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To play devil's advocate for a sec (and I don't entirely buy into what I'm about to say):

We all know playtesting is a thing. Riot surely put their weird Behold deck up against existing meta decks to make sure the whole thing doesn't crash and burn. We also know that they want every card to have a home, and they have no incentive to print "filler" cards.

So maybe this card isn't the Dumpster fire it appears to be. It's half the cost of Wyrding Stones, and it can block a spider or two at the very least, or absorb a burn spell that might have otherwise hit the nexus. Played on curve, and assuming it lives, you can cast Catalyst of Aeons on the very next turn (turn 3, which is a pretty good investment). That bumps you up to 6 mana the following turn, when your opponent has only 4.

On the flip side, however, Faces of the Old Ones can't survive an Avalanche, which is one of the better ways you might survive early aggression. So like I said, I'm not really buying into it, but I still have to believe the devs have their reasons. I certainly would rather have borderline weak ramp tools than OP ones.

if you want to play Reliquary of souls that badly just craft First Day of school and play Paladin.

Every paladin I've fought this weekend seemed to get that legendary from that zero mana spell.

OR you can play Shaman with Fist of Ra-Den and cast lightning bolt.

Paladin already dropped to t2.

I dunno, I think 1 mana cheaper than Scarmaiden is pretty nice. I think everyone's really overestimating the challenge inherent in Behold.

All you're doing by keeping an 8-cost card in your mulligan is accepting the likelihood of early-game tempo loss. It's not the end of the world. There are all kinds of slow decks with little to no early-game tempo, and they do just fine. Sacrificing early tempo for future value is a time-honored, successful strategy in CCGs. Have you noticed that they put Behold in the region with some of the best mitigation and AOE damage? Maybe there's a reason for that.

If you evaluate every card as if it's going into a perfect curve tempo deck, you're basically ignoring half the game. Not to mention, having a critical mass of Regeneration (Troll Ravager AND Scarmaiden Reaver AND whatever else) will be utterly back-breaking for any opponent who's not running The Ruination.

Quote From OldManSanns

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I think this is the best from the bunch revealed today, draining 2 with a 2 mana body and potential nightfall synergies (nocturne is gonna have either a similar effect to the horse revealed or have nightfall itself. 

Swim theorized that Nocturne and/or Diana might level up from Nightfall triggers. That is pretty much the only reason I'd ever use this card. (And I'd probably still never use Duskrider.)

I'm predicting Nightfall and Nocturne will be somewhat like Toss and Maokai: you're doing it primarily for the champion's level-up effect which is a game-changer if you can pull it off.  The difference will be that whereas Toss is no immediate benefit for literally game-ending effect, Nightfall will be so-so benefit for (only) game-swinging effect.

Toss also gets you Deep, which may not be pertinent if you're not using sea monsters, but at least it's a valid, powerful synergy that exists.

Nightfall effects don't really get you anywhere (that we know of) besides a stronger 5-drop that's always going to be bad no matter how big it gets.

(UPDATE: It's confirmed that Nightfall units do level up Nocturne, who is pretty scary when leveled up, so I guess it's okay to play them to that end, but only to that end. You'd never play them without a Nightfall champ in the deck.)

I am still holding out hope... and all my stuff that would be targeted for nerfs so I can disenchant and finally craft my Reliquary of Souls.  for me, every single time I am ready to craft it, something else comes along and steals my thunder.

Hey Karma I found something for you and it’s making me lawl hard. Most importantly I’m having fun dealing out 17 damage a round by turn 

Illucia just feels bad to play against. 

I've mentioned my encounters with her in the nerf announcement thread already, but TL;DR she steals your opponents turn, and in a game of cards that can make you lose the entire game 

They are going to be a Pogo level strategy. Only work with certain heros and you will still be playing a highly risky game that probably won't pay off in the end. As i said, Murlocs are too dependent on Brann (the minion) to get anywhere. Poison is countered by Divine Shield which means mechs and dragons are now superior to them. Murlocs were always weak and inconsistent in the early and mid game but they had a huge pay off in the late game. The pay off is gone so why bother playing with such a weak and boring tribe and risking an early loss if other tribes can easily outscale and beat them in the late game? It's not worth it anymore. Murlocs were too dominant and needed a change but not giving them any worthwhile compensation was wrong.

This is one of the worst trash meme's I've seen.

I think this has been the best expansion launch in a long time. OP Demon Hunters dominated when Ashes came out, and it was OP Galakrond Shaman for Descent of Dragons. Both those build were so broken that no one really had another option. But right now, there are several viable decks that feel different than anything that was competitive a couple weeks ago.

Since the expansion came out, I have advanced on the ladder with two different decks, and I built a third one yesterday for even more variety. This is great!

I find that hard to believe for a number of reasons. 

1. I have gotten to 7 wins multiple times. So if it is rigged it isn't rigged against me.
2. If something is rigged to make you lose, it also means that it is rigged to make the other person win. 
3. What would Riot gain from rigging the game against certain players? Do they think it would make them more money? It certainly wouldn't do anything to make people like the game more. I just don't see a reason for them to want to do it.

Confirmation bias is a real thing, and everyone is innocent until proven guilty. Unless you can show proof that the game is rigged then it isn't rigged.

Always liked Secret Mage !

I will defenitely try this one!

I'm also pretty certain that there will be other nerfs or even buffs :) 

Kael'tas in an understandable nerf even tough he's not solely the problem in the decks he is played in :) 

I personaly realy do not understand the Illucia Nerf - i think the card itself is fine but i guess the nerf isn't that bad.

