5 essential tips for Expedition in Legends of Runeterra

If you’re new around here, Expedition is a game mode in Legends of Runeterra in which you build a deck from scratch, using a selection of cards the game gives you. Here are my personal tips to help you build better decks for Legends of Runeterra Expedition, and win more games.

Tip 1 – Avoid cards that have potential

When you’re building your deck in Expedition, avoid cards that have the potential to be good. This is especially important during the beginning of a draft when you have no idea which direction your deck is going. For instance, a card like Cursed Keeper has the potential to give us a 4/4 unit, but only if we have a way to kill it.

In constructed, the potential of Cursed Keeper is worth building around because we can purposely include cards that can kill Cursed Keeper. However, in Expedition, there’s no guarantee that we are going to have kill effects in our deck to support Cursed Keeper.

Here’s what you should do instead. Rather than picking cards that might do something cool, you want to pick cards that will always do something cool. A card like Icevale Archer will always Frostbite an enemy unit. A card like Mystic Shot will always do 2 damage to any target. Overall, starting off the Expedition with cards that create consistent value for you will greatly increase the power of your deck.

Tip 2 – Curve is crucial

Always make sure your deck has a good curve. This means that we don’t want too many low-cost cards, and we also don’t want too many expensive cards. We want the bulk of our cards to be in the middle, creating a bell curve. At the same time, you want a curve that reflects the goals of your deck. For example, if your Expedition deck wants to be aggressive, your curve can lean a little bit more to the left, with most of your cards costing 2-3 mana.

A lot of beginners tend to forget about their curve since they’re too focused on picking cool cards to add to their deck. Remember, there’s no point in adding 20 late-game bombs if we have no way of protecting ourselves during the early game.

Tip 3 – Always try to gain card advantage

Card advantage means you want your cards to be worth more than your opponent’s cards. Card draw and removal spells are two great forms of card advantage. This can happen in a bunch of different ways.

For example, card draw is a great example of gaining card advantage. Salvage is a 4-mana spell that draws us two cards. This is called a 2-for-1. By only playing one card, we gained two cards which means we have access to more resources, which means we have card advantage.

But card advantage doesn’t always have to be drawing cards. Let’s say your opponent casts Fury of the North onto their Ruthless Raider. If you used Vengeance to kill their Ruthless Raider, this would also be considered a 2-for-1. The only difference is that instead of being ahead by 1 card, we put our opponent behind by 1 card.

As a rule, always ask yourself: will picking these cards give me card advantage during a game? What play can I make to gain card advantage over my opponent?

Tip 4 – Bluff

Bluffing is a more advanced tip, but a very important aspect of playing any card game at a high level. Bluffing comes in a few different forms but I feel like my man Sun Tzu says it best.

Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.

-Sun Tzu

In Expedition, it is important that you incorporate some type of bluffing into your gameplay. For example, take a few seconds before you respond to your opponent’s spells instead of just instantly letting them resolve. Even if you don’t have any spells in hand, it will make your opponent think that you must have something you’re not playing.

Plus, unlike a constructed format, your opponent can’t just search up what’s in your deck. Use their lack of knowledge to your advantage.

Quick Tip: In order to bluff, you must have Auto-Passing turned off in the settings.

Tip 5 – Practice makes perfect

Here’s a fun fact. Each week, after you play 3 paid Expeditions, each subsequent Expedition is free. The game creators call it Open Play. The only caveat is that you don’t gain any rewards from the free Expeditions besides XP.

Regardless, this system is great for players who are craving more Expedition but don’t want to constantly pay the entry cost. Use Open Play as a way to improve your deck building skills by trying out different deck strategies. As long as you keep practicing, I promise you’ll see results.