The Feed

Discovered a new digital CCG the other day that I've been having a blast with that I thought others around here might enjoy:

https://wordbots.io/

Most people who play CCGs like Hearthstone and Magic seem to enjoy coming up with custom cards too. In Wordbots, you actually get to play with the cards you create. I've only created a few cards so far, and the parser that reads your card and tries to do what it says is a little finicky, and it sometimes takes a little work to find wording to get the card to do what you want, but the developers have been responsive to my questions on Discord with suggestions on how to word cards to get the effects I want.

Okay I'm just getting bored now, I literally can't be beaten with poppy yordles for God sake.

Like what you want me to move onto poros?

I already did that and I won a ton.

So how do you beat me?

The king of eternal?

Let's talk about tech cards.

Soul harvest - yes its just a slow speed culling strike, but it's in shadow isles and that matters.

Eradication - low key one of the best anti aggro cards recently printed.

Vile feast - there's a reason this got rotated its nuts

Tavern keeper - the best frijord 3 drop

Blighted ravine- still the best frijord removal

Again good cards are in large supply in eternal and for some reason ya'll keep brewing like chumps.

Has standard scrambled your brains cuz ya'll playing bronze tier right now.

Competition Theme: Stop! Doomhammer Time!

This week we're honoring a mighty weapon of Warcraft lore. Hit 'em hard, then hit 'em again!

• You must make a "package" of three (3) Shaman cards that work together to form the start of a "Doomhammer archetype" in a theoretical expansion.
  
  • At least one of them must reference Doomhammer by name in the text, in a supportive/synergistic way.
    • The others can have general weapon-synergy traits, but should still encourage the use of Doomhammer.

Chegwin and Linkblade91 are getting ready to drop the hammer on their enemies. Let's join in the fray!

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, May 8 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sat, May 13 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, May 13 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sun, May 14 16:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, May 14 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Mon, May 15 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• 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.

Sometimes I win, sometimes my opponent. How does the game decides who ins if we tie in one location, one location I win, the other my opponent?

Everyone's forgotten how to play Nifty Eternal again.

I keep drilling into everyone's heads wincons wincons.wincons.

Synergy, synergy, synergy and all I see when I come back from a small break is do nothing garbage.

And not the good kind of do nothing garbage like Nora.

But press F to concede garbage that literally shouldn't be built in the first place.

I know it's still a long time till Eternal ladder but I expect more from all of you.

Cuz Nifty is forever, he comes back same list he's been playing for what 6 months now, and you can't beat yordles!

Rofl omg you guys are so bad.

Yeeeep, new golden rule if you can't beat meme tribal decks its time to learn how to deck build...sorry but thats how it is.

And you guys call yourself good players or something.

You see Nifty grow up on the hard streets of brew Town. No deck trackers, no tier lists, no help, no getting carried by better players or stats analytics. Just me, me, and more me.

Thats why I'm the king of Eternal

Congrats, that's a really cool achievement. I hope your situation gets better soon.

Regarding the bot situation, I'm experiencing the same at the moment. I've decided to try and go for triple legend this month as in all three game modes on EU and so far, I'm facing like 95% bots in Classic. Once you figured out how they work, they're fairly easy to beat and it seems like ranking up is more of a question of patience than anything else. Might yet change though, I've only reached the platinum ranks so far. I'm a little confused why Blizzard keeps the mode alive and tolerates the bots at this point to be honest. 

I had the privilege to reopen a Hearthstone account and was severely disappointed  when we didn't get the full dust refund for the rotation. I was waiting for the refund to craft some wild cards and have some fun in wild (I know the meta in wild is problematic, but trying out fun concepts was always the more fun aspects of the game). 

So, while keeping the minimum amount of time  at Hearthstone, I started a Marvel Snap account and started to play (I also tried some other mobile games, but Snap is the only one that stuck for now, besides Hearthstone). While playing it, I found that Ben Brode and his team learned some valuable lessons and made a game that is  better (at least in some aspects). There are things for the hearthstone team to learn here, or I fear Hearthstone will loose traction, as more games will take chunks off the field.

Note: I am leaving out the fact that Snap games resolve quicker, for that is a personal reference, and some people may enjoy the longer matches.

1) Generosity- This links back to the background story, but more. I believe I opened around 60 HS packs out of the new expansion, but only "won" one legendary out of packs. In Snap, the feeling is that F2P have access to the strongest of cards, for "legendary" cards are not a grantee win. 

2) Strategy- HS lost its strategy edge. Yes, you still need to know how to pilot some decks, but usually the power level of Druid, or DK, will solve the match. In Snap, where you put your cards, and the order you play has significance. Just the play of different locations makes for a different game experience.

I am sure there are more, but that is enough for now.

Whatever you you choose to play, though, have fun :)

General

• Re-enabled account registration.

Known Issues

• The account registration page says registrations are disabled. This is incorrect.

Basically the stuff I said would be good.

Nora, Ryze, Ramp, high synergy brews.

Standard is all about one thing and one thing only, playing high value followers and open attacking.

Eternal is all about one thing and one thing only.

