I'm honestly curious to see what everyone thinks about the fact that Lux has been buffed for a THIRD time now, which seems odd. I can't think of too many times in card games where cards were buffed multiple times. Plenty that were nerfed multiple times....=(
Are you sure about three buffs? The latest change is a clear, simple buff, but the only other change I can recall was a pretty major overhaul.
Her update in the "Expeditions Preview Patch" was: her cost was increased, attack was reduced, health was increased, and level up condition and payoff were changed (some good, some bad). Ultimately this is a buff, as the good outweighs the bad, but it's a much larger change than a typical buff.
Ok, so my last card proved quite... divisive, so I'm putting it on the back burner and replacing it with an idea I've had since RoS launched:
...
You don't get anything for the Colosal Lackey and Dragon Lackey, since that would be too convoluted.
I think the idea is neat overall, but would argue that separating the Lackeys is what makes this convoluted. I don't like dividing an already-small set (Lackeys) into two smaller subsets (the "originals" vs the new ones). You have to spell out that only the Rise of Shadows Lackeys count, which tells me that the card is trying too hard to be functional.
Ok, but then who would be the bosses for the other two Lackeys? Colossus of the Moon and Dragonqueen Alextraza? That would pretty much make it busted.
That's his point; the idea doesn't work given the fact that are two lackeys that don't come from ROS
The big thing to me is that the meta seems to be shifting slightly on an almost daily basis, which is the desired goal. It remains to be seen though whether this is because of amazing balance or if its just the community hyper-aggressively trying to "solve" the meta.
I do really admire that they seem to have successfully downtuned the previously-meta-defining decks without making them non-viable. I'm still seeing wraithcaller decks, and I still lose to them sometimes but not nearly as much as before. I still see the occasional Rhasa and Ledros, but not nearly with the same persistence as before. And Deny has become more of a calculated risk than an automatic assumption. It is extremely commendable--proper balance is a very difficult thing to do, and most competitors err on the side of over-nerfing.
I don't like that there are some cards that are becoming extremely popular while others are nonexistent. For examples, Avarosan Hearthguard is included in almost every deck that include Frejlord, but when is the last time you've seen a Spectral Matron, Jae Medarda, or Captain Farron? Or: what would you guess the ratio is between the number of Karma+ Hecarim + Heimerdinger that you've seen in the past 3 days to Kalista + Thresh + Shen? If the unpopular cards I mention are just too niche to get much play, well then that's unfortunate (doubly so as I've opened a lot of them :-( ) but it's nothing terminal. I fear though that it's the opposite: that the popular cards are just that much better in earnest, and if that's the case then it means the community is becoming a lot better at finding meta-defining power cards and there's still a lot of work to do to tune the entire catalog.
Oh boy you seem to have no idea what Ezreal/Heimerdinger(+maybe ashe) decks are around there...
Saying that control didnt take over is something you only can say if you havent seen what P&Z+Freljord decks can do right now.
They go even early (with chumb blockers and removal), have the better midgame (with a bunch on medium sized units that contest for board control+ freezes) and often also outscale you lategame (with the gigantic value that heimer produces) or simply shoot you down in 1 turn with level'd ezreal
.... or they play leveld ashe freeze your board with winter's breath/her crystal arrow and kill you even if you have a full board
No matter what units you play (unless you play P&Z/Noxus all/burn in and race them down) they gonna find a way to win
Ok, so my last card proved quite... divisive, so I'm putting it on the back burner and replacing it with an idea I've had since RoS launched:
...
You don't get anything for the Colosal Lackey and Dragon Lackey, since that would be too convoluted.
I think the idea is neat overall, but would argue that separating the Lackeys is what makes this convoluted. I don't like dividing an already-small set (Lackeys) into two smaller subsets (the "originals" vs the new ones). You have to spell out that only the Rise of Shadows Lackeys count, which tells me that the card is trying too hard to be functional.
Ok, but then who would be the bosses for the other two Lackeys? Colossus of the Moon and Dragonqueen Alextraza? That would pretty much make it busted.
I think it's cool, but as has been noted you'd have to be careful with spells because they use landscape art versus the portrait art of the minions.
What I don't like are the comments suggesting the use of alternative art; I know Magic the Gathering has multiple variants for reprints and the like, but I don't believe Hearthstone needs to get into that murky water. Just keep the game simple/clean and use the original art.
Ok, so my last card proved quite... divisive, so I'm putting it on the back burner and replacing it with an idea I've had since RoS launched:
...
You don't get anything for the Colosal Lackey and Dragon Lackey, since that would be too convoluted.
