Is Targon Ruining Your Enjoyment Of The Game?
So increasingly I've noticed a sentiment that people just aren't having as much fun with Runeterra
After the slow ascension of Targon as the best control region.
I wanted to hopefully put together a list of features along with everyone else
That pinpoints what these issues are.
Keep in mind I love Targon personally but this is for the good of the player base
Silences - Stop the go big strategy
Playing a card like Braum as a win con prior to Targon was never meta defining but it was possible
Now I wouldn't ever recommend stacking more than one take heart on him, and you probably don't main deck it
card advantage - stops the removal strategy
Shadow Isles control or corina control used to be a valid way to play the game
But now that every card in Targon tutors for a bigger threat you will never out remove a skilled opponent.
Ledros is a pretty big casualty here
combo - stops the slow speed strategy
While Zoe Lee Sin isn't actually a top tier deck, in fact it's kinda bad
It does punish certain card speed so hard to delete them entirely
cards like trueshot barrage were never great but they were playable in certain scenarios
Image spending 7 mana against a Lee sin with 6 counters and burst speed interaction
Healing stops the burn strategy
Burn aggro used to be the highest played deck in Runterra
Even greater than Kinkou elusives by a long shot
The fact that a 0 champion aggro list doesn't exist anymore
Is really punishing for new players that only want to play a few games a week
Here are just some possible reasons players are enjoying the game less
let me know what you come up with in the comments
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So increasingly I've noticed a sentiment that people just aren't having as much fun with Runeterra
After the slow ascension of Targon as the best control region.
I wanted to hopefully put together a list of features along with everyone else
That pinpoints what these issues are.
Keep in mind I love Targon personally but this is for the good of the player base
Silences - Stop the go big strategy
Playing a card like Braum as a win con prior to Targon was never meta defining but it was possible
Now I wouldn't ever recommend stacking more than one take heart on him, and you probably don't main deck it
card advantage - stops the removal strategy
Shadow Isles control or corina control used to be a valid way to play the game
But now that every card in Targon tutors for a bigger threat you will never out remove a skilled opponent.
Ledros is a pretty big casualty here
combo - stops the slow speed strategy
While Zoe Lee Sin isn't actually a top tier deck, in fact it's kinda bad
It does punish certain card speed so hard to delete them entirely
cards like trueshot barrage were never great but they were playable in certain scenarios
Image spending 7 mana against a Lee sin with 6 counters and burst speed interaction
Healing stops the burn strategy
Burn aggro used to be the highest played deck in Runterra
Even greater than Kinkou elusives by a long shot
The fact that a 0 champion aggro list doesn't exist anymore
Is really punishing for new players that only want to play a few games a week
Here are just some possible reasons players are enjoying the game less
let me know what you come up with in the comments
Right now? I wouldn't say so, but before the nerf to pale cascade and hush? most definitely.
Yeah personally I'm fine with it too.
Winrates all around are basically even
You're not gonna find anything that tops 55 percent reliably right now
and if I had to guess that's where the real frustration is
There is no best deck, there is no laddering guarantees.
No this beats the meta, here the hot new list.
It's just a lot of well balanced cards
Also new cards aren't better than old ones, and that's what really bugs people
I will admit I personally would like to see a few less invoke effects. A lot of the issue for me is things like The Immortal Fire or The Great Beyond that basically say to the opposing player "Oh did you not play around this minion that requires you to have two targeted removals just to deal with it alone? That's a shame that I pulled it out of nowhere." I'm fine with the mechanic as a whole otherwise but those select few DO bug me a touch.
For me it is Silence (and you know it because I nonstop complain about it)
Silence at burst speed is just really toxic imo and although nerfing Hush (once again) helped somewhat it still did not fix the actual issue with Silence: it is too flexible.
The only way to play around it is as you already brought it up with your braum example to not play any go big archetype, do not rely on effects and play only the most robust and card indepedant archetypes. It is certainly possible to play this kind of deck but those aren't my style at all. I love fancy offmeta builds that crush the meta because the opponent is not ready for them.
But with Silence he is kinda always ready for it no matter what you come up with.
It's a little bit like oko from mtg who ended up getting banned in every format of mtg because he was a 3 mana planeswalker (kinda like an attackable landmark) that got a health every turn by turning any creature or artifact (landmark) into an 3/3 elk.
Now while this is way more pushed than Hush we also have to see that mtg is on a whole different powerlevel.
What I want to say is that effects like silence get banned even in mtg. So riot maybe should think hard if they want to keep it in their game in it's current form.
Since you mentioned those cards I wanted to ask. Do you guys believe that Spell Shield should last indefinitely unless you pop it off with a spell? or should go away after one turn like barrier?
Some people say that spell shield is fine because barrier is more versatile, I don't agree with this statement because barrier can't protect you from removal that say recall, kill or obliterate.