Wincons, wincons, wincons.

If I'm pirate aggro better believe I'm developing 3  one drops on turn 3 instead of open attacking.

If you're Ryze main deck that healing potion you crazy stud you.

If you're ramp, then create that 18 power overwhelm jack for the lolz you have infinite mana.

Like frankly I don't care what you play in Eternal as long as you prioritize synergy, and wincons.

Leave the value garbage for standard, where there are no good decks or wincons and you can main 3 copies of chunker bandle gunner and thats actually good.

You can check out the current situation after the recent patch here:

https://masteringruneterra.com/tuesday-meta-report-may-2nd/

A new card, High Evolutionary, has been revealed for Marvel Snap!

Game Start: Unlock the potential of your cards with no abilities.

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

A new card, Howard the Duck, has been revealed for Marvel Snap!

Ongoing: Tap this to see the top card of your deck.

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

A new card, Iron Lad, has been revealed for Marvel Snap!

On Reveal: Copy the text of your deck's top card.

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

It must be frustrating to essentially throw everything you have at a player, knowing that they have 0 inside knowledge of your deck

You can play any card, any list, any tech, and I will know nothing

and you will know everything

and despite that I will win 90% of my games.

I'm sorry it must be frustrating, but think of me as Eternal Majin, right I did the DBZ thing I hit my next form

You guys don't stand a chance. 

Once again put your gamer tags in the comments for private eternal tutoring

https://masteringruneterra.com/meta-stats/

For those that don't know, every region in LOR has a 10 mana chunker.

Typically they all read the same, I cost one less when x condition is met.

These cards are historically terrible and haven't been played competitively for as long as I've been playing so lets say 2 years plus.

But right now the top deck in standard is bandle gunner...you know that 10 mana card you have never looked at or seen before and basically wrote off immediately.

That is the card that is dominating standard right now lol!

yeah man these players are gonna be in for a rude awakening when they play Eternal in Runeterra open.

They'll be like man why is my garbage not working anymore?

Like I have to build high synergy decks with clear wincons?

That's nuts!

bandle gunner...hahahahahaha standard is such a joke.

Competition Theme: Bold Moves

This week, our cards are getting bold and brash. But they don't belong in the trash.

• Make a card that conditionally gains a keyword (or multiple).
  • Note that giving a keyword is not the same as gaining it. Cards that give keywords to other cards will not count (unless said card also happens to gain a keyword as well).

As Out of Cards is making some bold moves transitioning to Out of Games, Wailor is asking us to make our own bold moves with our cards as well.

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, May 1 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sat, May 6 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, May 6 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sun, May 7 16:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, May 7 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Mon, May 8 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• 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.

So it's been confirmed that the next Runeterra open is going to be in Eternal to celebrate the unlocking of eternal ladder in 30 days.

One interesting problem tho, with all pro players busy arrogantly dismissing this format nobody actually knows what's good right now.

I might come the closest because I've literally spent all of this season playing and winning in Eternal casual with no ladder available.

But I was masters last season and that was as close as we've gotten to the eternal card pool thus far.

So  for all the pro players out there let me illuminate you by starting with updating the old tier lists:

1. Jayce - still a fine deck but the difference from eternal to last season is that aggro got all the tools

2. Elites - also a fine deck but it will feel quite midrange compared to the most aggresive options out there

3. Anna - I'm not convinced anna is better than the new pirate aggro, just the fact that pirotte exists and now you can have a cheap stun outside  of Runeterra region, so probably 50/50 for ana vs Samira

4. Ramp - while there were no competitive ramp lists last season except the ones I piloted this is an archetype that has massively advanced with the addition of Jack. Coins, plus trundle, plus auto level for 12 mana, plus regular ramp tools equals a deck that is probably faster then ASOL.

5. Ryze - Another deck that keeps getting better as the card pool expands I wouldn't be surprised to see the winrate of this deck go from 50/50 last season to 53% this season

6. Nora - while there is no such thing as an amazing Nora deck, she shows up in so many lists that I'll just say the Nora deck that gets played this eternal season

7. Sett - sett is one of the best new ionia control tools available he's very strong and there's a decent chance he will have an eternal list worth playing

8. Shadow control - I think shadow control has changed quite a bit from it's previous iterations just because it got new control spells. There's the mini ruination for 6 mana that will help quite a bit with the more aggressive matchups. I will say Heimer has felt very bad for my opponents every time they play that old list into my new aggro decks.

But like that's kind of it, this is all uncharted territories here and it doesn't matter if your name is Majin Bae, or Mogwai, because honestly they will have no idea what the Runeterra Open is going to look like with all their recent standard experience being practically useless.

Here's a list of the games that might give some traction if featured, at least according to my tastes:

Battle brothers, Wartales, Rimworld (+mods!), Jagged Alliance 3 (upcoming), Spaceborne 2 (very active dev and complex game), Age of Wonders 4, Humankind, Distant worlds 2, maybe other Paradox titles.

Curious to see what other people like :)

Megam0gwai is back on LoR streaming, planning to do the Runeterra Open in 2 weeks, etc.