I think the idea is neat overall, but would argue that separating the Lackeys is what makes this convoluted. I don't like dividing an already-small set (Lackeys) into two smaller subsets (the "originals" vs the new ones). You have to spell out that only the Rise of Shadows Lackeys count, which tells me that the card is trying too hard to be functional.
So what's everyone think about the nerfs/buffs so far!? I'm honestly curious to see what everyone thinks about the fact that Lux has been buffed for a THIRD time now, which seems odd. I can't think of too many times in card games where cards were buffed multiple times. Plenty that were nerfed multiple times....=(
Also, from what I've seen so far on the ladder it seems like control isn't taking over after these nerfs which I think is AMAZING! I think it shows that there will be a very healthy metagame moving forward. I've seen plenty of Noxus/P&Z aggro decks that do just fine racing some control matchup's, etc.
SOOOOO happy with the nerfs to Fearsome & Elusive's as well - they managed to significantly reduce their power while still ensuring that each card is 100% playable. Whatcha all think!?
If anyone's interested, I made a video reviewing all of the nerfs/buffs as well! You can check it out here.
You don't get anything for the Colosal Lackey and Dragon Lackey, since that would be too convoluted.
I'm not sure about the name and stats.
This is very expensive, even for its effect (literally 7 mana 2/4 do nothing). Also, random bosses are not that great (especially Blastmaster Boom or Rafaam) plus if you end up with multiple dragon/colosal lackeys this card becomes useless.
It replaces the Lackeys on board, not in hand
Ah sorry for misunderstanding. In that case this card looks fine I guess. It becomes scary when you set it up with ethereal/goblin lackeys on turn 10 but that requires some rng so I guess it's fine.
You don't get anything for the Colosal Lackey and Dragon Lackey, since that would be too convoluted.
I'm not sure about the name and stats.
This is very expensive, even for its effect (literally 7 mana 2/4 do nothing). Also, random bosses are not that great (especially Blastmaster Boom or Rafaam) plus if you end up with multiple dragon/colosal lackeys this card becomes useless.
You don't get anything for the Colosal Lackey and Dragon Lackey, since that would be too convoluted.
I'm not sure about the name and stats.
This is very expensive, even for its effect (literally 7 mana 2/4 do nothing). Also, random bosses are not that great (especially Blastmaster Boom or Rafaam) plus if you end up with multiple dragon/colosal lackeys this card becomes useless.
You don't get anything for the [Hearthstone Card (Colosal Lackey) Not Found] and [Hearthstone Card (Dragon Lackey) Not Found], since that would be too convoluted.
A new class seems highly unlikely. Death Knight is almost certainly never happening, just because of the OP Death Knight cards in KotFT.
I think the team was asked if they ever wanted a new class, and they basically said it would be a complete and total balancing nightmare. They already can't balance nine classes and make them all relevant. Besides, if they want to push new mechanics, they already have nine options to stick them in.
I feel like they stack the region matchups based off what deck you pick, whenever I pick ionia/shadowisles I face freljord/demacia almost 90% of the time. If I swap it to noxus/shadow itll be heavy ionia decks. Was hoping a better team than the team that has driven summoners rift down the shithole would be working on this game but guess not.
That is almost certainly not happening. I get that it may feel that way, but there is absolutely no upside at Riot's end to design a system that works as you've described.
Except this game is complex enough that you can't oversimplify.
That is definitely true!
However, I often find that decks get mislabeled, which leads to confusion about the their place in the rock-paper-scissors paradigm.
In your examples, it might be more correct to label the Fearsome deck as aggro -- it certainly plays like aggro, even if the units are slightly higher in cost than your typical aggro deck.
Most importantly, the existence of spell mana in this game throws off a lot of the old assumptions around the "speed spectrum." This is surely a contributing factor in the mislabeling problem.
I mean this also could create a lack of new deck strategies. Imagine this one deck is tier 1 for a while and nearly impossible to beat. Riot cannot print support cards for it and they have to literally build around this one deck. With rotation, it develops new strategies while still allowing old ones to get support via "Wild" format Just like Hearthstone and MTG.
New voting system is interesting... I'm not used to the 5 star rating system. I'm glad I could go back and change ratings. I handed out some 1 and 2s that in retrospect, were decent compared to some really bad or non-sensical entries.
I kinda prefer being able to see all cards at once. It's hard to judge cards in a vacuum, easier to compare good and bad cards. Not sure the 5 stars are needed either. I'd go for a 3 rating system, bad, middle of the road, great.
One of the streamers that got invited (Poly, from Italy) in one of his Instagram stories said that HS is gonna improve under every point of view.
