Aurelion Sol - The Star Forger: Card breakdown

It seems Aurelion Sol became a hot topic of discussion, so i am going to try my best to break down this card being as impartial as possible.
Take your own conclusions if the card looks fair or not at the end.

Lore: Aurelion Sol is one of the Gods who created the Runeterra universe.

Since Aurelion Sol is suposed to be the strongest champion of them all, from a design perspective, is very fitting that his mana cost is set at the highest price possible: 10 mana. 

But for a 10 mana cost to see play in any card game, it also requires to have an extremely strong effect.
Here goes a list with a few examples of traits hight costs cards own in other games:
1- Deals high ammounts of direct damage; -> King Crush (Hearthstone)
2- Affetcs the board on the same turn its played -> Shadow Reaper Anduim (Hearthstone)
3- Setup an One Turn Kill combo; -> Antonidas (Hearthstone)
4- Very hard to remove; -> Ultimate Falcon (Yu-gi-Oh!)
5- Generate infinite resource overtime; -> Deathstalker Rexxar (Hearthstone)
6- Snowball overtime (wins by himself if left unchecked); -> Ragnaros(Hearthstone)
7- Denny oponnents resources; -> Jynzo (Yu-gi-Oh!)
8- Protect the player from loss/taking damage/heal; -> Malganis (Hearthstone)

Aurelion Sol is a Boss card, and as such, given he has the highest mana cost price possible for a unit, he is supossed to pack the ultimate bomb effect to win games. He needs to have an even stronger effect then Commander Ledros as he costs more mana and uses a champion slot.
But is Aurelion Sol unfair? To answer that, we need to look at how other Late game decks are doing.

This is a picture of my meme Purssuit deck.
It usually finish games in a single big hit by T9-T12.

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Maokai decks can pull their win condition by T7-T8. That means the oponnent gets 4 more turns as most players can't refill their deck.
It usually finish games by T11-T12.

Ezreal / Karma is an OTK deck. It requires Karma to be enlightned to pull off the combo, followed by Ezreal + spells on the next turn.
It usually finish games by T11-T12.

Anivia needs to be enlightned to proc her egg and level up, plus an additional turn to generate more Anivia copies.
It usually finish games by T11-T12.

Commander Ledros is played on T9 and Atrocity on T10. If Ledros is killed the combo takes longer.
It usually finish games by T10-T12.

Are we seeing a pattern here? Most control decks usually end games around T10-T12. Now lets examinate Aurelion Sol:

Aurelion Sol is played on T10 and if his conditions are met, he levels up after THE END OF THE TURN. So best case possible, the player may only play Celestials cards for free on T11 forward. It usually finish games by T11-T12.

Conclusion: I hope my work here can provide a better insight about Aurelion Sol's design for future reference.
I personally think Aurelion Sol is fair and on par with other control decks that see play on the current meta.

Little extra -> How to play around Aurelion Sol:
Play cheap spells on him to pop his spell shield and follow with a major removal, both with fast speed if possible to prevent counter plays. Another way is to ignore Aurelion Sol completely and focus to kill other units to deny his Level up in the end of the turn. Aurelion Sol by himself is "only" a 10/10 body do nothing with Fury which isn't worth its cost.

You seem to forget that Aurelion Sol is not always played on T10. 

Freljord offers ramp and other decks pull him out with Thresh and keeps reviving him after that. 

He can be played on t6-t10. 

Quote From thazud

You seem to forget that Aurelion Sol is not always played on T10. 

Freljord offers ramp and other decks pull him out with Thresh and keeps reviving him after that. 

He can be played on t6-t10. 

 

You're right, but in that case you shouldn't see Aurelion Sol as the problem, but rather the ramp cards and/or Thresh. 10-cost cards should not be made weaker just because there are other cards that allow you to play/summon them earlier.

Quote From GerritDeMan

Quote From thazud

You seem to forget that Aurelion Sol is not always played on T10. 

Freljord offers ramp and other decks pull him out with Thresh and keeps reviving him after that. 

He can be played on t6-t10. 

