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Phase 2 Testing - My Megafeedback Thread

INTRODUCTION

Howdy, this post is going to be long (9 pages on google docs!) but the TLDR is I tracked a bunch of data from phase 2 (235 tracked games in total) and compiled it into a spreadsheet for sharing. It details my success and failure of a number of brews. It isn't fully comprehensive in that there are certainly games I did not track but it is a lot of data regardless!

Through my tracking and testing I've got a bunch of suggested changes and notes for LoR that I want to put somewhere for Riot, so I'm going to put it here, and I hope someone finds it interesting. There are three categories in this post, UX/QOL, Balance, and Design.

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BALANCE : FINDINGS FROM TRACKING

I tracked a LOT of games from this preview patch and I would say that I discovered a number of data points which are interesting to me, given the tenor around constructed decks online.

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• I played only 11 total tracked games against Shen/Fiora and the overall W/L was 54.55%. With that being said, 4 of those 5 losses were with ONE DECK. If I were to assume that deck was an outlier, and in fact not a good competitive deck, then our W/L was 83.33%. From this point forward I'm going to only include stats from my Top 6 decks.
• I played a total of 23 games against Zed/Hecarim exclusive decks (meaning not including other champions than just those two). Our win rate with the Top 6 was 78.26%
• I played a total of 22 games against a deck including Anivia, with a 68.18% win rate overall.
  

With all that being said there is probably a lot more, and better, data I could extract from my tracking spreadsheet (which you can find here, by the way) - if anyone wants to make a duplicate of it and run the numbers feel free, be sure to let me know if you find anything insightful.

Outside of % w/l against meta decks, another thing that I thought was interesting was some of the decks I discovered. As mentioned I used my top 6 for the calculations on w/l, if you're curious as to the decklists you can find them here:

TOP 6 Decklists:

Lucian and Teemo Stand Alone 40W-9L (77.50%) - https://lor.mobalytics.gg/decks/bna7rfirb5sn8js7495g

Atrocity Control 41W-17L (64.58%) - https://lor.mobalytics.gg/decks/bna7sgo00vi5t8t3t5dg

Lucian and Zed Ephemeral Triggers 23W-6L (78.57%) - https://lor.mobalytics.gg/decks/bna7t3o00vi5t8t3t5h0

Many Heroes Much Dumb 19W-4L (82.61%) - https://lor.mobalytics.gg/decks/bna7u72rb5sn8js749n0

Elise Lucian Dawnspeaker 17W-9L (66.67%) - https://lor.mobalytics.gg/decks/bna7uuv8hdlgonk3e8t0

Light and Shadow W/ Rekindler 12W-4L (75.00%) - I forgot to update this deck code, but essentially my older Light and Shadow list + Rekindlers, older list here

You might notice I used a lot of Lucian, I think he is pretty good ^^. Additionally, the Atrocity control deck I think has a lower w/l than deserved as I found it extremely difficult to play and often made game losing misplays which I realized later on. That w/l is definitely not representative of the deck's strength, so please check it out!

BALANCE : PROPOSED BALANCE CHANGES

DEMACIA

My suggested changes to Demacia mostly revolve around reducing the power of its more frustrating play patterns and increasing the tools in the metagame used to interact with troublesome recursion decks. Generally speaking I believe is a faction has a strong trait such as Demacia being the best faction for barrier, that doesn't mean that it should be the best purely due to the volume of burst effects enabling that trait. At least some of its variations should be at fast speed.

Purify - 5 Mana, Fast, Remove all text and keywords from a unit.

We need a way to silence champions, considering that it is possible to simply remove most it isn't exactly 'anti-fun' more than any removal is. The mana cost increase is so as to make it prohibitive to hose early game heroes, and instead be a targeted way to deal with big combo champs and late game ones.

Prismatic Barrier - 2 Mana, Fast, Give an ally barrier this round.

Having all of the barrier giving spells at burst speed isn't unhealthy balance wise, but it is 'unfun' at times. The Shen Fiora deck is annoying to play against although pretty balanced in my experienced. Reducing the mana price at the cost of spell speed seems like a way of helping this deck be more interactive and deeper, as now you'll end up in mind game situations around who adds their spell to the stack first. Additionally I think once the meta develops more hard control decks will become more prevalent and the most common form of removal is damaging removal so giving a more efficient answer for those decks I think is actually good for balance.