Most importantly, talking about all the changes said "Personally, I think YOU ARE NOT PREPARED". It might be just a coincidence, but I'm inclined to think that is a hint for a Legion expansion. And maybe (how cool that would be) they will include new classes such as Demon Hunter, Death knight and Monk
I think you guys might be meaning to say the same thing but using different interpretations of what is control, mid-range, etc.
Swim's whole speal from that video (and others will tell you this too, its a fairly generic CCG principle) is that you want to be either slightly slower than your opponent or a lot faster. So you end up with a paper->rock->scissors that looks something like:
Noxus/P&Z burn aggro decks beat P&Z/Ionia Heimer+Karma control decks
P&Z/Ionia Heimer+Karma control decks beat SI Fearsome midrange decks
SI Fearsome midrange decks beat the aforementioned Noxus/P&Z decks.
Except this game is complex enough that you can't oversimplify. For example: whereas the P&Z/Ionia versions of Karma are typically waiting for Heimerdinger and as such are slow to answer these new aggro burn decks, there's a new SI/Ionia version that can drop early answers + healing via Withering Wail, Grasp of the Undying, and Darkwater Scourge. However that change sacrifices a lot of its potential to address fat boards, so it struggles against things like Dawn Spiders and Elnuks--decks which are traditionally described as midrange. And that's not even getting into sub-variants: e.g., Warmothers control generally beats other types of control because it gets so much value late game. So you can't make generic statements like "control beats X but loses to Y", you really need to put it in context of tempo.
That's interesting. I've been watching / listening to a bunch of Swim's videos, who seems to be a pretty competent CCG player. He explained it the exact opposite way: If your deck plays slightly more slowly than your opponent's, you can take a bit of nexus damage and in turn play more costly, higher-value cards to eventually 'break even' and then take the lead in terms of board presence.
However, according to him, control is often too slow to survive the early onslaught of aggro decks (I would assume that is because removal can only clear so much, especially in a game such as Runeterra where removal spells are relatively expensive).
Btw, card games are building on MTG prices which are really, really high. For example Wizards is selling Secret Lair series, where you get 3 alternate art cards for 40 dollars.
UHmm yeaah you know that control should beat aggro thats just normal ...
I'm pretty sure general consensus in the CCG community says the opposite (unless there's sarcasm in there which I'm not picking up on). Aggro plays a lot faster and thus can often overwhelm the control deck before the latter has a chance to stabilize. This is assuming we have roughly the same understanding of aggro, midrange, and control decks.
That is incorrect. Control's original purpose was to counter aggro decks by continually clearing their units until the aggro player runs out of gas.
Aggro's fast pressure is meant to beat midrange, which typically lacks enough removal to deal effectively with early threats. Because midrange is slower to develop a board, it never establishes the presence needed to push back before aggro wins.
Midrange generally beats control by developing stronger, stickier board presence that eventually outpaces control's removal. (This falls apart when developers provide control with endgame that is too strong or too inevitable -- quite often a legitimate reason for control nerfs.)
Thoughts on Recent Patch Nerfs/Buff's (Lux Buffed a THIRD TIME!?)
Are you sure about three buffs? The latest change is a clear, simple buff, but the only other change I can recall was a pretty major overhaul.
Her update in the "Expeditions Preview Patch" was: her cost was increased, attack was reduced, health was increased, and level up condition and payoff were changed (some good, some bad). Ultimately this is a buff, as the good outweighs the bad, but it's a much larger change than a typical buff.
Thoughts on Recent Patch Nerfs/Buff's (Lux Buffed a THIRD TIME!?)
Metagame is in a really good place right now.
Friendly Challenge Experience is Being Buffed in the Next Legends of Runeterra Patch
To notice this I would need friends who play in NA...
How To Train Year Dragon - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
That's his point; the idea doesn't work given the fact that are two lackeys that don't come from ROS
Thoughts on Recent Patch Nerfs/Buff's (Lux Buffed a THIRD TIME!?)
The big thing to me is that the meta seems to be shifting slightly on an almost daily basis, which is the desired goal. It remains to be seen though whether this is because of amazing balance or if its just the community hyper-aggressively trying to "solve" the meta.
I do really admire that they seem to have successfully downtuned the previously-meta-defining decks without making them non-viable. I'm still seeing wraithcaller decks, and I still lose to them sometimes but not nearly as much as before. I still see the occasional Rhasa and Ledros, but not nearly with the same persistence as before. And Deny has become more of a calculated risk than an automatic assumption. It is extremely commendable--proper balance is a very difficult thing to do, and most competitors err on the side of over-nerfing.
