Here’s what you need to know about Leagues in Old School RuneScape.
Leagues are temporary game modes that allow the Old School RuneScape players to engage in the content they love following a different set of rules, progress towards goals much faster, earn both tradeable and non-tradeable rewards, and compete against the other players who choose to have even more fun by playing leagues.
Temporary game modes have a different account progression than your main and are played on different servers and separate worlds from the main game. Still, it is as simple as hopping to one of the league’s worlds after initially speaking to the league’s tutor when a league’s game mode is going on.
What you do in the leagues world will not affect your main character, but you’ll be able to earn OSRS GP for your main by playing the Leagues, earning points, and buying tradeable rewards from the rewards shop, which you can later trade on the grand exchange. Leagues have accelerated Xp gains, a new set of rules and restrictions, and tasks you must complete to get points and unlock relics representing powerful buffs that will help your account progress even further.
Jagex has already run Leagues three times, and they are really considering designing a new one or having a rerun of one of the former leagues.
Twisted League
The first to run was the twisted league in 2019, and the players were restricted to the great Kourend. However, there was a lot of criticism around it since Jagex needed to properly balance the tasks and point rewards, which resulted in getting more points for certain activities that took less effort, skill, and time than grinding activities. This, of course, created frustration amongst the players who asked Jagex to balance things out
For the twisted league, Jagex also overestimated the difficulty of some tasks in the context of the much faster progression specific to the temporary game mode and the inherited buffs from the relics.
Another criticism of the first league that goes hand in hand with how easy some of the tasks were was that more tasks needed to be completed. The relic system in the twisted league was also poorly designed, and it made many players want to search for OSRS accounts for sale since they felt they’d ruin their own accounts by choosing a particular relic early on.
The Trailblazer League
The Trailblazer League was the second to run one year later in 2020. The players started in Misthalin but were able to unlock more areas by progressing in the game, and those who played until the end were able to enjoy feeling a new game mode unfolding until the very end. The community very much appreciated the tasks in this League, so if you played during the 2021 League, you could have some of the same tasks, since Jagex decided they were so popular and loved by the community that they deserved to be brought back. The tasks were also balanced; you could perform them in any area regardless of the path you took when unlocking new areas. The relics were much more balanced in that choosing one over the other didn’t cause as much regret as for the first league.
Shattered Relics League
The most recent of the Leagues is the shattered relics league which started in 2022 and had no area restrictions whatsoever but instead had skills restrictions. Progressing through the league would allow you to unlock more of your chosen skills.
This league was unique because the relic system was quite different from the previous leagues and involved relic fragments which would have a weaker effect on the relics. Still, when combining various fragments, you’d obtain a more powerful effect.
Expectations
While Jagex neither confirmed nor denied the return of leagues in 2023, some J-mods have given valuable insight into the process behind creating temporary game modes.
It’s hard to say whether you should expect another run of leagues in 2023, with loads of new content already coming out this year. The desert treasure 2 upcoming Grandmaster quest and a new skill, navigation, could be introduced to Old School RuneScape this year. However, leagues were always held towards the end of the year and the beginning of the new year, ending in January.
All in all, Leagues is, together with the temporary Dead Man Mode, one of the most loved temporary game modes that have returned over the years, so you expect a new league, if not in 2023, then in the following years.
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