Riot has just released Hextech Crafting on the NA League of Legends server. Like Counter Strike and Hearthstone , League now gives rewards for playing the game. When you log into the game today, you will get a free promotional chest that comes with a skin and ward shard, and just enough essence to make either. People have been complaining about lack of free skins for years, and Riot has created an inventive way to line their pockets while appeasing fans.
There are crates and keys, each obtainable through playing the game. Crates are given when playing in a match made game or scoring an S- or higher. If you are in a premade team, you also get a chest if they get an S- or higher in champion mastery. You can get up to four chests per month this way, or you can buy them from the store. Key fragments drop randomly at the end of games; you need three to make one key, and you can earn more keys by teaming with friends.
Out of the crate, you can get a skin or ward skin shard, which, combined with an orange essence, can turn into a regular skin. Orange essence comes from disenchanting champion skin shards. You can combine any three champion skin shards into a random permanent skin, or rent a skin for 7 days. Each tier of skin costs more essence, ranging from 220 to 1520. You can unlock skins for champions you don't already own, but can't use them until you buy the champion.
Champions can also be unlocked from these crates, and also come in shards. You need blue essence to turn these into usable champions, or you can disenchant them. If you combine three champion shards you get one random champion you didn’t already have. Other items can drop from chests, like icons or gemstones. Gemstones can be disenchanted into a chest or key, or you can combine 10 to get Hextech Annie .
We bought ten chests from the store to see what we could get. Six of them were champion skin shards, with one being epic, two were ward shards, and four were champion shards. We also got one gemstone, which shows how hard Hextech Annie is going to be to get. Rerolling three champion skin shards gave me a basic Cowgirl Miss Fortune, so getting big skins that way probably won’t be easy.
Tell us in the comments what came in your Hextech Crate!
