If you've pre-registered, you have one day left until you get to play Legends of Runeterra's Open Beta. Riot's card game goes live for the early birds at 11 am PT on January 23rd. The client has somewhat changed, however, and will have entirely new features, as well as tweaked versions of features already up during the preview patches in 2019. Today Riot further explained what to expect upon the Open Beta launch.

Prove yourself against friends and randoms

With Open Beta, a friends list will be added to Legends of Runeterra. As Riot mentioned in an earlier announcement, all of your League of Legends friends will automatically be present in your Legends of Runeterra friends list already. Legends of Runeterra is split in three regions: Europe, Americas and Asia, and you can add players from any region to your friend list. You can also challenge friends to a match, though that feature is limited to the region you're playing in.

In addition to a casual online mode to play against random opponents, a Ranked Mode has been added. Legends of Runeterra uses the same rank system you know from League of Legends, going from Iron all the way up to Challenger. Ranked Mode's first season lasts until the official launch of the game, at which point players will earn an exclusive player icon based on the highest position they reached during Open Beta.

Guardians and boards

Riot has stated from the beginning that they want Legends of Runeterra players to be able to acquire all the cards in the game just by playing. Their main focus to monetize the game will be cosmetics: Guardians and custom boards, both visible in a newly added menu option. Your equipped Guardian supports you on the side of your board, as a little pet you can interact with. The poro is the standard Guardian, while Scaled Snapper, Gromp Jr. and T-Hex can be bought in the store. Everyone who plays Legends of Runeterra during the Open Beta will earn a Moonstruck Poro Guardian for free when the Open Beta ends.

There are custom boards for each region currently present in Legends of Runeterra, allowing you to equip a board fitting the deck you're queuing up with.

Tweaking the economy

There is an in-game currency in Legends of Runeterra, coins, allowing players to purchase the aforementioned cosmetics or, in case they don't want to grind for all the collectible cards, Wildcards that can be exchanged for cards directly.  With Open Beta, Riot is tweaking coins' numbers to align with the Play Store and App store, preparing the game for an Android and iOS port coming out later this year. For some currencies, the price of coins remains the same as during the preview patches (US dollar, Euro), while it will be more expensive to purchase coins for, for example, Brazilian and Turkish players, and cheaper for others.

The Open Beta features a full account reset for all accounts, meaning that all coins you've purchased during a preview patch must be restored. While you may not end up with the exact same amount of coins you had bought, Riot has tweaked the numbers in such a way that you'll have at least the same amount of purchasing power.

Further adjustments to Legends of Runeterra's economy include player rewards. Level 10 Vaults will reward an Expedition Token, to make the deck building game mode more accessible for players, and Shards, the game's card-crafting currency, will be a larger part of said Expedition's rewards. For the first few wins on a day, you'll earn more bonus XP, and the XP you earn despite losing a game has also been increased.

Card changes

Last but not least, Riot has announced card changes to over twenty cards in the game. Since that's quite a lot, we've decided to grant it its own article. Click here if you want to see them!

Want to get a head start before the Legends of Runeterra Open Beta starts? Head over to our guide page, featuring over 30 guides for the game!

Images via Riot Games.