Relentless Pursuit - 4 Mana, Fast, Ready your attack.

Currently I believe this card to be a little overtuned, in all of my testing it has proven to be far too much pressure and it is wild to me that it hasn't found its way into more decks. Some very aggressive lists can really break this effect especially on early turns where interactivity is lower. The fact that it can be used on yours or the enemies turn as early as 3 means that conceivably you can get in two attacks with up to 2 followers on turn 3 if you're on the play. I don't think this spell can only cost spell mana and still be reasonable.

Detain - 4 Mana, Fast, An ally Captures a unit.

It is possible this change in additon to the buff to purify would be too strong but I think it is worth considering. Detain is a great card in the sense that it provides a form of 'exile' or temporary obliterate, I guess, which is able to be interacted with outside of Deny, something that I think makes it a really positive effect for gameplay. Most every deck has access to dealing with Capture. I actually think it probably makes sense to increase the amount of capture effects by 1 or 2 cards.

NOXUS

I believe that Noxus probably needs buffs to some of its tools for it to be competitive with other factions, but with that being said I've not tested with it nearly as much as the other factions and I don't feel I have good recommendations to make. My initial feeling is that the design space of Noxus feels a little narrow in contrast with other factions, with the only thing they do being upper case Damage. The self damage and stun effects really just serve that motivation so the faction feels somewhat one-dimensional. I think it could be interesting to have more effects that deal damage to your own units without needing for the unit to survive, as that would be a more applicable kind of effect in other decks. Another interesting effect could be disabling healing - I'd really like to see that effect in Noxus.

PILTOVER AND ZAUN

Piltover and Zaun (P&Z) feels like it is in a very balanced place right now, unfortunately balanced is weak relative to thing which are overtuned and I feel P&Z is often an overlooked choice in deck construction for that reason. Changes below are mostly to balance the multiple aggressive decks that P&Z contributes to, specfically Lucian/Teemo (which I feel is overtuned) and Jinx/Draven (which I feel is undertuned).

Rummage - 1 Mana, Fast, To play, discard 1. Draw 2.

The deck that this card is ran in (Jinx Draven aggro) I feel is pretty underpowered currently. The only times I lose to it are ones where I feel like I have especially bad draws. There any many instances when playing control that I end the game with their board and hand empty and me with a full grip and 20 life. There are many instances where this deck simply can't reach escape velocity as it stands, so I propose giving them a little more gas as a reasonable way to move forwards. Naturally by making this card advantage vs neuteral it serves the purpose of emptying your hand less effectively, but to be honest I think with good deck construction the hand should be getting emptied by how fast you're playing, not how much you're explicitly discarding, if the deck is to be successful.

Additionally by making this a card advantage option, other factions playing control are more incentivized to explore P&Z, which currently feels very underrepresented.

Chump Whump (4/3) - 4 Mana, When I'm summoned, create two Mushroom Cloud in hand

I believe this card to be a little too strong a body in the decks which leverage mushrooms alongside aggro. This is especially problematic in aggressive mirrors where you can present a blocker who can handle things like Zed, Lucian, and other aggressive early champions while also being so useful in a longer matchup due to the mushrooms provided.

IONIA

Ionia is currently somewhat overtuned in general, but I think a decent amount of that is incidental pertaining to their specific combination with Shadow Isles. Ionia currently has access to Elusive, Ephemeral, and Counter Magic, which allow for it to be an outstanding addition to any aggressive OR control OR combo deck. My suggested changes are minor regardless of this fact because I mostly believe SI to be the problem child, and I'm hopeful that if they are brought more in line it will stop being such a strong multiplier on the power of Ionia.

Ghost - 2 Mana, Burst, Give an ally Elusive this round.

I believe Elusive to be one of the strongest keywords in the game, this feels pretty underpriced for 1 mana and allows for deck like the Zed Hecarim deck to enable far too much free damage in an already very pressure heavy list through its use of ephemeral units.

Death Mark - 4 Mana, Fast, Remove Ephemeral from an ally and grant it to an ally.

This is one of the most insane removal cards in the game right now and has myriad applications. I strongly believe it needs a small nerf to make it a bigger mana commitment for how potent an effect it is. Ephemeral in general is very easily accessed by both Shadow Isles (SI) and Ionia, making it difficult (in the right deck) to find positions where you can't meet this card's condition.

