All those cards you just listed are core region cards and are unlikely to change. Like how is demacia answering temo without Sharp sight?
All those cards are core to region? I mean if we are talking about Sharpsight sure but Nami a core card to Bilgwater? Lost soul a core card for Noxus? That doesn't make any sense.
And since when being a core card means that you don't get nerfed? Pale Cascade and Hush are both core to Targon and they both got nerfed.
How is Demacia supposed to deal with Teemo? You mean beside Single Combat, Fleetfeather Tracker and all the challenger unit's available to the region?
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Sparkle fly is a meme
A meme card being played in a tier 1 deck? I don't even know what to say to this. Maybe it's better if you just see what this card can do in this deck :
Now that enough time has passed, we finally have a good idea on the real power level of the new cards, so what cards would you want to see in the next balance patch that will be released on October 20? Here are my personal ones.
Nami: Do you guys remember the +1/+1 that The Veiled Temple used to give? The one that was considered too strong and had to be nerfed. Imagine a better version of that effect on a champions that has one of the easiest level up requirement in the game. Nami always level by round 4 and when she do. You only need to spam burst speed spells to turn your board of tiny elusives into game ending terrors. Since these burst spells also offer protection to your units. Trying to use removal on them ends up being a lost cause. Speaking of elusive...
Sparklefly: During the beta one of the most powerful elusive cards was Kinkou Lifeblade a 4 mana 2/3 with lifesteal. That was deemed to strong and was eventual nerfed to 2/2. So you can imagine the community's surprise when an even better version of that card was released. This card can be tutored with Crescendum and is very hard to get ride off due to all the protection and buffs available for Targon.
Aloof Travelers: This card allow you to discard your opponent win condition, draws you a card and give a decent body for a cheap price, The effect being on summon means there is nothing you can do to stop it. Definitely overturned.
Hidden Pathways: Bandle City has so much card generation that it's pretty much impossible not to fulfill this card condition and contrary to Deep Meditation the discount you get is permanent.
Otterpus: Pranks are for most part manageable except for the grant your +2 cost which can cripple your opponent hand and this little fellow allow you to do that for free.
Lost Soul: An infinite value engine, discard lost soul play a Twinblade Revenant, trade into one your opponent key unit's rinse and repeat, I have won many matches just by out grinding my opponent with this card. It doesn't help that, with 4 power twinblade can kill 90% of meta relevant unit's.
Sharpsight: I really didn't wan't to include this one because it's a the best elusive counter in the game, but if we are being honest this card is too good, protect your unit's, trade efficiently, push for damage all for a cheap price. Most people who use this card tend to forget about the the block elusive part. If you play a Demacia deck, any Demacia deck you run 3 Sharpsight no question asked.
So this it for now. Which one do you agree or disagree with?
Pirate aggro is the most straight forward deck in the game, it's always going to have a high winrate because people are less likely to make mistakes with it. It can also win unfavorable match up if your opponent don't have a good opening hand. That doesn't mean it's the best deck the game.
The deck is also played a lot in Master because it has a favorable match up against Nami/Zoe who is the most popular deck at that rank.
Mobalytics only tracks the statics of players who use the app if you don't see Poppy deck on their meta states is doesn't mean that they loose so often or that nobody is playing them, it's just mean that the player who use the application aren't playing said decks.
If you look at statics from Dak who actually use the Riot official API you will notice that Poppy decks have both solid win rates and play rates.
The recent nerf to Blade dance and the Sivir package did help a lot, without that, darkness and landmark decks would have disappeared after the first two weeks.
Aren't people playing Caitlyn with Draven or is that just my experience? I've seen a lot of them more than Draven Ezreal tbh so I thought that was how you play Caitlyn now.
I did give this one a try, It worked better than what I expected. As I suspected Noxus control tools works well with Caitlyn since her flashbombs tend to damage your opponent units opening them for removal like Ravenous Flock, Noxian Guillotine and Scorched Earth. Still I don't know if this version is an upgrad of EZ/Draven or more of a side grade. Cailtyn is definitely better at creating early to mid game pressure but Ezreal is a stronger finisher.
Look guys I'm not saying catlyn is bad, I think she's great I just think that she makes no sense in a burn list ie. Shromes because the game plans don't matchup
Which is why when I face temo cayalyn with temo Ezreal burn I always win.
