Quick preface: I'm not trying to put Blizzard on a pedestal - they've done a lot wrong over the years, and Hearthstone is clearly less F2P friendly than Legends of Runeterra. Despite that, I think this article is really trash. It's honestly almost impressive how lacking in neutrality this piece is. The aggressively pro-Riot/anti-Blizzard bias in this article is shocking.
Patching
Regarding patching, you undercut your own basic premise when you concede that Blizzard:
Has to deal with the publishing pipelines of the Android and iOS stores, which is entirely out of their control (just like Riot's current situation)
Has already been publishing major updates ahead of time to ensure seamless release dates (just like what Riot plans to do)
The explanation for why Blizzard is worse despite these points, is that their balance patches are still delayed. You decry the way this "forces mobile players to play on the old version of the game for a few hours, still being plagued by unjust card stats and effects." But you completely ignore the fact that the Riot version will simply have every player plagued by bad balance for an extra day, and completely ignore that when Blizzard recently did a hotfix for balance of various Demon Hunter cards, they did so without patching via server-side updates. (Here's the article you published about that hotfix, in case you forgot it: https://outof.cards/hearthstone/1142-the-day-2-demon-hunter-card-nerfs-details-on-the-changes-and-demon-hunter-arena-adjustments)
The fact is, while Blizzard has a history of slow mobile patching, they've also done a lot to try to make important content and balance patches as seamless as possible for users across platforms, and your praise for Riot ignores the benefits they get out of learning from Blizzard's mistakes (many of which they're working hard to make better).
Refunds
Regarding refunds, Riot gives no refunds regardless of what they do to rebalance the game, and they've shown a willingness to radically change cards. Capping a number of duplicate battlecries on Shudderwock is pretty minor compared to the massive shifts Riot made throughout the betas to Lux and her supporting cast of Mageseekers, for example. Moreover, while Riot says they want to make every card viable, that doesn't mean ever card is good (here's your piece on what they define as viable https://outof.cards/legends-of-runeterra/780-legends-of-runeterra-will-not-see-refunds-when-cards-change - note that it really focuses on having a critical mass of tools to build around each champion, not about making each card competitively viable).
Gold vs Experience points, and the business of card games
Yes gold is capped in HS. and yes, experience is no longer capped in LoR. But you don't bother to mention that Blizzard specifically caps gold to disincentive people from bot farming their accounts. Enabling players to bot farm your F2P game means less revenue, which makes it harder to support the game for the actual people trying to have fun playing it.
And yes, Riot has said that the "typical model" prioritizes business over player experience, but of course they did. They're a new player in the CCG space trying to fight for market share. You see these kinds of blatant attacks all over their PR and ad content - phrases like "skill not randomness" and "typical CCG models prioritize business, but not us." They are trying to attack the Goliaths in the market and create an environment where they can pull people away from other major CCGs, and being more F2P friendly is an important way to do that. There's nothing wrong with them doing that, but please don't drink the koolaid here and pretend that they're somehow more honest, or that their goals are just good, pure gameplay fun. Riot is a business, and their goal is revenue.
(Also worth noting that they made their statements about "typical models" back when they were still capping in-game purchases of cards to make for better deck building/exploration experiences. Today they've opened the floodgates for people to come in and buy/netdeck any meta deck, probably because it's the more profitable way to do things.)
From a price standpoint, if you're not F2P, the price really isn't that different from Hearthstone. Buying a full collection today would cost something like $670 dollars, $450 of which is the base launch set. Those base set numbers aren't meaningfully different from the costs to buy the classic set in Hearthstone, and while the expansion costs are certainly cheaper in LoR, they're also designed to scale up as more expansions come out (that is, more regions means more new champions for old regions when expansions hit, means higher and higher costs as the game expands).
Summary
To reiterate my preface - I'm not here to cheer the accolades of Blizzard. They, and Activision more broadly, have done a lot shitty things with their properties as a way to squeeze money from consumers. But Blizzard is not just some evil caricature of a company, and Riot isn't some bastion of good, honest game-making - they're a business just like Blizzard, and their goals are the same. Both have made some decisions to try to make for better gameplay experiences as well as some to make better revenue models, and both have to find ways to balance the two so they can continue to make their respective games. It's fine to have opinions about one company or another, but this kind of sycophantic content dropped right into the middle of your news feed really diminishes the integrity of the OutOf.Cards website.
