League of Legends Spirit Blossom primer: Earning favour, Spirit Tree and Petals, and Epilogue

The Spirit Blossom event is set to be a huge, multi-patch event lasting over a month between 22nd July and 24th August, with fully-fledged narratives for all of the champions associated with the event. Allegedly, the event has been in the works for over a year, and it’s so big, Riot has gone to the effort of putting an FAQ page together.

While “dating sim” might be a touch facetious, the visual novel tag is not. Riot Reav3 confirmed as much over on Reddit, though noted the event’s system of building relationships with champions is more similar to the Persona series than a traditional Otome. And for those who care, the “dating” part of a dating sim might not be entirely off the cards either…

That isn’t a “no” from Riot… (Picture: Reddit; u/Sresla, u/Reav3, and u/Beejsbj)

How the Spirit Blossom event works

The aim of the event is to forge bonds with the various champions who are part of the event. To do that, players have to start up conversations in-client with champions to start earning “favour” with that champion - the more favour, the more loot you unlock and the further you progress that champion’s narrative. Important: you have to click on a champion’s face to begin interacting with them - no interactions means no favour!

(Picture: Riot Games)

Once you’ve kicked off the interactions, you can earn favour by playing standard matchmaking games (Summoner’s Rift, ARAM, Nexus Blitz, or TFT), playing a specific champion, or completing champion-specific tasks. You can earn favour for multiple champions at once, and a more complete list of all the ways you can earn favour is also in Riot’s FAQ.

• Read more: Legends of Runeterra patch 1.6: Spirit Blossom event starts with nerfs to Braum and Heimerdinger

Having the event pass will increase both the loot drops and the amount of favour you earn for champions. 100 favour with a champion will get you all the way to an S-rank bond with a champion!

The Spirit Tree and Spirit Petals

Once you’ve reached that coveted S-rank with a champion, a special tier of missions becomes available tied to the mystical Spirit Tree. Those missions will earn you Spirit petals, which you can give to an S-rank champion to earn a unique emote, and move up to an S+ rank.

(Picture: Riot Games)

Be careful, though: you can only earn a maximum of three spirit petals without a premium pass, and five with the premium pass. Be careful who you give those petals too, as you cannot max-out every character…

The Epilogue

The one area of the event still largely shrouded in mystery. All we know is that there is set to be an “epilogue,” where the story will wrap up at the end of the Spirit Blossom event. For those who hit that fabled S+ rank, there may be some special interactions with your favoured champions - which Riot have been tight-lipped about. Who knows, maybe that date with Ahri isn’t completely off the table…

The Spirit Blossom event begins on 22nd July and ends on 24th August. Best of luck on your dating sim adventures, Summoners!