Also I do find it interesting that the best list run poison dart/lecturing yordeler because I was the only one doing that.
They also cut the landmark also me, they run get excited etc.
Archetype give a total win rate of various deck that use the same champions, many of these deck don't even run the same secondary regions.
And yes the gameplan do match up. Teemo and his package allow to level up Caitlyn faster and once she level up she also start dealing burn damage.
What's holding Caitlyn back is her flashbomb package. Who are ,with the exception of Sting Officer, very underwhelming. Just compare Justice Rider to Puffcap Peddler, more expensive and much more slower.
A streamer wining a couple of games with some deck does not mean the deck is any good. Grapplr has posted video were he won games with meme deck at masters. Should we considers those deck to be competitively viable?
Also Cailtyn/Teemo is currently siting at a 51% win rate according to both Mobalytics and Dak.GG.
Your talking about Caitlyn? At the moment it make little sense to play her without Teemo. Without the mushroom package, you just won't level her up in any consistent manner. If she had more ( good ) cards that can put flashbomb in the opponent deck, I could see her being played in Noxus control with swain.
Now talking seriously, out of memes, lets recap the "nerfs", who for some cards are mere needed balances.
That's exactly what a nerf is supposed to do, bring overpowered cards into a balanced stat.
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Merciless Hunter: The nerf affects it? nope, it stills being a 3 mana 4 damage beatstick with better challenger and fearsome. The possibility of being worse is true, but only for people who think in trading with it. The true solution for me is that she and arda cast a Bounty HunterBADCARDNAME-like effect or destroying it. (making she 5/6 mana or making she a 2/3.) Also, is part of the everlasting-multiple Shurima engine who makes it the best region.
Yes the nerf does affect it. Now the card dies to more removal cards like Mystic Shot, Darkness, Fleetfeather Tracker, Laurent Protege, Avalanche, Blighted Ravine and can no longer trade favorably into some champion like Fizz, Akhsan or TF. Is the card still good? Yes but now more deck can deal with it in a cost efficient way.
Your just saying that Shaped Stone is now better than a garbage combat trick that nobody used in the first place.
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Flurry of Fists: I know that is in much lists of decks but i don't see this card anywhere playing. So idk, i like the card and i think is strong having the possibility to make ANY quick attacker into a doble attacker, but for 4 mana… and having his first effect being a strong but weird and now expensive combat trick…
It was part of a stupid OTK that involve giving Sivir elusive with Ghost and double attack with Flurry of Fists plus some other combat tricks. For most decks the OTK was impossible to interact with due to both spellshield and elusive, you can see it here starting from the 20:00 mark.
A more accurate statement would be four nerfs targeting an engine used by multiple top tier decks.
And I am really confused by that question. What do you mean by "was Flawless Duet actually used?" Of course it was, have you never faced an Azir/Irelia? Something that is very unlikely if you have been playing the game for the last 4 months.
These are some good changes and the nerf to flawless duet in pretty brutal, I would have like it if they also nerfed some cards in the Ionia elusive rally decks but in the end of the day this is just a hotfix not a balance patch so I understand.
I don't think that making mediocre champions multi region is gonna make them good.
Also some champions like A/Sol, Karma, Elise and TF don't need any buff. A/Sol and Karma just need the meta to slow down a bit. Elise don't need to always be top tier especially since she was was part of so many tier 1 decks. Whereas many champions couldn't even get a tier 3 deck, it's okay for her just be decent. And we all saw what happens when TF spirals out of control.
Not surprising, Freljord and Targon are both oriented toward Midrange and Control play style and tend to struggle in aggro dominated meta. But Ionia? Ionia is one the strongest region right now and decks like Lulu/Zed elusive and Azir/Irelia is one of the main reason why those two region struggle so much in the first place, the other one being Sivir decks.
The expansion just got released and I feel that it's too early to be making such post but to answer your issues :
Problem 1:
Are new champions being pushed ? Yes. Are old old champions being forgotten? No I mean in the last patch before the expansion Karma and Hecarim both got buffed, Teemo just got a lot of support and many champions from the beta are still competitive Ashe, Jinx, Draven, Ezreal, Zed, Shen, Elise, Tresh. Some champions like Garen don't see play (even though elites keep getting plenty of support ) not because they are weak but more because their play style is just so boring and linear.