More Librams: I just really like the Libram package and would love to see it get some new tools in the next expansion. Specially, I'd love a Libram that has card draw (e.g. "Libram of Focus: 4 mana - Draw 2 cards"), and minion that discovers a Libram (e.g. "Aldor Librarian: 1 mana 1/1 - Battlecry: Discover a Libram.").
More Handbuff: This one is personal. I adore Handbuff and have since Mean Streets and I want more (e.g. "Lead By Example: 3 mana - Give a minion and all minions in your hand +2/+2").
More AoE: I'm sick of using Wild Pyromancer and want some AoE that doesn't depend on 2 card combos (e.g. "Righteous Purge: 6 mana - Lifesteal. Deal 3 damage to all enemy minions.")
A Control Win Condition: I'm super flexible on what exactly this is, but Paladin needs something it can do to reliably close the game in a control matchup. Should it be burst damage/OTK? Should it be an infinite-value generator? Should it be a big 10-mana minion? Idk, but Paladin needs something.
In your first suggestion you hit on something people often miss: spells that deal damage are not part of Paladin class identity (in fact I don't think they have had a single one since Classic), and that alone motivates a bit of a rework of the core sets. The same goes for destroy effects, which are almost non-existent in the class.
This observation also goes some way towards answering your 4th suggestion: 1-card AoE requires dealing damage to kill things, which the class just does not do. Its version is to debuff minions (e.g. Equality, Libram of Justice and Shrink Ray), which of course leads to 2-card AoEs if you actually want to kill the minions. This design angle makes Paladin unique and I hope they don't give the class any conventional AoE beyond Consecration.
Regarding your 5th suggestion, I don't think it would be good for the class to have great value generation. It's mix of great healing and value would then look a bit too much like priest. Instead I want its control tools to deal better with aggro from the start, while leaning into what pally does well: minions. It should have more things like Benevolent Djinn as proactive control tools rather than the reactive tools of priest. Sure you might still usually lose to more value-heavy control decks, but it gives you the choice to try to go midrange to win those instead of waiting to lose to value.
Somewhat unrelated, but any word on when the single player content is supposed to release? Wouldn't this usually be the week given how release schedules have gone the last several cycles. It seems like it's been oddly quiet,
All of the Heroes strike me as good - assuming that Maive works as a freeze, allowing you to rotate the tavern while keeping 1 minion for the next turn or two. It still might be a tad underpowered at +1/+1.
Vashj is interesting because it plays out similarly to Elise, but with the fact that some lower tier minions will still be thrown in.
Kael'thas will likely be about a high mid-tier hero. Kind of Rat King-y, but not as good as Yogg or Edwin.
Finally deck rearranging!! This is the best news out of all of this! The changes to the mobile collection manager and filter panel are also long overdue and very welcomed! Glad to see some UI work being done to the game!
I honestly haven't touched BG's very much since the dragons were added, Lady Vashj looks interesting.
More Librams: I just really like the Libram package and would love to see it get some new tools in the next expansion. Specially, I'd love a Libram that has card draw (e.g. "Libram of Focus: 4 mana - Draw 2 cards"), and minion that discovers a Libram (e.g. "Aldor Librarian: 1 mana 1/1 - Battlecry: Discover a Libram.").
More Handbuff: This one is personal. I adore Handbuff and have since Mean Streets and I want more (e.g. "Lead By Example: 3 mana - Give a minion and all minions in your hand +2/+2").
More AoE: I'm sick of using Wild Pyromancer and want some AoE that doesn't depend on 2 card combos (e.g. "Righteous Purge: 6 mana - Lifesteal. Deal 3 damage to all enemy minions.")
A Control Win Condition: I'm super flexible on what exactly this is, but Paladin needs something it can do to reliably close the game in a control matchup. Should it be burst damage/OTK? Should it be an infinite-value generator? Should it be a big 10-mana minion? Idk, but Paladin needs something.
How do share a deck? Just take a screenshot of it?
