When to level
Levels buy a bigger board and better shops. Which shops you need decides when to buy them.
Checked for patch 18.4. The numbers come from the live Set 18 data and follow every patch.
The idea
A level does two things. It adds a slot to your board, and it changes your shop: each level moves the odds toward pricier units. Experience comes in slowly every round, and you can buy more at 4 experience for 4 gold.
So the question is never only whether to level. It is which units you need, and at which level the shop shows them. A comp built around a cheap carry stops at the level where that cost is most common and spends its gold rolling for copies: 3-costs peak at level 7, where they fill 40% of every shop slot. A comp built around an expensive carry has to climb, because those units barely show up low: a 4-cost fills 10% of every slot at level 7 and 30% at level 8.
Levels also cost tempo. Gold spent on experience is gold not spent on upgrades, and a bigger board of weak units still loses. The game review looks for both sides of it: going out on a lower level than the boards that went out around you, and leveling ahead of the lobby while most of your board was still one star.
See it live
Shop odds and experience for every level. Pick a level to read its shop, then see how two current comps use the same table.
- 15%
- 1 cost −4
- 20%
- 2 cost −10
- 32%
- 3 cost −8
- 30%
- 4 cost +20
- 3%
- 5 cost +2
Level 8. The standard level for 4 cost carries: 30% of every slot is a 4 cost.
- 60
- Experience from level 7
- 60
- Gold to buy it
- 134
- Experience from level 1
- 15
- Experience buys, 4 gold each
Every level
In the current meta
Ahri Morgana (Tier A) carries with Ahri, a 4-cost. It pushes to level 8, where a 4-cost fills 30% of every shop slot.
Azir Rammus (Tier S) carries with Azir, a 3-cost. It stops and rerolls at level 7, where a 3-cost fills 40% of every shop slot.
The rule of thumb
Level to where your carry's cost is common, and only as fast as your board can hold your health on the way.
Check yourself
Your carry is a 4-cost and you are level 7. Read the odds: what share of each shop slot is a 4-cost once you reach level 8?
Pick an answer.