What’s up everyone, Yangzera here with my first article after officially joining the MaRu team not just as writer, but also as player! I'm very excited to provide all sorts of high-level content and share my ideas with subscribers on our Discord, and after yesterday’s banger reveals, a bunch of theorycrafting and a slight bit of actually playing the cards as I help my Worlds-qualified buddies to test new decks, I'll share here my thoughts about all the new cards.
You can check the whole World Ender Card Gallery here.
Legends of Runeterra World Ender Cards, Rated
The Black Flame
: 3/5
The card is interesting, but it looks a bit slow for most decks. I think it can work very well in a Kennen
Ezreal
deck, but my guess is that, in an Ephemerals shell, the Flame is too slow to get the ball rolling – you’d need to cast it on a Shark Chariot
on round four, and have a previously developed unit survive the round to attack and bring the Shark back. Sounds like a lot to ask, but I could be proven wrong. I’ll rate it a 3 instead of a 4 because I can see it working reliably in only one deck, but that rating can go up very easily as we discover more ways to abuse this.
Puzzling Signposts
: 3/5
This card is good and is on the same power level of Ionia’s Deny
, but not broken. It is good in aggressive and combo-oriented shells to stall out the game or gain immediate Tempo, but won’t grant you a lot of actual card advantage, since the opposing spell is recalled instead of destroyed.
Poro Stories
: 2/5
Poro Stories is one of the pay-off cards that make it worth to leave 
Piltover & Zaun and dive into 
Bandle City as your secondary Poros region, but I don’t think it’s got everything. The card’s good for creating Rumble
discard fodder, though, but competitively speaking that's about it.
Curious Changelings
: 1/5 – Real bad.
This poor guy can only see play when transformed into something big, and Bandle Timelines ain’t it. It’s relegated to the Shamanic package, and Mammoth Shaman
is looking like the best transform, so I’ll go ahead and say that if your best shot at viability is transforming into such a bad card, then chances are that you're piloting an already bad deck. I’m down to be wrong here, though, as Bandle Freljord is indeed a pretty cool archetype.
Baalkux
& The Darkin Staff
: 1/5 – Very bad.
Maybe I’m underestimating how much “0” mana for one Impact is worth it, but I just don’t see it. Baalkux might see more play simply for being a “playable” equipment in Bandle City – a region that’s been lacking on its equipment activators – but I don’t really dig it. Looks like any other second region can add better stuff to the table alongside Wandering Shepherd
.
Wily Newtfish
: 2/5
I think this one is thematically flawed. In my opinion, it’s bad because the card draw is instant – if it was on the next Round Start, the card would be okay. That’s because Elusives is a deck that generally wants to develop during your attack, and drawing a unit with this guy really sucks after you’ve spent all of your mana developing. Bringing it more in line with The Darkin Harpoon
’s mechanic might make it work, but as of now, I don’t see it.
Eye of God
: 2/5
Illaoi
still dies to Quietus, therefore even if this card were good, the archetype is still very bad.
Champions' Strength
: 5/5 – Broken card!
A massive board buff into a Rally (either in terms of a Scout during your attack round, or a Rally on defensive rounds) is huge, and two very good effects packed at once into 
Demacia. On Jayce
Lux
, for example this card is a potential Rally + Scout + double lasers on a defensive turn – it’s just scary. Very scary. I would not be surprised if this card ended up being one of the staples of Worlds 2022.
Trusty Ramhound
: 3/5
A one-mana 3/3 is very good, but I don’t think our cute oversized doggo can carry Elites on its back. Maybe it can carry Elites alongside Champions' Strength, though, but I have to see it to believe it.
Petricite Charger
: 2/5
Worse than the current Beemer (also known as Loyal Badgerbear
). Petricite Charger does not leave a body that trades nicely into a second unit after eating the first, so I’m skeptical about its power level. It also dies to Quietus
, which I expect to remain a strong card.
Roar of Icathia
: 1/5
I think this card sucks, but I wouldn't be surprised if I'm proven wrong. It just seems super difficult to have both this card and two Equipments in play early on, but maybe Aatrox
’s deck-building condition can get the job done.
Woolly Snailmoth
: 1/5
A worse Alpha Wildclaw
, I’m not sure how you want to be buffing this guy up to 8 Power, and even if you do, say, make it a 8/8 Overwhelm, your opponent will just point “you die” stuff at it, which renders the Regeneration keyword useless.
Pouty Poro
: 1/5
This won't make Poros anywhere near close to viable, but I’m proud of them for trying.
