Riot to merge Legends of Runeterra’s Asia and SEA shards

Riot Games is set to merge the Southeast Asia and Asia shards together into an Asia-Pacific (APAC) shard in an effort to improve Legends of Runeterra gameplay within the regions.

Scheduled to take place on Jan. 19 at 12pm CT, the SEA and Asia regions within LoR will officially become the APAC region. Players in these regions won’t notice a name change until Patch 3.1, which is scheduled to release on Feb. 2. The purpose of the merger, according to Riot, is to reduce queue times while “providing an opportunity for more players to play together across regions.”

This move by Riot will likely provide a better gameplay experience for APAC players. “As a SEA player, I’m really happy with this change,” Reddit user reloyal said. “The player base has decreased so quickly that it takes quite long to find a match in high rank nowadays compared to a year ago. Also, it’s not rare to encounter the same opponent multiple times in 1-2 hours of playing, it makes me feel like there are only me and less than 10 people or so playing at the same time.”

Related: Here are the best Legends of Runeterra decks to climb the ladder

Players won’t lose rank, Path of Champions progress, or Prime Glories earned for the upcoming LoR Seasonal tournament due to this merger. Players within the APAC region will compete within a “single tournament,” according to Riot, starting with the Magic Misadventures Seasonal. All players within the APAC region who are ranked in the top 700 of Masters will qualify for the open rounds, following a Feb. 3 cutoff. 

The only data that isn’t transferring with the merger is a player’s match history. All Coin prices will remain the same and players can check if their region is merging into the APAC via the Riot website. Riot has not yet revealed any specifics regarding the LoR Magic Misadventures Seasonal tournament for any region.