Feelings on Shadow Isles?

I've been at Runeterra for a while now and I was wondering if my feelings about Shadow Isles cards were similar to anybody else. I never see anybody talking about them so I was wondering if I was an isolated incident. So, without divulging what I think, what do you guys think about the spells, units, and champions of the Shadow Isles?

Hi RoseMuffins, and welcome to the forum. I think there are lots of discussions here about game balance/region balance, and Shadow Isles does come up regularly (though perhaps these discussions are sprinkled throughout posts rather than in some dedicated balance thread).

FWIW, you'll get more responses to your posts if you actually share your point of view. Whether you meant for this or not, this kind of post ("I have thoughts, but I won't share them until you do") doesn't really invite conversation.

• Thematically, I love SI.  They have a feel that is unique and intuitive.  It reminds me of M:tG Sultai / Golgari without the clunkiness of dealing with a discard pile.  I also really like how it has a glass cannon feel thanks to Ephemeral, Can't Block, and Fearsome tags.
• Balance-wise, I would concur with the general consensus that the region is overly popular at-large but I would argue that this is due to other regions being under-tuned moreso than SI being over-tuned.  Specifically: there are certain packages (P&Z discard, Frejlord poros, Frejlord battlescars, and P&Z purrsuit to name a few) that are virtually unplayed, and that has big ripple effects in deck construction.
• Mao'kaiBADCARDNAME might be my favorite champion in the game right now.  I'm not convinced he's any good, but between the saplings and deep bonuses and his deck attack he has so many interesting possibilities.
• The Ruination is an especially interesting card.  Honestly, it and Corina are the only effective counters to big boards right now, so I like that it is in the game.  However it creates this condition that SI is one of the most effective splashes for control as well as aggro, and that just feels odd.
• The only card that I earnestly hate is Commander Ledros--I hate losing to him, and I hate winning with him.  Specifically: I hate that he has the combination of his Play skill, Fearsome tag, 9 attack, and that damned last whisper that returns him to hand.  I'm not even saying that he's overpowered, I'm just saying that that much value and tempo coming from a single card with no other synergies or situational dependencies makes me feel extremely uncomfortable.

I really like the Shadow Isle. They have some really interesting mechanics, and a really wide variety of things you can do with the

Problem is they're the only region with good removal AND healing. Sure, P&Z has goo removal too, but all the chip damage that exists in the game now will get ya. Only way to create a non aggro deck that can survive the aggro onslaught of burn is to put shadow isles as one of your regions.

Hope it won't turn out in another The Ruination complain

It was considered overpowered back in the day and got hit by the nerf hammer. I don't see it played as a single region a lot, but I think it is the second most popular secondary region after Ionia. Those removal spells are really good.

Quote From OldManSanns

• Thematically, I love SI.  They have a feel that is unique and intuitive.  It reminds me of M:tG Sultai / Golgari without the clunkiness of dealing with a discard pile.  I also really like how it has a glass cannon feel thanks to Ephemeral, Can't Block, and Fearsome tags.
• Balance-wise, I would concur with the general consensus that the region is overly popular at-large but I would argue that this is due to other regions being under-tuned moreso than SI being over-tuned.  Specifically: there are certain packages (P&Z discard, Frejlord poros, Frejlord battlescars, and P&Z purrsuit to name a few) that are virtually unplayed, and that has big ripple effects in deck construction.
• Mao'kai might be my favorite champion in the game right now.  I'm not convinced he's any good, but between the saplings and deep bonuses and his deck attack he has so many interesting possibilities.
• The Ruination is an especially interesting card.  Honestly, it and Corina are the only effective counters to big boards right now, so I like that it is in the game.  However it creates this condition that SI is one of the most effective splashes for control as well as aggro, and that just feels odd.
• The only card that I earnestly hate is Commander Ledros--I hate losing to him, and I hate winning with him.  Specifically: I hate that he has the combination of his Play skill, Fearsome tag, 9 attack, and that damned last whisper that returns him to hand.  I'm not even saying that he's overpowered, I'm just saying that that much value and tempo coming from a single card with no other synergies or situational dependencies makes me feel extremely uncomfortable.

These are pretty much my thoughts as well. I'd add to it that I especially hate ledros because he punishes the opponent for trying to not lose (which is basically the win condition of control decks). Anything from blocking attackers to healing your nexus is punished by him and that feels really bad to play against in my opinion.

I think the argument that OldManSanns (and implicitly GerritDeMan) are making about Shadow Isles not necessarily being overtuned is very tempting, but ultimately wrong. There's no doubt there are some very undertuned regions, which is why the argument looks good on paper. but I don't think Shadow Isles has enough meaningful weaknesses.

Take the "Glass Canon" idea. It definitely shows up thematically with the Fearsome, Can't Block, and Ephemeral units. But the region also has the most healing out of any region (something like 60% of all healing across Lifesteal, Drain, and Heal effects). The Elise/Spider package is good for aggro as a way to swarm the enemy, and it's good for control as a means of generating chump blockers, and for combo to build up to Atrocity. (We don't see Shadow Isles in aggro much today, but I think the inevitable nerf to Burn Aggro next week will open some doors for SI/Noxus aggro to come back.) Shadow Isles also has some of the most impactful AoE cards, and some of the only hard removal for units.

Taken all together, Shadow Isles is just too good at too many things. Even if the weaker regions weren't undertuned, I think you'd still be seeing a lot of Shadow Isles on the ladder because of how flexible so many of its cards are.

Can someone define Burn Deck for me? 

Quote From BingoNoEyes

Can someone define Burn Deck for me? 

"Burn Aggro" is the name given to the current Noxus/P&Z aggro deck that uses a lot of direct Nexus damage to burn the enemy down quickly.

Quote From BingoNoEyes

Can someone define Burn Deck for me? 

I’ve come against it... 

That one was painful

I like them but I feel like they could be a lot better if the game would allow for over healing. But since they don't have a lot of alternative game winning cards yet to balance out over healing I can see why they don't allow for it yet. But in the future I'd still like to see it added once there are a lot more alternative ways to win or maybe even healing denial type cards put into the game. Like for example a card like Warding Stones that make it so as long as its on the board neither side can heal. Something like that.