I understand the Nerf to Kael'tas - even tough he`s not solely the problem :) 

but i think the Illucia Nerf is a little over the top ? does she see play? yes she does but not in a kind of form people keep screaming about nerfs .... i realy do not see her as a problematic card.

I don't think that the problem is only kael'thas, but I'm not a game designer, so I take it.

Full disclosure - I stopped playing LoR right around the time they started introducing Gauntlet and Labs. Between a certain amount of burnout on CCGs in general and a fair amount of disappointment with Riot, I just decided it was time for a break.

With all that in mind, I've been following the latest expansion in the hopes that the new cards might renew my interest in the game. And some of what I've seen has been really encouraging:

• A much more significant emphasis put on the Support mechanic (which I always felt was one of the more interesting - yet least utilized - mechanics in the game)
• A major uptick in Regeneration in the Freljord. A while back on this forum I had noted that Regeneration is a form of healing, and that while it didn't show up on many units anywhere, that it made sense as the Freljord expression of the healing identity. At the time Riot said healing was a big part of the identity of the Freljord, but it plainly wasn't in the actual cards, so this is encouraging.
• The Gem token card. This one is a little obscure, but I like that Riot is willing to make a Burst speed spell that can't be cast in combat or in response to a spell. That is exactly what I think Glimpse Beyond ought to be, and I've said as much at least a couple of times on this forum.
• More sources of Obliterate. So far this is just Passage Unearned, but I'm glad there are tech cards that can respond to some of the crazier revive effects that have often created some very frustrating top tier decks. It might be a little too good against those decks, but hopefully it's weak enough against many other decks that it sees only limited play (which would be perfect for a tech card).

So, even without reveals from many of the regions, there's a lot here that makes me think this could be good for the game.

At the same time, I'm pretty worried about yet another massive influx of mechanics. With only a few regions having revealed cards so far, they've already introduced SpellShield, Nightfall, and Behold. Maybe there won't be too many new things with this set, but given how much was introduced with Rising Tides (Powder Kegs, Toss, Plunder, Nab, Deep, Vulnerable, Scout, Attune) it seems unlikely that this set will end up with a short list of new mechanics.

It may seem counter-intuitive to complain about new mechanics in a new set, but I think the Riot approach feels a bit like its not well thought out. By introducing so many new mechanics, and placing them in only small subsets of the regions, you end up in a state where content is much harder to balance. When new mechanics are paired with the new region and some supporting region (e.g. Toss in SI/Bilgewater) you can't think about how to balance new mechanics in isolation from the pre-existing balance issues between the regions more broadly. Moreover, any new mechanic is inherently harder to balance because the devs have no experience balancing it and have no audience feedback about the mechanic in action. So, it's way better to limit the surface area of new content to ensure balancing can be done well from the get-go.

By contrast, in games like MTG and Hearthstone, expansions typically highlight only one or two new mechanics, and they put those mechanics in each color/class/region, which allows developers to think about how fit that new content to the identity of each color/class/region. These mechanics also often deviate only slightly from existing content (e.g. Proliferate in MTG, which adds counters to cards that already have counters, or Spellburst in Hearthstone, which acts as a one-time "after you cast a spell" trigger). Following these patterns makes it easier to think about whether the mechanic is too powerful or too weak in isolation, or if it is too easily abused by a subset of the colors/classes/regions. 

Ultimately, I fear this reflects a continued reality with Riot's dev process, where they feel like they can constantly dump a lot of new content because they're constantly rebalancing the game. It's a philosophy that seems to emphasize "exciting new content" over "fun, balanced gameplay." In that way, it feels like there's a certainly lack of ownership in the quality of the initial work, and that bothers me.

(One related note - I have no idea how to judge the decision to break the expansion up over multiple months. Given how often LoR is rebalanced, the high frequency influx of new content may be fine and have no outsized impact on the way the metagame is formed. But it may also reinforce this apparent design philosophy that it's better to constantly throw out shiny new content in place of balanced content.)

I' m fairly sure more nerfs are incoming, but unless something oppressive emerges out of nowhere in Standard, I doubt they'll step in again before the meta has somewhat settled.

I think Blizzard has a new methodology of nerfs, where they would rather do multiple, smaller nerf patches than completely obliterating a deck and the cards for all eternity in a single patch. As someone on Reddit put it, "nerfing using a scalpel instead of a chainsaw". I think Blizzard wants to make small changes, then take a step back and see how everything changes. If this nerf puts Druid in its place and they can no longer consistently cheat out huge spells on early turns, then that's done and they can look to other decks. If this nerf causes Paladin's winrate to skyrocket, then they'll probably (hopefully) nerf that deck, but there's no point in nerfing multiple decks at once, preemptively predicting what decks will be strong in the future. Let's say that this nerf makes Druid much weaker and its combo is much less consistent. While this would remove one of Priest's counters, it would also remove one of Mage's counters, and Mage beats Priest quite handily. As a result, there's no need to nerf Priest since it's been automatically kept in check by the natural flow of the meta (yes this is oversimplified and probably not what's going to happen, but it's an example). This is a much better method than Blizzard's old method of gutting cards completely beyond space and time.

You will still have Toxfin to give your Murlocs Poisonous. I guess they will now be a hero-dependant strategy rather than something viable for everyone, as they will probably now need heroes like George or Brann to either speed them up or give them keywords that you would normally get with Megasaur. And because you don't have to go to tier 6, yu can use that gold to instead buff your units more.