Like you said not every champion is going to be meta that's not just a realistic expectation to have. The most important thing to me is to make sure that meta deck/champion aren't too strong so that if you choose to play non meta you can still find success as long as you play better than your opponent.
Problem 2:
I don't believe that Ionia is a problematic region I believe that it has some problematic cards (Hello Lee Sin).
- Ionia doesn't have too much draw. The only (playable) draw cards in the region are Deep Meditation, Rivershaper and Shadow Assassin. and your can't use them all in the same deck, deep meditation is played in control/combo and rivershaper in midrange decks, shadow assassin is played in aggro but do see play in some Karma decks. Regions like P&Z, Targon and Shadow Isles have better draw engines than Ionia.
- Ionia don't have access to rally, Relentless Pursuit and Golden Aegis come from Demacia. You could consider blade dance to be a form of rally but blade dance is garbage without Shurima.
- I said it before elusive are the not the problem, they are understated for their price and we didn't have any competitive Ionia elusive deck since the beta. Elusive are a problem now because they have access to Twin Disciplines. Like Nopeify! it protect them from removal but what makes better than that card is that it also allow them to trade favorably and push for lot's of damage
Don't give yourself any false hope, the comment of the dev team made clear that they don't intend to rework the old champions is any foreseeable future.
I don't know the lore for Ziggs but is there a cause for him being tied to Shurima from a lore perspective? I would have thought he'd be P&Z or something. I mean if there is a reason for it then that's fine but otherwise if they needed a champ for Shurima/BC I feel it would've been better to make an entirely original one.
Absolutely zero things who make Ziggs in Shurima logical. Ziggs may be in PNZ, literally he works with Heimerdinger. In LOR, they established Shurima as a safeplace for the yordles to make bomb testing i think, so is only for that, thing that to me, a lore fanatic and enthusiastic to the level of being barely and expert, makes me angry. And they dont have to make an original yordle for Shurima/Bandle, they got Amumu, who is confirmed to be a yordle, they got Rumble, who in a Universe story is in Shurima and in canon doesn't have a second region (He only lives in Bandle) and having the scrapyard mech + desert they could make a mad-max reference theme (Rumble also have's a skin of that!) and also, if they were insane, they could make Kled, being Noxus/Shurima, being Shurima for being conquering the newest Noxian lands! Ziggs is only Shurima by game needs, who makes me sad.
Amumu is not confirmed to be a Yordle, in the lore no one know his true origin, some Shuriman believe that he was a prince from the first imperial family while other think that he was a Yordle.
Veigar don't have any connection with Shadow Isles either nor does Teemo with P&Z or Lulu with Ionia. They are probably just gonna add a line or two in their flavor text to justify their presence in said region.
Veigar has the connection of being tortured by Mordekaiser for years at least, who made him mAd & eViLLLL, Teemo is easily connected to PNZ because the shrooms, and Lulu can be in Ionia, cuz she enter a magical forest in his lore, who can easily be in Jonia. Ziggs doesn't have a thing to in Shurima. Only bombtesting, who they made he do, so...
Veigar : So what if he was tortured and became evil ( well as evil as Yordle can get ), you don't belong in Shadow Isles because you are evil, you need to have so connection to the black mist.
Teeno: Teemo puffcaps growing in P&Z was only added in Legends of Runterra.
Lulu: The magical forest is not Ionia it's the Glade, it's a middle area between Bandle City and the rest of Runeterra
Veigar don't have any connection with Shadow Isles either nor does Teemo with P&Z or Lulu with Ionia. They are probably just gonna add a line or two in their flavor text to justify their presence in said region.
All those cards are core to region? I mean if we are talking about Sharpsight sure but Nami a core card to Bilgwater? Lost soul a core card for Noxus? That doesn't make any sense.
And since when being a core card means that you don't get nerfed? Pale Cascade and Hush are both core to Targon and they both got nerfed.
How is Demacia supposed to deal with Teemo? You mean beside Single Combat, Fleetfeather Tracker and all the challenger unit's available to the region?
A meme card being played in a tier 1 deck? I don't even know what to say to this. Maybe it's better if you just see what this card can do in this deck :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai--mS_mGNo
Now that enough time has passed, we finally have a good idea on the real power level of the new cards, so what cards would you want to see in the next balance patch that will be released on October 20? Here are my personal ones.