 

You're right, but in that case you shouldn't see Aurelion Sol as the problem, but rather the ramp cards and/or Thresh. 10-cost cards should not be made weaker just because there are other cards that allow you to play/summon them earlier.

I suppose I'll say that the ramp cards were never a problem ever again after they got nerfed. (I'm talking about Wyrding Stones, and Catalyst of Aeons) The only new ramp card we got this time around is the Faces of the Old Ones which saw some play but I'm not sure everyone runs it.

I think that the problem with Aurelion Sol is that he is so easy to level and the cards that you use before AurelionBADCARDNAME Sol are very good and synergistic. These cards would be like Infinite MindsplitterBADCARDNAME, Trundle, Starshaping, Icequake, etc. If you're fighting a slow deck then you are most likely going to win as Aurelion Sol is quite hard to beat early on when the opponent still has like 8 Mana (maybe with 2-3 spell Mana banked.) and even if you don't have Aurelion Sol here, you could have Wyrding Stones to Trundle or Icequake on turn 4 and that shuts down some decks entirely.

I remember Meisterz once said that this Ramp Asol deck is very akin to Quest Rogue in Hearthstone and I couldn't agree less. It's a deck that if you are moderately faster than them, you have quite a good chance to win as long as they don't draw an insane hand. The decks that Hellcopter listed as the slow control decks all loses to this Ramp Asol deck for the same reason that these decks just lose because they can't deal with threat after threat after threat without losing resources and being burnt out in the end to a random big Celestial. Because it's not like RuinationBADCARDNAME beats Asol, it's RuinationBADCARDNAME + cheap spell that does.

Then the easy fix to him is just to make his Level Up to be worse than it is right now. Either its condition, its payoff, or both.

The deck isn't high winrate but that's only because the decks it loses to are the ones that are in Tier 1. Mostly decks that have good midrange and burn tools. I expect that Ramp Asol would do better if some of these Tier 1 decks weren't here, but I don't expect the winrate to skyrocket because other similar decks would just appear.

Quote From thazud

You seem to forget that Aurelion Sol is not always played on T10. 

Freljord offers ramp and other decks pull him out with Thresh and keeps reviving him after that. 

He can be played on t6-t10. 

 

Taking your example, one could argue Tryndamere will do much more work then Aurelion Sol ever would because Aurelion doesn't have Overwhelm and also Tryndamere is much harder to remove.
And even if Aurelion Sol was cheated / played early, if he can level up before T10, then chances are you already lost the game anyway.

True. Its a fair point, but i would like to know why you believe other slow decks can't beat A.Sol in the late game.

Quote From FenrirWulf

I remember Meisterz once said that this Ramp Asol deck is very akin to Quest Rogue in Hearthstone and I couldn't agree less. It's a deck that if you are moderately faster than them, you have quite a good chance to win as long as they don't draw an insane hand. The decks that Hellcopter listed as the slow control decks all loses to this Ramp Asol deck for the same reason that these decks just lose because they can't deal with threat after threat after threat without losing resources and being burnt out in the end to a random big Celestial. Because it's not like RuinationBADCARDNAME beats Asol, it's RuinationBADCARDNAME + cheap spell that does.

First, why I think Asol beats out almost all slow decks. I'm not going to claim that slow decks can't beat Asol because there are decks that can beat it such as Warmother's control. However, I think that some decks will have an insanely hard time.

One such deck would be Corina Ledros. I think that they would have a poor matchup against Asol because they can't normally deal with big threats such as Trundle, Mindsplitter, Asol, and other Celestials. That deck only has limited amounts of Thermogenic Beam and Vengeance for those units. Not to mention SpellShields make it incredibly tough for them to beat. Even then, their payoff such as Corina or Ledros + Atrocity doesn't typically beat them because they can just heal with Starshaping or Revitalizing Roar.