A few ways:
Create a new deck on this site (you can import your deck code), save it, record the number, then in your post write the number and do the "Runeterra Deck" tags around it
Create a new deck on Mobalytics, then copy their URL and/or their screenshot and paste it here
She's not quite as annoying (or as prevalent) since Rising Tides, but for the 2nd half of the open beta she was essentially a "must have" for any control deck so she effectively defined the meta, which is always a big Two Thumbs Down in my book. Not to mention she could / can still do so many things which just seem broken to me from an implementation point of view (e.g., counting her spells towards Lux's progression and L2 Ezreal's ability, shuffling 2 copies of herself when casting her signature card, etc).
The problem with these wildcards, is I have pretty low tier champion, and want to save my wildcards for high tier champions. But I keep getting wildcards instead of champion
That literally makes no sense. You want to get more random champions in order to have a higher chance to get the one(s) you want, instead of getting Wild Cards that let you pick the one(s) you want? Im confused. You are already getting the best possible reward there is. You can get more rewards, but it never is better to get a random champion instead of Wild Card. Never. At worse, its the same, it can never be better.
The problem with these wildcards, is I have pretty low tier champion, and want to save my wildcards for high tier champions. But I keep getting wildcards instead of champion
I wouldn't get too tied up in "low tier" and "high tier". This isn't like Hearthstone where certain Legendaries end up just being dust fodder--Riot is doing a fairly impressive job tuning both the high-performing AND the low-performing champions, so pursuing off-meta decks doesn't mean you're wasting your resources long-term.
Some of my first champions were Vlad, Kalista, and Ashe who were (and largely still are) virtually unplayed. They are now the highlights of my 3 favorite decks, despite the fact I could probably make every so-called "Tier One" deck.
Classically Trained - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Get those votes in people! Can't wait to see who wins. Also to take a look at the ones that didn't.
May 12's Hearthstone Patch Adds Three new Heroes and a New Minion for Battlegrounds! Deck Reordering Also Joins the Party
Maiev will give you the minion once it wakes up. You are essentially buying a minion for 2 less gold but you have to wait 2 turns to get it.
Legends of Runeterra Patches Move Away From Treating Mobile Players Like Second-Class Citizens Unlike its Competitor Hearthstone
Quick preface: I'm not trying to put Blizzard on a pedestal - they've done a lot wrong over the years, and Hearthstone is clearly less F2P friendly than Legends of Runeterra. Despite that, I think this article is really trash. It's honestly almost impressive how lacking in neutrality this piece is. The aggressively pro-Riot/anti-Blizzard bias in this article is shocking.
Patching
Regarding patching, you undercut your own basic premise when you concede that Blizzard:
The explanation for why Blizzard is worse despite these points, is that their balance patches are still delayed. You decry the way this "forces mobile players to play on the old version of the game for a few hours, still being plagued by unjust card stats and effects." But you completely ignore the fact that the Riot version will simply have every player plagued by bad balance for an extra day, and completely ignore that when Blizzard recently did a hotfix for balance of various Demon Hunter cards, they did so without patching via server-side updates. (Here's the article you published about that hotfix, in case you forgot it: https://outof.cards/hearthstone/1142-the-day-2-demon-hunter-card-nerfs-details-on-the-changes-and-demon-hunter-arena-adjustments)
The fact is, while Blizzard has a history of slow mobile patching, they've also done a lot to try to make important content and balance patches as seamless as possible for users across platforms, and your praise for Riot ignores the benefits they get out of learning from Blizzard's mistakes (many of which they're working hard to make better).
Refunds
Regarding refunds, Riot gives no refunds regardless of what they do to rebalance the game, and they've shown a willingness to radically change cards. Capping a number of duplicate battlecries on Shudderwock is pretty minor compared to the massive shifts Riot made throughout the betas to Lux and her supporting cast of Mageseekers, for example. Moreover, while Riot says they want to make every card viable, that doesn't mean ever card is good (here's your piece on what they define as viable https://outof.cards/legends-of-runeterra/780-legends-of-runeterra-will-not-see-refunds-when-cards-change - note that it really focuses on having a critical mass of tools to build around each champion, not about making each card competitively viable).
Gold vs Experience points, and the business of card games
Yes gold is capped in HS. and yes, experience is no longer capped in LoR. But you don't bother to mention that Blizzard specifically caps gold to disincentive people from bot farming their accounts. Enabling players to bot farm your F2P game means less revenue, which makes it harder to support the game for the actual people trying to have fun playing it.
