Legends of Runeterra
The Problem With Bard
So for those who have looked at the stats lately they will know that Annie and Bard are the two highest played Champs in the game in terms of the number of high tier lists they are present in.
I've already spoken about why ravembloom is a problematic and poorly designed card in its current iteration aka should buff spells not creatures, both is too powerful for a 1 mana landmark.
But Bard is a whole nother kettle of fish. Annie while being the A tier queen with 3 lists, Bard is the S tier king with two lists but can essentially be jammed anywhere and win as Mogwai often complains.
Why is this? Well high rolling in a word, boom two chimes okay that's a 4/4 for one mana, boom another 3 chimes k that's a 7/7 on turn 4 and you basically nothing to increase the chime level in your deck except run Bard as a champion.
Now you'll say that's astronomically low ods, and I would say yes but turns out free wins are free wins and in a game based around a 50-58% matchup table free wins are king.
The new cards and new expansion are looking to learn lessons from mistakes of the last but at the end of the day if bards free chime placement isn't nerfed 3 - 2 and ravenbloom doesn't stop globally buffing creatures even creatures spawned like tokens the metas not really going to change in a healthy way like it should.
Just my two cents, but a lot of players are getting sick of hearthstone Bard and I'm one of them and Annie I always hated soooo plz Riot just tweak them a bit.
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So for those who have looked at the stats lately they will know that Annie and Bard are the two highest played Champs in the game in terms of the number of high tier lists they are present in.
I've already spoken about why ravembloom is a problematic and poorly designed card in its current iteration aka should buff spells not creatures, both is too powerful for a 1 mana landmark.
But Bard is a whole nother kettle of fish. Annie while being the A tier queen with 3 lists, Bard is the S tier king with two lists but can essentially be jammed anywhere and win as Mogwai often complains.
Why is this? Well high rolling in a word, boom two chimes okay that's a 4/4 for one mana, boom another 3 chimes k that's a 7/7 on turn 4 and you basically nothing to increase the chime level in your deck except run Bard as a champion.
Now you'll say that's astronomically low ods, and I would say yes but turns out free wins are free wins and in a game based around a 50-58% matchup table free wins are king.
The new cards and new expansion are looking to learn lessons from mistakes of the last but at the end of the day if bards free chime placement isn't nerfed 3 - 2 and ravenbloom doesn't stop globally buffing creatures even creatures spawned like tokens the metas not really going to change in a healthy way like it should.
Just my two cents, but a lot of players are getting sick of hearthstone Bard and I'm one of them and Annie I always hated soooo plz Riot just tweak them a bit.
I don't see anything wrong with Annie. She can't be traded by 2 defense guys, but she also can't block and trade with anything. It honestly feels like Annie is a card used to level up RavenBloom, rather than the opposite. If Tibaulk was a 5/5, it would still be worhth playing, same if he didn't gave overwhelm.
The main issue with Bard as you said, is that you get value essentially for free. You don't really have to do anything, and it can create board states that are impossible to deal with early game. SOmething as simple as Bandle Commando coming out as a 3/4 or even 2/3 has a pretty huge impact.
Basically, Bard allows you to have underpriced, over the curve units...for free.
Ravenbloom is neither problematic nor poorly designed, currently the card is only being used in one meta deck and said deck winrate and playrate are both reasonable, and while the landmark itself only cost 1 mana you still need to play the 6 mana Tybaulk to get the buffs so that 7 mana in total. Limiting the buff to spell only won't change much since that deck tend to kill you with burn damage anyway.
Annie not being able to block is not a real weakness, Annie/Jhin is a burn aggro those type of deck don't look for trades they only care about pushing damage since you are never beating them in race, as for Annie/TF that deck has enough removal to get rid of your unit.
I do however agree with everything you said on Bard.
A lot of people are overestimating Annie's capabilities imo, especially in Control decks. The only reason she's there is because of Ravenbloom Conservatory which is a strong card but not overpowered. However, I'm also biased since I find it a fun build-around card. If it does become an issue anyways, it's relatively easy to tweak its number by increasing the countdown.
