Fiora + Unyielding Spirit is BS.

Both cards are BS separately and shouldn't exist in the game, but combined they make the cheapest, most boring, skilless, frustrating, unfun, unfair, and overwall bulls--t combo in all card game history.

It is a 2 card combo that has 0 counters and can single handely win you game, you don't need to play ANY other card, just those 2 and you win the game.  Seriously, how are you supposed to deal with it? How is that fair?

If that wasn't enough, the only silence this game has cannot target champions. Like, come on. Why don't you make Unyielding Spirit unable to target champions? That would be a start..

Quote From dsodemian

Both cards are BS separately and shouldn't exist in the game, but combined they make the cheapest, most boring, skilless, frustrating, unfun, unfair, and overwall bulls--t combo in all card game history.

It is a 2 card combo that has 0 counters and can single handely win you game, you don't need to play ANY other card, just those 2 and you win the game.  Seriously, how are you supposed to deal with it? How is that fair?

If that wasn't enough, the only silence this game has cannot target champions. Like, come on. Why don't you make Unyielding Spirit unable to target champions? That would be a start..

I think you can pretty easily make the case that Fiora is boring - her plan to win is incredibly linear and the deck you build to support her is pretty obvious (lots of barriers and buffs to keep her in play and killing stuff and/or lots of Frostbite effects to protect her). But I don't think she's BS from a balance standpoint (at least in and of herself). She's fairly vulnerable to removal, recall sets her back considerably, and she lacks things like Quick Attack to make her self-sustaining.

Unyielding Spirit, though, is definitely a very poorly designed card. As you pointed out, there's basically no silence in the game, and none of it can target champions. There are still other answers to it, but they're also few and far between. The Obliterate keyword gets around it (it's functionally like MTGs Exile, so the immunity to death is irrelevant), but there's only card that can do that to an enemy champion - Devourer of the Depths. Recall also works, but that means you have to be running Ionia.

Honestly, I think there's a clear trend of thing kind of thing in LoR - powerful cards that can stomp over most regions. The result is that you either have to be playing more aggressively than the enemy (so they don't get a chance to play their nonsense) or you have to be playing exactly the right region for the match-up. Riot has a long way to go to getting the balance right in this game.

Quote From meisterz39

Unyielding Spirit, though, is definitely a very poorly designed card. As you pointed out, there's basically no silence in the game, and none of it can target champions. There are still other answers to it, but they're also few and far between. The Obliterate keyword gets around it (it's functionally like MTGs Exile, so the immunity to death is irrelevant), but there's only card that can do that to an enemy champion - Devourer of the Depths. Recall also works, but that means you have to be running Ionia.

Honestly, I think there's a clear trend of thing kind of thing in LoR - powerful cards that can stomp over most regions. The result is that you either have to be playing more aggressively than the enemy (so they don't get a chance to play their nonsense) or you have to be playing exactly the right region for the match-up. Riot has a long way to go to getting the balance right in this game.

I think for now, Riot is playtesting this card and analysing how players react to it.
There are many ways to easy fix it later: print more obliterate effects, change the target to followers, spell speed to fast, undying for a few turns/charges instead of being invulnerable, etc.

Today is patch notes day hopefully it gets addressed. 

Quote From DoubleSummon

Today is patch notes day hopefully it gets addressed. 

Are you sure about that? I thought patch notes only came out the week of the patch, and we just got a patch last week, so 1.2 should be coming along next week.

Oh right.. damn next week then.. I expect RIot to address  the card in some way they already got feedback about it.

I've faced the deck a few times and don't think it is that much of an issue. Sure, it can be strong if you don't have a counter but honestly it's quite easy to overhwelm the deck. And if you don't draw Fiora early enough or lose her for some reason the deck struggles a lot. 

The deck gets demolished by burn, Yasao can be a pain in the ass for her as they can deny or stun her, Deep decks can obliterate her and so on. However, against certain decks the combo can be unfair and unforgiving. 

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However, against certain decks the combo can be unfair and unforgiving.

In fact, that's the point of Fiora and Unyielding Spirit.

By design, these cards have a property I'd call "countermetish". They are gamebreaking if an opponent has no answer to them... but they are not that good if he does. The same deck constructed around Fiora may be great in one meta and awful in another. If it was too easy to answer her, nobody would play Fiora.

