What Are The Advantages of Retconterra Over Runeterra?

My coffee hasn't kicked in yet, but I'll give it a go.

1. Characters and nations have more freedom of actions. The best example is Noxus invading Ionia. Rather than taking it to a League Match to decide everything, we now have the possibiltiy of seeing how Ionia would actually try and kick Noxus out. What would they do? Would it work? What price would they have to pay? ( Ahem.. "No, not yet, quiet down.")
2. Expansion of character designs. Some character designs don't fit in with the IoW, or are extremely hard to justify being there without the classic "they were captured" card. Rek'sai, Bard, Kalista, etc.
3. Character growth. Hardest to implement, especially in this context, but it reaps some nice rewards. Its much easier to see a character change when they have to constantly adapt ( Change is goood! "No get the hell out of here you wanker.") The IoW did allow SOME character development, but it makes a lot harder for some champions, like Nautilus, Lissandra, Zed, and so on.

[Insert complaint about new lore]

I'm gonna jump in here and say it lets them rehash the old stories and claim them for themselves! Like Sion! He was an undead juggernaut and now he's an....Undead...Juggernaut.. Yeah nothing changes...

What the old lore gave us - A overall passably defined world and setting that explained the purpose of the matches we were playing and had an overarching story about politics, intrigue and war that was directly tied to the setting and those very matches... but a lot of loose or dangling bits of lore/champions that didn't really have a place in the lore as a whole and were just kinda.... there.

What the new lore gives us - Short stories involving several characters at a time that describe and detail one place, event or character's past/present and what the characters involved in that story did/are attempting to do in the world as a whole... but without any real interconnection between these stories or the world as a whole, or any closure to the stories in question before the next little bit of lore is released elsewhere.

It all depends on which you prefer. The old lore gave the world as a whole a story and the players and game a place in it... but it couldn't give focus to each and every character or event involved due to the scope of things. The new lore struggles to give every character a tie to the stories, but those stories may as well take place in alternate universes for how much they affect each other. Also, some characters are just as minor and insignificant in the new lore as the old. The story just can't focus hard on 120+ characters to a satisfactory level.

I myself preferred the old lore. Take the Shurima event as an example. In the old lore none of the champions involved had any real interaction. Xerath was a power-hungry mage who sold his body for magic, Sivir was an ex-mercenary, Cassiopeia was cursed to be a snake, Nasus and Renekton were gods from another world, and Skarner was a scorpion from an ancient race that hadn't all woken up yet. (We'll leave Azir out, since he didn't exist in the old lore) Now Azir and Xerath have a story... and it's a decent one that fleshes them both out well and has some emotional impact to it. Fair. Cassiopeia and Sivir have a new story as well... Sivir's old lore was woefully vague so the change for her is decent (Anything is better than nothing) and while I personally don't like the change in Cass's new lore I can't say they didn't give her a fairly major part in the story. But the other champions seem shoehorned in. Nasus and Renek were... animal people who lived back in Shurima and were wise and stuff. Renekton is now crazy for a somewhat more heroic reason, but why being trapped with Xerath made him like he is doesn't make much sense. Skarner got hit the worst, with his new lore being reduced to "Skarner is a big, ancient bug that guards a tomb or something.". His old lore was hardly detailed, but it gave the big guy something. He missed his kind. He was lonely.

By adding more depth and details to things they've made the complete LACK of depth to others stand out all the more... while also crushing fan canon a bit. Old league was vaguely defined enough to imagine stories in yourself about how the champs fit together, how your summoner fit in with the insitute, how the matches mattered and what they were over. The lore and bios gave you impressions of who the characters were and what they were like... and even some small tidbits of info on how they interacted together. Small bits that people worked around to make some really amazing stories. Things like this or this.

I'm not saying the new lore is impossible to work around like this. Someone could write up a whole story about how Sivir deals with being the Azir's heir, or about how Ashe and Sejuani react to learning about the truth behind Lissandra. But with Riot showing how willing they are to scrap their own lore and setting if they decide they want to make a new space hamster champion who doesn't fit into it, it gives a lot less incentive to care about the lore at all. Instead we can just look forward to the next big "event" that probably will connect a handful of characters and tell a little story that doesn't have a conclusion and doesn't affect the game at all.

I'm sure the new lore has potential, I just wish they were more prepared to bring new stories forward before dropping the bomb on us.

The short bios are supposed to be accompanied by long ones, but technical problems are preventing them.

Many champions also had incredibly un-influential stories , to name a few. But at least the league existed to give them even a remote purpose. Now without it, they may as well no exist in the world at all.

Dude, it doesnt help. They already said they have no intention of reverting the retcon

Now they don't have to have a stupid game in the lore they're creating for a game.