One of the things I liked about LOR is that there weren't any "best decks"
You could take a Swain deck that was powerful in vanilla LOR since the games launch, give it a numbers tweak during a patch and just go right back to winning with boat 3 years later.
But in snap it is a numbers game.
If you can play a card like brood and tripple or double buff it with the likes of patriot and silver surfer.
It's like gg good job you build the most vanilla of all decks that synergies with the most vanilla of all cards and you won by putting out the biggest numbers...gg go next? You win?
Ideally in card games people like to build "archetypes" not "anti archetypes" and when the anti-archetypes get better than the archetypes as your reward for spending money or grinding the game since day 1.
Like good for you I guess? Just not sure that's for me, like maybe if you want to get to infinite but if you're beating up free to play players in Plat that's just sad.
Once again we are running into the greedy pool 3 problem, every now and then you will face these decks you dont have the tools to deal with so Ben Brode can get your money.
This is why I hated hearthstone and I hate to see it here in snap too.
So out of the final third of the Darkin expansion we've seen an unprecedented amount of bulk carda released.
For the first time ever this extends to actual champions.
The like of ryze and angel girl are unplayable, and of course they are its written on the cards.
Do a bunch of unnecessary counter intuitive crap maybe win the game.
So what's to stop a LOR player from running Plunder a three decades old archetype still sitting in A tier?
What's to stop them from running ramp the only good freijord archetype since the pop dancers mini event?
What's to stop you from running Annie a meta defining control and aggro card that released with bard?
The reality is these decks are good, they may not be the best but they balance payoffs, synergies, and deckbuilding requirements in a satisfactory manner.
Thats something we are seeing less and less of in LOR moving forward. So maybe LOR can take a page from Snaps book smaller expansions with more meaningful cards.
Because at the end of the day unlocking 1 card like the human torch who compliments a pre-established archetype is 10 times better than unlocking 100 cards that do absolutely nothing.
Thats fair multiple man is my favorite card in snap, he's pretty much the only card that maximizes the potential of the location system and I'd love to see more cards like him.
But yes the deck is "bad" the predictability od henindal is one thing but also the disruptability just jam Fisk tower in the middle and you dont get to play, death, sanctum also problematic.
Snap is just very unrewarding f2p you'll get credit screwed at collection level 100 and be hard forced to run the same Odin deck while grinding for minimal rewards not sure how people do it.
Seraphine dude how many singer champions are in the game?
Sometimes I overestimate my readership.
Ya that's the last topic till expansion unless you guys want to talk about how every single streamer has left for marvel snap and nobody is still talking about LoR in a meaningful way except me and Sunny.
Yah I typically don't bother with smork decks I think there's a pretty nasty habit people fall into where it's like there's lethal and you achieve it by playing things that kill people
Then there's all the cool actual synergistic stuff where your champs and deck choices matter and you're not boring
I have been noticing people tend to have forgotten the difference
So when I bring in an actual deck that does something and the opponent tries to emulate the midrange matchup they instantly lose because they have forgotten how to play LOR like mtg
So the best deck in the game elusive good stuff is only pulling a 53% winrate.
So realistically you can play whatever you want and win 47% of the time.
Thats less of a meta, and more of a wide open play arena.
Want to play Ecko Zillian time bomb printer go for, all those pings would actually be pretty gold right now.
Ionia is strong but not toxic so that means nobody is playing it.
Obvious overperforming cycle Champs have been tuned down, Tailor Swift is still nuts but you actually have to build around her which nobody will do but me.
Idk, it's pretty much perfect play what you want, when you want, don't suck, win games.
I can't wait for the 3rd part of the Darken saga to break things all over again so streamers know what to play again.
Okay so it's no secret I took a bit of an LOR break to play Overwatch 2 but I'm back and man have people been asleep.
Time to delve into what is actually worth playing post Ionia and Akshan nerfs.
Theory - biggest change besides the removal of Ionias easy acess to the double bounce with added health potion benefit is the toning down of cycling Champs like akshan and Taylor Swift
So what that actually means is board presence, honest to God numbers on a freaking board aka vanilla Runeterra is exponentially better again.
This is countered by the value of honest to God hard removal, because soft removal has been toned down.
Here are some examples:
Deep - been around for ages numbers on board plus mill condition and solid pings should auto win for you
Thralls - free 8/8s are really good when bounces are bad
Tribal - Elites, yordles, and any either tribal synergy you can think of to pit numbers on board
Ramp - feel the 10/10s the deck the recent addition of shatter ups the flexibility of Freijord and makes it less reliant on shadow isles
Jayce/Lux - when bounces are bad you're essentially forcing hard removal answers and ever since the play priority change where you get Lazer at instant speed should be easy dub
Heimer/Nora - nothing really happened to stop this board swarmed do nothing deck from being good so why did people stop playing it?