As for Bard, I had a feeling this was coming the moment I saw his Origin. The issue with Bard is that he has 6 cards in his "region" so they gave him a really strong effect in return to balance it out, resulting in a very awkward card to play deckbuild if his effect is not strong enough but too easy if his effect is too strong (like rn). I feel like they could make his start of round effect into something more like Jhin's where you get Chimes when you behold him and when you play something.
Probably something like:
For each Bard that started the game in your deck, plant a Chime in your deck when you play a unit while you Behold Bard.
A bit wordy but I think it's a lot better than what it is right now.
Take my words with a grain of salt. I'm unranked and only play casuals lmao.
Yeah, by the numbers Bard is S tier and goes in everything.
Annie is A tier and goes in everything.
The ravenbloom nerf will be necessary after they nerf bard from 3-2 chimes per copy.
Because the only thing stopping Annie decks from being S tier is that they gain value slowly and Bard gains insane value by turn 3. (Stupid design for a "temo" card)
Being in an aggro deck doesn't negate that having 0 power is a weakness. Anna dies to Petricite Broadwing, without weakening it.
I don't think any deck ever looks for trades. You do it when it makes sense. Any 0 power unit removes that option. And you will face other aggro decks that are also racing you. Her 0 power is not an issue against control decks, but it can,and often will be against aggro. For example, it would be worth blocking a Fae Bladetwirler to weaken it, then finish it with one spell. WIth Annie as your one drop, you don't have that option. And the next time it attacks, you know it'll be at least 3/3, so the window will be gone. It doesn't seem like a big deal because Annie is popular, but it does make a difference.
But I don't think it's realistic to say her deck "Has enough removal to get rid of the unit". It implies that you always have the removal you need in hand, and that no early game unit is ever a problem.
To be honest though, I don't think Jhin is that popular right now. From what I can see he isn't used much.
When it comes to jhin I kinda find it funny how Jhin right now feels weaker than Yasuo.
The issue really is that lvl 1 Jhin is BAD as a unit without keywords that needs to attack to do anything.
Lvl 2 Jhin is a lot stronger but still... lvl 2 Yasuo right now is proably better.
I like the new decks quite a bit in terms of their place in the meta, and balancing out other archetypes by contrast.
The fact Kayesa is like boom burst speed spellshield onto a quick attack overwhelm body is very tough for Annie to disintegrate.
Bard is still strong, but he's a strong tempo card in a world with demon girl comming down as a 6/6 on 4 with keywords sometimes.
Also hollowed decks have infinite attack to trade into over stated bard followers.
So while the new expansion decks are generally "strong" but not op they are generally better as healthy answers to over represented archetypes present last season.
No nerfs required.
I don't really get why you're comparing Jhin with Yasuo when those two do different things. Jhin's an aggressive card finisher/engine while Yasuo is a payoff card for stun/recall decks. Jhin doesn't really benefit greatly from stunning units but instead from spells and skills being on the stack. Also you typically don't play Jhin unless he's leveled.
Currently, I imagine the reason why Jhin isn't played as much is because there are better variations of his decks like Annie/TF, but I imagine that he's still a good aggressive card. It does kinda suck that the stronger Jhin decks require him to be paired with Annie or TF.
Take my words with a grain of salt. I'm unranked and only play casuals lmao.
I would argue that the stronger Jhin decks require him to run cannon barrage and double ludens setup and play him in path of champions lol.
To me the champion in pvp is a joke and I won't bother building decks around him as there are many better decks to pick up right now imo like Katarina Yasuo for example
Yeah that's fair. I've been running a Jhin/TF deck that I netdecked from someone who hit Masters with it and I gotta say, it's a stark difference between trying to run stun/control packages vs just straight up cramming burn.
Take my words with a grain of salt. I'm unranked and only play casuals lmao.
Some archetypes only really come into their own after further support is released for them. Might be like that for world waker Champs, there's nothing really stopping the devs from releasing more skill cards, more husks, more chimes, more hollowed, more evolved.
In that context these "runeterra" region Champs might end of feeling like their own stand alone regions after a while.
That's true but it's not like that's a guarantee. Tahm/Soraka has not received any new support cards (mostly because they're LoR's black sheep) and not all support cards really push the archetype. I still think that making the Runeterra champions' region as "the other 6-7 cards I'm released with" is a bit lame.
Take my words with a grain of salt. I'm unranked and only play casuals lmao.