My thoughts on the patch notes

I absolutely loved:

• The Kalista rework.  Honestly, she might be a little too good now, but as much time as she's spent in the dumpster Girl could use a little time to shine.  The best part is: it's not just good, its novel.  My mind is already spinning on all the ways to possibly abuse her L2 ability.
• Mageseekers rework.  The whole "discard a card" thing was really discouraging, so I love that they dumped it and now made it more fun.  Props for making them all reactive, too, since pretty much every 6+ cost spell is something you want to play at the right time and not just as an activator.
• The Rummage change.   It sounds like a small thing, but honestly most successful Jinx decks will cut this card because it absolutely sucks to "lock up" your hand.  But even bigger than the specifics is how they are proactively bandaging this very niche scenario.  It shows a familiarity with how an off-meta deck performs and nourishment to want to essentially "unburden" it without necessarily buffing it.

I liked

• The down-tuning for Black Spear, Crowd Favorite, Chump Whump, and MotI.  All essentially went from "Why wouldn't you run 3x of this card?" to "Are you sure this is the best card for you?", which is exactly what you want from a balanced card game.
• The up-tuning on Brood Awakening, Poro Snax, and Iceborn Legacy.  The latter 2 are opening up new possible archetypes; the former is giving some deckbuilding flexibility to what is currently a very narrow archetype.  Kudos all around.
• In general: how this was a regularly scheduled balance patch that shook things up, and now I'm already excited for / dreaming up totally new deck archetypes.  Compare this to other CCG games' who will remain nameless' balance patches, where effectively announcing which Tier One decks are now dead and leave me waiting to see what inevitably fills the power void.

I'm not sure about

• Pack Mentality.  I do like that its less confusing now, but this is really just feels like a variation on For Demacia.  It's uninspired brute force.  Plus: I'm still not sure who's actually going to run it.  Decks that run wide, sure, but that's usually not Frejlord.  Maybe someone that wants to make use of Unscarred Reaver and Scarthane SteffanBADCARDNAME outside of a subpar Vlad deck?
• Troop of Elnuks.  The chance of a complete whiff on this card (not adjusting for what you've drawn or if you've copied) is roughly (34/39)^N, where N is the number of cards, so the change goes from a ~25% chance to a ~44% chance.  I'm guessing that's enough of a swing to scare off meta decks from just splashing it, but it doesn't feel comforting.  I do like that they identify preservation of the counterfeit coin strategy, but honestly if that trick wasn't working at 10 cards I don't think it will get any more popular now.
• Flash of Brilliance.  The bigger thing to me was the free mana, so I'm really disappointed they didn't at least make it a 4 cost spell.

I'm disappointed with

• The Vanguard Lookout "buff".  Boring, and ironically he probably still isn't going to see play because there are better 2-drops for elites.  If you want to make people play him, he needs some interesting tag or ability.

I can't beleive

• That Hecarim "nerf".  He's even more disgusting on a Harrowing now, I don't think reducing his damage by 2 is going to slow him down.  Really should have been either an increase to 8 mana or a removal of Overwhelm tag IMHO.
• Rekindler.  I actually really like that you can rez champions; what I don't like is that this is so often double-digit stats for 6 mana--raising to 7 doesn't hurt the bottom line enough.  IMHO, should either be a smaller body or changed to rez the weakest champion so you need to build your deck more carefully if you're just going to cheat out infinite Hecarim / Garen / Ashe / (Kalista ;-) ) etc.
• No change to Shadow Assassin.  This card is just disgusting, and its the lynch pin of all elusive cancer decks.  I do appreciate that they at least identified it and played around with some of the numbers, but not converging on any actual changes is a huge miss IMHO.

One thing I really liked was the change to Navori Conspirator, hopefully now the Ionia / Frelyord Deck will be a lot worse. 

I think shadow assassin should have “This has elusive while your opponent has an elusive unit” instead of having elusive. That way it becomes more of a defensive tool

OMFG!!!

They buffed LOTS of cards that i run in my spider token OTK deck!!!
I managed to reach rank Master 35 with it last month... i wouldn't be surprised if token spider becomes a S tier deck now.

Brood Awakening at 5 is going to be NUTS!

Quote From Hellcopter

OMFG!!!

They buffed LOTS of cards that i run in my spider token OTK deck!!!
I managed to reach rank Master 35 with it last month... i wouldn't be surprised if token spider becomes a S tier deck now.

Brood Awakening at 5 is going to be NUTS!

Gratz--what's your decklist?

I'm largely happy with the balance changes. Especially regarding Black Spear, which other people (including Swim) seem to be iffy about; the balance between this and Get Excited! was way out of whack, so I'm super happy it had its cost adjusted.

Mageseekers are looking sick right now. I was actually planning to build a Lux/Heimerdinger deck next, so this change is perfectly timed for me.

I'm cautiously optimistic about Hecarim. I don't think he'll continue to be as dominant as he has been. Honestly, the nerf to Spectral Rider is just what needed to be done in my opinion (although removing Overwhelm on his level 1 might still be warranted).

