LEGO Tournament Temple City (71814)
The biggest Ninjago set of 2024, and one of the best temples in years.
Brick Rated Score
Set 71814 · 2024
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If you love Ninjago, or you just want one big playable centrepiece that looks the part on a shelf, this is an easy yes from me.
It packs 3,489 pieces, 13 minifigures, and a pile of working features into a four-tier pagoda built on a rock face. It's pricey at $249.99, and a fair chunk of the build is rockwork, but the per-piece value is genuinely good for a set this size. With retirement expected around the end of 2026, the retail window is closing.
Best for: Ninjago fans who want one big, playable temple centrepiece
What it is
This is the largest Ninjago set of the 2024 Dragons Rising wave, and you can feel that ambition the moment you look at it: a four-story pagoda built into a cliff face, spread across a rock bridge between two islands, with a third island off to the side. It has 3,489 pieces, 13 minifigures, a blacksmith forge, a little dragon, and enough working features to keep a kid busy for a whole afternoon. The Brothers Brick called it one of the best temple sets since the beloved 70751 Temple of Airjitzu, which is high praise, because that old modular is a fan legend. It landed a 4.5 out of 5 across aggregated community reviews, and once you see everything it does, that score sits right with me.
The catch
I'll be honest about the friction points. At $249.99 this is not a casual pickup, and while the per-piece value is good, that's still real money. A decent slice of the piece count goes into gray rockwork and landscaping rather than the temple proper, so if you're the sort who finds repetitive rock and brown-on-brown sections a slog, you'll hit a few of those stretches, especially in the opening bags. And if you're a parts collector chasing brand-new molds, keep your hopes gentle. New Elementary counted only about four genuinely new molds here, a couple of them minifigure accessories plus that cute little baby dragon, so most of the interest lives in recolors and useful bulk parts rather than headline elements.
Who it's for
This is for anyone who wants one big Ninjago centrepiece that both displays well and actually plays. Kids get the water mill, the falling rocks, the secret door, and the hidden storage. If you're a grown-up fan you get a genuinely handsome temple and a great minifigure lineup with Lloyd, Nya, Zane, Cole, Arin, Wyldfyre, villains Lord Ras and Jordana, plus set exclusives Mr. Pale, the Blacksmith, Roby and Bleckt. Where I'd hold you back is if you only want a pure display piece with no play gimmicks, or you have no attachment to the theme and just fancy a pretty Asian-style building, because a modular or Icons set may serve you better for the money. But for the Ninjago faithful, this is one of the easiest yeses in the theme, and the fact that it retires around December 2026 means waiting too long gets risky.
The parts story
What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.
Building this one flows nicely for such a big set, and it splits into three clear acts. You start on the right side with the rocky base and the dragon cave underneath, plus the blacksmith forge, the little dragon, and a hot air balloon. Then you move to the left rockwork, the pier, the bridge, and an outbuilding, before finishing with the pagoda tiers and the landscape trees. The pacing kept me interested because you're constantly switching between landscaping, mechanisms and structure. The play features get built right into the frame as you go: a hand-cranked water mill that drives two battle platforms and the blacksmith's hammer, a lantern you press to trigger falling rocks, a secret door, and storage tucked into the cliff.
On the parts front, New Elementary flagged this as the largest set of the wave with plenty to talk about, though the truly new stuff is limited to around four molds. The standouts are the new baby dragon in Warm Gold, a shorter katana, and a Mid Length Bun hair piece in red, plus a double scabbard that's more a mold update than a brand-new part. The bigger story for most of us is value and bulk: at roughly 7 cents per piece across 3,489 pieces, you get a mountain of useful bricks, lots of recolors (including internal parts recolored for other Dragons Rising sets), and plenty of printed minifigure torsos and legs. Nice touch too, the sticker sheet is modest for the size, so it's a builder's parts pile more than a molds showcase.
Fun facts
- 01It is the largest LEGO Ninjago set of the 2024 Dragons Rising lineup, at 3,489 pieces.
- 02The Brothers Brick rated it the best Ninjago temple set since 2016's fan favorite 70751 Temple of Airjitzu.
- 03The new baby dragon mold introduced here also appears in Warm Gold, Pearl Gold, and Trans-Orange across sibling sets like 71818 and 71822.
- 04Mr. Pale, the Blacksmith, Roby, and Bleckt are exclusive to this set and appear nowhere else in the wave.
What other builders say
This write-up is grounded in real reviews and builder discussion, not just one opinion. A few worth reading:
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