But yes, that deck is just hard countered by it. A Nautilus Maokai deck on the other hand would have a very favorable matchup against Ramp Asol as long as they get Deep before Asol is down on the board. Ezreal Karma, in theory, should beat Asol as they could deal with huge threats and stall for a while before going off with their combo but sometimes Asol goes off a bit faster before they get their combo off, and on average Ramp Asol decks should get Asol out on turn 8-9. I think, in that case, an Asol deck is slightly more favored. A deck such using Anivia would be too grindy and take too long to beat Asol, and Asol will just generate Celestials as threats.

Basically, I think that decks that need to reach about 9-10 Mana to go off should lose to Asol's general threats before going off. Grinding him out is not a good gameplan. If they are able to deal with the board or have a gameplan that ignores it then it should be fine as long as they are able to play accordingly. Although I will say that an Asol deck is able to survive a single burst as long as it doesn't kill from full HP.

Also, I might also be getting Meisterz point wrong, but I thought he was on point with the comparison of Ramp Asol with Quest Rogue. A deck that uses big threats and has refills even after having their board cleared, and even though they are a bit control they are a deck that feasts on slow decks. Also, I'm not exactly sure which version of Quest Rogue he was referring to, but in my mind, it'd be the The Caverns Below version that was only nerfed once when the minions were still 5/5s. The deck was one of the highest winrate decks but at the time there were a lot of Mages and Warriors and Quest Rogue has an almost auto-win as long as it's not an aggro deck. I think this was about Rastakhan's Rumble? Even then, I think it was still played after the second nerf.

I don't think Ramp Asol is busted or oppressive, but just unfun to play against if you're a slow control deck. It's just too fast for slower decks but it's too slow for faster decks.

Well, there's the additional fact of how to deal with these threats. If you constantly get celestial cards, you will eventually get one that allows you to fetch Sol. so it's never a matter of if he shows up but when.

Sol has spell shield. So he's not the easiest threat to deal with. I played against a sol deck a few days ago, and killed him twice. But I did not have 6 spell to kill him 3 times. And that's assuming he doesn't get protected. And even if you do kill him. He's already given the pilot plenty of value. So it often doesn't matter.

Quote From Hellcopter

Quote From thazud

You seem to forget that Aurelion Sol is not always played on T10. 

Freljord offers ramp and other decks pull him out with Thresh and keeps reviving him after that. 

He can be played on t6-t10. 

 

Taking your example, one could argue Tryndamere will do much more work then Aurelion Sol ever would because Aurelion doesn't have Overwhelm and also Tryndamere is much harder to remove.
And even if Aurelion Sol was cheated / played early, if he can level up before T10, then chances are you already lost the game anyway.

I am not implying that Aurelion Sol is broken or that it is a huge problem that you can cheat him out by t6-t10. I just wanted to point out it was missing in his analysis since he wrote: "Aurelion Sol is played on T10 and if his conditions are met, he levels up after THE END OF THE TURN. So best case possible, the player may only play Celestials cards for free on T11 forward. It usually finish games by T11-T12." and I thought that was wrong since the majority of the decks that use him try to play him earlier than that. 

Edit: and don't underestimate how difficult a 10/10 with spellshield can be to deal with for some decks. 

So do you guys propose to nerf Aurelion Sol for the more casual players? I mean it makes sense on the one hand to improve casual's game experience while skilled players would not really mind it but on the other hand... aurelion teaches  players how to properly play LoR and if you refuse to learn you might deserve to get stomped by a leveled up aurelion.

It the end Aurelion is not a fun concept but a fair concept and we should not complain too much about such concepts existing because they will from time to time come up. For now i would keep aurelion as he is and let the casuals learn their lesson ...

Lawls @ the above post. Really what the breakdown will be did he make more people quit playing than he made start playing.  You piss enough casuals off you get a game with no updates. 
Still pellshield feels very strong making it a one turn buff would be massive adjustment.

