With so many new effects to learn, we’ve broken them all down for you below, including how to bed use them. Let’s dive straight in!
Legends of Runeterra New Keyword Guide
Attune
We’ll start with Attune, one of the simplest new keywords. Units with Attune refill one spell mana when they’re summoned.
It’s interesting that this has been made into a keyword, as it’s already an existing effect on Eager Apprentice.
Best Ways To Use Attune
Attune has pretty obvious synergy with spell-heavy decks. Playing a unit with Attune while you have 3 spell mana banked will be a waste, so you want to be casting spells (or not saving any mana between turns.)
The pictured card, Coral Creatures, has good built-in synergy because it gives you a free spell and the mana to play it, but the random element might make it difficult to fit into a competitive deck.
Deep
Next up is Deep, which is obvious support for the new Toss mechanic — more on that, later.
Cards with the Deep keyword gain 3 Power and 3 Health once you’ve dropped below 15 cards remaining in your deck.
Best Ways To Use Deep
Deep is designed to work with Toss, so playing effects that remove cards from your deck will accelerate your Deep cards towards getting their buff.
This will likely be a fairly slow archetype, though, as getting down to 15 remaining cards will take quite a few turns even with Toss effects, so you’re probably going to want to build around a Control shell that stalls out the game.
Plunder
Plunder was the new keyword revealed by Riot alongside the upcoming Bilgewater Region. Cards with a Plunder effect will activate upon being played if you’ve damaged the enemy Nexus this round.
The wording here sounds very specific, so “play” doesn’t refer to summoning effects, it’s only when played from the hand.
Best Ways To Use Plunder
We’ve only seen a few Plunder cards so far, from Freljord and the new Bilgewater region, but it’s pretty obvious that they synergize well with spells and effects that can deal direct damage to the opponent’s Nexus.
Examples include the newly revealed Ember Maiden, Warning Shot, and Noxian Fervor.
You can also activate the Plunder effect after you’ve used combat to deal damage to the opponent’s Nexus. The Overwhelm and Elusive keywords will be especially useful for this, as they’re difficult to block without taking damage.
Scout
Cards with the new Scout keyword will change combat as we know it. Once per round, if only Scout cards are attacking, you retain your attack token.
What this means is that you can essentially attack twice per turn if you have Scout units. There is a caveat, though: the Scout-only attack has to be before your regular attack.
Best Ways To Use Scout
As powerful as this sounds, it can be a double-edged sword. If your opponent has a few high-health blockers, your Scout-only attack might not be better than attacking with all of your units at once.
The real Scout synergy here comes from Rally effects, such as Tianna Crownguard and Relentless Pursuit. The ideal sequence here would look like:
Attack once with all (or most) of your units. Play a Rally card. Attack once with only your Scout units. Attack a third time with everything.
Using your attacks in this order can force your opponent into trading away their blockers early in the turn, clearing the way for your Scout units to attack with less trouble, before your final big swing.
As we saw in her reveal, Quinn synergizes perfectly with Scout units. Not only will she summon Valor every time she attacks, but other Scouts will probably be necessary in order to meet her leveling requirements.
Toss
A card that has the new Toss keyword will Obliterate cards (except champions) from the bottom of your deck.
Obliterate means the cards are completed destroyed, rather than just killed. This means they cannot be revived later using something like Kalista, and Last Breath effects won’t trigger.
Best Ways To Use Toss
So far, we’ve seen two reasons to use Toss cards: to synergize with the new Deep keyword and Nautilus or to try and end the game with Maokai. The leveled-up version of Maokai is a win condition in itself, and decks will be built entirely around this concept.
Combining them will likely be overkill, however, as they’re both late-game concepts that require some degree of stall and Control to survive until their win condition can be met.
We’ve also seen Treasure cards revealed with Nautilus, that have “When Tossed, draw me instead” text. These are powerful tools to add to a Toss deck but need to be created by other cards as they can’t be crafted.
Another card that has been revealed with the new set that has good synergy with Maokai is also Veteran Investigator. By saving this card until your Maokai has leveled up, you can force your opponent to run out of cards faster using Investigator’s draw effect.
Vulnerable
A target that has been afflicted with the new Vulnerable keyword can be challenged by any unit, forcing it to block.
Essentially this means that any of your units will gain the Challenger keyword when attacking that specific unit.
Best Ways To Use Vulnerable
So far, one of the only cards we’ve seen with the Vulnerable keyword is Sejuani, who also Frostbites the target. This means it’s perfect for taking down high-attack units for free.
Of course, you can also use it to take down impactful units that your opponent might not want to block with, such as Boomcrew Rookie or Phantom Prankster.
Another card we’ve seen with the Vulnerable keyword is Chum the Waters, which notably doesn’t Frostbite the target. This has great synergy with followers that have the Last Breath keyword. Being able to crash your Cursed Keeper or The Undying into a specific enemy unit will be extremely useful.
For more on Legends of Runeterra, check out our dedicated page for a range of useful guides aimed at all skill levels!