I think that spell shield seems fair because currently we only have one spell that can give it at burst speed.
Yes spell shield is fair in its current form because it is an untargeted counterspell for the next spell for 3.5 mana at burst speed and which gets negated by adding any additional removal on the stack.
Spellshield units like Fused Firebrand however often aren't understatted enough to balance out the Spellshield making them op versus spell based strategies (what is the point but might be tuned down in future).
Claiming that Spellshield is worse than barrier is absolutely nonsens in constructed and thankfully riot agrees on that. I was really surprised when Bastion was made permanent for no good reason other than pushing targon
I don't really feel like Spell Shield is an issue in itself. I just feel like it mixed with elusive is really obnoxious since it blocks out any way to interact with that minion at all. Blocking is cut off and you either can't target it with a spell or you need to have a spell you can throw away. If you aren't playing Targon yourself you usually aren't generating targeted spells all over the place so you need a fair amount of luck to have something on hand to fix the issue.
I just attacked with a total of 30 overwhelm damage 7 elusive damage and 3 normal damage into an Aphelios Lee Sin deck (against this deck) with a a board full of chumbblockers with 1 burn damage in hand and a Might to go...
Well he answered... tripple Hush, survived with 2(effectively 1 hp) into a 14 damage lee sin kick on the following turn to finish the game...
Seems absolutely legit
Honestly, I've been thinking a lot about it and I think the solution is to change Hush to be a more restricted card instead of a staple in Targon decks. Even though Deny is annoying, I'd honestly rather Deny be overplayed than Hush, it's just such a frustrating card and shouldn't be a generically good card. My suggestion is to change it to:
"5 Mana Burst Speed
Silence a unit this round. If you summoned a Soraka this game, this costs 3 less."
This way, Hush would be a powerful card to push the TK/Soraka archetype while not being a generically good card. Although TK/Soraka is kind of an annoying deck too, by limiting the card to that one deck it reduces the frequency with which you face it. Plus, it would make TK/Soraka feel more distinct and powerful and make Soraka/Braum and Soraka/Vlad a little less memey. I know that this would totally kill the card in constructed, but honestly I think that's preferable to Hush being played.
I bitched about hush when it was first released. Watched it get nerfed a bit. My dragon deck has 3 copies of hush. Any deck I build with Targon has 3 copies of Hush. I use Targon where I might use other regions because Hush.
Hush is very powerful. It costing just spell mana is comical.
Also spellshield should be a single turn
Wait I'm so confused are we complaining about Targon while playing Targon Lee Sin? Seems mildly hypocritical.
* i played against Lee Sin Aphelios. I played A Riven Vi build that has pretty huge damage spikes to offer.
Also I don't know how I was supposed to get Might in hand. Other than maybe spellthief it
I don't think that it's possible to balance silence in it's current form, you either nerf it to uselessness, or it's going to be too strong. My personal wish is that they rework it to something like Quicksand, it disable key words and nothing else.
I feel like this is one of the situations where you want a mechanic gone until you actually see what its like without it. I'm not saying that Hush is balanced necessarily but I do want to keep effect methods of dealing with things like Anivia or The Undying. I mean there are two other examples of silence that haven't broken the game in the form of Sunburst and Purify. I recognize that neither of those have seen much play recently but I feel that is more so due to the lack of worth while targets in the current meta.
Edit: I also think they don't see much use because there is Hush out performing them both.
I might be blind but how is it ever necessary to run silence against Anivia? The egg has literally 1 health so all you effectively do with hush is deal 1 damage at burst speed...
The Undying however is and will always be the most polarizing card in LoR. The The Undying archetype is plain terrible against aggro and midrange but beats control quite well. The card doesn't need silence to be fair, it's fair on it's own.
Also does silence most likely not stop The Undying because it gets replicated at burst speed.
Better examples of cards that get wrecked by silence are lvl 1 Vi, Fiora Tryndamere Riven Taric...
You're over simplifying the case with Anivia a bit there for one thing. It isn't just a case of dealing 1 more damage, it is a case of dealing 4 damage followed by 1. You have to have either a challenger or two spells at the ready, and you have to do so at a very opportune moment. As for The Undying I don't see polarizing a card as making it balanced. Just because a card is good in one match and is bad in another doesn't mean counter play doesn't need to exist. I am not saying silence should exist in the form that they have it now, but I don't believe removing it from the game entirely is the answer either. Also outside of Tryndamere the five you named are all able to be removed through normal means unlike The Undying or even (not that its a strong card at this moment) Commander Ledros. Its true that Fiora is hard to deal with at times but that is the cards around her that are causing issues I'd say rather than she herself.
So silence deals the 4 damage to kill anivia in the first place? Like... you go 2 for 1 no matter if you kill the egg with Hush or Death's Hand.
