Starting in the preseason for Season 8, which is expected to start in early November, League of Legends is going to undergo more changes than we’ve ever experienced before. Along with runes being completely revamped and your current ones being converted to currency, the loot system is going to be much different.
With these changes come a few strategies that will allow you to maximize on your overall rewards. In this guide, let me explain to you a few simple things that you can do right now to ensure that you’re getting the most Blue Essence out of your resources before the preseason starts!
Understanding the IP Conversion
First, here’s what’s going to happen: Influence Points (IP) are being turned into Blue Essence (BE). If you have 190k IP right now, that means you’ll be given 190k additional BE at the start of the preseason.
That sounds like a lot, right? It’s harder to get BE than IP right now. To compensate for that, your current Blue Essence is being multiplied by 6.5. If you have 1000 BE right now, that’ll convert into 6500 BE at the start of preseason.
Now let’s get into the ways that you can take advantage of this conversion rate being imperfect.
Spend All of Your IP on Hextech Mystery Champion Shards
Hextech Mystery Champion Shards can be found in the Accessories tab of the Shop for 1700 IP. The annoying part is that you can’t buy multiple at a time, meaning that converting hundreds of thousands of IP could take some time.
This spreadsheet shows the math behind purchasing 138 Hextech Mystery Champion Shards (including all champions). Hextech Mystery Champion Shards can get you BE in two ways:
- Innately, by having BE included in the shard
- By disenchanting the champion shard into BE
For example, a Hextech Mystery Champion Shard containing a Master Yi Champion Shard will also include 110 BE in the shard.
As you can see above, that shard will then disenchant for 87, totaling 197 BE. Multiplying 197 by 6.5 gives 1280.5. However, you paid 1700 for the Hextech Mystery Champion Shard. So, you lost currency? Yes, you did. However, it’s extremely uncommon that this is going to happen. Only 35 out of 138 of the champion shards will result in a net loss.
When it’s all mathed out, you can expect an average gain of 8.4% BE if you do this.
Reroll or Disenchant All Champion Shards You Won’t Use
This kind of ties into what we just talked about but for an entirely different reason.
Not only will you be getting more out of champion shards if you use them as an IP converter, but disenchanting them is also going to net you less BE in the preseason. Right now, disenchanting a champion shard will pay back roughly 33% of the cost to purchase that champion. However, starting in the preseason, that’s getting toned down to 20%.
Additionally, you won’t be able to reroll champion shards into permanent champions anymore. Either way you look at it, you’re getting more value out of doing something with them right now.
Devise Your Own Hextech Chest Strategy
This is a little tricky and it’s a gray area where I simply can’t give you a hard-lined answer on what to or not to do.
Here’s an excerpt from Riot’s official post on the loot changes:
“To offset the disenchant rate changes, we’re going to change the way loot chests work so you’ll have a chance to get two drops in each chest. Get ready for chests inside of your chests. We’ll also add “bad luck protection,” so you won’t ever go on long streaks without getting a skin shard or a gemstone from chests.”
Since then, Riot has not released any information on if these changes will be applied retroactively to chests before Season 8’s preseason. Two things can happen here:
- This will be applied retroactively, in which your chests will contain more reward, protection from bad luck, and the potential for including another chest.
- This won’t be applied retroactively, in which you lost out on converting the champion shards you get from these chests to earn more BE or rerolling permanent champions.
My gut tells me that chests earned before Season 8 will not follow the new model. I’m personally going to be cracking open all of the chests I get until the preseason, but it’s on you to look out for any future information on how chests from the past will be treated. This is a bit of a gamble!
Rune and Rune Page Compensation
Along with IP being converted, all runes purchased with IP before Season 7 are going to be turned into BE. With the new runes coming out and old ones going away, Riot has decided to compensate players who spent on them. All tier 1 Marks, Seals, and Glyphs are being converted to 100 BE. All Quintessences are being converted to 300 BE. If you purchased runes during Season 7, the price of those is simply being refunded as BE.
Rune pages purchased with IP will be giving you 1500 BE each. Rune pages purchased with RP will be giving you an Epic Skin Shard per every 4. This rounds up, meaning that if you purchased 5 rune pages with RP then you’ll be getting 2 Epic Skin Shards.
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Looking for more League of Legends content? Check out some of our other articles:
- “Runes Reforged” Will Make LoL Beginner Friendly Again
- See How Many Hours and How Much Money You’ve Spent in League of Legends
- How to Disable Zooming In/Out in League of Legends