Nami: Do you guys remember the +1/+1 that The Veiled Temple used to give? The one that was considered too strong and had to be nerfed. Imagine a better version of that effect on a champions that has one of the easiest level up requirement in the game. Nami always level by round 4 and when she do. You only need to spam burst speed spells to turn your board of tiny elusives into game ending terrors. Since these burst spells also offer protection to your units. Trying to use removal on them ends up being a lost cause. Speaking of elusive...
Sparklefly: During the beta one of the most powerful elusive cards was Kinkou Lifeblade a 4 mana 2/3 with lifesteal. That was deemed to strong and was eventual nerfed to 2/2. So you can imagine the community's surprise when an even better version of that card was released. This card can be tutored with Crescendum and is very hard to get ride off due to all the protection and buffs available for Targon.
Aloof Travelers: This card allow you to discard your opponent win condition, draws you a card and give a decent body for a cheap price, The effect being on summon means there is nothing you can do to stop it. Definitely overturned.
Hidden Pathways: Bandle City has so much card generation that it's pretty much impossible not to fulfill this card condition and contrary to Deep Meditation the discount you get is permanent.
Otterpus: Pranks are for most part manageable except for the grant your +2 cost which can cripple your opponent hand and this little fellow allow you to do that for free.
Lost Soul: An infinite value engine, discard lost soul play a Twinblade Revenant, trade into one your opponent key unit's rinse and repeat, I have won many matches just by out grinding my opponent with this card. It doesn't help that, with 4 power twinblade can kill 90% of meta relevant unit's.
Sharpsight: I really didn't wan't to include this one because it's a the best elusive counter in the game, but if we are being honest this card is too good, protect your unit's, trade efficiently, push for damage all for a cheap price. Most people who use this card tend to forget about the the block elusive part. If you play a Demacia deck, any Demacia deck you run 3 Sharpsight no question asked.
So this it for now. Which one do you agree or disagree with?
Pirate aggro is the most straight forward deck in the game, it's always going to have a high winrate because people are less likely to make mistakes with it. It can also win unfavorable match up if your opponent don't have a good opening hand. That doesn't mean it's the best deck the game.
The deck is also played a lot in Master because it has a favorable match up against Nami/Zoe who is the most popular deck at that rank.
Mobalytics only tracks the statics of players who use the app if you don't see Poppy deck on their meta states is doesn't mean that they loose so often or that nobody is playing them, it's just mean that the player who use the application aren't playing said decks.
If you look at statics from Dak who actually use the Riot official API you will notice that Poppy decks have both solid win rates and play rates.
https://dak.gg/lor/meta/decks
The recent nerf to Blade dance and the Sivir package did help a lot, without that, darkness and landmark decks would have disappeared after the first two weeks.
I did give this one a try, It worked better than what I expected. As I suspected Noxus control tools works well with Caitlyn since her flashbombs tend to damage your opponent units opening them for removal like Ravenous Flock, Noxian Guillotine and Scorched Earth. Still I don't know if this version is an upgrad of EZ/Draven or more of a side grade. Cailtyn is definitely better at creating early to mid game pressure but Ezreal is a stronger finisher.
Archetype give a total win rate of various deck that use the same champions, many of these deck don't even run the same secondary regions.
And yes the gameplan do match up. Teemo and his package allow to level up Caitlyn faster and once she level up she also start dealing burn damage.
What's holding Caitlyn back is her flashbomb package. Who are ,with the exception of Sting Officer, very underwhelming. Just compare Justice Rider to Puffcap Peddler, more expensive and much more slower.
A streamer wining a couple of games with some deck does not mean the deck is any good. Grapplr has posted video were he won games with meme deck at masters. Should we considers those deck to be competitively viable?
Also Cailtyn/Teemo is currently siting at a 51% win rate according to both Mobalytics and Dak.GG.
https://lor.mobalytics.gg/stats/decks
https://dak.gg/lor/meta/decks
Your talking about Caitlyn? At the moment it make little sense to play her without Teemo. Without the mushroom package, you just won't level her up in any consistent manner. If she had more ( good ) cards that can put flashbomb in the opponent deck, I could see her being played in Noxus control with swain.
That's exactly what a nerf is supposed to do, bring overpowered cards into a balanced stat.
