How to play League of Legends Classic

The wait for the release of League of Legends Classic is over. If you’re eager to try broken champions you’ve only heard discussed on old Reddit threads, or you yearn for the nostalgic feeling of one-shotting someone with Deathfire’s Grasp AP Master Yi, the recent release of Patch 26.15 has you covered.

The most recent game mode will encapsulate the defining features of the first five years of the game and re-evoke the sensation players had during the game’s first years. The feeling of accomplishment of filling your first rune page with the correct quintessences, roaming around the pre-reworked Summoner’s Rift, and correctly choosing the amount of points each mastery tree would have are just a couple of things returning for League Classic.

Are you a player whose first years happened long after these staples were removed, a returning player re-downloading League to play a game with your reworked main, or a player who is unaware of how to join in the fun? Don’t worry, Sheep Esports is here to answer all your questions on how to experience the old times for the first time.

When Patch 26.15 releases, Classic will be available as a selectable game mode through the regular League of Legends Client. The game mode will include two queues: Draft Queue and Coop vs AI. Custom matches will also be available immediately. There will therefore be no ranked mode in League Classic.

Gone are the days of copying and pasting the role you desire after you join the lobby because Classic will change the Champion Select experience of old. A positional preference will be included on the game mode’s launch. Though you have a higher chance of getting the role you select, you will sometimes be pushed to your second or third preference.

League Classic will have two modes of progression: the Classic Levels, Seasonal Classic Passes, and the Summoner Journey. The first one is a one-time progression system similar to an account’s level. The second will work as an old-fashioned battle pass. There will be two types: a free and a paid pass, where you will be able to unlock Influence Points (Classic’s currency), BE, Rune pages, emotes, titles, and portraits.

The Summoner Journey starts as you reach Classic Level 10. This progression will start in Salt and will rank up all the way to Legend (haha Riot). According to Riot Games’ dev blog: “It’s a way for you to flex on your friends, achieve goals, but still have fun with anyone…” This journey can be ascended through determination or skill, and only a single-digit percentage will make this exclusive club.

The last step before hitting the Rift is taking care of your Runes and Masteries. Masteries are free to use, unlock at Classic level 3, and you can have multiple pages at a time. There are three Mastery trees: Offense, Defense, and Utility. There are 30 points to allocate to the six rows each tree has, and these are designed to improve specific aspects of the game. As you put points on the weaker masteries in the higher row, stronger ones will unlock. You can be as imaginative as you wish!

Runes will be slightly trickier. Veteran players shouldn’t fret; all available runes will be Tier 3, their strongest level back when this system was in place. Starting your Classic journey will unlock three rune pages, but you will be able to obtain more. Each rune page will cost 1,500 IP.

There are four types of runes: Marks, Seals, Glyphs, and Quintessences. The first tree will cost 500-650 IP, and the last ones will cost 1,250- 1,500 IP. Each rune requires a different Classic level to be unlocked: levels 4, 6, 7, and 8, respectively.

If you forgot to set either of these, or you haven’t reached the level to buy all of the necessary runes, don’t worry because each empty rune slot grants bonuses. If you enter a game with an incomplete rune page, you will enter a game at a smaller disadvantage. You won’t be able to change the rune page during champ select, so you will have to premake and select the runes and masteries for the champion you desire to play.

Finally, but most importantly, champions. If your League of Legends account owns the 60 champions available on Classic’s launch, then you’re set and ready to go. If you don’t own the champion, there will be means to unlock each of these champions through the Classic level progression, through Classic’s own shop, and the old-reliable free champion rotation.