I don't like that there are some cards that are becoming extremely popular while others are nonexistent. For examples, Avarosan Hearthguard is included in almost every deck that include Frejlord, but when is the last time you've seen a Spectral Matron, Jae Medarda, or Captain Farron? Or: what would you guess the ratio is between the number of Karma+ Hecarim + Heimerdinger that you've seen in the past 3 days to Kalista + Thresh + Shen? If the unpopular cards I mention are just too niche to get much play, well then that's unfortunate (doubly so as I've opened a lot of them :-( ) but it's nothing terminal. I fear though that it's the opposite: that the popular cards are just that much better in earnest, and if that's the case then it means the community is becoming a lot better at finding meta-defining power cards and there's still a lot of work to do to tune the entire catalog.
Thoughts on Recent Patch Nerfs/Buff's (Lux Buffed a THIRD TIME!?)
Oh boy you seem to have no idea what Ezreal/Heimerdinger(+maybe ashe) decks are around there...
Saying that control didnt take over is something you only can say if you havent seen what P&Z+Freljord decks can do right now.
They go even early (with chumb blockers and removal), have the better midgame (with a bunch on medium sized units that contest for board control+ freezes) and often also outscale you lategame (with the gigantic value that heimer produces) or simply shoot you down in 1 turn with level'd ezreal
.... or they play leveld ashe freeze your board with winter's breath/her crystal arrow and kill you even if you have a full board
No matter what units you play (unless you play P&Z/Noxus all/burn in and race them down) they gonna find a way to win
How To Train Year Dragon - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Ok, but then who would be the bosses for the other two Lackeys? Colossus of the Moon and Dragonqueen Alextraza? That would pretty much make it busted.
Full Art Cards, A New Hearthstone Reward.
I think it's cool, but as has been noted you'd have to be careful with spells because they use landscape art versus the portrait art of the minions.
What I don't like are the comments suggesting the use of alternative art; I know Magic the Gathering has multiple variants for reprints and the like, but I don't believe Hearthstone needs to get into that murky water. Just keep the game simple/clean and use the original art.
How To Train Year Dragon - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
I think the idea is neat overall, but would argue that separating the Lackeys is what makes this convoluted. I don't like dividing an already-small set (Lackeys) into two smaller subsets (the "originals" vs the new ones). You have to spell out that only the Rise of Shadows Lackeys count, which tells me that the card is trying too hard to be functional.
Thoughts on Recent Patch Nerfs/Buff's (Lux Buffed a THIRD TIME!?)
So what's everyone think about the nerfs/buffs so far!? I'm honestly curious to see what everyone thinks about the fact that Lux has been buffed for a THIRD time now, which seems odd. I can't think of too many times in card games where cards were buffed multiple times. Plenty that were nerfed multiple times....=(
Also, from what I've seen so far on the ladder it seems like control isn't taking over after these nerfs which I think is AMAZING! I think it shows that there will be a very healthy metagame moving forward. I've seen plenty of Noxus/P&Z aggro decks that do just fine racing some control matchup's, etc.
SOOOOO happy with the nerfs to Fearsome & Elusive's as well - they managed to significantly reduce their power while still ensuring that each card is 100% playable. Whatcha all think!?
If anyone's interested, I made a video reviewing all of the nerfs/buffs as well! You can check it out here.
How To Train Year Dragon - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Ah sorry for misunderstanding. In that case this card looks fine I guess. It becomes scary when you set it up with ethereal/goblin lackeys on turn 10 but that requires some rng so I guess it's fine.
How To Train Year Dragon - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
It replaces the Lackeys on board, not in hand
How To Train Year Dragon - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
This is very expensive, even for its effect (literally 7 mana 2/4 do nothing). Also, random bosses are not that great (especially Blastmaster Boom or Rafaam) plus if you end up with multiple dragon/colosal lackeys this card becomes useless.
How To Train Year Dragon - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Ok, so my last card proved quite... divisive, so I'm putting it on the back burner and replacing it with an idea I've had since RoS launched:
The transformations go liike this:
Ethereal Lackey - Arch-Villain Rafaam
Witchy Lackey - Swampqueen Hagatha
Goblin Lackey - Blastmaster Boom
Faceless Lackey - Madame Lazul
Kobold Lackey - Heistbaron Togwaggle
You don't get anything for the [Hearthstone Card (Colosal Lackey) Not Found] and [Hearthstone Card (Dragon Lackey) Not Found], since that would be too convoluted.
I'm not sure about the name and stats.
The Hearthstone 2020 Community Summit Leaves Frodan in Shock - Big Changes Coming for Hearthstone in 2020
A new class seems highly unlikely. Death Knight is almost certainly never happening, just because of the OP Death Knight cards in KotFT.
