LoL card game Legends of Runeterra already dominating Twitch viewership

Newly announced League of Legends card game ‘Legends of Runeterra’ has got off to a flying start while only in its beta stage, already hitting the number one spot of livestreaming platform Twitch.

Riot Games announced Legends of Runeterra in their 10-year anniversary stream for LoL, alongside a host of other games – including a new competitive FPS title, known only as Project A for now.

Legends of Runeterra isn’t due for a full release until “early 2020”, but some lucky players have been given the opportunity to play early, including a host of streamers. 

This was clearly a smart move on Riot’s part, as the game has quickly become one of Twitch’s fastest trending games, with a whopping 2.5 million hours watched in only the first day of being available.

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As soon as the game’s beta version went live, it peaked at over 230,000 concurrent viewers, with an hourly average of 225,000.

Streamers like Kripp, best known as a Hearthstone player, have enjoyed a nice boost in viewership too, as fans are excited to see them check out the new alternative.

And this initial peak in viewership wasn’t just a short-lived boost at the start, as the high numbers continued into the next day, where Legends of Runeterra sat in the number one spot, beating out Fortnite, World of Warcraft and even League of Legends itself.

This early viewership wave certainly bodes well for the game’s long-term future, particularly considering it’s not even a full release yet.

Runeterra’s launch stands in stark contrast to that of Valve’s own card game, Artifact, which suffered an abysmal release, with a peak of only 60,000 players when released in late 2018.

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There has been speculation that Valve will try to revive Artifact in 2020 – which could mean we will see Riot and Valve go head-to-head once again with their Dota and LoL franchises.

For right now at least, Riot’s Legends of Runeterra appears to have the leg up.