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Legends of Runeterra | Posted by | 6 years, 1 month ago
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When deck building defies logic

Light rant incoming. 

The first week of the open beta, I barely had anything so I threw together my versions of the 3 starter decks (including exchanging Ionia/Zed for Noxus/Darius in the Jinx deck).  Lots of mismatched odds & ends that just happen to be around the right mana cost/function, right?  Ugly, but they win games--let's say 50-50.  And I'm not really one for fiddling with decks, so I just leave them.  So this week, I decide after my vault I'm going to go and revisit them and finally spend a few wildcards crafting a few essentials for my favorite, the Jinx deck.  I take out Darius and some of the 3-cost stuff and focus on discard-synergy, nexus damage, and cards that are easier to cycle for rockets--we can debate whether that's a good deck building strategy, but at least its *a* strategy, right?  And I go something like 1:5 that night.  So I figure maybe I'm just off or maybe its some unfavorable matchups; I try again this evening and again go like 0:3.  Then I swap back to my oddball Jinx deck and its like 2:1, and then I go to my oddball Braum/Garen deck and it goes like 2:1. 

It's like the harder I try in building the deck, the worse my games go.  My rationale brain realizes the aforementioned is very poor sample size and that there was an inherent trade-off building so heavily around Jinx--all the same, though, my emotional brain is saying that to just forgot about deck building and keep playing the crappy oddball decks until they break entirely.  :-P

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  • Light rant incoming. 

    The first week of the open beta, I barely had anything so I threw together my versions of the 3 starter decks (including exchanging Ionia/Zed for Noxus/Darius in the Jinx deck).  Lots of mismatched odds & ends that just happen to be around the right mana cost/function, right?  Ugly, but they win games--let's say 50-50.  And I'm not really one for fiddling with decks, so I just leave them.  So this week, I decide after my vault I'm going to go and revisit them and finally spend a few wildcards crafting a few essentials for my favorite, the Jinx deck.  I take out Darius and some of the 3-cost stuff and focus on discard-synergy, nexus damage, and cards that are easier to cycle for rockets--we can debate whether that's a good deck building strategy, but at least its *a* strategy, right?  And I go something like 1:5 that night.  So I figure maybe I'm just off or maybe its some unfavorable matchups; I try again this evening and again go like 0:3.  Then I swap back to my oddball Jinx deck and its like 2:1, and then I go to my oddball Braum/Garen deck and it goes like 2:1. 

    It's like the harder I try in building the deck, the worse my games go.  My rationale brain realizes the aforementioned is very poor sample size and that there was an inherent trade-off building so heavily around Jinx--all the same, though, my emotional brain is saying that to just forgot about deck building and keep playing the crappy oddball decks until they break entirely.  :-P

    • Without details I can't easily comment, but on Jinx specifically, she's a really sketchy strategy to run to be honest. She's fun to play when she works, but your entire deck revolves around finding her, playing her and keeping her alive. The second one of those three things fails, the entire deck falls apart because you're playing a deck designed to burn cards without the tools that sustain that strategy. So, it's possible you're losing games because you're going all-in on a really unreliable strategy.

      Can't really comment on the Braum/Garen deck without details, beyond confirming that Braum is on the strong side at the moment in general and so may be carrying you :P

  • Well i have experience of this in other cardgames.

     

    Sometimes going toomuch in one synergy leaves you open for too much counter.

    Jinx is really fun but my fav deck with her has darius in it as a midgame thread

    Yes sometimes he got discarded if i need a thread answered or if its better to go for jinx lvl up or the rocket

    But he gives you another way to close the game

    Think what your biggest weaknesses are and maybe share them so we can figure stuff out :)

  •  I have found with deckbuilding there are two pitfalls that happen concerning synergy. Only focusing on one, or focusing on too many. 

