Well, Tornado is funny at least. Doing it 21 times means you can actually use the statistical average as a decent measure of how it works: deal 2 damage 10.5 times to enemy minions and overload (10.5). So basically, it kills the enemy board and your next turn in most instances. Is that good? Maybe it would find some use if Volcano wasn't added too. Yes it is one-sided so in principle a more minion-centric deck can use it, but instances where both players have significant board presence are probably too rare for it to be worth it over Volcano even then, especially in the class that has the evolve mechanic to make good use of minions after they have taken damage by clearing enemy minions.
Honestly, I really like Tornado as an expansion card, but probably not in Classic. Similarly, I think Volcano is pushing it as a Classic card. I never disliked it, but boy was I glad when it rotated and you no longer had to worry about shaman opponent's having 1 card to remove both tall and wide boards (and mixtures too) in 1 card. It is far from trivial to have more than 15 health on the board, and it feels a bit like adding it is going to restrict shaman in a similar way that Brawl does to warrior currently.
I take it you were keen to remove Lightning Storm, and that is what i'm most interested to see the motivation for, since the problem most people have with it is fully in line with your RNG strength.
The Undying I feel a little more confident rejecting: sure you get re-occurring swings, but he's just not enough pressure, especially for how much you have to pay for him. I've play a lot of that guy over the past month and you really need to sink a few deaths into him before he's anything more than a nuisance.
You don't need to sink deaths into it when it starts as a 4/4. Sure, it only comes back as a 3/3 the first time, but anything that comes back is going to be welcome in this deck.
On that note, I'd also add another Glimpse Beyond. You're definitely going to want all the draw you can muster since you'll have very little that's able to stick on the board.
Nice, thank you for the ideas. I was expecting some kind of Demacia/Targo Dragon deck though !
Me too! I honestly gave it the ol' college try, but at the time of drafting this article, I couldn't seem to make Dragons work and I wasn't finding any community decks I felt confident in. Since then, I've seen a few to restore my confidence. My favorite so far has been this one:
- You basically removed all shaman's draw except for elementary reaction, and yet there's no 1 mana elemental anywhere in classic. So hamstrung from the start. I think manatide totem is a better choice. Plays well with the totem synergy too.
- Bringing back volcano and ditching lightning storm is perhaps one of the better decisions.
- How does tornado even work? 20 coin toss on whether it blows the opponent away or skips your next turn? Its an amusing card I grant you, but its not playable in any way shape and form. Perhaps you can change this to enemies instead of just minions and hits only 10 times, so its strong on its own, and there's less chance of this basically screwing you over.
- A little surprised you didnt bring back crackle, so aggro shaman can live again.
I mean... I'm not sure about Tornado myself. And Crackle is... toxic just like Tornado. I don't like RNG when it comes to getting lethal. And also there's now ay I'm readding Mana Tide Totem - it's time to free Shamans from it, just like I rescued Warriors from Brawl. I can eventually consider returning Far Sight, but I'll probably just create a new card draw card.
I would be very sad to see Doomhammer go , as it is such an iconic weapon, both in game and in WC universum.
I got rid of it, because I also removed Rockbiter Weapon, and so this started to make little sense. But I may reconsider it's return.
You pay 150g for a minimum of 1 pack and fun part of drafting and 3 games completely different from ladder. So you can lose at max 50g, and if you enjoy the mode I wouldn't even call that a loss. You get valuable experience in a potentially profitable mode, you learn Arena meta and can exploit that knowledge in your next runs.
You get a crazy win rate deck and get what? a pack and the 150 back? yes 7 wins is crazy, when you look at that you got over 80% win rate with a draft deck.. and then you get that random rare as a reward.. the 12 wins reward is what? 3 packs and some gold? and how many decks go there? 1 every 1000?
Blizzard removing the rotation is a statement the mode is not really doing well also there were no statement about arena is a while...
@Aifi: the stockholm syndrome is strong with this one, the rewards are only "fair"... this is in response to the rework to the reward system as a whole if they increase the base rewards and not the arena rewards it wouldn't be worth to play the mode anymore. besides you are probably only looking at the numbers and I said some of them are probably too much anyway it's alsways better to ask for more than what you would be good with, maybe it's too much.
I just thought it isn't much of high stakes, as you said above. It's just a daily quest lost at maximum.
It seems that you have fun just in grinding resources in game, which is fine, and you could definitely reach the level in Arena where you get good profits, along with satisfying feeling of expertise. It's not that rare to hit 7+ when you get the hang of it, and rewards for 12 is not some, but around 300 g plus one or two packs and ~100 dust. For 11 and 10 wins are not much off, and all those aren't that incredibly rare.
