Spoiler alert it mostly has to do with her kit and the lack of substantial benefits for hand buffing right now.

Mana 1: a 2/1 that can have life steal...like okay but I'd rather play a 2/1 that either puts a chime in my deck or adds hallow power. Hell even omen hawk is a better Kayle card then Kayle's card.

Mana 3: you can have a big elusive dude in a game full of possible big elusive buff targets.

Mana 4: literally a better card in a dragon deck

Mana 5: we will get into this in a second but even if you purifying flame  mihira you need to hit a chime on her too. You know what else has elusive and life steal? Sparklefly

Mana 7: not even dignifying with a response.

So okay Kayle's followers suck big dick, but kayle is good, how about her spells.

She has purifying flame...and a invulnerability champ spell...and that's it.

So she literally has less viable cards in her "kit" then a runeterra champion now that's not the end of the world you don't need to play her kit LOR has a massive card pool.

It just seems like a lot of work to run her right now, when there are better options. Specifically if you want a stat stick deck Jax Orn just got buffed and that decks is A easier to build B easier to pilot C less fragile and D more consistent.

Poor kayle I feel like Fox Mulder from the X-Files right now, I want to believe but I can't yet. 

So a new balance patch just hit.

Attrox got nerfed Jinx got nerfed but more importantly a ton of cool decks got massively buffed so what the hell do you play?

Reading patch notes to understand what's viable and what isn't is a tough skill to master, even a ton of pro players are notoriously bad at it.

So I'm gonna help you out and list the top winners from the patch:

1. Illoi 3 mana tenticle smash is nuts and she got eye of God equipment before in the expansion making this deck a must play

2. Jax another good deck that got pushed over the edge of awesome with the recent buffs.

3. Thralls just that one change to lissandra makes this deck wprth revisiting on curve it's the same as playing a thrall on 1 so you're 10 times more likely to turbo out

4. Master yi leveling in deck is nuts first he gained a mana reduction passive now hes a guaranteed flip how great for Ionia!

5. Shivana while this deck is in need of some new support cards if you want to run ramp shivana into asol or shadow shivana it will be okay but not great.

6. Lucian heckarim is looking good with the challenger landmark ephemeral combo. Lucian outside of combo deck is worse where his mana reduction and statline is a liability. Play for the flip.

7. Sion duplicate - so everyone saw the new card and though anivia enabler that's small brain big brain is 3 sions with infinite rally. Only trouble is that discard Sion is kind of a bad aggro deck so you need to rely on shadow isles to help stabilize a bit.

8. Kayle not a huge fan of the champ design but I think this mana reduction will help bring bard back. They curve together now and you can hit your free 1 mana, 2 mana chimes to buff her easily then use spells to get her the rest of the way.

So there you have it the meta shift before it happens Jax and Illoi looking like the top contenders for new competitive lists. Jinx and attrox moving down to make room for new exciting possibilities. Gj riot

‐------extra note-----

I forgot about the hallowed Katarina nerf because that deck is so idiot proof I'd rather imagine it doesn't exist.

So yeah ruined reckoned (5 mana no blocks) was nerfed before and now Katarina got nerfed the deck will still be very playable because Katarina gets extra attack so her base stats don't really matter.

That being said, the more nerfs to hallowed the better its just too consistent on both the aggro play, and the closer. So still S tier I guess because easy = winrate but in reality I say A tier along with all the other meta nerfs.

Once again Riot hits it out of the park with its patches proving that they are generally far more exciting then the expansions themselves.

Also no rotation yet thank God, my boy vlad gets to still draw breath.

So big changes Kayle gets to actually be a card.

Whenever a champ goes down 1 mana its a big deal for those who remember Kindred used to be 5 mana and it was awful, then it became 4 mana and has seen meta play.

So Kayle going down from 6 to 5 is huge. Will I player her? Maybe as a Bard finisher because he's underplayed right now.

Katarina nerf. She went from unplayable to meta and now she's just good in the decks that want her. The free flock activator plus free rally combo is still strong.

Quietus nerf: people are overselling this a bit but I will tell you where the big difference is and thats malkai and veigar. When your 4 mana champ dies to a 1 mana spell and your deck revolves around them you insta lost. So big props for darkness being a deck again, generally cooler then like Nora shadow or heimer shadow.

Illois pkg buff: Illoi Jarvan, and Illoi Healing are cool decks that deserve to be playable. Very happy with these buffs l.

Weapon master pkg: Ash freijord midrange was always challenging to run competitively so Orn Jax was meant to be our savor. It kinda was but it needed buffs and it got it. Solid B+ tier deck now I say.

Yi buff: yi is gonna be the new Ionia staple control card no doubt. Very good buff here where he levels in deck, so you can bounce to protect ans retain value.

