Celestials - Is It Too Strong?

With these types of posts I like to phrase things as a question, without pretending to have all the answers.

Discover was largely considered to be an overpowered r and g heavy style of card design in Hearthstones history.

We are seeing Legends fall into a similar category, where for the cost of playing an understated 3 drop you get an overstated whatever you want.

This means amazing removal, top tier creatures, and even niche answers like stuns and silences. 

Then you can conceivable invoke as many times as you want after that.

Grinding the opponent down with card advantage and superior plays.

So far we are seeing Targon outperform in every list.

How does deep for instance beat out dragon boy

You can even cheat this out early with ramp or Thresh.

It's like an invincible Karma on steroids.

Let me know how you guys have been finding the invoke mechanic overall.

Take care

Just a little meta update, we are seeing 5 Targon decks enter into Swims Tier list, and it's literally been 2 days. As people find new tech and ideas I expect that number to go up to 6 or 7 possible.

The region is just too efficient not to play as of right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5rXQpY_hZI

Let me know what you guys think.

I think they are strong but fine overall, my only problem is with cosmic inspiration (one of the celestial cards). Since it buffs all your allies everywhere the first that gets one out without dying next round straight up wins. I already made a thread about it but my hope is that they make it buff only celestials which should make it ok.

I do not have much trouble with Celestial cards existing in the game. This may be due to me playing Leona Lucian, which handles these grindy decks pretty well. But I still think they are balanced overall. They need to be a bit stronger, because they are granted through weaker units.

I think that invoke is not op but simply unfun as a mechanic.

It feels like your opponent is pulling the answers he needs out of his a**, if he finds the answers he needs and if he doesn't well it doesnt feel great to win eigther.

Will we see nerfs for invoke? I doubt it. The best decks that ive seen and building had no trouble beating invoke decks unless these pulled answers in 4 of for 4 invokes (what has almost 0% chance).

Aurelion Sol however feels super opressive to play against if your deck is not top tier and i see how this card, which is kinda Ugin, the spiritdragon from MTG in LoR is frustating to face. If he levels the game is over for your opponent , kinda. 

There are other problematic cards and decks that we will soon enough complain about *caught Taric but for now i see where the frustration about celestials and Aurelion Sol comes from

There's a lot to unpack in this post. Breaking down what you're talking about a bit, you seem to have points about a lot more than just the Celestial cards:

• Is Invoke a healthy mechanic? You seem to think that it's bad because you believe Discover is widely considered OP and too much RNG (note: not "r and g" - it's an acronym)
• Are the actual Celestial cards too powerful/is the cost of getting a Celestial card too low? You seem to think that the cost to get one (e.g. playing an understated 3-drop) is too low relative to their powerful, as they are themselves above the power curve for their respective costs
• Is Aurelion Sol too powerful? You seem to think he is too powerful because he is almost certainly the most powerful late-game bomb available in Legends of Runeterra.
• Is Targon in too many Meta decks? You seem to think that it is, based on Swim's "day 2 meta" analysis

My responses

• Is Invoke a healthy mechanic? I think the mechanic is fine in the abstract, but that it's bad to limit a mechanic this big and impactful to one region. Discover is one of the most interesting types of RNG in Hearthstone because the player has to make a choice about which random card they want. Invoke works in much the same way, where players have to make decisions about random cards, and that can be a very skill-testing form of randomness. But Discover was available to all classes, and Invoke is only available to Targon, so that makes Targon unfairly powerful so long as Celestials are better than a lot of the other control strategies in other regions.
• Are the actual Celestial cards too powerful/is the cost of getting a Celestial card too low? Some specific cards like Solari Priestess, which pick from a very limited pool of Celestials, are probably a little overtuned. But most of the cards seem decently priced for the power level of the cards, in no small part due to the fact that most Celestial spells are slow, so your opponent has time to react to just about every Celestial card before it snowballs to a win.
• Is Aurelion Sol too powerful? Maybe? He's clearly crazy powerful, but he's also a 10-drop, so once the metagame stops being super greedy (which is the most common start for a day 1 or day 2 meta), he might just be too expensive to reasonably play. Only time will tell.
• Is Targon in too many Meta decks? What meta decks? It's day 2. That Swim has a video talking about meta decks is silly, and the claim he made that a mere 8 hours of play is all he needs to fully optimize an archetype is also silly, particularly because the meta isn't stable enough to optimize against. Targon is in most of the decks people are playing because it's brand new, and because numerous other regions got next to no new content at all. I certainly think Riot should have released meaningful content for each region, rather than delaying the real content for four of them, but this doesn't really reflect a new meta game.

