There are many cards in Legends of Runeterra, and each have their own stats and effects to make them unique. It can be overwhelming, especially if you’re new to the card game genre, to learn all these effects. That’s why we’re dissecting all the keywords in a series of guides. In this one we’re taking a look at Overwhelm.

Overwhelm is one of the most aggressive keywords in Legends of Runeterra. When you’re on the offense, and your unit with Overwhelm kills an enemy, the difference between your unit’s attack power and the enemies health is dealt as damage directly to the enemy Nexus. So, for example, if your unit with five attack power kills an enemy unit with three health, two damage is inflicted upon the enemy Nexus.

There is a very unintuitive interaction between Overwhelm and Barrier. While Barrier reads “Negates the next damage the unit would take”, Overwhelm ignores that when calculating Nexus damage. You don’t protect your Nexus by giving your unit Barrier. If, in the example we gave earlier, the enemy would give their three-health unit Barrier, their Nexus would still be hit for two damage. Below are a couple of example cards that have the Overwhelm keyword.

Images via Riot Games.