higher than before. At the very least, I thought we’d have another year or two. I have been wanting to write an article about the issues and ways I thought they could be solved, like I have in the past but I was under a NDA. I was also afraid of how it might affect Mastering Runeterra’s working relationship with Riot as it wasn’t just me that my words could potentially affect. That’s more than moot now but for some catharsis for myself and hopefully others, I want to share a few thoughts on why I think we ended up in this position.
There were a lot of mistakes made at the beginning of the game's launch and that continued on for its entirety. I was hesitant to say mistakes, but frankly if a game as good as LoR with the backing of a company like Riot can’t make it, there have been a lot of mistakes made. However, I think you can boil them down to two major issues. The first is that Riot is a giant corporation and thus comes with A LOT of red tape. For example, situations such as the legal department trying to make sure their butts are covered or needing a million sign offs to do any initiatives. From the outside looking in, it seemed like there were constant nonstarters. Even trying to get a tweet out, it was a whole massive process. This is why we saw things like late announcements and a lack of timely communication.
The second issue was that they needed to hire more LoR players. From what I could tell, a lot of the team were not LoR players and were not card game players. This is excluding most of the development team. This is pretty easy to see play out. I often think if I was hired at a game like League how much I would have struggled. But take it a step further, what if I worked on Hearthstone? I’ve been playing card games for twenty five years and I’ve played Hearthstone before. However, the amount of time that it would take me to know the game, the community and the history at a deep level would take years. Even then, I wouldn’t be nearly as knowledgeable as someone that had played since launch or closer to it. Magic the Gathering has shown this to be true as well. Magic has hired the best players from their Pro Tour for years. Their draft and sealed formats have been amazing since they hired the best limited players to be on their team. On the flip side of the coin, Magic also hired some ex-Rioters that had worked on LoL esports to try and run their own Magic Pro League and it was a disaster. For some reference here, they decided to film the MPL matches and then stream them weeks later AFTER a new set had come out and the metagame that the pros had played was dead and gone. As you can imagine, the viewership numbers were horrible. If you come from a typical esport, this might make sense to you. But any tournament level Magic the Gathering (or card game) player could have told you immediately why this wouldn’t work well.
What Comes Next?
When I read the announcement, my first thoughts were of dread but then I realised this also presented us with an opportunity. We together represent a massive community that wants a game like LoR. As well, there is also a gap in good online digital card games. MTGA is expensive and Wizards of the Coast has mistreated its community for years but gets away with it because they have a great game. Hearthstone is old and has similar issues. With the current state of digital card games, why not create a game ourselves? A game made by the players for the players. Let’s unite to bring our passion together for a game that we want! I quickly started making calls and organising a team. We have been hard at work ever since and today I am proud to share with you the early fruits of that labour AKA Chrono!
Much of what I will share with you today is still in production and could change over time. This is why we’ve held off on announcing anything until now. But this is a community project and we will be bringing everyone along for the ride, including playtesting the game with us. We will have a lot more updates coming soon and are planning to launch our Kickstarter between mid April and May 2024. We have an experienced game development studio that has worked on digital card games before lined up to build Chrono. Below I will try and answer some of the common questions that we have received.
Is Chrono an LoR Clone?
We are not going to be LoR 2.0. Chrono is its own unique game, but our guiding star is to look at all the most beloved CCG’s of the past, run with their greatest strengths, discard their weaknesses, and add what is essentially our own (Bruce Lee Y’all!). As such, Chrono has many of the same gameplay mechanics that Runeterra Fans know and love like saving mana for future turns, a priority system, a stack, and a cap on units in play, as well as other unique and exciting mechanics that you’ll get to learn along the way.
Who is designing the game?
The man, the myth, the legend himself, WhatAmI, is the Head of Game design currently joined by Madruin and Phansora. They have already done some amazing work. The first test set has been completed and we’re already looking to begin testing and iterating with our Cards, Mechanics, and Design.
What is Chrono about?
Chrono’s story is that of six different Syndicates all struggling to impose their will on the timeline. As the great conflict rages each of them gather immense amounts of power to send “Divers” back in time to key moments, hoping that they can influence tiny specks of history in just the right fashion as to leave them and only them in control of the future they all attempt to create.
Of course, with each Syndicate having different plans for the universe, each moment of attempted control becomes a battle to the death for the Divers sent back. Unlikely alliances form and shift as teams of Divers control their agents on the scene in an attempt to destroy the enemy Core, destabilising and destroying their foe’s power source and sending them hurtling off beyond time and space.
Boards
All the boards in Chrono will be tactile aka clickable. We are working with some of the same artists that worked on Runeterra’s boards and are excited to share them with you when they are done.
Artwork
All of the art for the cards will be made by humans and we will continue to support our amazing artist community. Here was our first mock up of our card frame design. Note that this is just placeholder art, but we are working with very talented artists and I look forward to sharing their work when it's ready!
And here is our current state of Card Frames that are still being worked on.
Limited Play
Chrono is being built with Draft and Sealed in mind. Limited formats will be an integral part of Chrono’s ecosystem to give players additional ways to play the game and collect cards.
Organized Play
As many of you know, Organized Play is a passion of mine. We will make sure there is a clear ladder to be climbing in terms of progressively larger and more prestigious tournaments to be playing in. We will have unique in game items (Card Styles, Pets, Boards etc) that can only be won in tournaments or by grinding the Ladder. We will also be taking a page out of Dota 2’s playbook and will be putting a percentage of sales towards the Prize Pool for our Championship Series to create some of the largest ever prize pools for any CCG.
Monetization
Cards will be released in booster packs tied to individual sets. We plan to have two in game currencies, one that can be bought and one that will be rewarded for completing quests. Our aim is to have Chrono be as affordable as possible while still making sure that the game is financially stable for years to come.
Will there be NFTs or Crypto involved?
No. Never.
How do I get involved?
Chrono’s website and stats are being built by Vivo, the brains behind Runeterra.ar. We will have social accounts up soon as well and you are always welcome to message us on Twitter or Discord. We have had an outpouring of support from the community already and we will be looking to bring people on from within the community as we continue to grow. So if you have experience that you think is relevant or just want to be more involved please reach out!
Signing Off
I’ve just scratched the surface of what we have in store. We will be releasing more information in the coming days and weeks. Be sure to follow myself and WhatAmI on Twitter as we roll out our website and socials.