Swim's pretty decent from back in the Gwent days. 

He's got some blind spots when it comes to understanding how to play against low tier cards because they basically don't exist to him, but if he knows the list that you're playing, he can flat out call probabilities of cards in hand.

So if there's anyone I would trust to make early guesses about the meta it's probably him.

There are other good players too like mogwai, control, and hawktie, but they aren't really the predictive types.

It generally takes a very particular type of personality to look at a card pool and be like this, this, and this is going to be played.

I myself have made some good calls in the past and I would say for a butt pull day 2 list it's fine. By next week it will be pretty solid.

By week 4 the meta will be just about set, with a few surprises along the way. 

I'm not trying to suggest that Swim is not good at the game, or that he can't possibly make useful predictions. But the suggestion that he can, after a mere eight hours with a single deck, build "the best version" demonstrates a major blind spot in the fundamentals of what a metagame is in a practical sense.

But you've actually inadvertently struck on my biggest gripe with LoR, and I think Swim is tied into it in an interesting way. Specifically, I'm talking about your comment that "by week 4 the meta will be just about set." We know that after week 4, there will be a balance patch. We also know from the preview content in patch 1.8 that 1.10 will feature a major change to Lee Sin, regardless of what other balance changes we might expect to the new cards introduced in 1.8. So, right as a meta starts to reach a stable state, it is thrown back into chaos.

The result is an odd loop. Swim decides which decks he thinks are the best and then proceeds to set the tier list on Mobalytics. Mobalytics presents a veneer of public data, so the tier list seems well-informed and people starting playing those decks. They become the metagame because they are presented as the metagame, so it starts to solidify. In any other card game, this is the point where players would come along and start looking for off-meta decks that can beat the meta. But in LoR, this is the point where a balance patch comes in and resets the whole thing. The result is that Swim can consistently find a sort of "local maxima" in deck-building - that is, a set of decks that are pretty good, even if they're not the best - and just assert that they are the meta, and the meta changes fast enough from Riot's end that he just gets to be right in a de facto way.

And he doesn't always get it right. I can recall at least one time when I saw Kinkou Elusives with a high win rate according to the actual data on Mobalytics, but it was nowhere in sight on Swim's tier list. It took a solid week before he revised that. And when he lost that Twitch Rivals tournament to Dogdog, someone who doesn't play LoR at all, he went on the Progress Day podcast and complained about the random decks that he couldn't predict people playing in the tournament.

I get that you like Swim's content - you regularly reference it in your posts - but while I think he's a good player, I also think he's overrated as a deck-builder, and that the way Riot is handling the game helps to prop him up.

Mind you, my greatest criticism has less to do with Swim and more to do with Riot. They shouldn't tinker as much as they do with the meta, but that tinkering has odd implications for Swim's position as one of the biggest names in LoR streaming.

I definitely agree on the point that he has no idea how to play against decks he hasn't accounted for.

That is the inherant problem with deck trackers, probability based plays, and opposing deck knowledge.

It is only sucessful within the microcosm that is the high level metagame.

As someone who only pilots his own brews in every cardgame he plays, I can attest to the power of "jank"

I would be careful turning to mobalytics as a more reliable source however, it tends to favor lists that are easy to play.

Quote From meisterz39

• Are the actual Celestial cards too powerful/is the cost of getting a Celestial card too low? Some specific cards like Solari Priestess, which pick from a very limited pool of Celestials, are probably a little overtuned. But most of the cards seem decently priced for the power level of the cards, in no small part due to the fact that most Celestial spells are slow, so your opponent has time to react to just about every Celestial card before it snowballs to a win.

Amazing post as always Meisterz. Fully agree with you, just want to add my thoughts about this part. 

I present one way to analyze if Solari Priestess is fair or not:

-> Solari Priestess mana (3) + Selected card mana (x) + 1/2 body <-

Example: Selected Spell -> Falling Comet
3 mana + 6 mana = 9 mana
Now ask yourself: Is it a 9 mana obliteration that summons a 1/2 body at slow speed worth 9 mana?
Looks fair or even a bit overpriced to me, doesn't seem overtuned at all.

I think that Celestials overall are pretty balanced cards. Them being all slow basically means that you play the same way around all of them by just open attacking. I do however agree that the grant +2|+2 to allies everywhere card should bet nerfed because it’s swingy and not very fun. I think it should just effect allies on the board and in your hand, so that it doesn’t just win the game if played early. It could also be changed to grant +2|+1 so that it doesn’t make your board invincible. 