On the other hand, I must agree that Unyielding Spirit seems to be available to deploy a bit too early. But I don't think it needs anything else than cost nerf. Heightening it's price even by 1 would give more time to an opponent and burn more resources, giving slightly bigger chance to outspeed the deck. Which is crucial, because if another deck has no direct answer to a buffed unit, it's only way to win is to outspeed.

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However, against certain decks the combo can be unfair and unforgiving.

 

In fact, that's the point of Fiora and Unyielding Spirit.

By design, these cards have a property I'd call "countermetish". They are gamebreaking if an opponent has no answer to them... but they are not that good if he does. The same deck constructed around Fiora may be great in one meta and awful in another. If it was too easy to answer her, nobody would play Fiora.

On the other hand, I must agree that Unyielding Spirit seems to be available to deploy a bit too early. But I don't think it needs anything else than cost nerf. Heightening it's price even by 1 would give more time to an opponent and burn more resources, giving slightly bigger chance to outspeed the deck. Which is crucial, because if another deck has no direct answer to a buffed unit, it's only way to win is to outspeed.

What you call "countermetish" design, most people would call "bad design." The argument you're presenting for it is basically "this card is only good in certain situations, so the meta game will just balance it out and it won't be oppressively powerful." The problem is that even when a card is not inherently ruining the game by being so OP that it dominates all match-ups and crowds out other strategies, it can still have warping effects on the meta game and make playing the game miserable.

A great example of this comes from Hearthstone. The Caverns Below was not a massively OP card - the win rates for the archetype were only narrowly over 50% - but it created a meta game where match-ups were super polarized. Either you were playing a deck that was good against Quest Rogue, or you weren't, and that was the deciding factor in whether or not you won, not how you played the game. Blizzard tried and failed to balance it multiple times with nerfs.

Quote From meisterz39

A great example of this comes from Hearthstone. The Caverns Below was not a massively OP card - the win rates for the archetype were only narrowly over 50% - but it created a meta game where match-ups were super polarized. Either you were playing a deck that was good against Quest Rogue, or you weren't, and that was the deciding factor in whether or not you won, not how you played the game. Blizzard tried and failed to balance it multiple times with nerfs.

I fully agree with you but wasn't Hearthstone always this way after Naxxaramas? 

I mean, there was always this 1 way too powerfull deck warping the meta which was so much stronger then everything else that forced every other deck to either tech against it or to play counters.

Ex: Started with UTH Hunter otk, then Face Hunter, Mech Mage, Solitary Rogue, 7/7 Shaman, Demonlock, Dr. 6 Paladin, Pirate Warrior, Jade Druid, Patron Warrior, ...etc, just to name a few. 

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Quote From meisterz39

A great example of this comes from Hearthstone. The Caverns Below was not a massively OP card - the win rates for the archetype were only narrowly over 50% - but it created a meta game where match-ups were super polarized. Either you were playing a deck that was good against Quest Rogue, or you weren't, and that was the deciding factor in whether or not you won, not how you played the game. Blizzard tried and failed to balance it multiple times with nerfs.

I fully agree with you but wasn't Hearthstone always this way after Naxxaramas? 

I mean, there was always this 1 way too powerfull deck warping the meta which was so much stronger then everything else that forced every other deck to either tech against it or to play counters.

Ex: Started with UTH Hunter otk, then Face Hunter, Mech Mage, Solitary Rogue, 7/7 Shaman, Demonlock, Dr. 6 Paladin, Pirate Warrior, Jade Druid, Patron Warrior, ...etc, just to name a few. 

Hearthstone has certainly had it's share of balance issues and massively OP decks, but the distinction I'm drawing here is between a card like The Caverns Below and the pre-nerf Shaman Galakrond deck.

In the former example, the deck wasn't that powerful, but was situationally powerful in a way that warped the meta game disastrously but still left room for a couple of other successful meta decks. The latter was a deck that was itself incredibly powerful. It also warped the meta game, but in a pretty different way that suppressed everything else. Both were poorly designed, but they are qualitatively different and had different impacts, and the example of Unyielding Spirit maps closer to Quest Rogue.

Quote From meisterz39

Quote From dsodemian

Both cards are BS separately and shouldn't exist in the game, but combined they make the cheapest, most boring, skilless, frustrating, unfun, unfair, and overwall bulls--t combo in all card game history.

