Yay, the game finally has easily accessible Silence!
And of course it's in Ionia, aka the Fun Police region!
I'm actually non-sarcastically very happy that we finally have another answer to things like Ledros, not to mention the other graveyard high jinks that have become so popular these days.
As someone who has never played LoL and has never seen the artwork from that game, this seems fine to me. I think a lot of people are confusing "not what I'm used to" with "bad."
As for the mechanical aspects of the Champion ... omg. So powerful, unique, and easy to level up. She'll be able to fit into all kinds of different archetypes. Even if you have to hold her until she levels up, she's worth it.
If this card were harder to remove, it would be massively OP. The squishy body is the only thing that allows them to combine Elusive and Support in one card.
Also consider: If your opponent pings this instead of the unit it was going to support, maybe you're OK with that.
Gems are kind of a weird animal, and I'm not sure how many you really want. I mean, Arbiter of the Peak obviously loves them, but you can't ignore the mana cost -- essentially 2 mana per gem when you add up what it takes to generate and cast them. The gem's effect itself is not worth 2 mana, so you have to be sure it's commensurate with whatever ancillary effect you hope to achieve. With Arbiter, that's a mana cost reduction of 1 ... kind of a wash, really. On the other hand, leveling up Taric is invaluable, but you hardly need to use a 4-mana Slow spell to make that happen.
I am on the fence but slightly pessimistic about this one.
1 health is immidiate yellow card... but it generates 3 cheap spells (which is great) and if it lives, it grants +2/+2 on support.
Tough to judge.
1 support and 3 spells will reduce the cost of Arbiter of the Peak by 4, it also helps with leveling Taric up.
I think the way to think of it is as a slow-speed +2/+2 buff and 4 progressions for Taric/Arbiter with a free 1/1 body--9 times out of 10 the body won't mean anything, but every so often it let you chain with Mountain Sojourners / receive a support buff that would have otherwise gone unused / buff enough to trade with its blocker / use defensively as a clutch chump block / attack twice / etc.
But it's not even that because the support buff will be thwarted by a ping in so many instances. How many resources are you going to expend keeping this alive long enough to attack? For deckbuilding purposes, you should just assume the support buff never happens.
However, three cheap Burst-speed buff spells from one card? That's incredible value you can't afford to ignore if you are running Taric, or maybe even Ezreal. So basically, it's a must-include for a specific archetype (or two), and worthless everywhere else. That's three stars in my book.
If you're up against a Freljord deck that doesn't run any Fast spells, what else are you going to use it on?
You're going to include Bastion (or Deny) to protect your units from magic. You can't know ahead of time what specific spells those will be. Against Freljord, Deny is very often a dead card. Bastion isn't.
Also note that as a Burst-speed spell, Bastion cannot be countered by Deny.
When a card says "Do X to do Y," the X part must be possible before the Y part can happen, and the X part happens regardless of whether the Y part actually goes off.
With Noxian Fervor, it's clear that the 3 damage to an ally will always happen, even if the enemy target gains SpellShield.
With Vile Feast, it appears to be sufficient that you target an enemy unit for the Drain, and does not matter whether the Drain actually occurs (see Barrier), so that means the spiderling would indeed be summoned.
By the way -- Yip confirmed via Twitter that SpellShield stops only the effect on the unit it protects. It does not cancel the entire spell the way Fizz does.
If that's a perma - buff then it's a really good card.
Might be the best support card at 2 mana.
There's no question -- as pointed out by one of the game's loading screens: If a buff doesn't say how long it lasts, it's permanent!
(Of course, in many cases, there's very little practical difference between temporary and permanent health buffs -- either way, the health isn't removed at the end of the round if the unit is at or below its max health.)
My hype has already pretty died out this week with all the waiting think they really should have teased at least small bits already.
At the time of your posting, they had already revealed 4 new cards and an amazing video (not the constellation one, the one with the star-crossed lovers).
Yay, the game finally has easily accessible Silence!
And of course it's in Ionia, aka the Fun Police region!
I'm actually non-sarcastically very happy that we finally have another answer to things like Ledros, not to mention the other graveyard high jinks that have become so popular these days.
