Ok the new Lab is just stupid.

Basically, pick a deck that has an elusive. Keep it in hand until it's lethal and attack with it.

Pretty sure that's all we'll see while we have this rule. You should just never cast an elusive early. With 30 health it's not even worth it.

Update:  That was fast. I'm  already mostly in mirror matches. it is SUPER boring.

"Certain Death" forever.

I won't be touching this mode.

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//sinti: fixed the image

Ephemeral deck is like waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too strong. The stats are way over the top, Zed is such a huge power card, Dawn and Dusk gives a lot of value, the deck also has a lot of really good finishers such as Hecarim, Kinkou Lifeblade.

Overall, I think it's fine. The other decks actually do still have a good chance, some are just harder to play than the others. For example, the Poros deck is hard to beat because of the Frostbites and could potentially slam the Nexus with a 60/60 Heart of the Fluft with Overwhelm and Elusive. The VladBADCARDNAME one sucks tho lol. I take that back, that deck has quite a bit of Overwhelm.

Is Heart of fluff supposed to give you another heart of Fluff when it dies?

But basically, all you do is wait with Kikou lifeblade for enough stuff to die, and if there's anything you can't deal with, you make it ephemeral. 

I also keep running in to this bug where Braum doesn't create poros ever. (My opponents don't seem to have any issues with him sadly)

But after my first two games. All I've had so far are Certain Death mirror. I've stopped playing. It's just too boring. I don't want to go through the motions of who gets the best draws.

What are the 6 decks?

The first match I played I used the ephemeral deck. It was obvious without even seeing the other decks that ephemerals would rule over a mode like that.

How do you even win in this mode?  I'm 0-14 right now.  What's the strategy?

edit: 2 hours later finally got a win.  This mode is stupid.

edit 2: honest to god whats the strategy here?  Just hope to get lucky?

Quote From kaladin

How do you even win in this mode?  I'm 0-14 right now.  What's the strategy?

edit: 2 hours later finally got a win.  This mode is stupid.

 

edit 2: honest to god whats the strategy here?  Just hope to get lucky?

Pretty much. I really don't see the appeal. I'll wait for gauntlet to open. Because I can't be bothered  to play more of this

Yeah elusive and lifesteal are annoying in this mode, hopefully they change the decks to remove them. For strategy, you basically just let your units die until the buffs hit an Overwhelm or Elusive unit. Save frostbites and stuns for huge late-game units. I think this mode is pretty fun and crazy, but would be better if they changed the decks to not have elusive or lifesteal. Also there seems to be a lack of card draw for most of the decks. 

The previous Lab was fun, this one is garbage.

Quote From kaladin

How do you even win in this mode?  I'm 0-14 right now.  What's the strategy?

edit: 2 hours later finally got a win.  This mode is stupid.

 

edit 2: honest to god whats the strategy here?  Just hope to get lucky?

Keep in mind:

• You get rewarded for having things die, so unlike normal circumstances sometimes its advantageous for your units to not survive
• Along the same lines: killing an enemy unit just to remove it from the field can sometimes backfire because it might mean your opponent just plays and even bigger threat in its place
• The buffs accumulate.  Let's say you have a bunch of 3/3s: if you played the first 3/3 and let it die, then playing whatever got buffed (6/6), then playing the final (9/9), that would be a total of 18/18 worth of stats.
• Many things are just ridiculous with big stats--elusive, overwhelm, and lifesteal in particular
• Frostbite + kill will reduce the handbuff to +0 attack: difficult to pull off, but brutal when you do

If you're struggling, try the SI + Ionia deck for a while to get use to how it works: the ephemerals will give you huge hand buffs, but you'll have very few blockers so you'll need to play aggressively.

Yeah I'm not a fan of this lab either. I'll just get 4 wins asap and hope there's no more missions that require me to play it.

Quote From FenrirWulf

Ephemeral deck is like waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too strong. The stats are way over the top, Zed is such a huge power card, Dawn and Dusk gives a lot of value, the deck also has a lot of really good finishers such as Hecarim, Kinkou Lifeblade.

Overall, I think it's fine. The other decks actually do still have a good chance, some are just harder to play than the others. For example, the Poros deck is hard to beat because of the Frostbites and could potentially slam the Nexus with a 60/60 Heart of the Fluft with Overwhelm and Elusive. The VladBADCARDNAME one sucks tho lol. I take that back, that deck has quite a bit of Overwhelm.

In case you missed it: https://twitter.com/RiotExis/status/1286105943755776000

Glad to see so many folks digging the new Spirit Blossom Lab. Also noticed that the Certain Death deck is a little *too* certain. We've patched out some tweaks to it which should put its winrate in a healthier / less crushing spot. Help us experiment by giving it a shot!

I don't think I will ever stop being impressed with how dedicated Riot is against negative player experience in this game.

Quote From OldManSanns

Quote From FenrirWulf

Ephemeral deck is like waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too strong. The stats are way over the top, Zed is such a huge power card, Dawn and Dusk gives a lot of value, the deck also has a lot of really good finishers such as Hecarim, Kinkou Lifeblade.

Overall, I think it's fine. The other decks actually do still have a good chance, some are just harder to play than the others. For example, the Poros deck is hard to beat because of the Frostbites and could potentially slam the Nexus with a 60/60 Heart of the Fluft with Overwhelm and Elusive. The VladBADCARDNAME one sucks tho lol. I take that back, that deck has quite a bit of Overwhelm.

In case you missed it: https://twitter.com/RiotExis/status/1286105943755776000

Glad to see so many folks digging the new Spirit Blossom Lab. Also noticed that the Certain Death deck is a little *too* certain. We've patched out some tweaks to it which should put its winrate in a healthier / less crushing spot. Help us experiment by giving it a shot!

I don't think I will ever stop being impressed with how dedicated Riot is against negative player experience in this game.

I saw that too, and I first heard of it from my friend actually who started playing the Lab and I just told him that Dawn and Dusk is a really dumb card and absolutely busted. But he said that he couldn't find it no matter how many games he played. I didn't even realize they had updated it at all because it was way too quick. It was literally a day or less after it came out. So I agree with you, those guys always like to hotfix a certain busted mechanic/tactic after the patch comes out, but that's from my experience in TFT.

Yes, this lab feels much more luck based than the normal game.