Wild Mysticism
: 3/5
Looks better than Catalyst of Aeons
, but I may be wrong here. Would need a bunch of testing to see. At first glance, it looks half-decent as a late top-deck, but whether the 2/2 body is better than healing for three early on is a very meta-dependent topic.
Here to Help
: 3/5
This card is way too telegraphed to be anywhere near “broken”, as some people expect it to be. It’s so telegraphed that if your opponent is actually paying attention to what you’re obviously trying to do – damaging units before combat so that you can activate a very obvious Here to Help – they can just play in a way that you’re not getting value out of using this card outside of just pushing an extra two damage to face. Buffs that last for a round want to be used mid-combat, and damaging units is a byproduct of ending combat, so if you’re committing damage to your own units before combat starts, that screams to everyone present in the room what one of the cards in your hand is. Not saying it’s bad (because the one-drop raven can carry this), just saying it’s not broken.
The Darkin Spear
: 2/5
This one is cute, but I don't know if Omen Hawk
on a stick is good enough. Anaakca
being able to loop itself has meme potential, though!
Navori Longtail
: 2/5
Interesting design, with both a way to fill the board, and a way to make use of a previously filled board. At first glance it looks like a worse Navori Highwayman
, as it doesn’t really have any hand-buffing synergy (which Highwayman does), so i’m going to shoot into the dark and say Longtail is not competitive, but it’s a neat addition to 
Ionia swarm archetypes.
Twin Wind Technique
: 3/5
The card is too meta-dependent to be judged right now, but its effect looks quite strong. If good followers with good summon effects are dominating the meta, this is a good alternative to Concussive Palm
, even though its Slow speed makes it lackluster.
Praa the Breachwalker
& The Darkin Fan
: 3/5
I want to say they are both really good, but I'd need to thoroughly test them before confidently saying so. Ionia doesn’t generally get a lot of attack tokens, so the lone Dragonling
can feel lackluster after paying two mana to gain the measly one Power point that the Fan provides.
Crimson Pigeon
: 4/5
ROFL!! Why is such a strong card in such a bad archetype!? This is a one-mana 3/3 which is also a very easy and clever activator for your other Crimson-type cards. Crimson Pigeon is just absurdly strong, but much like the big elite doggo, may not carry the self-damage archetype by itself. Still a very strong card, and a good addition to the game.
Reveler's Feast
: 2/5
It’s on par with Decisive Maneuver
; in other words, it's bad.
Caustic Riff
: 4/5
Not a card you'll want three copies of, but still a very good card, and something Piltover has been lacking since the game was released: a board clear.
Encore
: 4/5
Good card for Seraphine soup. Don’t compare this to Trail of Evidence
because you should not even think about main decking Trail in the first place, and comparing both is an insult to Encore. That's to say: Encore is very good, for the fact it’ll always net you one (or two!) playable spells that Seraphine can duplicate.
Acoustician
: 2/5
Serapine's dad is sadly too slow for what he does: his main body isn’t great for trading. Were he a 3/3, we could look at him with brighter eyes, but as of right now, I don’t see the poor man making the cut.
Cunning Kitten
: 4/5
Absolutely game-winning Crescendum
pull, but impossible to main-deck because you’d need to pay lots of mana to get the ball going, and that ain’t making the cut, at least competitively. It has solid meme-printing potential, but as a competitively viable card, it’s relegated to RNG pulls.
Ryze
& his package: 4/5
In my opinion he’s solid and playable, and that’s all I’m allowing myself to say about him. Keep up with my social media after Worlds and the World Ender expansion releases, for more thoughts and brewing with Ryze!
Aatrox: 3/5
Interesting Champion, and probably playable. We’ll need to find his best second region, though, and that’s a big point of debate. I think he has potential to be very strong when fully refined, and that’s hype. His playstyle reminds me a lot about Deep.
Redeemed Prodigy
: 3/5
Worse than other cards currently used with Gwen
, although better than the other Hallowed-related cards that don't currently see play. It’s hard to fit him in, but I can see it happening somehow.
Deathless Knight
: 2/5
Good effect, but on a sadly very expensive card. You can cheat this out with Oblivious Islander, though, and it’s the only reason I’m not rating this a 1/5.
Shape of Fear
: 4/5
This card would be amazing if Viego
didn't cost six mana…
Acolyte's Reliquary
: 2/5
This would be pretty good if the Acolyte was shuffled on the top 3 cards of your deck, rather than 5, but I love it for enabling the archetype by itself. This card's design (and other archetype-enabling support that we'll get in this expansion) is very clever; big props to Riot!
