The meta is pretty diverse right now. Not all Champs are represented, but all regions definitely are, and no archetype can be considered "Tier zero."
I do feel sorry for people who make their decisions based on statistical aggregator sites that publish lists based on 1 to 2 weeks of data. Twelve-day-old data is basically ancient history in this game.
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.
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.)
That said, that's not what my previous post was about. My previous post was, more than anything, a plea to the player base. The first few thoughts you should have (in my opinion) when meeting a strong deck or seeing a powerful interaction should be 'how do I play around that in future' or 'how do I counter that'. Maybe even 'I want to try that for myself'. I really don't want people to jump straight to 'that should be nerfed!' because that restricts creative thinking and has a deleterious effect both on the game itself, and on the community around that game.
I agree that players should think that way, but I have accepted that many of them never will.
But the cards are still usable in some format of those other games. I never said anything about stopping rotation or cards remaining in standard forever. I'm just saying whatever happens, they need to allow for continued use of cards people have paid for, or else stop taking money for cards.
If they aren't sure how much support older cards are going to receive, it's not a great idea to accept money for them in the first place.
The time investment isn't a big deal because you're playing the game (and ostensibly enjoying it) as you earn rewards, but paying cash is a different story.
If they were planning on changing resources, paying players would have no reason to buy any more weekily wildcards, starting approximately this week.
If you have been buying Champion cards every week and paying coins for three Expeditions weekly, you are very close to having every Champion by now. Factor in all the inevitable Champions you'll get as you unlock all the regions, and you're basically there. So if you bought a big pile of coins at the start to support the game and you're about to run out, don't worry! You don't need them anymore! At least now we know you can keep buying wildcards and stock up for future use if you want to.
Also, if you've been playing a lot, you may be to the point where you're getting more shards than cards in your rewards, because you get so many extra copies. Now you don't need to worry about what you'll do with all of those shards as they continue to accumulate.
Still, it would be nice if there were some cosmetic rewards we could spend shards on. Even if they have separate bling for coins and shards, I'd buy both.
In the closed beta, Cloud Drinker had an enlightened ability to decrease by 2 instead of 1, and it was insane when combo'd with Karma. Granted you still had to make it to 10 mana, but once you did it was basically GG.
I'm glad you brought that up! Cloud Drinker is one of the very few examples of cards Riot has nerfed into the ground. It sees absolutely no play now.
We should talk about ways to fix it in another thread! Feel free to start one, or I may do it eventually.
I will continue to disagree with the idea of reflexive nerfs before the meta has a chance to react properly, and will continue to express my frustration at the tendency of players to want to nerf whatever's currently doing well simply because it's doing well.
But you have to keep in mind the developers' stated intent to do frequent balance patches -- far more frequent than other card games I've played. How much do you expect the meta to settle amid that constantly shifting landscape?
So far, it seems like Riot is basing their decisions mostly on hard data, with player sentiment possibly giving a nudge when they are on the fence about something. I don't think there's any reason to get too stressed out about players calling for nerfs if you truly believe something isn't a problem. If it is a problem, it will show up in the data; if it's not, Riot may put it on the watch list but probably won't change it without reason.
Frostbite-heavy decks were always annoying, so it makes sense that they would be even more so after nerfs to the other strong keywords.
However, I'm finding the Yasuo archetype equally annoying, and for similar reasons -- they are both slightly too good at shutting down unit-based strategies, so they are highly polarizing. You either have what it takes to beat them, or you don't. It sometimes feels like there's no real point to playing out the game.
I think a major mistake that runs through all of these "problem children" -- including Fearsome, Elusive, Frostbite, and Stun/Recall -- is too much redundancy in the set. When players have access to too many cards with the same keyword, it's just too easy to build an extremely consistent deck that exploits it.
Not to mention, the meta starts to feel a bit same-y when every deck is a one-trick pony. It would be better if the top decks were ones that mix keywords to create some stronger synergy instead of just typing a keyword into the search bar and clicking every card that comes up.
Inspired by Riot's stated philosophy that every single card should have a home, I thought it might be fun and useful to look at some of the cards we rarely see in the meta, and maybe help them find their way.
Chosen completely arbitrarily, my first pick is Emerald Awakener!
I don't believe I have seen this one at all in constructed, apart from one intrepid deckbuilder who seemed to be leaning heavily into heals. (Turns out he didn't have enough offense to actually be any kind of threat.) In Expeditions, I've never selected it, and it always seems a little sad when my opponent has to play it.
A 3-mana 2/2 with Lifesteal isn't terrible, but it's definitely not good. A 3-mana 6/6 with Lifesteal is decent, but it doesn't seem like the kind of play you want to be making in the late game -- unless you can drop it with a few other big units for a massive push.
Would you say this is meant for a Karma deck? That would explain its scarcity, as we seldom see Karma, either. Would one or both of these cards need a buff before that archetype is viable? Is there some other Ionia control deck that maintains a big hand size where this would be a good fit?
If you've experimented with this card, please describe the deck(s) you used it in and how things turned out.
One way to test it would be to intentionally crash your hypothetical MMR and see if opponents get easier.
This experiment has some grave sample-size issues, but it might shed a tiny glimmer of light on the situation. And hey, you can soak up some of that sweet defeat XP along the way!