Fated- they literally just hit the 1 drop fated card by one point and you want to tell me this deck is bad now? Are you actually dumb?
Darkness - again solid control option that does better in a post combo Ionia meta
Pirate aggro/scouts - I just played scouts its nuts just run the 4 mana rally instead of the nerfed 5 mana rally, plus there's that cool 1 mana strike card to try
Midrange - Archetypal midrange like Swain (nerfed) and Ash (super buffed) is valuable when nobody knows what to play
Master yi - that's right I think master yi is very strong in a post Akshan world got a lot of synergistic cards in the last set
Plunder - gangplank sejuani is still nuts and only gets better when there are no bounces
Jax/Orn - super buffed to the point of being game winning actually low key insane
Sion/heckarim - big game winning Champs that have unique build around conditions and swing 4 value are actually good now
Landmarks - oh yeah you better believe I didn't forget zigs or thaliyah
Mono shurima - sundisc is always viable and probably my biggest losing matchup to date
Riven/Fizz- yes elusive combo is good there is always one best version to run, but generally speaking the burst combo version has been better then the good stuff versions
Ezreal/Catarina- nothing is stopping ezreal from being good right now, in the absence of Lee Sin and low commitment 2 mana cycling Champs hard removal gets better
Evelyn/Viego - now Viego did get nerfed a little bit but the absence of cheap answers for him should compensate and bring this deck back to light.
Honestly, I could do this all day listing decks that I can or could pilot to a plus 50% winrate in the current meta rather then use these garbage lists and I'm bad, so my biggest recommendation right now is steer clear till people remember how to play LOR pre-Ionia
Lor is still a better game in my oppinion.
But Snap is faster, it's easier, and there are no hard counters.
Like say I run ramp into an ezreal deck in LOR it's basically gg because all that dmg is burn.
But in Snap once you have your meta silver surfer deck built (not me imo) you can basically just play and win any game if you want.
Or death wave, or she hulk infinate or whatever toxic late game deck your card collection will allow.
Dude I went virbranium in pool 1.
Because the card pool was equalized.
I'm not impressed
The good is that there is a massive number of unique decks and archetypes that achieve unique goals.
The bad, there's 100ds of non unique decks that essentially just jam easy agressive high value cards that don't actually do anything.
Why is hallowed one of the highest played archetypes in the history of LOR?
It's idiot proof and it goes in everything.
Why is Freijord the least played region?
It requires you to do the most bs to be playable and win games. (Although wild mysticism is a great buff)
So why did people leave?
Well the cool decks are generally worse then the dumb decks.
Ryse releases and requires a ton of bs to play well thats 40% instantly
Ionia gets a nerf and stops being a powerhouse? Well nobody is gonna play it.
Meanwhile hallowed decks will exist in the game forever as a ubiquitous and easy form of high value aggro.
So while I will always enjoy the core LOR experience of smart deck vs smart deck playing for unique wincons.
I'll also hate the game for its lingering hearthstone elements, who curves the hardest while denying easy value for the opponent.
One of the things I liked about LOR is that there weren't any "best decks"
You could take a Swain deck that was powerful in vanilla LOR since the games launch, give it a numbers tweak during a patch and just go right back to winning with boat 3 years later.
But in snap it is a numbers game.
If you can play a card like brood and tripple or double buff it with the likes of patriot and silver surfer.
It's like gg good job you build the most vanilla of all decks that synergies with the most vanilla of all cards and you won by putting out the biggest numbers...gg go next? You win?
Ideally in card games people like to build "archetypes" not "anti archetypes" and when the anti-archetypes get better than the archetypes as your reward for spending money or grinding the game since day 1.
Like good for you I guess? Just not sure that's for me, like maybe if you want to get to infinite but if you're beating up free to play players in Plat that's just sad.
Once again we are running into the greedy pool 3 problem, every now and then you will face these decks you dont have the tools to deal with so Ben Brode can get your money.
This is why I hated hearthstone and I hate to see it here in snap too.
So Marvel Snap definately has a noticeable pay to win curve.
Pool 1 = easy and fair climb
Pool 2 = much the same
You can hit vibranium very easily with just basic deck building sense and a normal amount of smart play.
But you hit Pool 3 and oh boy
It's just Wong into magic into crazy late game power spike combos
Meanwhile you're like wow I own all of like 3 Pool cards...like I guess venom is cool, human torch, idk I haven't gotten any new wincons yet.
So when you hit that wall collection level 500+ where cards are no longer guaranteed
The developers are expecting you to essentially pay money to guarantee free wins.
Not because youre better, or because you're Galaxy brain, but you simple have an inherrant advantage.