Rivershaper (1/1) - 3 Mana, Strike: Draw a spell.

This card can be a very potent combo enabler in addition to being a haymaker in the right control lists. I like the effect of a lightning rod that is a card advantage engine, but allowing for it to also be a capable blocker and/or pressure depending on the matchup seems ill advised.

Karma (4/3) - Level 1 - 5 mana, End of Round: Create a random spell in your hand with mana cost equal to your unspent mana.

I believe the current Karma is both a little undertuned and also a little annoying due to the exceedingly random nature of her level 1 effect. By making the RNG slightly more constrained I believe the skill expression of Karma control decks can greatly increase, due to now making the trade off between say go control and efficiency / utilization of karma. A nice bonus of this implementation is that at most points in the game the range of mana that her spells can be are 0-turn+3, which means that you can't just have her out early generating endless ruinations.

SHADOW ISLES

Shadow Isles is unquestionably the most powerful and flexible faction in the game right now. The fact that they have access to extremely aggressive options, as well as unique combo enablers and control magic makes them feel way out of proportion with other factions in terms of power level. Some of this is actually based around the ephemeral keyword itself, which I believe to have some problematic implications for the game if related cards aren't very carefully handled. The changes I want to propose are perhaps less extensive than required but I'd rather not suggest a very comprehensive set of reworks when hopefully dealing with some of the worst offenders is enough. My biggest suggestions are about the efficiency of Shadow Isles cards.

Fading Memories - 2 Mana, Burst, Pick a follower. Create an Ephemeral copy of it in hand.

The versatility of this card is unreal, and especially given it is at burst speed. Currently this allows the ability to copy enemy minions with Skills while they're on the stack and then play a copy immediately afterwards, it allows for combo decks to generate additional copies of its key units (which combined with recursion essentially means adding more than 3 copies to your deck). This card might honestly need an overhaul but for now I feel this mana increase makes it at least such that you need to be more forward thinking in its utilization, and prevents some egregious same turn use cases.

Ravenous Butcher (2/2) - 0 Mana, To play me, kill an ally.

The 'downside' of this card simply isn't one. I don't believe it also needs to have as aggressively skewed stats in addition to its combo potential, especially given that the primary targets are aggressively skewed in their resultant tokens, too.

Oblivious Islander (1/1) - 1 Mana, Play: Grant an ally in hand Ephemeral and reduce its cost by 1.

See Ravenous butcher.

Kalista (4/2) - When I'm Summoned I bond with an ally. Grant it +2/+0 while we are bonded.

The only buff I'm going to recommend for SI, I believe Kalista being so poor with recursion feels bad, and I don't think the deck it would go in would be all that good, so giving some support to an otherwise weak card seems reasonable to me. For those who didn't catch the change here, I suggest changing her ETB to an 'on summon' so as to make recurred Kalistas instigate a bond. Presently she only triggers when played from hand.

Splinter Soul - 4 Mana, Slow, Summon an exact copy of an ally. Obliterate it after attacking, or at the end of the turn.

Splinter Soul is very very broken in its current incarnation, allowing for not only combos on a specific turn, but also persistent impact through combination with cards such as Anivia. I would argue of that duo, splinter soul is actually the issue - it can be combined with many things and break them vs Anivia. For example the combo with The Rekindler is also nuts. My biggest concern is actually the future LoR cards that this one might break too.

Possession - 6 Mana, Slow, Steal an enemy follower this round.

Considering how strong this effect is in conjunction with sac outlets I think it should be a little less aggressively costed.

The Rekindler (4/3) - When I'm summoned, revive a random allied champion with the highest power.

Similar to Ravenous Butcher and Oblivious Islander above, but more egregious. Having this be a 5/5 allows for it to a.) attack and pressure without likely dying (making it get an attack worth of value AS WELL AS being able to be recurred using Chronicler etc) and b.) dodge a tonne of removal (even She Who Wanders). Making this threat more easy to remove stops it from being a near infinite recursion outlet in the right deck, I think that is probably healthier.

FRELJORD

Frejlord has some similar issues to Demacia where currently Frostbite is far too often allowed to happen at burst speed. The Ashe Ezreal control deck I believe might get out of control once SI receives its deserved nerfs. Additionally while Anivia decks are currently a problem I believe most of the issues causing it are found outside of Frejlord with a couple of exceptions which I propose solutions to below.