Lissanda buff: thralls playable again, hot Take I like thralls it's a tribal deck in a game where card piles are often better then archetypes. But the devs have taken strides to reverse this.

Shivana buff: levels in deck so going all in on shadow, demacia dragons might be worth revisiting. Remember that deck?

Lucian 1 mana: I think kenin has showed us that this stat line when properly built can be insane in a combo deck. So you definately want to slow roll him now. Setting up his level up on swing and playing him last. Or you just play him like temo and don't care if he dies.

Shurima control: weight of judgement and castigate, gives the region some flexibility for a slow game plan outside of sundisc. Don't get me wrong I think sundisc is "good" for the game. I just personally find it boring as hell.

So once again great patch Riot we practically got 1 brand new champion, and 1 ruinate and a ton of big balance stuff. Going to be very impactful overall. Archetypes over card piles all day!!!

Shouldn't be time for an announcement of the announcement?

A new card, Ghost, has been revealed for Marvel Snap!

Ongoing: Your cards are always revealed last. (Their On Reveal abilities happen last.)

Discuss this card below or head on over to the card page!

Competition Theme: Lost In The Shuffle

Time to get up and do the shuffle!

• You must design a card with the word 'shuffle' in its text.

Some cards got a bit lost in the deck and Me0203 wants us to help them find those cards.

As always, we can be reached through Discord or here on the site via PM if you have any issues to report.

Competition Phases

Here are the phases of this card design competition

• Submission Phase: Starts on Mon, Jan 30 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sat, Feb 4 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, Feb 4 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sun, Feb 5 16:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, Feb 5 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Mon, Feb 6 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Winner Selected: After finalist voting concludes and we validate votes.

Discussion Thread Rules

No thread rules were added to this season. Please populate and manually edit this thread with them.

A new card, Stature, has been revealed for Marvel Snap!

Costs 1 if your opponent discarded a card from their hand this game.

Discuss this card below or head on over to the card page!

https://youtu.be/mbDFH9Pz3us

People who know me are familiar with my love of Freijord.

Often times the absolute worst region in the game suffering in the midrange and control archetypes vs stronger alternatives with aggro not existing in that color.

So I was pleasantly surprised to see Graplr streaming a Braum Freijord list not once, not twice, but three times.

I like everything I see here from the way he's playing.

Basically get a Big Nora board going then buried in ice for your wincon for open swing.

Use freeze, deny, and braum to delay the game and tavern keeper for healing.

For board presence you have the Nora pkg creatures, and she supplies draw as well.

I love it, while the "best" players are thinking of which meta champions to 3 way split into a card pile meta vomit "optimal" strategy...

The real players are like hey here's a deck I like, I gonna win with it.

Game on Graplr keep the brews going strong buddy!

Howdy fellow users of Out of Card,

During the last Winter Holiday event, I was one of the lucky winners! On top of the amazing price of 1 free month of premium service I won, I was also sent a nice goodie bag. Today, I wanted to showcase my price to you all, as well as extending my gratefulness and appreciation for all the hard work OoC's staff is doing year round. Without further ado, here's the content of the package that was sent to my door:

OoC Stickers, OoC Enamel pins & HS cup holders

Thank you Out of Card 

Competition Theme: Mini-Set Madness

The sets may be miniature in size, but there's an enormous past for them to cover.

• You must make a card for a theoretical mini-set of an old expansion that has not received one.
  • Work under the assumption that the mini-set comes out next Hearthstone Year (rather than back then).
    • That means you can use mechanics that did not exist at the time (Rush, spell schools, etc.).

What would happen if Hearthstone's mini-sets covered more of its not-so-mini past? Nobudy and Wailor are both asking that question this week.

As always, we can be reached through Discord or here on the site via PM if you have any issues to report.

Competition Phases

Here are the phases of this card design competition

• Submission Phase: Starts on Mon, Jan 23 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sat, Jan 28 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, Jan 28 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sun, Jan 29 16:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, Jan 29 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Mon, Jan 30 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Winner Selected: After finalist voting concludes and we validate votes.

Discussion Thread Rules

No thread rules were added to this season. Please populate and manually edit this thread with them.

I haven´t seen it mentioned anywhere, and I´d miss it too, if I didn´t casually check the in-game shop, so I thought I might post about it. If it was, I´m sorry. They´re the 4 Hero skins from the Lunar New Year event from 2 years ago and you can buy the skins for 1000 gold, except for Valeera, she is for 1500 with cardback.

Keeping the (very flawed) wording of Snap cards in mind:

Will Shadow King even work on Lanes that are buffed by Aura cards such as Patriot or Cap. America?
Rationally I would say no - you cant negate an Ongoing buff without negating the Ongoing effect itself. But thet state of Snaps flawed wording and ruling tells me otherwise and I can imagine  it will really debuff entire lanes regardless of any Ongoing effect that is still working?