It is a 2 card combo that has 0 counters and can single handely win you game, you don't need to play ANY other card, just those 2 and you win the game.  Seriously, how are you supposed to deal with it? How is that fair?

If that wasn't enough, the only silence this game has cannot target champions. Like, come on. Why don't you make Unyielding Spirit unable to target champions? That would be a start..

I think you can pretty easily make the case that Fiora is boring - her plan to win is incredibly linear and the deck you build to support her is pretty obvious (lots of barriers and buffs to keep her in play and killing stuff and/or lots of Frostbite effects to protect her). But I don't think she's BS from a balance standpoint (at least in and of herself). She's fairly vulnerable to removal, recall sets her back considerably, and she lacks things like Quick Attack to make her self-sustaining.

Unyielding Spirit, though, is definitely a very poorly designed card. As you pointed out, there's basically no silence in the game, and none of it can target champions. There are still other answers to it, but they're also few and far between. The Obliterate keyword gets around it (it's functionally like MTGs Exile, so the immunity to death is irrelevant), but there's only card that can do that to an enemy champion - Devourer of the Depths. Recall also works, but that means you have to be running Ionia.

Honestly, I think there's a clear trend of thing kind of thing in LoR - powerful cards that can stomp over most regions. The result is that you either have to be playing more aggressively than the enemy (so they don't get a chance to play their nonsense) or you have to be playing exactly the right region for the match-up. Riot has a long way to go to getting the balance right in this game.

I feel like most of this BS could be solved if there was no limit to how many factions you could use. That way you could always slot in a card for almost any situation you may come across. But I get it. Since there are no mana colors like in MTG it would be hard to balance that too. But if that's the case they need to provide every faction with at least one answer to every possible card to balance it out. Like for example every faction should have at least one Obliterate, Deny, or Silence type card.

Quote From Vincent3383

I feel like most of this BS could be solved if there was no limit to how many factions you could use. That way you could always slot in a card for almost any situation you may come across. But I get it. Since there are no mana colors like in MTG it would be hard to balance that too. But if that's the case they need to provide every faction with at least one answer to every possible card to balance it out. Like for example every faction should have at least one Obliterate, Deny, or Silence type card.

Just from a design standpoint, I think it would be very bad if each region was obligated to have least one Obliterate, Deny, Silence, etc. It's certainly true that every region should have a good set of answers to lots of different challenges, but those answers shouldn't be the same or the regions distinction will be pointless. Moreover, since you can run two regions, it's okay to allow for different regions to have different answers, but it becomes a problem when one region just has way more answers than the other regions. This is why there's such an imbalance between Ionia, SI, and P&Z vs the other regions.

Quote From meisterz39

Quote From Vincent3383

I feel like most of this BS could be solved if there was no limit to how many factions you could use. That way you could always slot in a card for almost any situation you may come across. But I get it. Since there are no mana colors like in MTG it would be hard to balance that too. But if that's the case they need to provide every faction with at least one answer to every possible card to balance it out. Like for example every faction should have at least one Obliterate, Deny, or Silence type card.

Just from a design standpoint, I think it would be very bad if each region was obligated to have least one Obliterate, Deny, Silence, etc. It's certainly true that every region should have a good set of answers to lots of different challenges, but those answers shouldn't be the same or the regions distinction will be pointless. Moreover, since you can run two regions, it's okay to allow for different regions to have different answers, but it becomes a problem when one region just has way more answers than the other regions. This is why there's such an imbalance between Ionia, SI, and P&Z vs the other regions.

I will meet you halfway.  If for instance, Culling Strike and/or Noxian Guillotine obliterated instead of just killing, (and for the latter: US was also reworked such that the unit could take damage but still couldn't be reduced below 1 HP or killed): then Noxus, Ionia (Will of Ionia), and to some degree Frejlord (frostbite), Demacia (Detain & Purify), and Bilgewater + deep (fish) would have the potential for answering US but SI and P&Z wouldn't.  That's the type of Paper > Rock > Scissors balance that I'd like this Riot to try harder to install in the future.  As is: its really hard to incorporate Noxus and Frejlord into any deck other than aggro because they just don't contribute much beyond big bodies and nexus damage.