Yes the nerf does affect it. Now the card dies to more removal cards like Mystic Shot, Darkness, Fleetfeather Tracker, Laurent Protege, Avalanche, Blighted Ravine and can no longer trade favorably into some champion like Fizz, Akhsan or TF. Is the card still good? Yes but now more deck can deal with it in a cost efficient way.
Your just saying that Shaped Stone is now better than a garbage combat trick that nobody used in the first place.
It was part of a stupid OTK that involve giving Sivir elusive with Ghost and double attack with Flurry of Fists plus some other combat tricks. For most decks the OTK was impossible to interact with due to both spellshield and elusive, you can see it here starting from the 20:00 mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrgqBKiZZ74
A more accurate statement would be four nerfs targeting an engine used by multiple top tier decks.
And I am really confused by that question. What do you mean by "was Flawless Duet actually used?" Of course it was, have you never faced an Azir/Irelia? Something that is very unlikely if you have been playing the game for the last 4 months.
These are some good changes and the nerf to flawless duet in pretty brutal, I would have like it if they also nerfed some cards in the Ionia elusive rally decks but in the end of the day this is just a hotfix not a balance patch so I understand.
I don't think that making mediocre champions multi region is gonna make them good.
Also some champions like A/Sol, Karma, Elise and TF don't need any buff. A/Sol and Karma just need the meta to slow down a bit. Elise don't need to always be top tier especially since she was was part of so many tier 1 decks. Whereas many champions couldn't even get a tier 3 deck, it's okay for her just be decent. And we all saw what happens when TF spirals out of control.
Not surprising, Freljord and Targon are both oriented toward Midrange and Control play style and tend to struggle in aggro dominated meta. But Ionia? Ionia is one the strongest region right now and decks like Lulu/Zed elusive and Azir/Irelia is one of the main reason why those two region struggle so much in the first place, the other one being Sivir decks.
The expansion just got released and I feel that it's too early to be making such post but to answer your issues :
Problem 1:
Are new champions being pushed ? Yes. Are old old champions being forgotten? No I mean in the last patch before the expansion Karma and Hecarim both got buffed, Teemo just got a lot of support and many champions from the beta are still competitive Ashe, Jinx, Draven, Ezreal, Zed, Shen, Elise, Tresh. Some champions like Garen don't see play (even though elites keep getting plenty of support ) not because they are weak but more because their play style is just so boring and linear.
Like you said not every champion is going to be meta that's not just a realistic expectation to have. The most important thing to me is to make sure that meta deck/champion aren't too strong so that if you choose to play non meta you can still find success as long as you play better than your opponent.
Problem 2:
I don't believe that Ionia is a problematic region I believe that it has some problematic cards (Hello Lee Sin).
- Ionia doesn't have too much draw. The only (playable) draw cards in the region are Deep Meditation, Rivershaper and Shadow Assassin. and your can't use them all in the same deck, deep meditation is played in control/combo and rivershaper in midrange decks, shadow assassin is played in aggro but do see play in some Karma decks. Regions like P&Z, Targon and Shadow Isles have better draw engines than Ionia.
- Ionia don't have access to rally, Relentless Pursuit and Golden Aegis come from Demacia. You could consider blade dance to be a form of rally but blade dance is garbage without Shurima.
- I said it before elusive are the not the problem, they are understated for their price and we didn't have any competitive Ionia elusive deck since the beta. Elusive are a problem now because they have access to Twin Disciplines. Like Nopeify! it protect them from removal but what makes better than that card is that it also allow them to trade favorably and push for lot's of damage
Don't give yourself any false hope, the comment of the dev team made clear that they don't intend to rework the old champions is any foreseeable future.
Amumu is not confirmed to be a Yordle, in the lore no one know his true origin, some Shuriman believe that he was a prince from the first imperial family while other think that he was a Yordle.
Veigar : So what if he was tortured and became evil ( well as evil as Yordle can get ), you don't belong in Shadow Isles because you are evil, you need to have so connection to the black mist.
Teeno: Teemo puffcaps growing in P&Z was only added in Legends of Runterra.
Lulu: The magical forest is not Ionia it's the Glade, it's a middle area between Bandle City and the rest of Runeterra
Veigar don't have any connection with Shadow Isles either nor does Teemo with P&Z or Lulu with Ionia. They are probably just gonna add a line or two in their flavor text to justify their presence in said region.
For the cheap price of 7 mana.