Targon's new mechanic Spellshield and Hush seem very problematic

As stated in the caption this treat is about (permanent) Spellshield and Hush not targon in general.

Lets start with spellshield. 

Why is spellshield in my oppinion a problem while barrier is perfectly fine?

1. It is permanent

2. there is not a single deck that can afford trading 2 spells for 1 unit (and keep in mind that most LoR spells arent even leathal for units)

3. it protects from global spell effects like ruination 

4. spellshield units are hardly more expansive than non spellshield units

Meanwhile hush is devestating for:

most of the champions

the majority of elusive decks

the majority of buff decks

for frostbite

and in general synergy driven decks

Tell me guys: who enjoys this massive swing from an interactive synergy driven game to a game that is just about denying the opponent the opportunity to play the game?

Edit: i changed the title of this article to make it more clear what it is about

I don’t find Spellshield much of an issue, since it’s mostly just like a deny attached to a unit. It also helps units like Aurelian Sol not just die to a vengeance the turn it’s played. Fused Firebrand seems to me to be the only Spellshield unit that is a bit overstatted for its keyword. The main part where I see Spellshield possibly being a problem is when it’s granted to units that don’t naturally have it, through cards like Giddy Sparkeologist, which can be changed to one turn if it’s an issue.

I think another silence card is great, and very important to punish buff stacking strategies such as Fizz elusives.

Then spellshield offers you a way to protect your units from spells and are better buff targets overall but don't get to be elusive.

Are either of these things game breaking yet, no idea, nobody is going to have all the cards yet even if they are paying for 3 legendaries a week out of wallet.

So I would probably wait a solid month before saying op op.

I do agree that Hush could be a problem and oppress many decks, but I think we have to wait a few days to see if it’s really a problem. If Hush ends up mostly unplayable like Purify, then it won’t need a change.

Overall, it’s just too early to know if these potentially oppressive keywords will negatively impact the game. In interactive keywords (such as elusive) aren’t always inherently bad for the game, and if they are balanced properly they can create an interesting and diverse meta.

We're what, 4 hours in?

Come back in a week, at the very least, before throwing ridiculous terms such as 'meta breaking' around so easily.

All decks on ladder right now are sub-optimal... to the point games are so soft i can safely get away griding with a Purrsuit of Perfection deck:

@Hellcopter

Why aren’t you running the Invoke cards in your pursuit deck? All the different Celestials help fulfill the pursuit requirement quicker.

I'll be playing only Labs for several days.

It's possible op can be right about something, but it's still very early. This meta may need much more time than usual to adjust and settle, because the impact of several keywords and how they all correlate between each other seem more complex than we thought / were predicting. The meta will change drastically, that's for sure.

Personally, I was aware of 'Spellburst' possibly forcing us to waste 2 answers for 1 and that stats maybe are not penalized enough. I lost 2-3 games due to something absurd like 'sp' on huge elusive minions (didn't have a single way to deal with it, let alone two, lol), but as said, let's wait to see will and how the meta will be able to respond. Maybe, we'll need to react in much different ways than before and that the meta will become even more midrange. Regarding The Ruination... f*** The Ruination. Anyway, I really hope they knew what they were doing and that the game will not need to go through overhaul period to get rid of uninteractive stuff.

Today I played with Trundle and Leona decks. There were several issues, mentioned above, but most of the games were a blast, very enjoyable.

It seems Riot is going more towards Hearthstone. More rng, because a lot of people get bored of "always the same games". So we got these invoke Celestial cards which remind us of Galakrond Priest. It's extremely fun to play as, but extremely unfun to play against. Idk, how it will do for LoR, but not playing around random garbage is a particular reason why I sometimes play LoR and move from HS. Again, Celestials are very fun. My opinion is that they should make them more awkward to get and invoke range should be more narrow. Another problem is that most Celestial cards are 'hate' cards which are always good for disruption of your opponent. 'No proactive play, just disruptions...' leads to less skilled games. But, it seems the Devs decided to go back to the HS way to make the game more exciting generally. Celestials are not some small amount of rng, but on a par with the best of HS rng.

Some very pleasant games were with Leona. At first, i though we got another problem - snowballing. Then I realized there are a lot of trade-offs and difficulties for doing that. And that's fine.

