Yes, ETC has indeed announced his retirement already earlier. That will mean there are FOUR open spots in Americas, and Josh Graham aka Impact is currently second in the prize money table which decides who gets in, so the chances seem good. One more Masters Tour event to go though.
The game has some really cool level up animations for each champion and for some of their spells.
It isn't as complicated as i thought it would be but i'm still getting used to the whole blocking thing. HS was the first competitive card game i played so i got used to playing blockers (taunts) during my turn and praying that my opponent has no way of getting through them. It adds another layer of complexity because i need to determine which units to sacrifice, if i should block or just let damage get through to protect valuable units and i need to consider spells as well.
I don't know if the basic free decks are good enough for the PvP experience though.
The quality of animations and the amount of unique interactions between cards are amazing indeed.
You've already identified the deceptive simplicity of blocking: you definitely shouldn't aim to prevent all damage to your Nexus at the cost of your own board (=win condition). Another similar decision-making point is the timing of your attack: before you play anything to save room for spells or play more units and attack with full force (I'm personally bit of a sucker for insta-attacks). I love both aspects a lot.
I'm afraid the started decks (without any modifications at all) won't make it too far. Almost every deck is capable of winning games if played correctly but the power level of starters isn't the highest.
What is going to be a big factor is the variety of decks (a good balance between aggro, midrange, combo and control) and predictability of matchs. The excessive RNG in HS pisses me off a lot but it's also the thing that hooked me to the game in the first place since i really like games with random generation (mostly roguelikes/rogue-lites but games like Terraria as well).
All four strategies have viable decks in the current meta. Riot also constantly balances the cards to fix issues if there's any. There are some cards that have RNG in them but at least in my opinion the biggest RNG factor is the one that is inherent in all card games: drawing. If two decks have an equally good luck in that aspect, you can usually predict the winner of the match (assuming that both players also pilot the matchup correctly). Targon's Invoke Celestials are probably the biggest random generation aspect of the game currently.
The decklists are already out so I can tell you the class distribution.
About Classes
Druid did indeed tank hard, but was not deemed unplayable. It fell from last week's 46 picks to 15, with only 3 picks from APAC.
Paladin did not get the green light. Only Ryvius brought it this week.
Warlock has returned! One Galakrond deck from each region (Alan870806, Jarla, languagehacker). The trio also brought the infamous Bomb Warrior counter lineup with Heal Druid, Galakrond-less Priest, and Control Warrior.
The rest in short: Mage 37, Warrior & DH 36, Priest 30, Rogue 28, Hunter 6, Shaman 0.
I agree that Rakanishu seems very slow and weak, whereas Al'Akir will be insane in early game and should be somewhat decent later on as well. If Rag gets to farm some small tokens early on, he can also be pretty strong, but a slow start will likely mean having an useless Hero Power for the entire game.
The strength of the tribe itself is hard to evaluate without playing with it first, so I'm not even going to try.
I'd assume it is, and I'm assuming the reason for no advertisement is that it won't be available during this event. After all, it ends well before the real Halloween and has only slight overlap with WoW's Hallow's End. Another event right after this one? With launch of the new game mode? Who knows.
Lord Barov is an additional board clear, so I'd assume he's good but you can run the deck without him.
Soda commented on a question about Dr. Boom: "Dr boom give you the source in the later game, I don't suggest you cut it, but odd warrior can win aggro without Dr boom" I very much agree with that, the deck doesn't seem to have that much value for control mirrors and other late game scenarios without Boom.
The players do not appear in the order I write them into the BBCode, and I've yet to understand the reasoning behind the automatic ordering.
If it was up to me, the players would be in alphabetical order, which means that BoarControl and Bozzzton would still be next to each other. It's clearly unavoidable.
The subset is perfect with one spell and one unit of each mana cost. Why would anyone want to mess with that?
I was under the impression that there were more than two cards with some mana costs but I was wrong. Maybe The Golden Sister and The Silver Sister confused my memory.
On the topic itself: I don't expect them to add any, nor do I think that they should. What they might do is to change the probabilities of getting a certain Celestial, especially if some of them get too prominent.
I think I'm trying to rate with something similar:
1 - Multiple or big problems in e.g. wording/clarity, balance, following the rules. As a personal pet peeve, if you make a card that lets you outright steal a card from your opponent without any drawback, it ends here.
2 - Almost the same reasons than 1 but less drastic. Also cards with bigger flavor issues usually end up here.
3 - Solid. Nothing spectacular but can't really point out any issues either.
4 - Has that extra something to make it a bit better than the average card.
5 - Nails the theme, flavor, and balance. Rather rare rating from me, I think I give something like 0-2 of these per competition.
I'm probably overly strict about balance though, but I think it's easier to make a flashy, strong card than a solid mid-tier card, and I want to reward those who succeed in the latter.
I think it'll be Shurima in Feb. 2021 and The Void in Aug. 2021. That really only leaves Ixtal as the remaining region. The problem though is that Ixtal has far fewer champion representation than other regions.