The rewards you suggested, though, are so high that they would eliminate any kind of challenge from the mode, which most of us enjoy. Even worse, many players would go infinite resources and feel obliged to "mine" the mode. This is unrealistic from Blizzard perspective and would never happen.
That said, I agree that individual rares are really lame, that sometimes I just wish they gave me dust instead so I would feel less bad. Maybe if we could get golden cards and epics more easily as a reward instead of those rares, it would be better. But no more than that.
Respectfully, any reading of that text that suggests Riot isn't saying that he's too weak is wrong. They would not feel a need to make a "major update" to Lee Sin in which he gets "more options for synergies" and will be able "to come online and impact the game earlier in a match" if he were already good enough as is (at least in the eyes of the Riot dev team). Maybe the change will be so significant that more closely resembles the old Lux/Mageseeker revamp rather than a normal buff/nerf patch (as it happens, the potential for this makes experimenting now even less appealing), but there's no world in which getting more synergies and coming online earlier translates to a nerf.
In any previous balance patch, I might have agreed with you that people will feel encouraged to revisit him as a means of preparing for his upgrade, but in an expansion patch when you know he's going to change, there's no point. There's already tons of new content to experiment with, and Riot has signaled that he isn't worth your time between now and next month.
Your point about him synergizing with Targon Gems is exactly the kind of thing that makes me think Riot shouldn't have said what they did. Right now, Lee Sin is not seeing much play, but there might be good Lee Sin decks with Targon in the metagame. But Riot is already signaling they don't think that's true, and right now they're the only ones with data about how these new cards will impact the game.
I get that people appreciate how public Riot is about what they're working on and what changes are coming down the pike. In some ways, I agree, it's refreshing and positive. But there's also merit in playing these things a little closer to the chest. A better, more cryptic alternative to announcing specifically that a major rework for Lee Sin and an adjustment to the level up requirements for Ezreal are coming might have been something like "With the influx of powerful burst spells in Call of the Mountain, we'll be closely monitoring champions with spell synergies to ensure proper balance." This doesn't call out any particular champion by name, but still hints at some of things they'll be looking into over the next month.
- You basically removed all shaman's draw except for elementary reaction, and yet there's no 1 mana elemental anywhere in classic. So hamstrung from the start. I think manatide totem is a better choice. Plays well with the totem synergy too.
- Bringing back volcano and ditching lightning storm is perhaps one of the better decisions.
- How does tornado even work? 20 coin toss on whether it blows the opponent away or skips your next turn? Its an amusing card I grant you, but its not playable in any way shape and form. Perhaps you can change this to enemies instead of just minions and hits only 10 times, so its strong on its own, and there's less chance of this basically screwing you over.
- A little surprised you didnt bring back crackle, so aggro shaman can live again.
Got a nice finisher yesterday, mostly due to rng but still. Playing spell damage Shaman vs Gala Shaman, I played Vashj Prime wich drew Primordial Studies and 2x Serpentshrine Portal, all discounted to 0 mana. I played the studies and discovered Malygos. I saved the portals for next turn, and after playing Malygos I could burn my opponent with 16 dmg to the face (he was at 12) for only 8 mana. Not a huge achievement by any means, but still felt nice!
I was theorycrafting a Targon -Damacia with Diana and Taric as champions, the deck runs 12 nightfall cards, but Taric can copy the 2 mana spell one for an ally, buffing them, drawing an extra card and progress Diana level up even further.
The deck has some gems generation that i feel are very good with tough units, and with Damacia we have some great ones, Taric works too.
Radiant Guardian with gems and other permanent buff supports become very hard to kill and keeps you alive, i even play Silverwing Diver because it has both elusive and tough so it's great when permanent buffed. The deck runs the 2 mana 2/3 with nightfall: elusive, because she progressess Diana's level up and is a great unit to buff.
Crescent Guardian is another nightfall unit which in my opinion is great with Taric, because tough will make the guardian survive against 3 attack enemies, even spells generally have an hardtime dealing 4 damage instead of 3; basically Taric helps the guradian to surpass that health threshold when a unit is much safer.
The spell that grants +3/+3 for 5 mana is big with Taric and the elusive units.
Overall i felt the deck was kinda good, too bad it requires 6 new champions, so it's pretty expensive for something that maybe is bad
Neoguli's Custom Shaman Core Set Changes
Well, Tornado is funny at least. Doing it 21 times means you can actually use the statistical average as a decent measure of how it works: deal 2 damage 10.5 times to enemy minions and overload (10.5). So basically, it kills the enemy board and your next turn in most instances. Is that good? Maybe it would find some use if Volcano wasn't added too. Yes it is one-sided so in principle a more minion-centric deck can use it, but instances where both players have significant board presence are probably too rare for it to be worth it over Volcano even then, especially in the class that has the evolve mechanic to make good use of minions after they have taken damage by clearing enemy minions.