So, I guess I should hop into this discussion, as I'm being quoted a bit. With respect to my comparison to Quest Rogue (back in this thread), the goal was not to say "the original Caverns Below Rogue deck is exactly the same as ASol Control" but rather than "the original Caverns Below Rogue warped the metagame despite a relatively low winrate, and ASol Control seems to do the same thing." Obviously they're not exactly the same - the use of bounce effects in Caverns Below Rogue often made the deck entirely uninteractable, which was a big part of why control decks couldn't break up their quest completion and beat them with their own powerful late game tools. I don't think that's what's happening with ASol Control - you can still fight their minions, and with the right spells you can even break through spellshields (albeit at a high price) - but the power level of ASol with a few decent Celestial cards in hand is pretty bonkers, and the work required to level him up (i.e. playing units) isn't just easy, it's an unavoidable part of the game.

So, I think it achieves that warping effect the same way Caverns Below Rogue did, where fast decks can win pretty easily but other control decks struggle to make headway against it. @Hellcopter, I think you're using "late game deck" and "control deck" interchangeably in your original post, but several of the decks you've listed are not control decks - many are combo decks that seek to win with huge burst through Ezreal or Atrocity, and the Ensure Spiders deck is really more of an aggro deck that uses Atrocity as a finisher. The control decks you've actually got on there are the Purrsuit, Anivia, and Maokai decks. Of those, the only one with a chance against ASol is Maokai, and only if they get their win condition off early enough to toss the enemy ASols before they have a chance to come down. With ramp and Thresh driving early Aurelion Sol plays, I think that's unlikely to happen consistently.

I was hoping to actually pull some data for this discussion, but the match-up data on Mobalytics is kind of a mess. They just do region comparisons for the match-up rankings, without any distinction for which archetypes are contributing to wins/losses, so that data can be hard to judge. The deck rankings are a bit more clear, but the top-level "matches" number seems to include all decks of that region pair, which is very confusing and obfuscates true prevalence. At any rate, here's the high level of what I think I'm seeing in both data sets:

• Almost every deck with a high win rate is aggro/midrange or combo decks, and the only control decks I see are Aurelion Sol Troll Ramp, Tryndamere Troll Ramp, and Deep Sea Monsters.
• The latter two decks aren't very popular, but the data that is available suggests that they're better than ASol in the context of this metagame
• The Tryndamere version of Troll Ramp seems to lose to the Aurelion Sol version, which makes sense since the ASol version has access to Obliterate effects and Sunburst to easily handle Tryndamere
• Deep Sea Monsters is supposedly a higher tier than ASol, but its almost non-existent in the data (I found a few lists with a total of ~1000 games played across those lists, far lower than the most common version of ASol Ramp). Its match-up data is super hard to parse because a variety of more popular and more successful SI/Bilge decks running Gangplank and/or Miss Fortune show up in the data. I think this is part of why the data reflects it as successful in the top-level deck view.

Really nice discussion guys, even i learned a few things, thanks

Quote From meisterz39

So, I think it achieves that warping effect the same way Caverns Below Rogue did, where fast decks can win pretty easily but other control decks struggle to make headway against it. @Hellcopter, I think you're using "late game deck" and "control deck" interchangeably in your original post, but several of the decks you've listed are not control decks - many are combo decks that seek to win with huge burst through Ezreal or Atrocity, and the Ensure Spiders deck is really more of an aggro deck that uses Atrocity as a finisher. The control decks you've actually got on there are the Purrsuit, Anivia, and Maokai decks. Of those, the only one with a chance against ASol is Maokai, and only if they get their win condition off early enough to toss the enemy ASols before they have a chance to come down. With ramp and Thresh driving early Aurelion Sol plays, I think that's unlikely to happen consistently.

Valid point. We can talk about the definition of what a "control" deck is to see if we are in the same page.
I came from an era where control decks didn't have win conditions, so my definition of control comes literally from keeping the board under control, caring about efficient trades and then waiting until the oponnent runs out of resources. In modern card games, most decks have some kind of win condition, so trying to win by the old way is not a good plan anymore.
I also believe combo and control are NOT mutually exclusive. A combo/OTK deck can also be a control deck. Freeze Mage is a deck that doesn't care about board state, so its not a control deck, while Shadow Reaper Anduim OTK does. 

