So good news some of the least well designed cards such as Ahiri, and whiteflame are being nerfed in the future each losing a point of life each. Better late than never, however I have to say my excitement for the new cards is at an all time low.
Beaters, beaters everywhere, they go face, they don't synergies, or have alternate wincons, or burn, or use landmarks or anything. Like we get it Riot the best cards are the ones you can just play and are just good on board and do their thing, so when they die you replay them.
But like geeze common at least give me a reason to want to pair certain cards together and not just turn the game blatantly into value piles like they have been for the last 8 months.
So in summary lame expansion, but good balance patch.
-case study-
For consistency sake I consider any card that creates archetypes and decks to be well designed, and cards that are obviously just good in a vacuum to be bad.
Icevail archer enables Ash and stalls for control decks, what a good card.
White flame is literally a superior laurent protégé that requires less board interaction ans reactive play, what a bad card.
So when the devs doubling down on the let's just release obviously good brain dead cards it makes me miss the high synergy build around champ focused meta decks we had before.
It is totally normal patch cadence which is to say they can patch what they want when they want.
Pretty sure the Braum overall was pre expansion and that literally changed how that character played.
Instead we got a Kindred mana reduction, pretty nice but not exactly game changing.
Its usually more exciting when they say reduced the number of jarvan strikes from 4 to 3 or if they had undone the nerf on TF to make him level able again.
But I'm not gonna spend all night going over why Champs are bad again, and how they could be better. Because those changes won't get made as long as people think that flipping as a lose condition is unacceptable in a game about leveling Champs.
Hey sorry, I usually have like 17 notifications on this account at any given time and I don't really have time to answer them all.
For my stats I start with a tier list and then cross check winrates. Occasionally looking at play rates as well.
I agree that pirate aggro is S tier along with Mobalytics its essentially maintained a 56% -> 58% winrate for as long as the deck has existed.
Its meta resistant, easy to play, consistent and has stood the test of time even longer than midrange plunder which has fallen off the map.
As for the resurgence of Scouts that might be a temporary thing but enjoy it while it lasts I say.
Kenin Ahiri is obviously great, but the truth is play rates are low across the board. To the point that debating which is the best deck gets exceedingly difficult.
So at the end of the day the equation should look like this.
We got some pretty big shifts in the S tier again.
Not gonna waste much time.
Pirate aggro is in S tier again, some would argue mostly me that it never left based solely on the numbers it just got outshined by pre nerf Poppy.
Scouts, hey can't complain about this deck being in S tier, it has a clear champ focused wincon and Quin is just kinda cool from a design perspective.
Spiders drops down, to A only because one pure aggro deck gets to be in S tier and pirate aggro has always been more consistent for like the last two years...but it's nice to see the rankings reflect the obvious.
Zed rally drops down too, mainly because Kenin Ahiri can stun Zed all day and rallies become useless.
Honestly minus Kenin it's basically Bilgewater meta, and if you liked that you will be happy, if you hated it well too bad.
We'll talk about something other than meta shifts when there is something else to actually talk about.
All jokes aside there are certain early indicators that perhaps the excitement for the overall direction of the game is starting to decline.
Bruised By God 3 weeks ago went on a meta rant with reddit and largely hasn't been playing much since (largely saying Champs aren't as flexible as they used to be aka are worse)
Mogwai and Swim typically spend more time not covering the game than they do over the past year. Like Swim used to break Runeterra with his decks like it was a fulltime job.
Generally awareness and excitement for the game among casual players and the community at large is fading.
Like at the end of the day of Champs aren't A) flexible B) win cons C) flashy nobody is going.to play this game over Hearthstone which has literally been on the market for like 20 years.
Am I trolling not really, the more time every one spends with their panties in a bunch the faster the game will die with us too afraid to have legitimate discussions about design and balance.
Case study: In MTG when Tefari Time Raveler was released in Dominaria he basically broke the game...and that was okay he had a good run and he got banned when necessary but God what a good card sold well too.
When Ekko released in Legends he was fun but under-powered in-flexible and under-baked. He remains at a negative winrate in the only deck he's playable something like 6-8 month after release. This is bad people...it's bad for hard-core players its bad for monetization at Riot and it's bad for the casual player base too.
Case study 2: Nautelus the coolest Champ Riot has made remains at a negative winrate 2 years after release...yes this is also bad people. Better to let the card be broken like Oko for 3 months than for him to stay like wet fart in the wind. God I feel bad for deep players they literally only get 1 playable deck and it's bad.
Case study 3: Yassao! Literally a ronin samurai with a katana, and practically one of the faces of League of Legends and he's unplayable...Jinx is too. The reality is that 95% of the Champs in this game are bad, and if they arent bad they were nerfed until they were bad.
I dont want to play a card game where the main selling point of its existence as a video game is being massochistically tortured out of its own design philosophy.
Its not the same topic they literally overhauled the entire tier list.
Decks have dropped as many as 3 tiers or are gone entirely.
Youre free to make posts about any non topics you wish.
Right now this is the news when there's a new expansion we'll talk about that.