     

     With your Jinx deck as has been pointed out, you are building your deck solely to level her up. The synergy is there and I would wager your 1 win the synergy pulled off perfectly. That is best case scenario, but it seems like it should just be one strategy of the deck. 

     

     Since Jinx relies on empty hand, maybe run a deck that is also concerned with low cost aggressive minions. You can usually dump all of them in a round and you are posing a constant threat to your opponent. Or combine the discard cards, with a secondary midrange strategy that pulls in some good units with good stats and abilities to help you stabilize and/or win the game themselves. Jinx can become a nice bonus to that end. Her quick attack is super useful in itself, and tends towards an aggro deck type.

     

     Don't give up on deckbuilding, just be prepared to have tons of failures while experimenting. And no matter how synergetic your deck is, it still has to be able to answer a different deck's strategy. Always be prepared to add different strategies to a deck or in some cases completely change the deck. Usually if it is a deck that I just love the cards in, I'll keep it to play for fun, not expecting to win lol!

  • The problem may be as simple as the fact that this isn't a Jinx-friendly meta. You've fallen in love with a Champion who cannot perform up to your expectations, so your attempts to improve the deck built around her are doomed to fail.

    Also, you are definitely tinkering with your deck too frequently. Don't react to every single loss. You should mainly watch how the deck performs against popular meta decks, not janky random stuff. Look for trends -- is a certain card underperforming in multiple games for the same reason? That's when you look for an upgrade.

    (And if that card is Jinx, it's just time to let her go, man!)

  • Jinx in general strikes me as a very deck-optimized type of champion...meaning if you're even missing only a few cards the deck falls apart due to lack of consistency.

    Jinx-Draven is a pretty powerful combo who tend to fuel each other. Include all the discard support you can find (Flame Chompers into Vision is pretty neat) and a bit of good removal (Culling Strike and others) and you can slap pretty hard. The deck has phenomenal reach with Get Excited and the Rocket.

    At the end of the day, you're gonna need 3 of both Champions as well as most of the key cards such as the Experimenter dude that discard 3 and draws 3

  • I really meant this to be more about the abstract sensation you get when you try to improve a deck and it ends up feeling worse.  :-P  But since people are interested in the specifics, I'll share.

    Week One Version:

    Deck ID Not Found

    This week's "improved" version:

    Deck ID Not Found

  • Boomcrew Rookie is way, way, way better than Legion Saboteur.

    Zaunite Urchin is actually fairly weak -- you don't need more ways to discard.

    And of course, it will all come together a whole lot better once you get some Dravens.

    In general, you want more third copies of the better cards instead of so many doubles.

    • Quote From FortyDust

      In general, you want more third copies of the better cards instead of so many doubles.

      I know.  Extreme loss aversion: I HATE opening 4th copies from vaults/rewards when I'm still missing so much, which makes me really anxious about crafting a third copy of anything.  And it doesn't help that, as you said, this isn't the best meta for a knockoff/budget Jinx deck to begin with.  :-P

      I'll probably take a more serious look at my options after this week's vault.  And probably something around Braum, since he's been performing a lot better for me lately--either buffing my Braum/Garen control deck or taking a leap and experimenting with Braum/Vlad. 

      • Quote From OldManSanns
        Quote From FortyDust

        In general, you want more third copies of the better cards instead of so many doubles.

        I know.  Extreme loss aversion: I HATE opening 4th copies from vaults/rewards when I'm still missing so much, which makes me really anxious about crafting a third copy of anything.  And it doesn't help that, as you said, this isn't the best meta for a knockoff/budget Jinx deck to begin with.  :-P

        I'll probably take a more serious look at my options after this week's vault.  And probably something around Braum, since he's been performing a lot better for me lately--either buffing my Braum/Garen control deck or taking a leap and experimenting with Braum/Vlad. 

        Prior warning - due to every Elusive deck having Braum crowbarred into it in the opening weeks, a lot of decks are running Rimefang Wolf lately which shuts down Braum hard.