Note that it's Targon, not Ionia.
Works great with the support cards from both regions, though, and perfect vanilla stats to begin with.
They sure are printing a lot of ways to bait out the pings.
"Answer it if you can; you're in big trouble if you can't" seems to be the main theme in Ionia now.
As someone who has never played LoL and has never seen the artwork from that game, this seems fine to me. I think a lot of people are confusing "not what I'm used to" with "bad."
As for the mechanical aspects of the Champion ... omg. So powerful, unique, and easy to level up. She'll be able to fit into all kinds of different archetypes. Even if you have to hold her until she levels up, she's worth it.
I like 1-drops that make you happy to be attacking on evens.
If this card were harder to remove, it would be massively OP. The squishy body is the only thing that allows them to combine Elusive and Support in one card.
Also consider: If your opponent pings this instead of the unit it was going to support, maybe you're OK with that.
Not sure, but I think I would be quite willing to pay 2 mana to remove the restriction from Take Heart.
I'm just so glad to get another region with decent buffs!
Is this better or worse than Mentor of the Stones? Hard to say.
Gems are kind of a weird animal, and I'm not sure how many you really want. I mean, Arbiter of the Peak obviously loves them, but you can't ignore the mana cost -- essentially 2 mana per gem when you add up what it takes to generate and cast them. The gem's effect itself is not worth 2 mana, so you have to be sure it's commensurate with whatever ancillary effect you hope to achieve. With Arbiter, that's a mana cost reduction of 1 ... kind of a wash, really. On the other hand, leveling up Taric is invaluable, but you hardly need to use a 4-mana Slow spell to make that happen.
I am on the fence but slightly pessimistic about this one.
But it's not even that because the support buff will be thwarted by a ping in so many instances. How many resources are you going to expend keeping this alive long enough to attack? For deckbuilding purposes, you should just assume the support buff never happens.
However, three cheap Burst-speed buff spells from one card? That's incredible value you can't afford to ignore if you are running Taric, or maybe even Ezreal. So basically, it's a must-include for a specific archetype (or two), and worthless everywhere else. That's three stars in my book.
Not as broadly useful as the Gift Giver, and you'll have to work a bit too hard to get multiple gems out of it.
Even in a buff/support deck, there are much better options for 2 mana.
Allows you to contest the early board while supporting many key archetypes. Excellent.
Seems stronk.
Very easy to level up, and insanely powerful when he gets there. Fiora has a new best friend.
If you're up against a Freljord deck that doesn't run any Fast spells, what else are you going to use it on?
You're going to include Bastion (or Deny) to protect your units from magic. You can't know ahead of time what specific spells those will be. Against Freljord, Deny is very often a dead card. Bastion isn't.
Also note that as a Burst-speed spell, Bastion cannot be countered by Deny.
When a card says "Do X to do Y," the X part must be possible before the Y part can happen, and the X part happens regardless of whether the Y part actually goes off.
With Noxian Fervor, it's clear that the 3 damage to an ally will always happen, even if the enemy target gains SpellShield.
With Vile Feast, it appears to be sufficient that you target an enemy unit for the Drain, and does not matter whether the Drain actually occurs (see Barrier), so that means the spiderling would indeed be summoned.
To answer my own question: Yip confirmed via Twitter that SpellShield does NOT cancel the whole spell, only the part that affects the protected unit.
Protect a unit from Frostbite, which is something that exists nowhere else in the game.
Be used in a deck without Ionia.
Get drawn by Zap Sprayfin.
By the way -- Yip confirmed via Twitter that SpellShield stops only the effect on the unit it protects. It does not cancel the entire spell the way Fizz does.
There's no question -- as pointed out by one of the game's loading screens: If a buff doesn't say how long it lasts, it's permanent!
(Of course, in many cases, there's very little practical difference between temporary and permanent health buffs -- either way, the health isn't removed at the end of the round if the unit is at or below its max health.)
Meh, whatever, you got your hype.
At the time of your posting, they had already revealed 4 new cards and an amazing video (not the constellation one, the one with the star-crossed lovers).