My gut feeling is that there are a lot of problematic mechanics in this set, but I have to agree with iWatchUSleep - the expansion hasn't even been out for a day, so it's hard to reasonably argue something is metabreaking.

Played 4 games I won’t be playing more until Nerfs roll. Spell shield should be a one turn thing right now it’s just to powerful unless they add more low cost AoE spells to pop it. Also seems like normal Riot, drop the newest thing overpowered and hope people will spend real money on it I don’t know why I expected different I’ve been a league player for years.Damnit riot I spent money on this game during spirit blossom because I WANTED to I felt you earned my money this ...... this just makes me feel cheated. 

Seriously do they even play test? 
some things have felt strong even overpowered but I felt there was at least something I could do I don’t feel like that now

I'm already back to Hearthstone.

Celestials ruined the game completely. Yoink cards were the first sellout, but this now is a complete irreparable nonsense. 30 invoke cards with fine stats let you generate... not generate, but discover 30 completely absurd under-costed cards (sometimes 0 mana) which are impossible to play around. You'll not even find this in HS. The maximum of chaos and lottery; exactly the opposite of how they advertised the game a year ago.

I think spell shield and barrier need tweaks to be like they are supposed to feel. Like sister spells. So spell shield is fine how it works now but should only last one round like barrier does. Then barrier should only block physical damage from units but does nothing against spell effects or spell damage.

Then you would have to decide if you want defense against spells or physical damage. Since building for both will kinda brick the deck.

As for Hush I think they just need to make it either just one use like silence or increase its cost by 1 mana. So its a bit more awkward to pull off multiple silences.

yeah im about to quit playing after seeing this one, 30 cards invoked and gaining and more popping out and still 25 cards on the deck, k bye

I think they should have spell shield last until the beginning of your next turn. It's not realistic to have to use 2 spells for each threat that has it. And you have to pray that your 2nd spell doesn't get stopped.

Spell shield doesn't seem to be that powerful, in my experience playing ranked I haven't faced any opponent that use Bastion, Shroud of Darkness or any card that give your units spell shield; I do agree however that certain cards like Fused Firebrand are a bit too strong, a 5/5 with fury is already hard to kill and doesn't need any extra protection.

Neither SpellShield nor Hush appear in any of the top-tier decks right now, so it's pretty obvious that these effects are not a problem. Targon as a region is barely represented in the competitive meta right now, apart from Trundle-ASol.

In fact, these effects are absolutely necessary if you want Targon decks to have any chance at all against the heavy hitters of the previous set.

Quote From FortyDust

Neither SpellShield nor Hush appear in any of the top-tier decks right now, so it's pretty obvious that these effects are not a problem. Targon as a region is barely represented in the competitive meta right now, apart from Trundle-ASol.

In fact, these effects are absolutely necessary if you want Targon decks to have any chance at all against the heavy hitters of the previous set.

I have to disagree on Hush, sure it doesn't appear on any top-tier deck but that's mostly because there isn't any top tier Targon deck at moment, which pretty normal since we still don't have all the cards for this expansion yet.

Most Targon decks that I encounter in ranked do run the card and she pretty much the reason why I stopped using decks like  The Rekindler/Anivia or Ezreal/Karma, spending 10 rounds setting up your board and leveling up your champions, only for  your opponent to deny you your win condition with one 3 mana card that you can't respond to due to it's burst speed, is not healthy card design not to mention salt inducing.

Anyway this is just my opinion on the matter fell free to disagree.

I think a lot of the older decks that are aggro heavy don’t have a problem with Targon but if you are slow deck or midrange Targon is kind of a huge problem their ability to eat almost all the damage you throw at them while gaining cards just allows them to out resource you unless you are aggro is just ridiculous. Maybe what’s needed is the bigger the aggro damage be reduced   a bit coupled with a reduction to Targon’s healing however this might make midrange decks overly powerful. 

I consider my deck midrange and I fear Targon and Yasou.

Quote From minuano28

Quote From FortyDust

Neither SpellShield nor Hush appear in any of the top-tier decks right now, so it's pretty obvious that these effects are not a problem. Targon as a region is barely represented in the competitive meta right now, apart from Trundle-ASol.

In fact, these effects are absolutely necessary if you want Targon decks to have any chance at all against the heavy hitters of the previous set.