So this is the ugly predatory side of snap.
The developers are aware of it, they purposely shield you from it sub collection level 500
But it doesn't stop them from turning on the drip and beating you with the stick after that once they have you on longterm retention.
It's for that reason that I would hesitate calling snap the mobile game of the year personally.
It could be, it might be, but it's also greedy and nasty in a way that LOR never was.
https://app.mobalytics.gg/lor/meta-tier-list
So out of the final third of the Darkin expansion we've seen an unprecedented amount of bulk carda released.
For the first time ever this extends to actual champions.
The like of ryze and angel girl are unplayable, and of course they are its written on the cards.
Do a bunch of unnecessary counter intuitive crap maybe win the game.
So what's to stop a LOR player from running Plunder a three decades old archetype still sitting in A tier?
What's to stop them from running ramp the only good freijord archetype since the pop dancers mini event?
What's to stop you from running Annie a meta defining control and aggro card that released with bard?
The reality is these decks are good, they may not be the best but they balance payoffs, synergies, and deckbuilding requirements in a satisfactory manner.
Thats something we are seeing less and less of in LOR moving forward. So maybe LOR can take a page from Snaps book smaller expansions with more meaningful cards.
Because at the end of the day unlocking 1 card like the human torch who compliments a pre-established archetype is 10 times better than unlocking 100 cards that do absolutely nothing.
https://youtu.be/tm9v3NBFQNc
I know personally for me Darken saga pt2 in Lor was when I realized how low impact the new sets were.
Essentially you have the Champs who are meta defining and then you have the bulk aka everything else.
When before if a new mechanic came out it was actually game defining like invoke.
So thats fair I don't think LOR went down hill as fast Mogwai says but I think he's right about the ultimate outcome.
That being said, snap is new ans already has issues of its own.
I think killmonger and leader are problematic cards. There are a lot of really interesting and snowbally one drops that get invalidated by killmonger.
Likewise a lot of interesting six drops get invalidated by leader so that constrains the valid play space and deck building space and play styles.
So yeah my take LOR is a bit over the hill but Snap isn't this perfect amazing card game and has a lot of proving to do still.
Thats fair multiple man is my favorite card in snap, he's pretty much the only card that maximizes the potential of the location system and I'd love to see more cards like him.
But yes the deck is "bad" the predictability od henindal is one thing but also the disruptability just jam Fisk tower in the middle and you dont get to play, death, sanctum also problematic.
Yeah so about a quarter way through pool 2 just hit vibranium.
Not gonna bother posting the list because there's a lot of unnecessary card elitism around Marvel snap right now.
Just know that you move stuff you get value, always play right early because everything moves to the left.
Read the cards that say move add them to the deck, then add pay off cards, and maximize your flex slots etc.
Truthfully I have never had an easier time climbing in any card game than marvel snap, minimal time investment maximum returns.
Easy peasy.
In marvel snap your exact card selection and decks matter a whole lot less then the snap mechanic.
You run away for 1 cube and go all in for 8.
This determines more than anything your ability to ladder efficiently.
I got to Plat with Swarm and I got to diamond with Dino.
But just as easily you could go Odin.
There are no "good cards" in snap just good poker players.
Fairly exciting Ebony Maw was my first grab 1 mana 7 power.
Very strong for Dino decks you force extra resources out of your opponent while if you draw him late game he just makes your t Rex bigger.
Pool 2 is very important for movement archetypes, destruction archetypes, and discard.
While Pool 1 you're kinda forced into Swarm, Dino, or Odin.
So yeah looking forward to Marvel Snap getting a little more diverse and complicated as my collection expands.
Greeeat more scissors synergy.
Already one of the easiest Champs to pilot and win with.
By nature of her on ramp plays essentially being unpunishible.
Mystic shot this and youre behind
Only been playing for 2 days with starter cards and was just cleaning up.
Ranking is easy when you can back out of games you know you'll lose and double down on games you know you'll win.
You'll fly through ranked even when you're new to the game with this deck.
Ftp 4 the win
Snap is just very unrewarding f2p you'll get credit screwed at collection level 100 and be hard forced to run the same Odin deck while grinding for minimal rewards not sure how people do it.
Seraphine dude how many singer champions are in the game?
Sometimes I overestimate my readership.
Ya that's the last topic till expansion unless you guys want to talk about how every single streamer has left for marvel snap and nobody is still talking about LoR in a meaningful way except me and Sunny.
Playing non comital decks that say simple cycle with every card but don't present valid wincons are bad
Not only because they can be countered by a single card, but because playing them actually degrades your ability to be a good player
I see this mistake a lot with taylor swift, why not just play prank cards with her and fill up the board with cycle garbage?
Well because your deck isn't doing anything, it is in fact exceptional in it's ability to do nothing.