Anyone?

I'm not gonna sit here and say ramp good, Gwen good, attrox good, plunder good.

Because I have a high confidence in everyone that plays LOR will have a decent understanding that "archetypes" > "card piles" right now and that the deck stats are quite even.

Also midrange good, when everything else is balanced...duh.

Instead I'm gonna talks about the sneaky decks nobody knows about and why they are significant and possitive indicator of the overall balance of LOR right now.

1. Ekko - somebody once said that if Ekko was ever a good card LOR would be unplayable. Turns out that's stupid because when a high synergy, champ dependent deck is swinging a 53% winrate when he used to be F tier that is very good for the overall health of your game.

2. Elites - often viewed as the absolute worst deck in the game but if you can climb and win with Garen granted at 51% that's a healthy meta. You can take the absolute worst champion in the game right now to masters if you grind enough...that's amazing!

3. The unknown - when you see every single deck in the game performing at 54% and lower with key powerhouses like pirate aggro only hitting 51% that means pro players have no idea what the hell they should be playing.

Graplr - my man

Majin - no Ionia sir

Mogwai - abandoned

Sunny - his lists are just for fun

The point is that if you can build your own list that performs up to a 51% winrate standard according to mastering runeterra you are essentially as good as pirate aggro.

I can do that **** in my sleep and so can you. Death to card piles, long live archetypes.

I feel bad for the players, but could we please get the original Jaina portret back now?

will there be a round of nerf today? If not, when?

what about miniset announcement ?

Competition Theme: Keyword Katastrophe

Bold flavors. Fortune favors the bold. To boldly go where no one has gone before. Do you see what we're gettin' at?

• You must create a card that contains only keywords in its text box.
  • You can use periods and commas, of course, but no other words!

It's a catastrophe! R's kitchen is covered in cards crafted to contain a concoction of keywords. Somebody ought to clean this up!

As always, we can be reached through Discord or here on the site via PM if you have any issues to report.

Competition Phases

Here are the phases of this card design competition

• Submission Phase: Starts on Mon, Jan 16 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sat, Jan 21 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, Jan 21 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sun, Jan 22 16:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, Jan 22 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Mon, Jan 23 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Winner Selected: After finalist voting concludes and we validate votes.

Discussion Thread Rules

No thread rules were added to this season. Please populate and manually edit this thread with them.

Just posting the link for Leer's weekly meta report. 

https://masteringruneterra.com/monday-lor-meta-report-jan-23/

So, in general HS takes most headlines in this website, but what is the ACTUAL most popular game among this website users? 

Has the partnership with HSReplay.net ended perhaps? The reason why I ask is because I no longer see the plugin above frequently played HS decks any more.

From Reddit:

Hey everyone! I'm Aleco, the Final Design Lead on Hearthstone.

I know a lot of you have been asking about Standard balance changes. We're putting together a pretty big patch for ~1 week from now. In all honesty, I wish we could have shipped this patch a little sooner. The holiday break pushed our patch schedule, but the meta doesn't take a holiday, so I empathize with players who feel like this patch is coming late. Though I can't promise anything right now, we're chatting as a team about if we can adjust our patch cadence next holiday break. Hope you all enjoy the upcoming patch!

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/10fnmvh/standard_balance_patch_timing/

Hot off the presses, here's the current 23 best decks in LoR.

Aatrox is all over the place, but there are still a variety of good options out there.

Edit - I'm personally trying out a Bandle City Poro brew. So far, it's feeling quite a bit stronger than I expected.

Competition Theme: Prepare for Tribal, Make it Double

There are two types of people in this world. Err, well actually there's quite a bit more than two, but we're going to focus specifically on getting two of them together.

• You must make a card that synergizes with dual-type minions.
  • This can be in the form of something like "Do something with [minion type A] or [minion type B]" or "Do something with a minion that has two minion types".
  • Your card must synergize with exactly two minion types. No more, no less.

This week marks the first week of season 6, and Moondreamer has asked us to kick it off with a competition of two tribes!

As always, I can be reached through Discord or here on the site via PM if you have any issues to report.

Competition Phases

Here are the phases of this card design competition

• Submission Phase: Starts on Mon, Jan 9 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sat, Jan 14 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, Jan 14 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sun, Jan 15 16:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, Jan 15 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Mon, Jan 16 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Winner Selected: After finalist voting concludes and we validate votes.

Discussion Thread Rules

No thread rules were added to this season. Please populate and manually edit this thread with them.

FYI, the Amazon coins page is broken (404, not found) which is located in the footer of every OoC page.

Very interesting breakdown of the current LoR meta here.

Small bug. I just noticed that the up- and downvote buttons plus counter appear after editing a direct message. Refreshing the page will make them go away again which suggests to me that this voting control is not supposed to appear there at all.