Riot Games has announced Sanctum, a system for LoL loot boxes that will gatekeep the game’s rarest skins, including a new $250 Arcane Fractured Jinx skin.
In a post titled “Exalted Skins, The Mythic Shop, And Nexus Finishers”, Riot Games laid out a huge overhaul of League of Legends cosmetics. The League of Legends developer announced a new tier of skin, a new loot shop, and an update to the existing Mythic Shop. Here’s everything to know.
The Sanctum brings LoL gacha game-style loot boxes to live servers
League of Legends will be putting many or all of its best skins into loot boxes.
The first announcement in Riot Games‘ developer blog was The Sanctum, a new way to acquire rare loot. The central currency, the loot box itself, is called an Ancient Shard. Ancient Shards are available for 400 RP apiece, and each has a chance to contain three classes of content; S-Tier content, A-Tier content, and B-Tier content.
The new exalted-tier skins are the first example of S-Tier content. S-Tier content has a 0.5% chance of being opened in any individual Shard, however a pity rule kicks in after 80 attempts. This boils down to a gacha system that’s effectively identical to HoYoverse games like Genshin Impact and Zenless Zone Zero.
The first exalted skin available through The Sanctum will be Arcane Fractured Jinx, a form-shifting Jinx skin that takes on different appearances to commemorate different moments throughout her journey in Arcane. Some of the different modal VFX are previewed in the devblog.
How does the new LoL Mythic Shop work?
But what happens to the Mythic Shop, the already existing shop for premium skins, once these LoL loot boxes hit? Riot has announced that the Mythic Shop will also be changing.
Firstly, the Mythic Shop will now offer event chromas and emotes for Mythic Essence, but General, Achievement Limited, Riot Limited, Promotional, Event Limited, and Collector’s Edition will not be returning at any time in the foreseeable future. So, if you’ve got a Promotional or Event Limited skin in the Mythic Shop that you want, get it now before it gets stuck in The Sanctum.
Finally, a new cosmetic called Nexus Finishers will arrive with Arcane Fractured Jinx, a unique animation for the end of the game Nexus explosion. Jinx’s skin will bring the first one, but Riot seems to be planning to bring more and more of them to the fore.
Fans are conflicted, some happy to see a system resembling Genshin Impact, Zenless Zone Zero, and other Gacha games, while many fans on social media seem to think that this is yet another out-of-reach content program meant to target only the highest spenders in LoL.
It has not yet been announced when the Sanctum will bring LoL loot boxes to live servers, but fans can expect it sooner rather than later given Arcane season two’s launch in early November.
