The Path of Champions, TPoC, is the new permanent PvE roguelite adventure mode available for Legends of Runeterra.
In TPoC, you will choose a champion and play through an adventure with a premade deck that gets stronger as you progress. With each encounter you’ll be able to add new cards, gain new Powers, or obtain Items that improve your existing cards — there are even some cards that are entirely exclusive to The Path of Champions!
We’ll eventually be able to travel to all of Runeterra, but currently, there are three regions available to explore: Piltover & Zaun, Bilgewater, and Ionia.
Each region comes with its own flavorful encounters and unique enemies.
At the time of release, there are 15 champions available from these regions to choose from with more to be added in the future:
Piltover & Zaun: Jinx
, Vi
, Caitlyn
, Ekko
, Jayce
Bilgewater: Nami
, Pyke
, Twisted Fate
, Miss Fortune
, Tahm Kench
Ionia: Lulu
, Yasuo
, Zed
, Lee Sin
, Irelia
You must own at least two champion cards of the champion you want to play.
All of the Piltover & Zaun champions have fully-voiced, animated comics with two different endings depending on the choice you make after defeating the first boss!
There are multiple quests related to The Path of Champions Event that can only be completed by playing The Path of Champions PvE mode. By completing these quests you’ll be able to unlock two copies of all the PnZ champions.
Reputation
As you continue to play a champion, you will earn Reputation after each run. Reputation is a currency that will continuously unlock new passive benefits. These benefits allow you to start each subsequent run a little stronger.
Doing the story mode twice to see both endings is a good way to start with the PnZ champions, by doing so you will receive 50 Reputation for each clear. The first and second Reputation unlocks both require 50 Reputation while the third requires 75. The next boss will give you 100 Reputation for a clear, meaning you’ll still be 25 short of the third unlock if you jump straight to beating Lulu instead of doing the story a second time to see the other ending.
The first major power growth comes at Reputation Rank 8 where you unlock a champion-specific starting power. Some champions are… less than stellar before this point.
Reaching Reputation Rank 6 will unlock the other customizable aspect of TPoC, Relics.
Relics
Relics are items that can be added to your champion to give either themselves or your overall run some form of benefit. You can equip up to two Relics.
Relics are obtained from completing runs and come in two rarities: Common and Rare. You unlock your first Common Relic Slot at Reputation Rank 6 and it will upgrade to a Rare Relic Slot at Reputation Rank 11 allowing you to use Relics of that rarity. You receive a second Common Relic Slot at Reputation Rank 14 which upgrades to a Rare Relic Slot at Reputation Rank 20.
You can have more than one of the same Relic, allowing you to double dip on any upgrades not labelled ‘Unique’. Most Relics are interchangeable between champions.
S-Rank Requirements
Note that the story-related adventure for PnZ champs has different S-Rank requirements than Lulu through Viktor. Unfortunately, there is currently a bug in the story adventure for PnZ champs that makes it so the miniboss heal DOES prevent you from getting an S-Rank, but it will likely be addressed soon.
S-Rank Health: Defeat the final boss with 30 Nexus Health remaining without ever using an encounter to heal (You can still use them to cut cards). You can heal during the matches through card effects and the miniboss heal will restore you to 30 Nexus Health without counting against you receiving an S-Rank.
S-Rank Speed: Less than 25 Minutes. At 25 minutes you will receive an A-Rank, you must finish in less than 25 minutes.
S-Rank Wealth: 900 Gold. You can spend this gold as freely as you want. You must obtain a total of 900 Gold throughout the run, even if you spend all of it, to achieve S-Rank.
Map Markers
Between battles, you’ll have various encounters and you can tell what they are ahead of time by familiarizing yourself with the Map Markers. These encounters can come in a variety of rarities: Common, Rare, and Epic.
Generally speaking, the higher the rarity the better the node’s reward will be.
From left to right these encounters are Healing, a region-specific Event, a Power, an Item Shop, a Card Shop, an Item Chest, and a Spell Chest.
Powers are the most valuable, but there are few times they’re on an optional path. After that, Events are generally the most valuable, but some are lackluster even at higher rarities.
Shops are generally the lowest priority, but you should always buy a Reroll Token when going to one as Reroll Tokens are the best use of Gold — Use them on Powers or Champion Buckets for the most value. Items are usually better than cards as having the cards in your deck improved is better than just getting more cards.
Unstable Manaflow
With all the good that does come with the new PvE mode, there are some things that still need improvement. To deter us from restarting runs, they’ve included the Unstable Manaflow mechanic.
This situation happens when you surrender or lose before winning three battles in a run. You must pick Unstable Manaflow as your first Power when starting a new run.
The problem with this is that the Power is temporary, and after three battles you will no longer have the benefit of a starting Power. While it does accomplish the goal of deterring restarting early in a run, it also punishes you for losing.
Unfortunately, the game isn’t very clear in its meaning of “Three Enemies.” You need to defeat three enemies in the specific boss where you’re receiving the Unstable Manaflow Power as your only choice. After that, you’re welcome to continue the run without a starting Power, or you can surrender and restart with a Power you’ll have for the whole run.