Thoughts on the new sets and expansion structure

On its initial announcement, I think it was kind of hard to judge what the sets vs. expansions would look like. Riot said each region would get new cards each expansion, but they made it clear that new champions and cards would be spread out unevenly across the set. What was clear, though, was that:

• The full set is going to be 169 cards
• Each set today has 63 cards (except for Bilgewater, which has 62)
• If Targon gets a total of 76 cards in this set, that leaves ~13 for each of the other seven regions, which works out to ~76 cards per region

At this point they've revealed 50 of the upcoming 89 cards, including five of the seven champions. So far, Targon has 21 of those cards, with two of the champions. It seems reasonable to expect the remaining two champions to be from Targon, with a new Targon champion and two other region's champions in each subsequent expansion. Each new champion typically to get about eight or nine supporting cards.

With all that in mind, it seems logical to expect that Targon will get about 30 more cards in this expansion, and then another ~10 in each subsequent expansion (one champion plus supporting cards) so that when this is all said and done, each region gets to that ~76 card total. If all this is correct, that means the remaining four regions (Bilgewater, Demacia, P&Z, and Noxus) will be left dividing up about 10 new cards in this expansion.

Obviously this is a bit of speculation, but if those numbers are all basically right, then I'm honestly a bit shocked at this approach to releasing cards. In any other CCG, I would have expected a more even distribution across existing regions (at least of the non-champion cards). Specifically in the context of Riot's announced plans, I would have expected something more like Hearthstone's adventure content (most recently, "Galakrond's Awakening") in which each region gets about the same number of cards in each set, but a lower number than in a full set. I assume the reason here is that so many of the new cards tie back to champions, so they have to be released in tandem.

Maybe others don't mind that - Targon will certainly offer a lot of new content to pair with existing regions - but it seems like a bummer for anyone who likes to play any of these (presumably) neglected regions. For example, there might be a new Ezreal deck that uses Targon Gems to trigger the OTK, or there might be a new Lux Control deck that is excited to see cards like Sunburst and Bastion. But ultimately what is most likely to come out of this first expansion for those (presumably) neglected regions is a little bit support for a lot of old play patterns. The set of tools players will have to meaningfully developed new strategies in these regions will be significantly diminished, and I think ultimately that's going to be disappointing for any player who loves one of those regions.

(There's one other possible outcome here. You can imagine seeing more of the mechanics that have already shown up - Behold, Nightfall, Daybreak, and SpellShield - as new expansions are released. It's common to see champion's have natural pairs in other regions - e.g. Braum and Vladimir. If there are missing components to those synergies that will be released in later parts of the set, then there's also a risk that their initial impacts will fall flat and make the initial expansion a bit of a disappointment for the new content. Either way, this strategy seems to have a lot of risk of negatives without a lot of clear upsides.)

Yeah I agree with you that the set structure might be a bit disappointing for people who enjoy playing a few specific regions, but I feel like it's sort of a necessary evil because of the fact that sets include an additional region. Riot can't really release Targon with only 2 or 3 champions and expect it to feel like a full region, so they are forced to release a lot of Targon cards in the first expansion of the set. Given that they want each card release to be fairly small (so that card releases can be spread out more), they aren't left with enough extra card spots to give all regions a significant amount of cards. I think once all of the regions are released there will be a much more even distribution of each region's cards across expansions in a set.

On the plus side, there are some reasons why unequal region card distribution can be good. Unequal card distribution allows different regions to rotate in and out of high popularity. For example, imagine if Badgerbear and Grizzled Ranger had been released in the second expansion of a set. This would have made Demacia underpowered in the first expansion of the set, allowing other regions to be dominant for a while, and then when the second expansion launched Demacia would be really good and brought back into the meta. This would make the game feel more fresh because it wouldn't be perpetually dominated by the few best regions (for example, Ionia and Shadow Isles, or more recently Freljord), as long as the new cards are slightly better than the old ones. Also, a few cards can have a huge impact on decks. For example, Blighted Caretaker and Neverglade collector could be released as cards in an expansion where Shadow Isles doesn't receive a champion and they would significantly change what Shadow Isles decks are best. If Riot manages to be really smart about which cards they release in each expansion, I think that this system will work pretty well. 