You can't Purify a Champion. That's another reason this deck is so broken.
I'm not saying we should be able to Purify Champions, but maybe Stand Alone should work on followers only.
Nevertheless, it must be addressed. You should not be punished for leveling up a Champion.
The meta is pretty diverse right now. Not all Champs are represented, but all regions definitely are, and no archetype can be considered "Tier zero."
I do feel sorry for people who make their decisions based on statistical aggregator sites that publish lists based on 1 to 2 weeks of data. Twelve-day-old data is basically ancient history in this game.
https://outof.cards/forums/legends-of-runeterra/runeterra-general/2596-lor-friend-request-list
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.
If you hit a cap, you need to worry more about your social life than your shard total.
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.
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.)
I agree that players should think that way, but I have accepted that many of them never will.
If it's so obvious, there's no reason for them not to acknowledge that it will exist.
Every other digital card game has sold randomized packs of cards, so "everyone else does it" is not exactly proof positive.
Both should count.
Do you remember whether you were using Steel Tempest or Yasuo's Steel Tempest? That may be relevant when you report the bug.
But the cards are still usable in some format of those other games. I never said anything about stopping rotation or cards remaining in standard forever. I'm just saying whatever happens, they need to allow for continued use of cards people have paid for, or else stop taking money for cards.
If they aren't sure how much support older cards are going to receive, it's not a great idea to accept money for them in the first place.
The time investment isn't a big deal because you're playing the game (and ostensibly enjoying it) as you earn rewards, but paying cash is a different story.
If they were planning on changing resources, paying players would have no reason to buy any more weekily wildcards, starting approximately this week.
If you have been buying Champion cards every week and paying coins for three Expeditions weekly, you are very close to having every Champion by now. Factor in all the inevitable Champions you'll get as you unlock all the regions, and you're basically there. So if you bought a big pile of coins at the start to support the game and you're about to run out, don't worry! You don't need them anymore! At least now we know you can keep buying wildcards and stock up for future use if you want to.
Also, if you've been playing a lot, you may be to the point where you're getting more shards than cards in your rewards, because you get so many extra copies. Now you don't need to worry about what you'll do with all of those shards as they continue to accumulate.
Still, it would be nice if there were some cosmetic rewards we could spend shards on. Even if they have separate bling for coins and shards, I'd buy both.
I'm glad you brought that up! Cloud Drinker is one of the very few examples of cards Riot has nerfed into the ground. It sees absolutely no play now.
We should talk about ways to fix it in another thread! Feel free to start one, or I may do it eventually.
But you have to keep in mind the developers' stated intent to do frequent balance patches -- far more frequent than other card games I've played. How much do you expect the meta to settle amid that constantly shifting landscape?
So far, it seems like Riot is basing their decisions mostly on hard data, with player sentiment possibly giving a nudge when they are on the fence about something. I don't think there's any reason to get too stressed out about players calling for nerfs if you truly believe something isn't a problem. If it is a problem, it will show up in the data; if it's not, Riot may put it on the watch list but probably won't change it without reason.
Frostbite-heavy decks were always annoying, so it makes sense that they would be even more so after nerfs to the other strong keywords.
However, I'm finding the Yasuo archetype equally annoying, and for similar reasons -- they are both slightly too good at shutting down unit-based strategies, so they are highly polarizing. You either have what it takes to beat them, or you don't. It sometimes feels like there's no real point to playing out the game.
I think a major mistake that runs through all of these "problem children" -- including Fearsome, Elusive, Frostbite, and Stun/Recall -- is too much redundancy in the set. When players have access to too many cards with the same keyword, it's just too easy to build an extremely consistent deck that exploits it.
Not to mention, the meta starts to feel a bit same-y when every deck is a one-trick pony. It would be better if the top decks were ones that mix keywords to create some stronger synergy instead of just typing a keyword into the search bar and clicking every card that comes up.
Inspired by Riot's stated philosophy that every single card should have a home, I thought it might be fun and useful to look at some of the cards we rarely see in the meta, and maybe help them find their way.
Chosen completely arbitrarily, my first pick is Emerald Awakener!
I don't believe I have seen this one at all in constructed, apart from one intrepid deckbuilder who seemed to be leaning heavily into heals. (Turns out he didn't have enough offense to actually be any kind of threat.) In Expeditions, I've never selected it, and it always seems a little sad when my opponent has to play it.
A 3-mana 2/2 with Lifesteal isn't terrible, but it's definitely not good. A 3-mana 6/6 with Lifesteal is decent, but it doesn't seem like the kind of play you want to be making in the late game -- unless you can drop it with a few other big units for a massive push.
Would you say this is meant for a Karma deck? That would explain its scarcity, as we seldom see Karma, either. Would one or both of these cards need a buff before that archetype is viable? Is there some other Ionia control deck that maintains a big hand size where this would be a good fit?
If you've experimented with this card, please describe the deck(s) you used it in and how things turned out.
One way to test it would be to intentionally crash your hypothetical MMR and see if opponents get easier.
This experiment has some grave sample-size issues, but it might shed a tiny glimmer of light on the situation. And hey, you can soak up some of that sweet defeat XP along the way!
It's hilarious how excited everyone got, though.
"Great nerf! Good job, Riot! ... Ummm, you didn't actually change anything?"