And yes, Riot has said that the "typical model" prioritizes business over player experience, but of course they did. They're a new player in the CCG space trying to fight for market share. You see these kinds of blatant attacks all over their PR and ad content - phrases like "skill not randomness" and "typical CCG models prioritize business, but not us." They are trying to attack the Goliaths in the market and create an environment where they can pull people away from other major CCGs, and being more F2P friendly is an important way to do that. There's nothing wrong with them doing that, but please don't drink the koolaid here and pretend that they're somehow more honest, or that their goals are just good, pure gameplay fun. Riot is a business, and their goal is revenue.
(Also worth noting that they made their statements about "typical models" back when they were still capping in-game purchases of cards to make for better deck building/exploration experiences. Today they've opened the floodgates for people to come in and buy/netdeck any meta deck, probably because it's the more profitable way to do things.)
From a price standpoint, if you're not F2P, the price really isn't that different from Hearthstone. Buying a full collection today would cost something like $670 dollars, $450 of which is the base launch set. Those base set numbers aren't meaningfully different from the costs to buy the classic set in Hearthstone, and while the expansion costs are certainly cheaper in LoR, they're also designed to scale up as more expansions come out (that is, more regions means more new champions for old regions when expansions hit, means higher and higher costs as the game expands).
Summary
To reiterate my preface - I'm not here to cheer the accolades of Blizzard. They, and Activision more broadly, have done a lot shitty things with their properties as a way to squeeze money from consumers. But Blizzard is not just some evil caricature of a company, and Riot isn't some bastion of good, honest game-making - they're a business just like Blizzard, and their goals are the same. Both have made some decisions to try to make for better gameplay experiences as well as some to make better revenue models, and both have to find ways to balance the two so they can continue to make their respective games. It's fine to have opinions about one company or another, but this kind of sycophantic content dropped right into the middle of your news feed really diminishes the integrity of the OutOf.Cards website.
New to streaming come and support ,help me grow
everybode is welcome pleac check it out!
https://www.twitch.tv/xrokyca?no-reload=true
What is your Paladin Wish List?
In your first suggestion you hit on something people often miss: spells that deal damage are not part of Paladin class identity (in fact I don't think they have had a single one since Classic), and that alone motivates a bit of a rework of the core sets. The same goes for destroy effects, which are almost non-existent in the class.
This observation also goes some way towards answering your 4th suggestion: 1-card AoE requires dealing damage to kill things, which the class just does not do. Its version is to debuff minions (e.g. Equality, Libram of Justice and Shrink Ray), which of course leads to 2-card AoEs if you actually want to kill the minions. This design angle makes Paladin unique and I hope they don't give the class any conventional AoE beyond Consecration.
Regarding your 5th suggestion, I don't think it would be good for the class to have great value generation. It's mix of great healing and value would then look a bit too much like priest. Instead I want its control tools to deal better with aggro from the start, while leaning into what pally does well: minions. It should have more things like Benevolent Djinn as proactive control tools rather than the reactive tools of priest. Sure you might still usually lose to more value-heavy control decks, but it gives you the choice to try to go midrange to win those instead of waiting to lose to value.
May 12's Hearthstone Patch Adds Three new Heroes and a New Minion for Battlegrounds! Deck Reordering Also Joins the Party
I hope it will also fix the problems on the Samsung A60/70! I cant play this game on mobile for more than a month now
May 12's Hearthstone Patch Adds Three new Heroes and a New Minion for Battlegrounds! Deck Reordering Also Joins the Party
It's totally aesthetic, but I would like to see that deck ordering option.
May 12's Hearthstone Patch Adds Three new Heroes and a New Minion for Battlegrounds! Deck Reordering Also Joins the Party
Somewhat unrelated, but any word on when the single player content is supposed to release? Wouldn't this usually be the week given how release schedules have gone the last several cycles. It seems like it's been oddly quiet,
May 12's Hearthstone Patch Adds Three new Heroes and a New Minion for Battlegrounds! Deck Reordering Also Joins the Party
The new beast makes me happy. Direwolf was trash.
All of the Heroes strike me as good - assuming that Maive works as a freeze, allowing you to rotate the tavern while keeping 1 minion for the next turn or two. It still might be a tad underpowered at +1/+1.
Vashj is interesting because it plays out similarly to Elise, but with the fact that some lower tier minions will still be thrown in.
