After playing Legends of Luneterra, I can't bring myself to buy any more booster packs. This is necessary in physical card games, where the cards often have real-world value, but the spread in digital card games is just an excuse to sell the worst kind of loot. It's enough to make anyone twitch. But thanks to a generous reward system that avoids booster packs altogether, Legends of Runeterra is one of those card games that's easy to like.

It's not hard to roll your eyes when you hear about a free-to-play card game based on League of Legends. The card game genre is full of such spin-offs, but Riot Games' creation is full of clever innovations and tense duels where your skill is more important than how much you spend.

Legends of Runeterra, which launched its open beta last month, is easy to mistake for a Hearthstone knockoff with its colorful aesthetic and breezy charm, featuring familiar faces from Riot's hugely popular MOBAs, whose playstyle and abilities can be seen in the game's "build your deck, play your cards, hit your opponents. The main objective of the game is to build a deck, play cards, and reduce your opponent's hit points to zero. Although it looks like Hearthstone, Legends of Runeterra is more like a simplified version of Magic: The Gathering. This is because Runeterra avoids the cumbersome rule paraphernalia of Magic in favor of faster, more aggressive duels. [For example, there is no summoning sickness. Freshly placed creatures (called followers or champions) can attack immediately after being summoned and are not tapped out afterward, allowing them to block during the opponent's attack phase. This virtually guarantees that both sides lose money each turn, making clever plays that bait the opponent or save a unit from dying feel more rewarding.

But like magic, after I make a move, my opponent always gets a chance to respond. It's hilarious (and devastating) to see my opponent cast "Deny" on my "Deny" when I intended to counteract his deadly spell. The battle of Luneterra is very enjoyable, back-and-forth.

When the interactions between cards get complicated, Luneterra has a clever feature called the "soothsayer's eye" that shows you what will happen to the board after a particular attack phase or spell is resolved. It is a godsend not to have to recheck calculations or worry about a particular chain of abilities or spells being played in a particular way.

There are some genius touches to the combat that make Reneterra stand out even more. For example, in most card games, you are punished if you do not use all of your mana in a given turn. In The Legend of Luneterra, however, up to three of the mana not spent is saved for the next round and used only for spells. This one change feels as big a change as "The Elder Scrolls": it is similar to having two separate play boards in Legends. One obvious advantage is that you can now play cards on turns when you should not be able to play cards because you saved up mana earlier, but I also like that you are not punished so harshly for having a bad opening hand. Instead of one player snowballing due to bad luck, the game retains the unpredictable and dynamic feel of "The Legend of Lunetera."

The most unique aspect of combat in Legends of Lunetera is the champions: each of the initial set of 24 is modeled after a League of Legends character, adapting their play style to the rules of the card game. Braum, for example, is a tank, as he regains strength and can choose which enemy units block him. In addition, each champion often levels up when certain conditions are met, gaining more power and new abilities, making them formidable.

Champions are often more powerful than regular followers, but they are far from being the trump card to win the game. This is because it shows that the opponent is doing everything in his power to kill the champion. Luneterra feels like a true battle of wits in champion play, with each player trying to outwit or bait the opponent. Tricking the enemy into leveling up your champion or destroying your opponent's champion is supremely satisfying.

Champions also add a welcome flavor to a well-known deck type. Control decks loaded with spells that stun or return to the opponent's hand become far more sinister when paired with Yasuo, who deals damage to units that are stunned or recalled. Level that trick six times successfully and it will kill the stunned unit outright. Terrifying.

Even if you're not a big fan of League of Legends, the charming cast of anarchist freaks, stoic samurai, and horrifying specters all bring a sense of energy and humor to each battle. I love hearing Jinx laugh like crazy as she destroys an enemy unit with her associated spell, or watching my adorable Lonely Polo transform when I summon another Polo unit. The card art is so beautiful that I often sneak a look at it with the inspection button during my opponent's turn.

As nice as the art is, the layout of the main menu and deck builder needs a lot of work. When trying to build a deck, you have to navigate through menus just to get the information you need. The buttons and interface elements are too large as if they were developed for mobile. Having to go to the store window just to see what craft resources I have, and not having better options for categorizing and organizing my collection is beyond infuriating.

The combat is great fun, but it is the economy and rewards that Legends of Runeterra sets a new standard. Booster packs are completely gone, and in their place are multiple layers of weekly chests and free battle passes, always with wild cards that can be exchanged for crafting materials, cards, and cards of corresponding rarity. It is refreshing to be able to choose which cards I want to add to my collection. Rare wildcards are rarely available, but I have already built several strong and competitive decks.

Earning every possible reward each week is not a grueling task either. After a few hours of daily play, quests, and draft mode, the reward cap is approaching. Hardcore players may bemoan the fact that too much time is too little to do, but I'm happy that for once a competitive game from a major publisher isn't trying to take over my life.

Since its release, I have played almost exclusively in Ranked mode. I lose more often than I'd like to admit, but the battles almost always feel fair enough to motivate me to keep playing, even if their deck is far superior to mine. This is one of the less obvious advantages of not being so overtly charged as in other card games. You can still buy wild cards, but they are capped on a weekly basis, so even the hardcore spenders won't overtake us filthy casuals. Great. Duels feel like a true test of strategy (and a little luck), not who is playing the most expensive meta deck.

Even "Exploration," the draft mode of "Legends of Lunetera," is too generous. As with other draft modes, one must spend a few dollars, draft tokens from various rewards, or give up a large amount of crafting resources in order to play. In Runeterra's draft mode, however, you can play twice per entry, building a new deck each time, with the more successful of the two determining the reward. Even if you do terribly well, you get a champion card equal to your entry fee, but after winning all seven rounds, I had a few very rare cards and more than enough crafting resources to get me through a second draft right away.

It's exciting to play a card game with few barriers or divides between players. And because I don't feel like a filthy, second-rate casual just because I don't buy cards, Legends of Luneterra quickly became part of my routine. While the deck-building menu still needs improvement, Legends of Luneterra is a welcome alternative in a genre where competitiveness is often a matter of how much money is spent."