Apparently Snap's biggest cheerleader has jumped ship.

https://app.mobalytics.gg/lor/meta-tier-list

So low and behold I'm browsing current standard tier list to admire the shit show.

What do I see in A tier.

Illoi Jarvan a deck that hasn't been popular since initial release and that I've been playing competitively ever since.

CICQCAQGAUAQIAAIAEDQABICAUAAYFAIAYDAMBYPCAOB4IZIAAAQCBQGBM

It's got the one of nakaboros from my list, they replaced the 3 mana buff with cataclysm thats a meta decision, and added single which again is a meta decision.

So all told they rotated two cards for strikes and jammed two copies of Riptide.

So yes better for standard where there's more agressive targets and you need 8 removal cards but Jesus this is literally just my deck and not even in the format I like.

This is getting saj guys if you're gonna steal from the king at least say so. What's next 30 days from now I look at eternal tier lists and its like copy paste 5 of my decks you run into on ladder?

So on a possitive note even though we are 30 days away from competitive I'm gonna talk about the only format I care about and that's eternal.

Specifically the decks I think got better with the last set additions. I'm gonna skip over the obvious  ones like pirate aggro, like we know this last set was huge for bilge noxious.

What else we got?

1. Star springs - pretty dope with eight punch Pablo. Providing both a good body with attune, a healing activator cuz of strike, and potentially contributing to removal efforts is amazing value for this deck. Cosmic youngling is less great but good into hyper aggro, where star springs usually suffered. So now it's do you want toad for the draw or youngling for the sustain?

2. Echo - the fact that shurima got its own version of a 4 mana tutor follower is insanely good for echo. Clocking predicts and draws and gives you that annoying little body all at once.

3. Shen - I personally believe Shen Sett is the new Shen Jarvan, or Shen Fiora once you see that interaction of Sett getting barrier on attack triggering a.cascade of effects and generally being cheaper and harder to kill then jarvan you won't go back.

4. Azir Irelia - fallen sands general is a pretty solid finisher for this deck when sometimes it feels like your deck doesn't do enough on its own and you just need that little extra late game. Not a deck I play but pretty sure you can just copy paste a list and add him.

Again, this is just the beginning for me. While a lot of players will A use old tier lists for Eternal or B meme with a dumb otk wincon I will continue to provide quality decks that win not because they are amazing but because they are well balanced and durable.

So the 3 year anniversary celebration for Runeterra is happening right now.

It's a great chance for new players to get old champions, and for established players to get free currency.

One problem though Nora and Bard are essentially unplayable in standard.

In eternal they are solid cards bard can turbo buff elusives with Zoe, and Nora can easily slot into grindy control decks with her infinite board value.

It's just another case out of 10,000 why Runeterra standard is less a "format" for an established game and more a quick trimming of the card pool to keep a small subsect of players happy while screwing the long term fans who helped it reach 3 years in the first place.

Here's a 3 year anniversary idea, we are making eternal ladder ever green to support the player base the helped make our game great

There's an announcement I can get behind.

Don't get me wrong casual eternal is amazing but winning every game does nothing for me, when it should be just as valuable as it is in standard.

Yep, read the title.

I’m at diamond 9 trying to hit 5 for the free pack and every other game is still either a Blood or Frost DK. Blizzard needs to bite the bullet at this point and just restrict discovery from other rune cards as well. I find it ridiculous that Blood DK, the control deck, can just start digging through Frost and Unholy rune cards for more damage/board whenever it needs it. Like what’s the point of the rune system at this point if all of the runes can just bypass their rune identities and weaknesses through Discover.

I really hope it gets better past day 1 at least, but I don’t see any new decks at all despite all of the buffs given to so many archetypes. DK needs to be brought more in line, and cards like Marrow Manipulator and The Scourge needs to get nerfed/reverted because a 5/5 with Pyroblast is just absurd, and a 7 mana spell which just completely flips the board is not okay either.

Like, good luck beating that with Thori’belor (I love this change though, thanks Blizz for making it what it should have been from the start).

I'm assuming by now the novelty of standard has worn off.

The limited deck builds and selections.

The premeditated leaning towards pro-players and number crunching vs creativity and memes.

It's all exceptionally boring and limited.

So I wonder how long till play rates drop, views drop, all the metrics people care about diminish.

Because I'm not playing, a lot of people I respect aren't playing, because we all had to wait 2 months just to play the format we like, aka eternal, aka og real Runetera.

Frankly this is unacceptable eternal ladder should have been established the minute rotation happened, anything else is just lazy.

Another 30 days to go on top of the 30 I just waited yeeeeeeah woooo how fun Riot!

Competition Theme: The Grand Almost-Finale

We're about to reach a climactic end, so it's time to make some noise!

• Make a card that uses the Finale keyword.
  • Whether this is using the mechanic itself or interacting with it in other ways is up to you.

We have reached the final quarter of Season 6, and Loknax wants us to hype it up in the most fitting way possible.

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, Apr 24 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sat, Apr 29 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, Apr 29 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sun, Apr 30 16:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, Apr 30 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Mon, May 1 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• 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.