In the massive Awakening expansion that came as the third part of the Worldwaker set of Legends of Runeterra,a ton of new content was added alongside 65 new cards. New Champions came to the game as well as, skins, boards, guardians, emotes, and even new mechanics/Keywords in the form of Equipment, Flow, Forging, and Improvising.
A lot of this content was also added to the Legends of Runeterra's Path of Champions, the PvE roguelite Labs mode, including eight new Champions to play as. Upon weighing up their starting decks and star powers though, it soon becomes clear that not all of the new Champions added in the Awakening expansion were created equal.
8 Master Yi
First up and in the last rank is Master Yi, a character a lot of fans were excited for. With Master Yi came the Flow Keyword, and it's a central part of his passive ability, Emai. The core concept for Yi is that players are meant to play at least two spells each round in order to slowly ramp up all the Master Yi copies in their deck to absurd levels.
However, in actuality, the deck takes a while to start ramping. When it does actually start it ramps up slowly and a lot of it relies on the Master Yi card being on the field with only 3 Health by default and no Spellshield. It's not bad by any means, as every single Champion in The Path of Champions is brokenly overpowered in the right circumstances, but it's the most disappointing of the new additions.
7 Ornn
Ornn is a high-cost Champion, which is already a hard type of character to play as in the Path of Champions. This is a game mode where every encounter seems to be more of a DPS race than counter-playing the opponent. Speedy and aggressive decks like Jinx's seem to do the best because Jinx hits hard and fast and usually beats her opponent before her downside, her lack of cards after utilizing her mechanics, has a chance to even become a problem.
In contrast to her, Ornn builds up rather slowly. But, thankfully, he does have a lot of cards that shorten that ramp-up timer like Catalyst of Aeons and Wyrding Stones. This aspect of his deck, in addition to his Sweet Solitude passive ability, makes it so that players can either choose between focusing their deck around Forging low-cost allies into powerhouses or focusing on Ornn being the star player and combat ender.
6 Veigar
Next up is Veigar, a late addition to the Path of Champions considering how long the Champion has been in Legends of Runeterra overall. Now, in PoC, the Veigar deck is entirely built around ramping up Darkness damage as quickly as possible to get Veigar leveled up so that players can fire at the enemy's Nexus with Darkness Spells directly.
In practice, it's not too bad, as Veigar's two Star Powers, I Am Evil and All-Powerful, are incredibly useful in that respect. More than almost any other Champion though, Veigar is heavily dependant on his Relic and starting Power, and if the setup or starting roll is bad it's going to be a real tough time getting through the map, which is why he's ranked down here.
5 Ashe
As one of the earlier Champions introduced in League of Legends, Ashe has a long history in its world-building. She's one of the most irritating opponents to fight against, one of the easier characters to play, and is also pretty frustrating to go against in Runeterra as well. Of course, this all has to do with her ice-y arrows, but that's also exactly why she's a lot of fun in LoR to play as she excels in board control in a very similar way to Leona.
Because her Star Power Frost Shot helps level Ashe up a lot faster, a lot of her deck is built around stopping the enemy from blocking due to her attacks with Ashe's Leveled-Up Frostbite ability. Combine these tools with any aggressive-type Support Champion that can swing for high damage and Ashe quickly becomes unstoppable.
4 Leona
Leona is one of the other playable Champions in the Path of Champions who excels at making sure her enemy never gets to play alongside Ashe and Yasuo. Her entire starting deck is built around getting Leona and Rahvun out on the field and Leveled-Up as fast as possible so that every card played leads to another enemy Stunned.
Then, once the entire enemy board is Stunned, Leona can swing for free with a whole slew of Daybreak-buffed units. Because her main tactic revolves around activating Daybreak four times, she doesn't really kick off until at least turn 4. But, once she's there, the opponent doesn't get to play anymore and starts unleashing all their frustrating tactics that can make the game annoying to play.
3 Diana
Moving on to the other new Champion from Mt.Targon and the polar opposite of Leona, it's Diana. Once again, Diana has been around for a long time in the base Runeterra game, but she's really excelling in Path of Champions as it's where Keywords like Challenger and Overwhelm are at their most useful.
Outcast's Edge (her first Star Power) makes it easy for low-cost units to trade on the board or swing at the Nexus even harder while Twilight Offering (Star Power number two) is some amazing extra early mana that makes activating Nightfall essentially free. And, the fact that 3-Star Diana can get both Quick Attack and Double Attack easily makes it so that the Troll King's Crusher common Relic is an almost must-have.
2 Kayn
Here's Kayn, the Darkin poster boy for the Awakening Expansion. Kayn is another highly-aggressive Champion in the PoC that excels at ramping up his units and challenging enemy units as much as possible, thanks to his Star Powers giving a lot of healing abilities to units.
And, Kayn himself scales out of control pretty easily for a mid-cost 5 mana card. Lastly, while it may not seem like much, once Kayn has turned into Rhaast, the +2 Nexus Health for every enemy he kills is an absolute godsend in the tougher Adventure maps.
1 Jax
Finally, there's Jax. Now, some people would put Kayn above Jax while others swear that Jax is so strong he's almost broken. Jax is another highly aggressive playable Champion that's focused around the Improvise and Equip Keywords. His general tactics involve throwing as many low-cost units out there to spawn Equipment and deal Nexus damage before the enemy even has time to adjust.
And, most of the time, this strategy works quite easily. Even when it doesn't though, Jax's Star Powers and spells in his Starting Deck such as Catch mean that Jax can just repurpose that buffed Equipment to another unit and keep swinging.
Legends of Runeterra is available now for PC and mobile devices.