Honestly, I really like Tornado as an expansion card, but probably not in Classic. Similarly, I think Volcano is pushing it as a Classic card. I never disliked it, but boy was I glad when it rotated and you no longer had to worry about shaman opponent's having 1 card to remove both tall and wide boards (and mixtures too) in 1 card. It is far from trivial to have more than 15 health on the board, and it feels a bit like adding it is going to restrict shaman in a similar way that Brawl does to warrior currently.
I take it you were keen to remove Lightning Storm, and that is what i'm most interested to see the motivation for, since the problem most people have with it is fully in line with your RNG strength.
COTM THEORYCRAFT: Championless Encroaching Shadows
You don't need to sink deaths into it when it starts as a 4/4. Sure, it only comes back as a 3/3 the first time, but anything that comes back is going to be welcome in this deck.
On that note, I'd also add another Glimpse Beyond. You're definitely going to want all the draw you can muster since you'll have very little that's able to stick on the board.
The Best Wild Scholomance Decks For Finishing Your August Ladder Climb
I crafted her when kobolds came out, no regrets since, so much fun playing her and it's actually better than liadrin
12 Runeterra Decks We're Excited to Try In Call of the Mountain
Me too! I honestly gave it the ol' college try, but at the time of drafting this article, I couldn't seem to make Dragons work and I wasn't finding any community decks I felt confident in. Since then, I've seen a few to restore my confidence. My favorite so far has been this one:
[Game] Card Treasure Hunt (The Resurrection Attempt)
[Hearthstone Card (Zerek’s Cloning Gallery) Not Found]?
Not sure the number you can get with shenanigans but it could be 25.
The Best Wild Scholomance Decks For Finishing Your August Ladder Climb
I really want to play that Libram Paladin but I don't have Lynessa Sunsorrow and she seems a very niche craft in wild.
Decisions, decisions...
Unkillable Paladin!
Seems like a massive waste of time for both players. Also, ultra douche move for the person you que up against.
Firebat's Decks of the Week - A Pro Level Deck for Every Hearthstone Class That Isn't Paladin
Thank you for the great article.
I have had lots of fun learning the turtle mage, the deck is hard to play! The quest shaman is also fun to play! Good luck to all!
Worst quest.
That is the worst quest, I received that multiple times recently. Haven't seen the play with a friend quest in a long time.
[Game] Card Treasure Hunt (The Resurrection Attempt)
@R thanks!
Lines in the text, 3.
Syllables in the name, 7.
Seabirds in the tube, 25.
The Best Wild Scholomance Decks For Finishing Your August Ladder Climb
Thank you for creating this article - as a wild main, this was something I was looking forward to!
Neoguli's Custom Shaman Core Set Changes
I mean... I'm not sure about Tornado myself. And Crackle is... toxic just like Tornado. I don't like RNG when it comes to getting lethal. And also there's now ay I'm readding Mana Tide Totem - it's time to free Shamans from it, just like I rescued Warriors from Brawl. I can eventually consider returning Far Sight, but I'll probably just create a new card draw card.
I got rid of it, because I also removed Rockbiter Weapon, and so this started to make little sense. But I may reconsider it's return.
Worst quest.
20 hero powers, not 1
12 Runeterra Decks We're Excited to Try In Call of the Mountain
"Why it could work: It has Swole Squirrel."
Arena rewards need to change
I just thought it isn't much of high stakes, as you said above. It's just a daily quest lost at maximum.
It seems that you have fun just in grinding resources in game, which is fine, and you could definitely reach the level in Arena where you get good profits, along with satisfying feeling of expertise. It's not that rare to hit 7+ when you get the hang of it, and rewards for 12 is not some, but around 300 g plus one or two packs and ~100 dust. For 11 and 10 wins are not much off, and all those aren't that incredibly rare.
The rewards you suggested, though, are so high that they would eliminate any kind of challenge from the mode, which most of us enjoy. Even worse, many players would go infinite resources and feel obliged to "mine" the mode. This is unrealistic from Blizzard perspective and would never happen.
That said, I agree that individual rares are really lame, that sometimes I just wish they gave me dust instead so I would feel less bad. Maybe if we could get golden cards and epics more easily as a reward instead of those rares, it would be better. But no more than that.
Fan Community Spotlight - Neoguli's Core Set Reworks - Part 2 (Paladin and Warrior)
I could get behind Enter the Coliseum. That would make it a Paladin card instead of a warrior-like paladin card.