I have to disagree on Hush, sure it doesn't appear on any top-tier deck but that's mostly because there isn't any top tier Targon deck at moment, which pretty normal since we still don't have all the cards for this expansion yet.

Most Targon decks that I encounter in ranked do run the card and she pretty much the reason why I stopped using decks like  The Rekindler/Anivia or Ezreal/Karma, spending 10 rounds setting up your board and leveling up your champions, only for  your opponent to deny you your win condition with one 3 mana card that you can't respond to due to it's burst speed, is not healthy card design not to mention salt inducing.

Anyway this is just my opinion on the matter fell free to disagree.

So basically, your argument is "Hush is unhealthy because it's an indirect nerf to these archetypes that many people considered unhealthy."

The decks you mentioned were polarizing, uninteractive, and unfun to play against before Hush came along, so I don't think you'll find much sympathy on that front. In fact, Ezreal was on the watchlist for a possible nerf, and Karma was on a previous watchlist. If Hush keeps them in check, they won't have to be nerfed, so maybe you should be grateful Hush exists.

Quote From Author

So basically, your argument is "Hush is unhealthy because it's an indirect nerf to these archetypes that many people considered unhealthy."

No my argument is that one cheap card that you can't respond to, should not be able to shut down a deck, and those two were just examples there are other archetypes that Hush can shut down.

Quote From Author

The decks you mentioned were polarizing, uninteractive, and unfun to play against before Hush came along, so I don't think you'll find much sympathy on that front.

Polarizing? The same thing could have been said for Midrange Frostbite, Deep Monsters, Shen/Fiora. All top tier deck have their fans and their haters but unhealthy and uninteractive, that just nonsense. There are many decks who could beat them consistently including the one mentioned above.

Quote From Author

In fact, Ezreal was on the watchlist for a possible nerf, and Karma was on a previous watchlist. If Hush keeps them in check, they won't have to be nerfed, so maybe you should be grateful Hush exists.

I should be grateful? Are you serious ? I couldn't care less about Ezreal and Karma getting nerfed. In fact I'd rather have strong cards getting hit with the nerf hammer than having the game introduce a card than can shut down an archetypes will being completely useless against others. 

Alright, after 3 weeks and 4 days I think it's safe to say Hush is a little too strong and it's why it'll be getting nerfed. So, op was right from the get-go on that and I honestly agree. Tryndameere, among many other champions, such as Darius, Kalista, TF, Lucian, Katarina, Ezreal, and others get hard countered by this cheap overturned card. The problem is that it's a 3 mana that creates a fleeting and on top of that it's a burst. Someone hushes your unit and you may as well just let it die (even champions) rather than wasting a barrier (to have it poked) or a health gain (hush again). The only counter to this card is a recall and even then it's not a real counter considering you lose a body on the board and have to spend the turn resetting, if even possible. It's cheap, allows no counterplay, gives great value against copious amounts of decks, and most Targon decks are running it for this very reason. Don't even think about playing last breath units either. 

Now, spell shield. Honestly, I think it's ok for the most part. Aurelion Sol having a perma shield is fine by me because he's a 10 mana champ, but a 9 cost elusive celestial dragon that gains stats depending on how many celestial cards you've played with fury and spell shield is literally just a GG at that point because by the time you deal with that another beast will take the board.

I believe Spellshield as a keyword is NOT op, but its current application to certain units is. Hush, on the other hand, is just straight up op and needs to be addressed.

If you still think otherwise of these cards, that's fine. I respect opinions and I'm open to reading your (or others) defense.

While most of your points are valid, lets not forget Hush only lasts for 1 turn. So that means if a player wish to eliminate the unit that has been silenced, he either has to:
1- Somehow force a trade using a better unit; 
2- Cast a second removal spell.

Case 1: One possible counter play is to chain a fast removal on the target threatening your unit. Another possibility is to answer with another spell yourself like FreezeBADCARDNAME or buffs, thou sometimes that last approach won't work due multiple Hush casts and that's alright.
Case 2: Thats a 2-1 trade on top of having a very expensive mana cost. Looks fair to me.

What trully makes Hush strong is the fact it can be cast multiple times in a single Turn. 
Riot is currently looking into it, and a possible change is to price a steep cost for for each consecutive cast, which i think it would be a fine solution.