All that being said, would it make sense for Celestial cards to always be revealed in hand? It would help make it easier for the opponent to play around them and it would nerf the keyword a bit.

Or just simply limit it to celestials. 

I am torn on the whole celestial package Riot has added to the game. To me it seems a bit overtuned but it might get worse if the meta gets more aggressive. However, I think that Freljord and Targon has enough tools (board clears, heals, buffs) to adjust to an aggressive meta. 

My issue with the Invoke mechanic is that I get a "Hearthstone vibe" from it. Mirrors often comes down to who gets the most relevant cards and who levels up Aurelion Sol first, and if you get the "fill your hand with celestials"-card it is pretty much gg as you easily can play 60 worth of mana in a turn. 

I am not saying it is completely random: there is skill to it. How to play around the Spell shield, setting up the board, baiting for a super nova etc. but I just don't like that the mirrors are mostly about who draws Aurolion Sol first, and if he is removed: do you have a second copy? 

It can be fun as hell to play with because there are a lot of over-the-top plays you can make. 

I don't find it to be too strong. Just annoying. Playing it and playing against it. It plays like you have a 50/50 chance to either pull useless crap or pull some game winning big d**k cards out your butt and its completely random as to which one it will be. It's kinda funny that the Celestial cards lore wise are basically miracles. You pray to the Gods of Torgon and hopefully they will help you out. So its kind of fitting that you are basically praying to the God of RNG that the draw goes your way. :P

I think the mechanic is pretty strong. considering that's all you see in expeditions. And if you do play expedition and decide not to go with Targon. You will get buried under their card advantage. There is no way for a deck to constantly get 2 for 1'd and win.

Even winning with Targon in expedition is not fun. It comes down to who got luckier in the mirror. And the fact that you can get a body that gives you a spell that creates a 2 for 1 is pretty stupid to me.

I can't see any reason not to use region in either limited or constructed right now. Card advantage wins games. Targon gives CA. Play it.

Quote From Phaseshifter

I think the mechanic is pretty strong. considering that's all you see in expeditions. And if you do play expedition and decide not to go with Targon. You will get buried under their card advantage. There is no way for a deck to constantly get 2 for 1'd and win.

 

Even winning with Targon in expedition is not fun. It comes down to who got luckier in the mirror. And the fact that you can get a body that gives you a spell that creates a 2 for 1 is pretty stupid to me.

 

I can't see any reason not to use region in either limited or constructed right now. Card advantage wins games. Targon gives CA. Play it.

In expeditions is where targon will be most op since cards that generate additional stuff are very valuable when you are forced to pick from random cards. 

No I 100% agree. It is never good game design to incorporate into a game the ability to grab a card from a stack where that stack has a counter to every strategy. To do so should have an extreme cost, and we just don’t see that right now. 

This game used to let every deck be competitive at times- this unfortunately isn’t the case anymore, between Hush and celestials, most decks were kicked down a tier. 
lol

Just because something isn’t winning all high level competitive play doesn’t mean it isn’t healthy for the game overall- the game is meant to be played and enjoyed at all levels- casual and competitive. Celestials are demolishing casual play much worse than the old Demacia burns or Ashe midrange used to

I only got into LoR recently, and coming from a hearthstone background I'm alright with discover based mechanics.

The main thing that gets on my nerves is that I feel like I'm playing the game at half speed. I know the timer still works as intended and time taken is time not banked and all that, but it still feels like my opponent is dragging their heels as they painstakingly use their entire turn to try to find micro-advantages between the cards provided.

Maybe its just growing pains of being new, or the timeframe with the recent event making more Targon decks crop up. Whatever it is, It's eroding my enthusiasm for the game.

I posted this when Targon first launched and now basically every follower and champion creates a card at this point.

Turns can be very long when you factor in that priority usually gets passed over and over again if playing optimally

Quote From Nifty129

I posted this when Targon first launched and now basically every follower and champion creates a card at this point.

Turns can be very long when you factor in that priority usually gets passed over and over again if playing optimally

I agree... when you play against targon and there are many card creation going on it takes time.

And to go back to the initial statement "Celestials - Is It Too Strong?" -> I would say no but it is a really powerful mechanic. The last patch didn't touch the celestial mechanics and I think this is fine because they nerfed bigger issues like plaza or miss fortune.

In general I really like the ability to react on the enemies deck and choose new cards based on current circumstances. But as the opposing player it is really hard because 1) you need to know all the celestial cards in addition to the deck cards 2) you have some great counters in it like Equinox.

But most of the cards are slow speed which limits the options.