Sure, you can say that a card being op against 1 archetype but bad against others doesn't make it fair, especially if you are the one playing it but can ANYONE say that The Undying is too good on the broad scale? I might have been missing something but I haven't see The Undying being everywhere or take over the meta ever.
Take it for what it is: a niche tech card for control metas it's not more but also not less.
And for the argument that the other champions die to other removal aswell: other removal tends to not be 3 mana burst speed turn the unit useless and make it easy to kill this turn (especially if you are on the blocks)
Stunning a unit at fast speed costs about 3 mana and it's less devestating... just saying
I actually think that the fact that it is burst speed it actually one of the main issues with Hush and those kind of cards in general. If you look at a game like MTG, I'm not gonna claim the two are identical but the burst speeds equal in that game, known as split second I believe? Is very rare and almost never used. The reason for this is obvious in that it completely shuts out ways to react so it can't be something they allow to get out of hand, and I'm sure with the absurdity that is MTG it has even with the few examples that there are. Hush should for one thing be fast speed and rather than remove it, I think more factions should have ways to impede it. For example not just Targon should have access to spell shield, or not just Ionia should have ways to cancel spells. Even things like the effect that allows you to remove an ally from play would work wonders in the same way that Shurima can with the recently revealed hourglass spell.
Anivia and undying existed long before hush was even released, and we had no problem dealing with them back then. Anivia/SI was only a problem when she could revive after each turn, before mana 10. Undying on the other hand isn't even a competitive deck most of the time.
But the reason why I don't like this whole " we need X card because it's the only thing that counter X deck" argument is because only one region has access to said card. If a deck is too powerful and only one region can counter him then the dev should just nerf the deck in question. Player shouldn't be forced to play a specific region just to counter it.
I tend to agree with you there. That said, as I mentioned above I also just think more regions should have counter play. I don't really agree with Hush being burst speed and if it was fast speed and more regions had ways to protect their units it would allow more counter play.
Yeah I agree with your point, I wrote that post before reading the rest of your replies, so my bad.
Sherima might be the counter to Targon silences like hush. A lot of raw stats unboosted by spell effects.
Think of ascended champions.
Or rockbears
Or 5/2 ephemeral chargers
You could potentially create a silence proof list.
The 8/8 overwhelms in Freij would be a great fit too.
I mean you're not wrong but that isn't really solving the issues. Fixing a balance issue by just creating a counter to it only really makes it so that now you feel obligated to play the decks that counter the problem deck. That is how you move toward those Rock/Paper/Scissors situations that everyone goes on about. You have the people playing Targon for the silence, then you have the people playing the Targon counter, and then you have people playing the counter to the counter. I feel like if a problem exists it always needs to be dealt with at the source rather than cover it up with band aids.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but all card games operate on cyclical balance systems.
Aggro beats one thing
Midrange beats another
Control beats another
Combo beats another
But this can also be represented by regions Runeterra's equivalent of the colors of magic.
For example mono red (aggro) should have a favorable match up again mono blue (control)
The "fun" exists in region combinations and deck building iterations where we can bend these rules and expected outcomes to their breaking points...it's a beautiful thing
That's partially true, but having an advantage is different than flat out having a deck that shuts others out of the game, and its entirely different than having a singular card be the cause of such advantages. There are a lot of powerful tools in Targon but Hush alone is the reason why so many champions have been locked out of play. Vi is a decent example of this, being a card that was part of a top tier deck and now its entirely vanished because that one Targon card is so common and basically chops her legs off.
Yeah, poor Vi I definitely agree there
What do you mean Vi is completely out of bizness? In every non Hush matchup that I play her she wrecks the enemy big time (Playing Riven Vi elusive overwhelm)... But yeah Hush is in general too strong of an effect to be burst speed (as we have said dozens of times here already) and with shurima being Riot's new selling point I think they tune down targon a lot in the next patches to come. Shurima has strong tricks too but it's WAY less about shutting down the enemy and WAY more about making own plays count which is the runeterra I loved when the game was released
I disagree with Hush being Fast speed. Yes, it would slow down its effectiveness, but imo Hush creates the same spell speed dilema as Frostbite spells, and both effects are pretty similar. Fast speed Frostbties/Hush shuts down attempts of buffing units in combat, with those being burst speed, you can at least buff again after they cast the effect. Besides, I think one of the main reasons of Hush's dominance is being a burst speed silence towards champions - no other spell can shut down champion-based strategies so well like Hush.
"Truth is in the shadows, waiting to be revealed by the light. But light only disperses the shadow." - Me
"If other people shared traits of those considered naive, the world would've become a better place." - Also me
^This. I agree that Hush is a problematic card but I don't think changing its speed to fast is a good solution.
I also agree, focus is the right speed here
I think it should at least cost 4. Currently have 3 copies in my deck and almost always keep full spell mana. A