Rockbear Shepherd
: 5/5
One of the few outright 5s, this looks like a broken card that enables Landmark decks, both fast or slow. It can turbo your Sun Disc as well as create ENORMOUS tempo swings when sequencing goes your way. Notice that if you have a one- and two- countdown landmarks that summon units on the board, as soon as the first one pops, the other will pop in a domino effect because of this little guy. There are a lot of Desert Naturalist
curves that make this little guy shine, too! At least he dies to Quietus, though…
Void Gate
: 2/5
Terribly slow card. The only reason why I'm not rating it a 1 out of 5 is because there is some potential value if the card is coded in such a way that it grants the keywords only to allies in the deck that don’t previously have them. Otherwise, if there’s a chance your keyword procs can be wasted in such a slow card, I don’t think it’s ever seeing the light of day.
Celestial Blessing
: 4/5
I think it has potential. It has different uses than Pale Cascade
, and that’s why I’m not comparing both, but it’s the second best tool that handbuff archetypes have received so far, so if the archetype is ever good, this will be – although small – one of the reasons why.
Divine Clerk
: 4/5
Very, very good card. Can stall out games for greedier 
Targon decks. A simple The Darkin Lodestone
trigger or piece of Equipment can meet his Empowered requirement, and turn him into pre-nerf The Fangs
! I’ll be very surprised if this guy is not included in a lot of current and future strategies.
Divine Judgment
: 2/5
Bad card to main-deck, but a half-decent Ferros Financier
pull. It’s good at protecting very tall units from removal.
Kayle
: 4/5
Pretty good Champion. I think Kayle will both slot in nicely in a few existing strategies, and spawn new archetypes of her own, bringing life and new ways to play old classics.
Lawkeeper
: 1/5 – Terrible card, in my opinion.
This isn’t really what you’re looking to do when hand-buffing. If you can spend the mana to make Lawkeeper big enough to stun an entire board, it's very likely that you were already winning the game without him.
Mihira, Aspect of Justice
: 2/5 – See Lawkeeper above.
I think Mihira is much better than Lawkeeper, but she’s also super slow in the sense that she needs to be hand-buffed in order to survive, and then start hand-buffing again, and that’s very very slow. If this archetype ever sees the light of day it will be on the back of the good hand-buffing tools, like Celestial Blessing and Purifying Flames
.
Purifying Flames: 4/5
This card will be the reason the hand-buff archetype becomes viable, if it ever sees the light of day. Targeted buffs are cool, and some units can really abuse them with keywords like Elusive and Spellshield. Coupling that with the cheap The Fangs we could get out of Divine Clerk, which could stall the game long enough, and there’s a sizable chance the archetype finally becomes viable!
Seraphic Wyvern
: 3/5
I wanted to rate this 4 out of 5 but I just can’t,since my ratings were leaning a lot towards the middle. This expansion has great power level with few meta-defining bombs, and that’s great! Wyvern is a contender for Best Dragon in the Game because, after its own Fury kicks in, he grants himself an evasive keyword to start pressuring. Couple that with the recently buffed Laurent Duelist
and Wyvern is a better, cheaper, Overwhelm-self-granting Screeching Dragon
! What else could you ask for?
Winged Messenger
: 4/5
I think this will be broken in Zoe Teemo-type decks – although notice that, from Worlds testing, The Sudden Surge
will be nerfed to provide a 4/4 buff (rather than 5/5). Esmus, Byrd, Lodestone or Wandering Shepherd on this guy makes him an oversized Elusive unit, and that’s massive. It reminds of Lunari Shadestalker a lot, but it’s actually way easier to get its Elusive trigger since it’s a retroactive buff: you can play this on curve and leave it on the board, and later on get it to 3 Power and it will become an Elusive.
Xolaani the Bloodweaver
: 4/5
Very good build-around finisher, and I think that it could be broken with Varus
& Sharesies
.
Wrapping Up
And those were all the 69 cards! I’m super stoked for this expansion since it’s a high-power one that comes to aid a lot of already existing archetypes while spawning new ones on its own. Also, Worlds is a lot of hype and we actually got an anthem! Everything is lining up to make it a crazy good event, and I can’t wait to see it all happen and root for my favorites.
About the author
Playing LoR since beta, Masters player every season, with multiple rank 1s and 2s. Topped Seasonals twice, qualified for the Regional Worlds Qualifiers, and got way too many grassroots tops and wins to put into one single paragraph.
If you want to provide any feedback about the article feel free to reach out to me on any of my socials:
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/yangzera
Discord: Yang#7463
I also do coaching! Want to improve on a fundamental level and have your skill transcend metas and balance patches? Contact me on Discord or Twitter for more info on pricing and available sessions!
