1200 hours of pure gametime (not including queues and picks and loading times) to unlock every champ in the game without paying in the best case scenario (with max BE gains from leveling, and buying every champ for 60% of its price with champion shards).
#why is it so hard to get blue essence
supple rock
rigid moth
the only source of blue essence is the monthly prime thing lol
and i reggretably carelessly spent my blue essence to random champs ill never use when I had a new account
strange pendant
Most people won't be playing all 250+ champs
rigid moth
yeah I know. But for new players I believe spending on champions that you want to play as for a long time is very important due to how long it takes to obtain enough blue essence
fiery hull
You can only get 50 blue essence through the daily mission, so it takes 9 days (a bit over a week) to get garen, 27 days (almost a month) to get sona, 63 days (a bit over 2 months) to get ahri, 96 days (over 3 months) to get lucian, and 126 days (over 4 months) to get pyke.
This is if you only play win 1 game a day and only get blue essence through the daily mission
If you consider that you can level up your account through playing, and each time you level up you get a chance to get a champion shard, you can get whatever champion you want in a shorter amount of time
dry egret
Most people won't be playing all 250+ champs
250 champs 
fiery hull
Get ready for more 200+ years champions
plush marten
What I like to do is try out almost every champion on the free rotation and see who I find fun and who I don’t
This way if I get shards I can either save them or sell them for BE
hoary vault
Most people won't be playing all 250+ champs
There’s 140