I think the team was asked if they ever wanted a new class, and they basically said it would be a complete and total balancing nightmare. They already can't balance nine classes and make them all relevant. Besides, if they want to push new mechanics, they already have nine options to stick them in.
Hidden mmr in unranked?
That is almost certainly not happening. I get that it may feel that way, but there is absolutely no upside at Riot's end to design a system that works as you've described.
shards limit?
If you hit a cap, you need to worry more about your social life than your shard total.
Frostbite is the new problem child
That is definitely true!
However, I often find that decks get mislabeled, which leads to confusion about the their place in the rock-paper-scissors paradigm.
In your examples, it might be more correct to label the Fearsome deck as aggro -- it certainly plays like aggro, even if the units are slightly higher in cost than your typical aggro deck.
Most importantly, the existence of spell mana in this game throws off a lot of the old assumptions around the "speed spectrum." This is surely a contributing factor in the mislabeling problem.
Set Rotations Will Happen in the Future for Legends of Runeterra - Support for Older Cards Uncertain
I mean this also could create a lack of new deck strategies. Imagine this one deck is tier 1 for a while and nearly impossible to beat. Riot cannot print support cards for it and they have to literally build around this one deck. With rotation, it develops new strategies while still allowing old ones to get support via "Wild" format Just like Hearthstone and MTG.
How To Train Year Dragon - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
New voting system is interesting... I'm not used to the 5 star rating system. I'm glad I could go back and change ratings. I handed out some 1 and 2s that in retrospect, were decent compared to some really bad or non-sensical entries.
I kinda prefer being able to see all cards at once. It's hard to judge cards in a vacuum, easier to compare good and bad cards. Not sure the 5 stars are needed either. I'd go for a 3 rating system, bad, middle of the road, great.
The Hearthstone 2020 Community Summit Leaves Frodan in Shock - Big Changes Coming for Hearthstone in 2020
One of the streamers that got invited (Poly, from Italy) in one of his Instagram stories said that HS is gonna improve under every point of view.
Most importantly, talking about all the changes said "Personally, I think YOU ARE NOT PREPARED". It might be just a coincidence, but I'm inclined to think that is a hint for a Legion expansion. And maybe (how cool that would be) they will include new classes such as Demon Hunter, Death knight and Monk
Frostbite is the new problem child
I think you guys might be meaning to say the same thing but using different interpretations of what is control, mid-range, etc.
Swim's whole speal from that video (and others will tell you this too, its a fairly generic CCG principle) is that you want to be either slightly slower than your opponent or a lot faster. So you end up with a paper->rock->scissors that looks something like:
Except this game is complex enough that you can't oversimplify. For example: whereas the P&Z/Ionia versions of Karma are typically waiting for Heimerdinger and as such are slow to answer these new aggro burn decks, there's a new SI/Ionia version that can drop early answers + healing via Withering Wail, Grasp of the Undying, and Darkwater Scourge. However that change sacrifices a lot of its potential to address fat boards, so it struggles against things like Dawn Spiders and Elnuks--decks which are traditionally described as midrange. And that's not even getting into sub-variants: e.g., Warmothers control generally beats other types of control because it gets so much value late game. So you can't make generic statements like "control beats X but loses to Y", you really need to put it in context of tempo.
Frostbite is the new problem child
That's interesting. I've been watching / listening to a bunch of Swim's videos, who seems to be a pretty competent CCG player. He explained it the exact opposite way: If your deck plays slightly more slowly than your opponent's, you can take a bit of nexus damage and in turn play more costly, higher-value cards to eventually 'break even' and then take the lead in terms of board presence.
However, according to him, control is often too slow to survive the early onslaught of aggro decks (I would assume that is because removal can only clear so much, especially in a game such as Runeterra where removal spells are relatively expensive).
Should hearthstone revamp the dusting system
Btw, card games are building on MTG prices which are really, really high. For example Wizards is selling Secret Lair series, where you get 3 alternate art cards for 40 dollars.
Frostbite is the new problem child
That is incorrect. Control's original purpose was to counter aggro decks by continually clearing their units until the aggro player runs out of gas.
Aggro's fast pressure is meant to beat midrange, which typically lacks enough removal to deal effectively with early threats. Because midrange is slower to develop a board, it never establishes the presence needed to push back before aggro wins.
Midrange generally beats control by developing stronger, stickier board presence that eventually outpaces control's removal. (This falls apart when developers provide control with endgame that is too strong or too inevitable -- quite often a legitimate reason for control nerfs.)