The game mode is great, and the recent patch changes are a welcome one. You're already getting a lot of feedback about the rewards being ... underwhelming, but I'm not seeing a ton of feedback as to how to improve that. Here's a few ideas now that I've put in a solid chunk of hours into the mode.
- Little legends - This is what you built the game around, and making upgrades into a gacha feels like the thing that is supposed to represent you cannot progress. It leads to a disparity where the actual person progresses, but the character that represents them does not. So here's some ideas to chew on
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Keep the river sprite start, but after players learn the ropes and earn some points / complete some missions, allow them to choose their first little legend. Give them the chance to start their path. Let players fast track their little legend if they want after making a selection, but the points you earn should allow you to upgrade your little guy/gal.
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Paths cause champions you buy to use a skin that matches your theme, if available. If you took a shadow isle hauntling, then your champions you're purchasing either use the skins for that theme or use the champion from that theme as a replacement to the existing one. An example might be (long term goal) thresh replacing blitz as a selection choice for you. Thresh would still come from the same "blitz" pool, so if another player already has a tier 3 blitz, it'll be harder to find your own thresh.
- Arenas - This is where you make your money. As players progress down a path and upgrade their little legends, they unlock tiers of arena levels. If you're into Noxus, maybe one map has you outside the gates. Another has you in an arena. A third has you in a throne room. Who knows. The idea would be to allow for progressive animations and accessory slots to unlock for your map. You can gain access to cooler accessories as you progress in tiers and more slots to add these. If you're in your arena, maybe you want a caged Elder drake. Maybe you're a Draven fan and want a crowd to cheer you on (and boo your enemies). Maybe you want fireworks to launch when you get a kill, or grave diggers to come fetch your fallen. Maybe you envision a new world, where big screens and rapid replays appear. Maybe you're making a pact with the shadow isles and want some fog to fill your arena or a blood moon in the sky. Perhaps you're sadistic and start your battles off with a Thresh theme song before a fight to intimidate your opponents. Or perhaps you're into battle damage and want to see the arena burn as champs go at it.
Let people earn some accessories, but your arenas can be like skins, anything from a regular 975 skin all the way to a legendary one. Reward your veteran's, though. Be sure that if you're climbing the brackets and earned the coin, that you can get some prestigious stuff (things you have to just straight up earn, and if you climbed the latter, you earned it).
So TL;DR - Little legends shouldn't really be locked behind a gacha. It should reflect the player's growth and personality. Work towards little legend themes using champion skins or equivalent (ish?) units. Use arenas as an opportunity to collect cash, where cooler arenas are like skins. Allow for accessories to be added, where some are earned and others can be purchased.
One final thing. You guys took the time to make some interactive taunts and the like in the main game. Be sure to have rivals use their expressions before a match starts. We don't get any interaction from these units on the board except for a victory taunt, and there's a lot of lost stuff as a result. I'd love for Darius's animation change from the spin to a dunk if he would kill a unit. Still the same effect and all that of the spin, but it'd be cool to see a change in behavior.
as a shapeshifter wild 3 cost that changes forms kinda like 
and then made wild have a 6 unit bonus and shapeshfiters have a 5 person bonus