However, I'm firmly with Sanns regarding The Rekindler and Shadow Assassin.

The Rekindler still seems way too ridiculous. In addition to the increased cost, he should have his stats reduced to 3/3 and/or switch his summon effect into a Play effect and/or have the game mechanics adjusted so a player can never have 2 instances of the same champion on the field, period (That's actually a pretty drastic game change that I would like to see in general, irregardless of Rekindler).

As for Shadow Assassin, I think a mana cost of 4 would be perfectly appropriate.

It's a well rounded patch that touch some of the more problematic cards that had risen up recently in the meta, while also buffing or reworking completly some other undertuned ones. It's also good to see they're keeping and eye on some of other "problematic" cards for future fixes becuase it shows how they're at last aware of what may be in need of changes.

I repost here what I've already wrote directly in the article, for a more detailed discussion.

Quote From Lightspoon

What a nice round of changes! I was expecting a nerf to Troop of Elnuks, since it can lead to a victory too early in the game and only by sheer RNG. It would probably not see play anymore at this point.

Flash of Brilliance is a surprise: it was so good to cycle it for Ezreal and Heimerdinger while also gaining a low cost spell most of the time that this change feels more like a nerf, so I don't know if it will be good enough to be included in such archetype anymore but I'll test it out.

Hecarim and Kalista seems both more balanced now, the first because was tuned down (but I don't know if this will be enough) and the second because seems far more interesting, solid and powerfull than before (time for some testing!).

Also nice to see another nerf to Elusive units and Mark of the Isles. I'm a bit disappointed for the change to Mageseeker Investigator, since it was one of the few "silence" effects in the game but this new one allows probably more counterplay while adding also more flexibility to the card itself.

Glad to see they're looking into Shadow Assassin and Glimpse Beyond for future fixes.

Quote From OldManSanns

Gratz--what's your decklist?

Code: CEBAIAIBAYIRWIQIAECQ6GJEFAVTCMRVAEAQCBIWAIAQCAIHAEAQKII

I just realized they turned Iceborn into a slow spell??? Not even fast?
WTF are they thinking, its stated as a buff... but this is actually a BIG nerf, might even kill the card completely =/

Patch Notes:

Elise combined with Kalista will be the deck to beat now.

Hecarin raw power was nerfed, but Hecarin spam was buffed. 

Iceborn Legacy went from from decent -> garbage. They fucked up really hard here. it should, at the very least, be a Fast Spell. 

Pack Mentality was a bit buffed but still has the same problem as Iceborn Legacy: being a slow card is extremely risky versus not of a big payout when it resolves.

Poro Snack -> Now it became the old Iceborn Legacy that doesn't need a target. Still not playable.

Everything else is good and overall i like those changes.

I totaly agree that they kinda deleted iceborn legacy what is really sad for me.

I was running frostborn legacy heimerdinger with all the crazy 3 mana burst spells that p&Z and Frejord have to create 20+ total power of drill turrets in 1 turn at burst speed (what is kinda the truest form of an otk).

Now i would get a rocket turret for casting it (which is not really usefull) and the spell very likely wont even resolve, making the card an unreasonable risk to run and just kills it's viability completely 

NICE BUFF RIOT :)

This patch feels like game killing garbage.

The game is already dominated by Fearsome+Elusive+Quick Attack aggro.  Now it's even MORE dominated by the same stagnant playstyle.

One of the only cards you could even use early to address that was Black Spear, and now it's considerably more expensive.  I get that some people are really color-focused when they look at a card game and see "EVERYONE IS PLAYING SHADOW ISLES AND I'M HAPPY THEY NERFED A SHADOW ISLES CARD" without thinking in terms of decks and archetypes.  It was also one of the only things cheap enough to fit 2 answers in a turn to stop a Karma or Dinger, not that anyone cares about Control because of how painfully hated the archetype clearly is by these devs.

(And for the guy who mentioned Get Excited, it's not my fault that card is under-supported trash.  Get Excited should probably cost 1 or they need more discard support, and Black Spear should cost 1 as well.)

Even as someone who hates seeing the same deck, more or less, every game... Shadow Assassin is fine.  If you consider 1 mana worth a vanilla 2/2, drawing a card worth another tax of 1, and elusive worth another tax of 1, then that's 3.  Like you're fine with a 2/1 Elusive that constantly grows to 3-5 attack as a 2-cost, but you complain about Shadow Assassin?  Talk about misaimed.

This game's problem is it lacks a Control archetype, it lacks support for such, and if it did have support for such... it has the lazy problem of thinking Control wincons need to just vomit nigh-unlimited value from single cards, like Karma and Dinger.  The devs clearly hate Control, that's why Black Spear and Rhasa got nerfed.  They, for some reason, think the gameplay of 2 people vomiting aggro and snowball cards at each other is better than two-sided interaction, despite having a game engine that actually supports interaction.

Aggro is overpowered, Fearsome and Elusive are too available on cheap cards, Aggro Champions are disgustingly overpowered, and answers to all of this basically don't exist.