Patch 1.8 Call of the Mountain Notes
Respectfully, any reading of that text that suggests Riot isn't saying that he's too weak is wrong. They would not feel a need to make a "major update" to Lee Sin in which he gets "more options for synergies" and will be able "to come online and impact the game earlier in a match" if he were already good enough as is (at least in the eyes of the Riot dev team). Maybe the change will be so significant that more closely resembles the old Lux/Mageseeker revamp rather than a normal buff/nerf patch (as it happens, the potential for this makes experimenting now even less appealing), but there's no world in which getting more synergies and coming online earlier translates to a nerf.
In any previous balance patch, I might have agreed with you that people will feel encouraged to revisit him as a means of preparing for his upgrade, but in an expansion patch when you know he's going to change, there's no point. There's already tons of new content to experiment with, and Riot has signaled that he isn't worth your time between now and next month.
Your point about him synergizing with Targon Gems is exactly the kind of thing that makes me think Riot shouldn't have said what they did. Right now, Lee Sin is not seeing much play, but there might be good Lee Sin decks with Targon in the metagame. But Riot is already signaling they don't think that's true, and right now they're the only ones with data about how these new cards will impact the game.
I get that people appreciate how public Riot is about what they're working on and what changes are coming down the pike. In some ways, I agree, it's refreshing and positive. But there's also merit in playing these things a little closer to the chest. A better, more cryptic alternative to announcing specifically that a major rework for Lee Sin and an adjustment to the level up requirements for Ezreal are coming might have been something like "With the influx of powerful burst spells in Call of the Mountain, we'll be closely monitoring champions with spell synergies to ensure proper balance." This doesn't call out any particular champion by name, but still hints at some of things they'll be looking into over the next month.
Neoguli's Custom Shaman Core Set Changes
I would be very sad to see Doomhammer go , as it is such an iconic weapon, both in game and in WC universum.
edit: typo
Neoguli's Custom Shaman Core Set Changes
A few observations:
- You basically removed all shaman's draw except for elementary reaction, and yet there's no 1 mana elemental anywhere in classic. So hamstrung from the start. I think manatide totem is a better choice. Plays well with the totem synergy too.
- Bringing back volcano and ditching lightning storm is perhaps one of the better decisions.
- How does tornado even work? 20 coin toss on whether it blows the opponent away or skips your next turn? Its an amusing card I grant you, but its not playable in any way shape and form. Perhaps you can change this to enemies instead of just minions and hits only 10 times, so its strong on its own, and there's less chance of this basically screwing you over.
- A little surprised you didnt bring back crackle, so aggro shaman can live again.
The Pepper Thread - Share Some Good Vibes!
Got a nice finisher yesterday, mostly due to rng but still. Playing spell damage Shaman vs Gala Shaman, I played Vashj Prime wich drew Primordial Studies and 2x Serpentshrine Portal, all discounted to 0 mana. I played the studies and discovered Malygos. I saved the portals for next turn, and after playing Malygos I could burn my opponent with 16 dmg to the face (he was at 12) for only 8 mana. Not a huge achievement by any means, but still felt nice!
The Pepper Thread - Share Some Good Vibes!
Pogo Brann is the best build, change my mind.
12 Runeterra Decks We're Excited to Try In Call of the Mountain
There are so many things to try!
I was theorycrafting a Targon -Damacia with Diana and Taric as champions, the deck runs 12 nightfall cards, but Taric can copy the 2 mana spell one for an ally, buffing them, drawing an extra card and progress Diana level up even further.
The deck has some gems generation that i feel are very good with tough units, and with Damacia we have some great ones, Taric works too.
Radiant Guardian with gems and other permanent buff supports become very hard to kill and keeps you alive, i even play Silverwing Diver because it has both elusive and tough so it's great when permanent buffed. The deck runs the 2 mana 2/3 with nightfall: elusive, because she progressess Diana's level up and is a great unit to buff.
Crescent Guardian is another nightfall unit which in my opinion is great with Taric, because tough will make the guardian survive against 3 attack enemies, even spells generally have an hardtime dealing 4 damage instead of 3; basically Taric helps the guradian to surpass that health threshold when a unit is much safer.
The spell that grants +3/+3 for 5 mana is big with Taric and the elusive units.
Overall i felt the deck was kinda good, too bad it requires 6 new champions, so it's pretty expensive for something that maybe is bad
7 Off-Meta Decks Using Unpopular Scholomance Legendaries
I unpacked 5 out of 8 of these legendaries.
FeelsBadMan
12 Runeterra Decks We're Excited to Try In Call of the Mountain
I have a big feeling leona/diana will be great they complete each other.
Worst quest.
it's 50 gold and it's 20 mana to sink in.. *or 10 for demon hunters*