I'd hate for Ixtal to be left out of this game, because there's a lot of potential the LoR team can make with the jungle environment that it's known for. Maybe they'll shuffle around some champions in the lore to settle there or maybe it can become a joint region with Shurima like P&Z is.
I also expect Shurima and Void to be the new regions for next year, and in that order. And yeah they'll start running out of new regions after that so they'll need to figure something out.
The Masters Tour qualifiers have pack prizes, but the Tour events itself do have real money on the line. And actually, there is no other point system than the prize money you have earned.
Celestalon has confirmed that you'll never get your own matchup unless there are only two players left. That statement also suggests you'll only get one (random) matchup to choose the winner from.
I see full dust on PC. It should definitely be the regular couple of weeks as far as I know.
Yes, ETC has indeed announced his retirement already earlier. That will mean there are FOUR open spots in Americas, and Josh Graham aka Impact is currently second in the prize money table which decides who gets in, so the chances seem good. One more Masters Tour event to go though.
First of all, welcome to Runeterra!
The quality of animations and the amount of unique interactions between cards are amazing indeed.
You've already identified the deceptive simplicity of blocking: you definitely shouldn't aim to prevent all damage to your Nexus at the cost of your own board (=win condition). Another similar decision-making point is the timing of your attack: before you play anything to save room for spells or play more units and attack with full force (I'm personally bit of a sucker for insta-attacks). I love both aspects a lot.
I'm afraid the started decks (without any modifications at all) won't make it too far. Almost every deck is capable of winning games if played correctly but the power level of starters isn't the highest.
All four strategies have viable decks in the current meta. Riot also constantly balances the cards to fix issues if there's any. There are some cards that have RNG in them but at least in my opinion the biggest RNG factor is the one that is inherent in all card games: drawing. If two decks have an equally good luck in that aspect, you can usually predict the winner of the match (assuming that both players also pilot the matchup correctly). Targon's Invoke Celestials are probably the biggest random generation aspect of the game currently.
The decklists are already out so I can tell you the class distribution.
I believe this is the "official" LoL art for Lulu for those that want a reference:
Much like there are chefs and shefs, there are staff and staf. I'm definitely part of the latter (would've made a meme image if I had the skills to).
In other news, I like the new login page and love the member tooltips. Such a nice feature.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who wants to buy this while passing some of the previous deals. I just love seasonally thematic card backs.
I agree that Rakanishu seems very slow and weak, whereas Al'Akir will be insane in early game and should be somewhat decent later on as well. If Rag gets to farm some small tokens early on, he can also be pretty strong, but a slow start will likely mean having an useless Hero Power for the entire game.
The strength of the tribe itself is hard to evaluate without playing with it first, so I'm not even going to try.
I'd assume it is, and I'm assuming the reason for no advertisement is that it won't be available during this event. After all, it ends well before the real Halloween and has only slight overlap with WoW's Hallow's End. Another event right after this one? With launch of the new game mode? Who knows.
Lord Barov is an additional board clear, so I'd assume he's good but you can run the deck without him.
Soda commented on a question about Dr. Boom: "Dr boom give you the source in the later game, I don't suggest you cut it, but odd warrior can win aggro without Dr boom" I very much agree with that, the deck doesn't seem to have that much value for control mirrors and other late game scenarios without Boom.
I'd imagine the ideal Turn 1 play would be N'Zoth's First Mate pulling out Patches, so you'll both thin your deck and get some bodies on the board.
Soda (the guy who posted the deck) had this to say:
"advantage: it's sweet in the early game vs aggro
disadvantage: sometime you may draw patches before play first mate"
The players do not appear in the order I write them into the BBCode, and I've yet to understand the reasoning behind the automatic ordering.
If it was up to me, the players would be in alphabetical order, which means that BoarControl and Bozzzton would still be next to each other. It's clearly unavoidable.
I was under the impression that there were more than two cards with some mana costs but I was wrong. Maybe The Golden Sister and The Silver Sister confused my memory.
On the topic itself: I don't expect them to add any, nor do I think that they should. What they might do is to change the probabilities of getting a certain Celestial, especially if some of them get too prominent.
It seems to be a bug that pops up every now and then. Here's a Reddit thread about it from late 2018.
I think I'm trying to rate with something similar:
I'm probably overly strict about balance though, but I think it's easier to make a flashy, strong card than a solid mid-tier card, and I want to reward those who succeed in the latter.
I also expect Shurima and Void to be the new regions for next year, and in that order. And yeah they'll start running out of new regions after that so they'll need to figure something out.
Brackets for the tournament can be found here: https://battlefy.com/hsesports/masters-tour-online-montr%C3%A9al/5f3c3c6066bf242962711d60/stage/5f5b8cab513be46175c9b03a/bracket/1
The Masters Tour qualifiers have pack prizes, but the Tour events itself do have real money on the line. And actually, there is no other point system than the prize money you have earned.
The derpyness of Fuzzy Caretaker's concept eyes is amazing :D
Celestalon has confirmed that you'll never get your own matchup unless there are only two players left. That statement also suggests you'll only get one (random) matchup to choose the winner from.