Take a look with your eyeballs where's poke city, where's Poppy, where's Lee Sin, where's Plunder Midrange everything has shifted massively. So what do you want to talk about troll bro?
Sorry here's a forum topic for you guys nerf Lee Sin to 7 mana even though he gets hard countered by Ash just buffed and doesn't even win enough to be C tier.
He just punishes greed, and we kind of need him for that. So start running burst spells, hard removal, and build your own decks? Like I'm sorry I don't share your torch burning sentiments when you're getting your butt kicked by a D tier champ.
Case study: your deck is pass pass white flame, zenith blade, dragon girl. Yeah you'll get denied, concussive palmed, and kicked to death. Oh well maybe don't run a deck with nothing but big creatures buffed by a slow speed spell?
Hey look they did that thing I suggested...hey look spider aggro is in S tier who guessed that....maybe you guys should stop bad mouthing me when my calls and suggestions literally are meta before the meta?
S tier - Spiders, Ahiri, rally, Pantheon
A tier - everything else
Wow they literally even kicked Lee Sin of the tier list entirely not sure who called that? Need I go on guys, money talks bs walks.
Like some of the high minded stuff like the general decline of champ based win cons in favor of over powered followers...we might not really see the ramifications of that for a other year but it will happen if Riot doesn't start changing up its knee jerk champ nerf reactions in favor of buffing other weaker under played Champs.
Like its not enough that a ton of amazing decks have either dropped a tier or have disappeared all together practically overnight? How big and bright does the bat signal need to be till we start taking notice?
Oh wow I was 1 percent off the top of my head and thats an aggregate I probably saw a list specific score.
Also saying you don't have to be a genius to build Ekko to only realize that rhe deck has like a 48% winrate.
You would have to be a genius to pilot a list to masters with Ekko in it. Do you guys even think about the words you write prior to posting?
Also 52% for a S tier champ focused strategy is awful like absolutely awful.
Face it hard nerfing every champ that begins to perform slightly statistically better than your average common follower is a stupid design philosophy and it's killing the game slowly.
Like was Poppy thaaaat bad as a 3/3 for 4 mana did she need to be a 2/3. Did Fiora really need to be a 3/2 for 3 mana like literally the same stats as the 2 mana dragon challenger.
Did TF need to be impossible to level?
What about Shen he's not even an op card?
Like God I can do this all day all these once great cards went form unique and interesting to deleted just shot dead in the heart because a minority of bad players cried about it because they couldn't hard counter specific strategies.
Ezreal might be the worst victim pretty sure he's been nerfed on like 5 seperate ocassions or decks where he featured prominently...burn is op guys we can't have non linear non hit face strategies we just can't...too small brain for the big brain folk out there.
Its not brain dead because you actually had to build a high synergy deck for your champion.
Like if you lost to Malphite coming down on 7 I' sorry but youre the brain dead one.
Its just also happens to simultaneously be a terrible card that will never ever happen.
Same thing with Fiora, or Tf or any other card that made players go waaaah I had 8 cards in my 0 synergy greed list and lost anyway thats unfair!
How can I be small brain me big big brain?
Case study: I got to diamond easily one season with Renekton like literally considered one of the worst Champs. I did it by feeding exclusively off greed with fast paced high synergy overwhelm list that included interesting card choices.
Now try running Renekton go ahead just try value trading into the beefy game winning commons every deck is made up of now...I'll wait.
Reality check: plunder midrange is at 51% guys like literally the top tier bilgewater deck that has been around for as long as I remember. Want to know why? Too champ focused commons aren't strong enough to win games even when they literally steal your opponents deck? Like come on the writings on the wall.
Honestly, if Champs aren't wincons they have no place in the game.
They are chronically under-stated by design therefore if they arent questing wincons they essentially serve no purpose at all and come with a massive build around cost to boot.
Like look at just streamers covering the game Swims gone, Mogwais gone they are too afraid to articulate why the game isn't fun anymore because they'll get bogged down in discussion.
I'm not afraid of that ineffectual Champs that can't win games are ruining Runeterra and so is over nerfing Champs in favor of over-stated followers.
I should be scared when a 7 mana champ hits the board I shouldn't be scared when a 3 mana common names white flame hits the board I just shouldn't.
It should be the card I play that delays things till I actually win with my champ it shouldn't be the main win con on its own. It's just too bland and vanilla. Also the main dynamic of Runeterra is protecting Champs with burst spells well you ain't gonna do that if they generally suck.
Lee Sin is literally a 51% winrate champ focused win con and one of the only ones left in the game.
Is he an outlier absolutely because every single champ that win on level up has been nerfed into the ground and I guess he's soon to join them.
Yes card games need variance. They need variance in terms of the power between the cards aka legendaries are better than commons, and they need variance in terms of win conditions and play patterns.
Like of we talk about MTG tournaments I remember top deck glory bringer because it's a cool card and it was very strong at the time.
If this was Riot we're talking about they would nerf on a common scale so any rare or legendary or champion card that out performs a common needs to get slapped.
The only cost to pay is that champions have become redundant and useless foe the most part.