Entreat - 2 Mana, Fast, Draw a Champion

As it currently stands the lack of interactivity around entreat is one of the things allowing for the Anivia combo deck to be so consistent. This effect could likely also be incredibly broken in other decks with only one lynchpin champion by allowing for it to be drawn and played before passing priority which seems a little too strong. An alternative balance could be simply to increase it's mana cost but I'd prefer this card to be something that you can play around at the cost of spending resources ahead of the inevitable later natural draw.

Icevale Archer (2/1) - 2 Mana, Play: Frostbite an enemy.

Similar to some SI cards I believe this to be a bit too aggressively statted for a follower more often than not found in control decks. I can’t actually recall if this is already the case but if not, an alternative balancing could involve turning this play effect into a Skill, so as to bring it in line with the Arachnoid Sentry.

Flash Freeze - 3 Mana, Fast, Frostbite an enemy.

Per the plan stated above, I believe less frostbite should be available at burst speed, and this being one of the most aggressively costed and flexible effects granting it makes it a good candidate for the one to reduce to fast.

They Who Endure (1/1) - 6 Mana, When I'm summoned, grant me +1|+1 for each ally that has died.

But wait, there's no change here? It is unclear to me if this already works this way (which is the problem) but currently this follower displays as its resultant power in your hand. This is an issue as now I'm unsure if it actually is granted the stats on summon or if it is granted them in hand. If it is the latter then She Who Wanders doesn't hit it, when it should. I believe this card should be displayed as a 1/1 in hand if it will be treated as such.

BALANCE : WATCHLIST

In the same vein as the official patch notes I wanted to provide some cards that I think should have eyes kept on them, as there are certainly others which I'm hoping to simply butterfly effect out of being too strong or frustrating.

Shadow Assassin - I believe for how strong this card is and in how many decks it can be effectively ran, the card may need a nerf to a 2/1 stat line. Having a cantrip effect on an elusive minion that is well stated against most commonly ran elusive champions seems too strong.

Spirit's Refuge - This effect may need to be fast lest it enable some control archetypes to get out of control.

Mist's Call - I only wanted to hit one of it and Splinter Soul with my suggestions, but realistically both might be too strong. I'd probably reduce speed to slow or increase mana by 1 if I were to adjust it.

Anivia - I don’t believe Anivia to be the real problem, she simply exists in a package of far too effective tools to enable her. That being said, I lived through Artifact, and I know what a balanced card that is disliked (Cheating Death) can do. Realistically for the health of the game in the future, it might make sense to concede on this one, nerfing what may be an entirely balanced and reasonable card (if strong) so as to make sure the community spends the time to learn they were wrong. If I were to change her I would very likely make it so an egg only pops on your attacking turns (or when you gain an attack token?) so as to give greater windows of opportunity for interaction, as well as make attacking with her more of a decision. Her champion spell, Harsh Winds, might also realistically be a little overtuned.

Tryndamere - I think he might be ever so slightly too good, I'd probably remove a health or two.

The Box - The new version is extremely potent, I can't honeslty tell if it is too good. Whilst it is a skill testing card in all of the best ways, it may also be something that punishes misplaying a little too much for a game intending to be as accessible as LoR. I kind of love it though, so I'm happy if it isn't tuned. Additionally I do think it serves a VERY important meta place as something to deal with Hecarim, Zed, etc so in that sense changing it could be a detriment.

Shark Chariot - It might make sense for this to be a 2/1 but I'm not totally sure yet. To me this change depends entirely on if control is as good as I think it is, or not.

Deny - There is a really interesting effect of this being the starting set of the game whereby you kind of have to have a SINGLE broken counterspell rather than multiple totally fair ones. Essentially If I were to change Deny in a world with twice as many cards I'd simply split it into two, and change what things it could counter between each. In the current card set that'd mean you could run 6 counters though, and even with the split that'd still be better I think (especially if they were differently costed). If Deny does need changing in the base set, I'd make it 4 mana, but I think that it is probably well enough balanced as is. It might be worth changing if for no other reason than to set the water level at a better place so future countermagic can be more finely tuned.