Quote From CursedParrot

Riot can't really release Targon with only 2 or 3 champions and expect it to feel like a full region, so they are forced to release a lot of Targon cards in the first expansion of the set.

My concerns have less to do with releasing a lot of Targon content up front, and more to do with how little content 50% of the current regions are going to get. I spent a fair amount of my original post thinking through how many cards Targon would probably have on release of this expansion as a means of emphasizing how little was left for Demacia, P&Z, Noxus, and Bilgewater. Ultimately, I'd prefer to see a lot of Targon, and a little of everything else, followed by expansions in which each region starts to get a more even number of cards. Instead, we're getting a lot of Targon, a nearly full expansion of Freljord, SI, and Ionia, and a very tiny bit of everything else.

Quote From CursedParrot

I think once all of the regions are released there will be a much more even distribution of each region's cards across expansions in a set.

Maybe - but they're talking about releasing new regions every six months, and they've still got a bunch of regions left (assuming they don't fuse any more or create their own, they've got Bandle City, Ixtal, Shurima, and The Void). That's two years worth of content. If they don't manage the game well in that time, it could easily become irrelevant in the competitive CCG space before they hit this presumed equilibrium, so how they manage new content while adding regions is still very important.

Quote From CursedParrot

Unequal card distribution allows different regions to rotate in and out of high popularity. For example, imagine if Badgerbear and Grizzled Ranger had been released in the second expansion of a set. This would have made Demacia underpowered in the first expansion of the set, allowing other regions to be dominant for a while, and then when the second expansion launched Demacia would be really good and brought back into the meta. This would make the game feel more fresh because it wouldn't be perpetually dominated by the few best regions (for example, Ionia and Shadow Isles, or more recently Freljord), as long as the new cards are slightly better than the old ones.

I think my biggest concern here is that what you're describing sounds a lot like an artificial metagame reinforced by power creep, wherein regions with the most cards start out as the most powerful, and then "slightly better" cards enter for the lagging regions to overpower those previously buffed regions. Maybe there's a brief equilibrium at the very tail end of a set, but shortly thereafter there's another cycle with a new set.

This creates a game where, if you're a big fan of some region X, you only ever play when region X gets an expansion boost because you know that's when it will be most relevant in the metagame. And while LoR is pretty F2P friendly - which diminishes some of the negative aspects of power creep/whales - power creep still does a lot of harm to the "collection" aspect of CCGs.

Quote From CursedParrot

Also, a few cards can have a huge impact on decks. For example, Blighted Caretaker and Neverglade collector could be released as cards in an expansion where Shadow Isles doesn't receive a champion and they would significantly change what Shadow Isles decks are best. If Riot manages to be really smart about which cards they release in each expansion, I think that this system will work pretty well.

This is definitely true - a small number of cards can be what you need for an archetype to hit a critical mass of good tools and become powerful. But that doesn't mean they're setting themselves up for success, it just means their current system doesn't preclude success.

I guess your assumptions are mostly correct.
I am always up to new ideas so it will be fun to see if this structure works or not.
Worst case, Riot can always change it later on as they see fit.

I am interested to know how the company is going to keep new content appealing once the card pool gets really big.
A standard structure like Magic/Hearthstone won't do for this game, given that some Champions are too reliant on certain cards/mechanics to work.

Yeah, for a game that has only been officially released for the last ~8 months, it already feels like they've added a ton of stuff. Rotations are going to be really important, and I agree that due to the mechanical constraints of different champion cards as well as the sheer number of regions, that will be very difficult for them to do well. Ultimately they'll probably end up rotation champions as well as their supporting cards, though it's hard to tell how they'll pick them. Some are obvious (e.g. all the Nightfall cards for Diana and Nocturne), but some are less obvious (e.g. you could remove various Freeze effects with Ashe, but that strikes at the core identity of Freljord). Honestly, I think they probably should be thinking about rotating regions too (which only makes the problem much harder). But then someone who really loves a specific region or champion might lose interest in the game.

This gets at the core of what I was talking about in my "what's their plan?" thread. They've created a huge, complex mess underneath this otherwise intriguing (and in some ways very novel) card game, and their solution to the complexity seems to be "keep throwing a bunch of stuff out there and see what sticks."