But what i am really want to talk is the fact i don't see why so many people think A.Sol is opressive.
My point with this topic was to show A.Sol win condition is on par with other decks win conditions.
It seems to me people are focusing way too hard on the strenght of A.Sol level up effect. But is it that different from a board full of AniviasBADCARDNAME? Or when Warmother's Call gets online? Or even when The Harrowing summons a bunch of Hecarim?

I played many games against A.sol, with all of my decks, even the meme ones, and i never felt hopless. 
Does anyone have numbers if A.Sol is stomping other control decks? It sure doesn't feel that way to me.

I've never seen anything stronger in any card game(single card combo) than an Aurelion Sol leveled up with you having the 10 mana celestial spell. I think he's fair though since getting him to level up means you are most likely winning already.

Quote From skullleigh

I've never seen anything stronger in any card game(single card combo) than an Aurelion Sol leveled up with you having the 10 mana celestial spell. I think he's fair though since getting him to level up means you are most likely winning already.

Nice observation! Single card combo i indeed can't think in anything. Closest was Yogg i guess.
Your post also got me thinking about some nasty 2 card combos from the past...
This was a disgusting one i remember from MTG. 2 useless cards alone but when combined are utterly broken:

Show Spoiler

I find it really strange that so many people complain about Aurelion Sol Ramp, who is only good against slow control decks and very prone to bricking due to all the high cost cards, when we have things like Endure Kalista a deck that can do pretty much anything from early game aggro to mid range beatdown and have a strong finisher, not to mention one of the best draw engine in the entire game.

Quote From Hellcopter

Valid point. We can talk about the definition of what a "control" deck is to see if we are in the same page.
I came from an era where control decks didn't have win conditions, so my definition of control comes literally from keeping the board under control, caring about efficient trades and then waiting until the oponnent runs out of resources. In modern card games, most decks have some kind of win condition, so trying to win by the old way is not a good plan anymore.
I also believe combo and control are NOT mutually exclusive. A combo/OTK deck can also be a control deck. Freeze Mage is a deck that doesn't care about board state, so its not a control deck, while Shadow Reaper Anduim OTK does. 

It's certainly fair to say that there's overlap between combo and control, but I don't think "keeping the board under control" is the right view for control. Both strategies want to go late into the game, and typically both include lots of tools to control the board to ensure they can reach the late game against faster, aggressive decks. The goal of a combo deck is clear - stall the game while drawing to some combo that will win you the game. But control should be able to beat decks by disrupting their strategies. Board control is part of that, but so is combo disruption. This is why the unconditional Obliterate effects and/or super cheap silence effects that you get in ASol Control decks are so powerful.

Quote From Hellcopter

But what i am really want to talk is the fact i don't see why so many people think A.Sol is opressive.
My point with this topic was to show A.Sol win condition is on par with other decks win conditions.
It seems to me people are focusing way too hard on the strenght of A.Sol level up effect. But is it that different from a board full of AniviasBADCARDNAME? Or when Warmother's Call gets online? Or even when The Harrowing summons a bunch of Hecarim?

I played many games against A.sol, with all of my decks, even the meme ones, and i never felt hopless. 
Does anyone have numbers if A.Sol is stomping other control decks? It sure doesn't feel that way to me.

I think @skullleigh has really hit on the most compelling point with the remark about Aurelion Sol + Living Legends. This pair is pretty easy to get thanks to Starshaping and Aurelion Sol invoking exclusively from the 7+ cost pool. The result is that it's very common for an L2 Aurelion Sol to generate 30 or more mana's worth of value in a single turn.

That's certainly overkill when you're not in a control mirror, so in that sense I can see why the comparison to other late-game decks makes sense. But it's well beyond what those other decks can do in the late game. This is why I think it's important not to simply ask "Is Aurelion Sol a fair win condition" in the grand scheme of the meta, but also "Is Aurelion Sol so powerful that it makes other control win conditions irrelevant?" My gut instinct is that the answer here is yes, and I have looked over the data available to reach that conclusion, but as I indicated above, the best source of data (mobalytics stats) is hard to parse. It's certainly possible my read is incorrect.

Quote From meisterz39

 But control should be able to beat decks by disrupting their strategies

I have mixed feelings about this statement.

