Champion Pricing Update

Hey friends, Barackprobama and Riot August here with a quick update on our champion pricing model. Our main goal here is to make acquiring champions easier for new players, as well as use our prices to help guide folks onto champs they are more likely to enjoy early on in their League careers. We know that players finding their mains or champions helps them “stick” with playing and learning League, or with returning players to find new mains. Let’s get the obvious bit out of the way: our existing pricing model is a bit archaic. It's slow to update, only considers the age of the champion, and isn’t in line with how we feel players should be acquiring their roster these days. After all, League is about the champions, so we’re going to improve it!

This new structure still uses the age of a champion, but is no longer directly tied to champion releases. As our strategy has shifted from the early days of shipping a character every other patch to a cadence that allowed us to better plan around champions, we felt that it was time to change the way we approach price reductions. We’re now focusing on how many seasons the champion has seen rather than how many champions have released since.

We plan to keep the existing flow of new champions having an initially higher price point and being discounted after a week with an additional discount after two seasons where they’ll be placed in a tier based on the data we see with new and returning players. Champions that have VGUs (Visual/Gameplay Updates like Fiddlesticks), CGUs (Core Gameplay Updates like Aurelion Sol), or Midscope updates (smaller gameplay updates like Syndra) that change their tier will also see their prices updated if we feel they’ve become better experiences for new or returning players. To that last point, you might also assume that we could raise a champion into a higher tier bucket, and while that is a possibility, it’s something we’re going to actively avoid. We don’t think this will ever be a possibility for Midscopes, but it could be for VGUs and CGUs. Again we’re going to try to avoid ever doing that, but if we do we will aim to communicate it early enough so that you’re all aware a price is going up.

To help lay this out, here are the tiers that champions fall into:

• 450 BE / 260 RP - Champions that are awesome for new players. These have a strong fantasy and an approachable kit that our data suggests helps folks find success early. Examples include Malphite, Miss Fortune, and Yuumi.
• 1350 BE / 585 RP - Champions that are a bit more complex than the lower tier, but still approachable for interested folks. These will have more nuanced skill checks in their play patterns, but maintain reasonable skill floors and have proven to be fan favorites. Examples include Yasuo, Lucian, and Sett.
• 3150 BE / 790 RP - Champions that have a larger degree of difficulty or specialization in their play. These will often have steeper learning curves to climb before one sees consistent success with them. Examples include LeBlanc, Shaco, and Yorick.
• 4444 BE / 880 RP - Only perfection and beauty are allowed at this tier. HAHAHAHA.
• 4800 BE / 880 RP - The majority of the roster will live here.
• 6300 BE / 975 RP - Champions that have come out in the past two seasons, after which they will move to the tier above after the next season starts.
• 7800 BE / 975 RP - Champions that have come out in the past week.

In addition to these price changes, we’re also going to roll out new champion bundles that cover a variety of gameplay roles within each tier. These should be even more cost effective for players looking to supercharge their early collection.

Overall, this represents a fairly significant decrease to the BE/RP cost of our roster, which should make it easier for players starting their journey to find the fun in League. Without discounts, this equates to a reduction of 140,606 BE and 14,905 RP for our champion catalog!

But like any good system, there are some small exceptions. Specifically: Singed, Kayle, Twisted Fate, and Ryze. They’re awesome champions that many players enjoy today, but we do not think that new players are likely to find success with them, and the data we’re seeing supports this as well. Their price will be changed to 4800 BE, which is an increase over their existing prices, but we’re going to set and keep their RP prices at 260, to ensure that players who want easier access to them still have it.

We’re planning to roll out these changes worldwide in the next patch (13.5). Until then, GLHF and see you on the Rift!