It presents zero wincons, it has zero answers, it has zero alternate approaches to play, it is in fact a gaping hole an absence of play.
The same thing can be said about playing an elusive good stuff deck.
Its like yep here we go how many avalanche effects do you have in hand?
Are we going to take advantage of the fact that you may be bricked or that lodestone exists so it doesn't really matter if you get board cleared
Yes that is one approach, but what happens when youre forced to actually play the game
Play in a meta where decks that actually do something are good?
Well you might very well be garbage?
We saw this in the post Ionia patch, people who were just like well shiiiit wtf do I do now that I can bounce everything?
Idk engage with the games mechanics, think, exercise pass priority, not suck?
Long story short try to brew decks that actually accomplish a set objective, it will make you a better player.
Yah I typically don't bother with smork decks I think there's a pretty nasty habit people fall into where it's like there's lethal and you achieve it by playing things that kill people
Then there's all the cool actual synergistic stuff where your champs and deck choices matter and you're not boring
I have been noticing people tend to have forgotten the difference
So when I bring in an actual deck that does something and the opponent tries to emulate the midrange matchup they instantly lose because they have forgotten how to play LOR like mtg
But LOR like hearthstone they got the covered.
So the best deck in the game elusive good stuff is only pulling a 53% winrate.
So realistically you can play whatever you want and win 47% of the time.
Thats less of a meta, and more of a wide open play arena.
Want to play Ecko Zillian time bomb printer go for, all those pings would actually be pretty gold right now.
Ionia is strong but not toxic so that means nobody is playing it.
Obvious overperforming cycle Champs have been tuned down, Tailor Swift is still nuts but you actually have to build around her which nobody will do but me.
Idk, it's pretty much perfect play what you want, when you want, don't suck, win games.
I can't wait for the 3rd part of the Darken saga to break things all over again so streamers know what to play again.
Also I don't think building 5 versions of the same Gwen deck makes you a brewer...trolls lol so bad
Okay so it's no secret I took a bit of an LOR break to play Overwatch 2 but I'm back and man have people been asleep.
Time to delve into what is actually worth playing post Ionia and Akshan nerfs.
Theory - biggest change besides the removal of Ionias easy acess to the double bounce with added health potion benefit is the toning down of cycling Champs like akshan and Taylor Swift
So what that actually means is board presence, honest to God numbers on a freaking board aka vanilla Runeterra is exponentially better again.
This is countered by the value of honest to God hard removal, because soft removal has been toned down.
Here are some examples:
Deep - been around for ages numbers on board plus mill condition and solid pings should auto win for you
Thralls - free 8/8s are really good when bounces are bad
Tribal - Elites, yordles, and any either tribal synergy you can think of to pit numbers on board
Ramp - feel the 10/10s the deck the recent addition of shatter ups the flexibility of Freijord and makes it less reliant on shadow isles
Jayce/Lux - when bounces are bad you're essentially forcing hard removal answers and ever since the play priority change where you get Lazer at instant speed should be easy dub
Heimer/Nora - nothing really happened to stop this board swarmed do nothing deck from being good so why did people stop playing it?
Fated- they literally just hit the 1 drop fated card by one point and you want to tell me this deck is bad now? Are you actually dumb?
Darkness - again solid control option that does better in a post combo Ionia meta
Pirate aggro/scouts - I just played scouts its nuts just run the 4 mana rally instead of the nerfed 5 mana rally, plus there's that cool 1 mana strike card to try
Midrange - Archetypal midrange like Swain (nerfed) and Ash (super buffed) is valuable when nobody knows what to play
Master yi - that's right I think master yi is very strong in a post Akshan world got a lot of synergistic cards in the last set
Plunder - gangplank sejuani is still nuts and only gets better when there are no bounces
Jax/Orn - super buffed to the point of being game winning actually low key insane
Sion/heckarim - big game winning Champs that have unique build around conditions and swing 4 value are actually good now
Landmarks - oh yeah you better believe I didn't forget zigs or thaliyah
Mono shurima - sundisc is always viable and probably my biggest losing matchup to date
Riven/Fizz- yes elusive combo is good there is always one best version to run, but generally speaking the burst combo version has been better then the good stuff versions
Ezreal/Catarina- nothing is stopping ezreal from being good right now, in the absence of Lee Sin and low commitment 2 mana cycling Champs hard removal gets better
Evelyn/Viego - now Viego did get nerfed a little bit but the absence of cheap answers for him should compensate and bring this deck back to light.
Honestly, I could do this all day listing decks that I can or could pilot to a plus 50% winrate in the current meta rather then use these garbage lists and I'm bad, so my biggest recommendation right now is steer clear till people remember how to play LOR pre-Ionia