New Freljord Card - Troll Ravager

Regen is way too strong a keyword for 4 mana, and this way too easy to trigger.

Having a 8+ mana cost card on turn 4 (if its not a spell atleast) means you got a dead card in hand for 4 more turns tho.

But it's very good for board control yeah, so delaying to turn 8 becomes way easier.

Makes me wonder what the sweet spot is gonna be for included 8+ cost cards in the decks and if there may be 8+ mana cost card generators.

Quote From happyshorts

Having a 8+ mana cost card on turn 4 (if its not a spell atleast) means you got a dead card in hand for 4 more turns tho.

 

Not if it's a spell. If it's a spell, you could play it on the very next turn.

(I'm not saying there are a lot of 8-mana spells you'd want to use that way, just that it's possible.)

Not good enough to see play even if it didn't had a condition it was only ok.

We have a 5 mana 4/5 that also has regen.

Solid, even if you don't Behold it.

Quote From DoubleSummon

Not good enough to see play even if it didn't had a condition it was only ok.

We have a 5 mana 4/5 that also has regen.

Ugg; I was thinking this was decent until you brought up that Scarmaiden Reaver comparison.  While I maintain that Scarmaiden is criminally underrated, I will agree that it's hard to see Troll Ravager finding a place with -1/0 stats, no overwhelm, and conditional regen for only 1 mana cheaper.

I dunno, I think 1 mana cheaper than Scarmaiden is pretty nice. I think everyone's really overestimating the challenge inherent in Behold.

All you're doing by keeping an 8-cost card in your mulligan is accepting the likelihood of early-game tempo loss. It's not the end of the world. There are all kinds of slow decks with little to no early-game tempo, and they do just fine. Sacrificing early tempo for future value is a time-honored, successful strategy in CCGs. Have you noticed that they put Behold in the region with some of the best mitigation and AOE damage? Maybe there's a reason for that.

If you evaluate every card as if it's going into a perfect curve tempo deck, you're basically ignoring half the game. Not to mention, having a critical mass of Regeneration (Troll Ravager AND Scarmaiden Reaver AND whatever else) will be utterly back-breaking for any opponent who's not running The Ruination.

Quote From FortyDust

I dunno, I think 1 mana cheaper than Scarmaiden is pretty nice. I think everyone's really overestimating the challenge inherent in Behold.

All you're doing by keeping an 8-cost card in your mulligan is accepting the likelihood of early-game tempo loss. It's not the end of the world. There are all kinds of slow decks with little to no early-game tempo, and they do just fine. Sacrificing early tempo for future value is a time-honored, successful strategy in CCGs. Have you noticed that they put Behold in the region with some of the best mitigation and AOE damage? Maybe there's a reason for that.

If you evaluate every card as if it's going into a perfect curve tempo deck, you're basically ignoring half the game. Not to mention, having a critical mass of Regeneration (Troll Ravager AND Scarmaiden Reaver AND whatever else) will be utterly back-breaking for any opponent who's not running The Ruination.

I don't want to entirely count out the Behold mechanic, but not even the best control decks in LoR have been able to run more than about six 8+ cost cards. Troll Ravager is right on the borderline where that many triggers is enough to make him work most of the time, but the early game Behold synergies are going to be inconsistent. If you throw Trundle into the mix, you can boost that effectiveness for synergies starting around turn 6 or 7, but if you're up against a serious aggro deck that might be too late for a 3/5 with Regeneration to mitigate enough damage to win you the game.

I would argue that the Freljord has actually been surprisingly weak when it comes to low-tempo early game strategies. Many of the best cards in the region are burst speed buffs, so fighting for the board with early game tempo is actually pretty important and the region looks a lot more like a midrange region with some random ramp tools than it does a control region. I think that's a big part of why it has only recently emerged as powerful - much of the metagame for months was dominated by serious control and aggro decks, and the midrange content in the Freljord was outclassed. To the extent that it saw play in control and combo decks (e.g. They Who Endure Spiders, Ezreal OTK), Freljord was a bit player, not the star.

Maybe that changes here - like I said, Troll Ravager is right on the borderline of reasonable, and the critical mass of Regeneration in this set may make it easy for the Freljord to get value out of units over multiple turns and last into the late game. But so far, I think the region has had a very midrange "fair fight" vibe to it that makes losing the early game an automatic loss.