Balancing for expeditions - Yes this is going to be a Teemo/Shroom Rant

Figured I'd be honest in the title.

After playing almost nothing but expeditions over the last 2 weeks, I've come to the conclusion on two things.

1) Elusive is broken when able to be spammed.  Nothing new to the forums, it's a counter intuitive mechanic that forces people to either draft elusives in their trials, or to draft more removal spells than normal.  It doesn't help that removal spells also double as champion removal, and what you get is people building decks with (not joking) 6x Mystic shots (and no, ezreal didnt generate them either, yes that person drafted 6 mystic shots)

2) Shrooms are FAR too easy to stack.  I've seen people spam shrooms in non-teemo decks and win purely through attrition.  Throw in the fact that if you manage to hit with an upgraded teemo JUST ONE, you're pretty much guaranteed to lose to that Teemo deck.

There's just no coming back from a deck of 22 cards, that have 50 shrooms.  It's just WAY too easy to stack shrooms in decks.  The number of shrooms on the cards needs to be reduced.

• The Mushroom Burst card that inserts 5  shrooms ---> Changed to 4 Shrooms.
• The Mushroom Peddler card that inserts 3 shrooms when you cast a spell needs to either have his stats nerfed or his effect nerfed.  A 3/3 with a spell effect like that is far too strong, especially in decks that can stack shrooms or have a goal to stack shrooms.  He either needs to be a 2/2 (or possibly 2/3) or the effect needs to be Insert 1 shroom instead of 3 (and he can keep his 3/3 stats, but even then I think that's still broken)
• The Chump Wump card that gives you two mushroom bursts in hand.  A  4 cost 4/3 that gives you two mushroom bursts, that synergize with the aforementioned peddler.  Granted a 4/3 for 3 is sub-par starts so I think his stats are fine, but he should only create ONE single mushroom burst, not two in hand.

In short,  in expeditions where you can't guarantee removal, lifesteal, challenger, or elusive cards, it's just far too easy for shroom decks to be abused.   I literally am getting PTSD from teemo all over again (back when I played League) just thinking about the shroom spam and how annoying it is.   Just like in league, it's not a great tactic usually (i.e.. constructed) but it's such an annoying strategy that it boils down to player reactions.  

Someone plays the correct burst spells and destroys a minion, or survives my minion's damage.  That's skill,  and play/counterplay options like that in Runeterra is fantastic.  Definitely a better interactive play style than Hearthstone.  But affecting players cards has been always will be a "feels bad man" moment.  Inserting shrooms that you can't do ANYTHING about, even if they are delayed is a horrible balance decision.  It's most likely balanced in constructed, cause I don't see a ton of teemo/shroom spammers there.  But in expeditions It's decidedly an unfair situation...which brings me back to my title.

Either teemo/shrooms need to get reworked, or special balancing needs to occur for expeditions given that Legends of Runeterra is more finely tuned to snowballing out of control than other current card games.  /end rant.

Oh I understand they are tempo inefficient, and not saying my experience is holistic of everyone else's.  I try to make sure my deck isn't top heavy, but it's just problematic when you have non-interactive, non-counterplayable components like shroom spammers.  That much I think we can agree upon.

I'm curious if anyone is willing to say they've had regular success going the 'shroom/Timo route.  I always fiercely avoid it since I've read comments implying it was just bad. 

Huh, really?  I've had pretty good success with Heimer.  I've found that Heimer is a great tempo generator as he turns your spells into minions, so you can draft spell heavy decks.  He works particuarly well with Demacia, since Demacia has a lot of spells that generate units a well so you can double down on spells/removal.

I agree with you about elusives. Even if your deck just has a few of them they can completely carry some games where opponents don't draw enough removal or elusive units to counter them, and when combined with buff spells they can just become straight up BS (losing with a full board against a single Shadow Assassin + Battle Fury is not a fun experience).

About the puffcap decks, I kind of agree and disagree at the same time. These types of decks certainly feel a lot stronger in early expedition matches when there are not that many cards in each player's deck compared to ranked matches. However, I still rarely lose to puffcap decks, although a lot of those games have been very close. They also made me realize that I'm glad that puffcap decks aren't high tier, because while they can be fun to play, they really are not fun to play against in my opinion. Whether puffcap decks are good or not, turn 1 Teemos are always annoying (at least it's in line with the champion in League of Legends).

One thing I'd like to add which I think is poorly balanced in expeditions is Purrsuit of Perfection or rather the expedition version: Accelerated Purrsuit. I speak from experience when I say that this thing completely wins games on its own. It's surprisingly easy to play 15 different cards in slower matchups and if the opponent doesn't have hard removal or frost bite they are guaranteed to be screwed. Playing Heimerdinger with just a couple of spells will already get you a long way. I think I had 2 or maybe just one copy of Accelerated Purrsuit in one of my expedition runs, and I went 7-0 just because I was consistently able to play this card, often followed by my opponent surrendering. I'm honestly surprised I haven't seen anyone talk about this thing yet because it really does not seem well balanced to me at all. Very often one player will think they are about to win a game and then the opponent drops a Cataclysm on their face and it's over. Even frostbite spells are often only able to delay the inevitable.

I've won off that card as well.  I wasn't aware that it actually had an "Expedition only" version called "Accelerated Purrsuit"....that gives me hope that they will balance more cards for expeditions.  

And to reply further, I agree that it feels easy-ish to play 15 different cards.

Shroom decks are extremely strong and probably the best deck you can build for the first few matches BUT gets considerably worse as the player accumulates wins.

From my experience, Heimer is the best champion by far for expedition runs.
Shrooms after the 4th win are not really a problem unless someone gets near to perfect drafts. At that point, many other decks are far better then Shrooms if they draft well.

Lastly, building a focused Teemo deck is also very very risky.
If your opponent finds a way to put 50 Shrooms in your deck on expedition, and you still can't find a way to finish him off, sorry to say this, but he deserves to win.