Kael'thas will likely be about a high mid-tier hero. Kind of Rat King-y, but not as good as Yogg or Edwin.
[Game] Card Treasure Hunt (The Resurrection Attempt)
Alright, this probably ends up too easy, but let's try a new style:
Veggie Ball
Legends of Runeterra Patches Move Away From Treating Mobile Players Like Second-Class Citizens Unlike its Competitor Hearthstone
Was expecting riot to notice trends in other games and as a new player on the field do it right, right away instead of the blizzard way which is:
A bug appears or there is a lack of a requested feature which is annoying but not game breaking.
It annoys players
Blizzard ignores it for years or promise to fix it/add it soon(tm)
Players coop with it.
One day they fix it
Players are "so" greatful for the fix.
That's being extremely annoying
Example: deck slots.
Legends of Runeterra Patches Move Away From Treating Mobile Players Like Second-Class Citizens Unlike its Competitor Hearthstone
Haha why the title seems so.. "hateful" lol.
I'm starting to play runeterra out of boredom and it seems Rito is indeed taking care of it really well. Love their effort so far!
May 12's Hearthstone Patch Adds Three new Heroes and a New Minion for Battlegrounds! Deck Reordering Also Joins the Party
Whoa, whoa, whoa. That would require making the scrollbar longer. That might be a tad too confusing for even the old players.
May 12's Hearthstone Patch Adds Three new Heroes and a New Minion for Battlegrounds! Deck Reordering Also Joins the Party
Finally deck rearranging!! This is the best news out of all of this! The changes to the mobile collection manager and filter panel are also long overdue and very welcomed! Glad to see some UI work being done to the game!
I honestly haven't touched BG's very much since the dragons were added, Lady Vashj looks interesting.
May 12's Hearthstone Patch Adds Three new Heroes and a New Minion for Battlegrounds! Deck Reordering Also Joins the Party
Yup, it only took 6 years and 2 months... At this rate, will they figure out how to add more deck slots in 2025?
May 12's Hearthstone Patch Adds Three new Heroes and a New Minion for Battlegrounds! Deck Reordering Also Joins the Party
It would have said so in the text
May 12's Hearthstone Patch Adds Three new Heroes and a New Minion for Battlegrounds! Deck Reordering Also Joins the Party
I think she upgrades current available guys and not just gives you all minions on new tier...
May 12's Hearthstone Patch Adds Three new Heroes and a New Minion for Battlegrounds! Deck Reordering Also Joins the Party
"You can now reorder your deck lists!" - took them long enough
Standard Meta Report #33 - Top Hearthstone Decks May 3, 2020 - May 10, 2020
I certainly did mean Highlander Priest! Good catch.
May 12's Hearthstone Patch Adds Three new Heroes and a New Minion for Battlegrounds! Deck Reordering Also Joins the Party
I hope Kael'thas is in a single turn....
Vashj seems borderline insane.
What is your Paladin Wish List?
Ahh, Paladin. I have so many wishes for Paladin.
How long will this deck last me?
A few ways:
Heimerdinger
Karma
She's not quite as annoying (or as prevalent) since Rising Tides, but for the 2nd half of the open beta she was essentially a "must have" for any control deck so she effectively defined the meta, which is always a big Two Thumbs Down in my book. Not to mention she could / can still do so many things which just seem broken to me from an implementation point of view (e.g., counting her spells towards Lux's progression and L2 Ezreal's ability, shuffling 2 copies of herself when casting her signature card, etc).
How to Get Champions
That literally makes no sense. You want to get more random champions in order to have a higher chance to get the one(s) you want, instead of getting Wild Cards that let you pick the one(s) you want? Im confused. You are already getting the best possible reward there is. You can get more rewards, but it never is better to get a random champion instead of Wild Card. Never. At worse, its the same, it can never be better.
How to Get Champions
I wouldn't get too tied up in "low tier" and "high tier". This isn't like Hearthstone where certain Legendaries end up just being dust fodder--Riot is doing a fairly impressive job tuning both the high-performing AND the low-performing champions, so pursuing off-meta decks doesn't mean you're wasting your resources long-term.
Some of my first champions were Vlad, Kalista, and Ashe who were (and largely still are) virtually unplayed. They are now the highlights of my 3 favorite decks, despite the fact I could probably make every so-called "Tier One" deck.