Teemo - I'm unsure of the philosophy on formats and set interactivity moving forwards (given the monetary system of the game and the unlock path I actually wouldn't be surprised if Riot did something disimilar from current standard's in other card games by having each set be self contained for competitive) but depending on how eternal formats are handled I think Teemo might need a fundamental redesign. In the right deck he is kind of close to a 1 mana infinity/1 stat line, which seems a little OTT. I'm not sure how easy this would be to implement but I actually think him having a certain maximum # of mushrooms per 'play' or summon could be a way to keep him in check without disabling the fantasy of many many mushrooms. Currently I have a 77.50% W/L with a Teemo deck over 40 games, so some part of that must be down to Teemo, I hope Riot isn't sleeping on him just because most of the players are!

Katarina - I think similarly to Teemo there are cards I can envision being printed which would really really break Kat, but other than saying that I don't have much to add currently.

Whirling Death - If this card remains the same, but Noxus receives buffs I think it might need looking at. The effect is pretty obscene for the mana.

Captain Farron - See Katarina.

Commander Ledros - This is pretty obscene in decks such as atrocity control and even though his ETB is Skill speed it seems somewhat uninteractive. I believe people might start running more retain though, which should help address the issue.

Fiora - Similar to the one element of Anivia pertaining to community growth against sentiment. I really think the Shen Fiora deck is not just fine, but underpowered against much of the field, however for the greater good I think she might require tuning. I'd possibly increase her needed kills to satiate the masses.

Radiant Guardian - This card seems like it can end up being a little OTT in some DSI decks.

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DESIGN : SIDEBOARDS

Sideboarding in Bo1 card games is something that hasn't ever been fully solved outside of ignoring it and allowing for the benefits and issues it causes to exist anyway. Probably the best current system is the merchant one in Eternal by Dire Wolf Digital. There are many good reasons to not want to enable Bo3 laddering, and even if there is a competitive scene for your game there are great reasons not to utilize one there too, if your game doesn't facilitate it naturally (players generally don't want to watch a different game than the one they play).

With that all being said I think that LoR has a unique opportunity to try something new to allow for both the depth and power of card games such as magic, without compromising on balance due to narrow card limits. My suggestion is as follows:

• Seeing as the player is shown the opponent heroes and factions pre mulligan, why not allow for a separate phase pre-mulligan that allows the player to swap in up to 6 cards from a 10 card sideboard?
• This would allow for some element of strategic deck augmentation, without a substantial increase to game time, this could be only enabled for ranked queues too.
• Because you are only given limited information about the opposing deck, players will inevitably find themselves in some situations where they are baited into swaps too, which gives people playing rogue decks the chance to shine.

This is a pretty out there suggestion, but something I think merits some brain cycles! The biggest thing it helps address is the power fantasy vs balance of things like the current Anivia deck, some changes listed above may not be needed if you could just plan to add in copies of Detain when you see Anivia, and the Anivia player can address those Detains by increasing spot removal, etc.

DESIGN : Targeting

Targeting with Defensive vs offensive spells is currently unintuitive, and I would argue not for the reasons outlined in the last patch notes. It is also very restrictive of the skill ceiling when you can't barrier opponent units to prevent Last Breath, Self Damage triggers, etc. I believe at least some of the effects should allow for flexible uses (not all though, as it could become oppressively of certain strategies).

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UX/QOL

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• I think that it would be worth showing the enemy champions on the load in screen as well as their factions of choice. It basically just removes the additional click that you end up making every game to look at the champions (assuming you're paying attention during load in).
• Enter the Battlefield effects (ETBs) are currently pretty poorly displayed and explained. I know that you can see if something is a skill through clicking on the card and seeing the associated spell effect, but to be honest that is somewhat obfuscated. I propose keywording all three of the ETB effects more clearly such as:
  • PLAY (or BURST): When this unit is played from your hand it executes the text of it's play effect at burst speed, meaning the effect does not go on the stack.
  • SKILL: After this unit is played it places the text of it's skill effect on the stack.
  • SUMMON: When this unit enters play from any location or any means it executes the text of it's summon effect without placing it on the stack.

This could conceivably break if you ever plan to have a summon effect that is a skill, but that seems unlikely to me based on current construction.

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CONCLUSION

I had an absolute blast with LoR in both patches, and can't wait to play more. I hope none of my feedback came off suggesting I didn't (the volume of tracked games I played should illustrate my enthusiasm). I eagerly await beta, and in the meantime I'll be making YouTube content with some recordings I did on my channel here. If anyone wants more insight into the decks listed above - this'll be where to find my in depth deck techs.

Thanks for reading and I hope this was interesting or thought provoking ^^

• AJ

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