In one hand, i agree this is the core concept of what pure control decks are trying to do. If you watch the video linked bellow my signature, you will see i play a priest deck that has no treats or win conditions, only disruption and value generation cards. The entire plan of my deck is to disrupt the opponent's strategy until they run out of resources.

In the other hand, pure control decks usually takes over 15 turns or even deck out to finish games so companies decided matches in the modern era should not take longer then an average of "X" time. To acomplish that, they implemented finisher cards, OTK, combo strategies all with powerfull effects that are very hard to disrupt. For example, how do you even disrupt a Warmother's Call deck? Unless you are playing Ionia with Deny, you just can't interact with it.

If you don't believe me,  i challenge you to come up with a theoretical deck that doesn't use a single finisher and relies only on disruptions cards in today's meta. I don't think its going to work. Every deck should be build around cards that optimize its own win condition first and foremost. Disruption cards are added later to replace prior choices when needed, in order to increase the winrate agaisnt whats being played in the current meta. Those disruption cards may not even be needed agaisnt a particular meta, and certainly are not exclusively played in control decks only. Even agro decks can play the disruption game and tech in control cards agaisnt very specific matchups. Secret Eater and Counter Spell are very good examples of disruption cards that were played in both aggro and OTK decks.

Dont get me wrong, i don't think your definition is bad or even wrong, just think isn't right either. 

Quote From Hellcopter

In the other hand, pure control decks usually takes over 15 turns or even deck out to finish games so companies decided matches in the modern era should not take longer then an average of "X" time. To acomplish that, they implemented finisher cards, OTK, combo strategies all with powerfull effects that are very hard to disrupt. For example, how do you even disrupt a Warmother's Call deck? Unless you are playing Ionia with Deny, you just can't interact with it.

I don't think the prevalence of "hybrid archetypes" means we cannot talk about pure archetypes. Even if they're never implemented in the most pure way possible, the pure Aggro, Control, and Combo archetypes (and their associated rock-paper-scissors relationship) are useful guides for discussing card games.

But this idea that including powerful finishers means you're not playing pure control seems a bit wrong to me. Control doesn't win strictly on the basis of disruption - that's just how they get to their late game value cards. Eventually those decks have to win somehow, and they usually do so with big, powerful units or super expensive but high-damaging spells.

On the matter of Warmother's Call, Ionia being the only region that can interact with it is probably a case of bad balance, but it doesn't mean pure control can't exist.

Quote From Hellcopter

If you don't believe me,  i challenge you to come up with a theoretical deck that doesn't use a single finisher and relies only on disruptions cards in today's meta. I don't think its going to work. Every deck should be build around cards that optimize its own win condition first and foremost. Disruption cards are added later to replace prior choices when needed, in order to increase the winrate agaisnt whats being played in the current meta. Those disruption cards may not even be needed agaisnt a particular meta, and certainly are not exclusively played in control decks only. Even agro decks can play the disruption game and tech in control cards agaisnt very specific matchups. Secret Eater and Counter Spell are very good examples of disruption cards that were played in both aggro and OTK decks.

It's certainly true that control is harder to build than aggro in the early days of any meta, because control wants to be responsive to the meta and you have to know what aggro and combo decks are doing before you can disrupt them. That said, here is a deck I think fits the basic definition: https://lor.mobalytics.gg/decks/btdipi1la4s85h9vvafg 

Now, I don't know how relevant that deck is in today's metagame (I've seen more popular versions like https://lor.mobalytics.gg/decks/btce2k9la4s85h8qvs6g that run Riptide Rex[/runecard, Jack, the Winner, and Atrocity). But the core of the deck in both cases is the same, and even with the addition of the big finishers, the strategy is the same - clear the enemy board a lot while you rack up increasingly powerful The Undying's. The addition of those finishers is helpful - Jack gives you more removal tools, Riptide Rex gives you a board clear that also hits the enemy Nexus, and Atrocity helps shore the deck up against even greedier control decks - but I think the core represents a fairly pure control strategy.