Like is Pantheon the card that wins nah its white flame, does Sion win nope its Zaunite urchin. In fact you don't even see many level ups these days, why would you if you're just gonna lose anyway.
Edit: you guys seem to forget but it used to be if a champion leveled you would just auto win.
1. Tf carding things to oblivion
2. Sejuani chain freezing at burst speed
3. Fiora OTK
4. Deep board flooding
5. Azir extra attacks
Now it's oh your champ leveled I don't care cuz you're dead, stop questing and get back to playing Runeterra at its most vanilla and brain dead version ever.
Variance is fun folks, strong champions auto winning games is fun...otherwise it's just nail dragging value wars and its boring. Synergy is dead, deck building is dead, Champs are dead, strategy is dead.
Omg are we nerfing Lee Sin now too even with its abysmal winrate.
Killing Poppy and Azir and literally every single champ focus strategy wasn't enough in the game?
God we really are looking at Gwent all over again.
Champs are supposed to win games guys its literally the reason they are in the game.
Case study: When burn aggro was the best deck in the game for what felt like 2 years running they could of nerfed temo said plant 4 mushrooms given him quick attack instead of elusive or whatever.
But the devs said no that's stupid let's nerf the followers instead so we dont take the fun out of our game. When Nab was oppressive once again they nerfed the follower instead of gangplank because they knew Champs go in lots of decks followers go in 1 deck.
Now they seem to have reverted that design philosophy and we are feeling its affects now. Less deck building, less originality, less hard muliganing to keep Champs always muliganing for combo or curve. Like it dumbs everything down to pure math, and honestly as a game of math Legends sucks you needs quests and high rolls and lucky draws if you want the game to remain relevant.
Runeterra just isn't very fun if Champs feel like follower, or are even worse than followers.
Like I would never play Fiora over Laurent protégé now, and that's really bad.
Tf is basically just a cycle or removal tool that's bad too.
Thresh is a worse challenger dragon in every sense this is also bad.
Like I can do this all day but the point is Runeterra as a card game doesn't function unless Champions feel like planeswalkers aka have inherent deck synergies, have level requirements that are game winning.
Its like when Gwent got rid of gold immunity and gold cards felt worse than bronze cards. It literally destroyed their game and belive it or not fans asked for this. Like nerf gold cards they are too strong and now all of a sudden your motivation for playing the game is gone.
I've had this buff Champs stance for like six months now. I don't actually want anymore nerfs. I've said that too.
Like every single time they buff a champ I revisit the game braum, anivia, Trundle, Kindred, Jarvan, etc.
And I'll do the same if TF is actually possible to level again, or Fiora.
Like every single champ nerf narrowed the valid play field and sometimes this is necessary when a deck is oppressive but assuming that certain Champs will remain oppressive for the rest of the games life cycle is kinda dumb.
Like TF is cool, people want to play TF and they want to level him, like that's the game.
I used a example of decks people know about that featured Champs as primary win cons.
But like sure if we are dreaming let's go top tier Ash Thres, Thaliyah Malphite, top tier deep.
I just want champ focused win cons to actually win games.
Most decks that win seen to win despite any Champs they are running as opposed to because of them.
Ezreal Kenin used to win because kenin burned opponents down to 0.
Now Kenin delays the game until Ahiri can elusive swing you down to 0. Like if she just was a vanilla 2/3 elusive quick attack follower it would literally change nothing.
Good Champs, with unique play styles and wincons, over grindy value wars where you just swing over ans over again with hard to remove stuff for value.
Edit: Champs are supposed to be Runeterras plainswalkers (mtg) and unfortunately Legends doesn't work as a card game if 95% of those planeswalkers (aka the characters you care about) are just a joke. Like they hit the board and they are less threatening than 1 one mana fur ball...that's the game right now.
My big thing is I like when Champs are good. Like the kindred buff was nice. A while back the jarvan level up buff was great.
But when vanilla followed cards like whiteflame, iceborn tribal, generic value card piles are the optimal way to play the game things feel pretty boring.
So I'd rather see something toxic like fiora Shen, tf Fizz, Azir Irelia, because those decks actually do things and have unique play patterns etc.
Like hate them all you want but what's less stupid a fizz level up into a bunch of small free elusive, or a 1/1 elusive poro grinding out value into a big chonker. No animation, no card synergy, no champ, just blaaaaaah.
Like actual card vomit turned into a deck. So one solution is to again keep saying this buff Champs and keep buffing underplayed Champs till they aren't underplayed. That takes priority over nerfs for me.
Yeah I have nothing against the meta persay it seems to punish a lot of traditional deck building styles like midrange or many forms of spell control.
Youre either the aggro, the one combo deck always Ahiri, or you're just grindy board value card pile.
So I think in general Champs just seem bad right now, like trying turbo level something or build around in general. It would explain why Poros is doing as well as it's doing its just grindy value beef.
When you actually examine the up to date win rates for decks the existing tier lists are essentially useless.
We have seen a massive number of decks drop to a barely playable winrate like 51%
So I'll list only the decks that are currently 53% and higher, yes the list is kinda scuffed.
1. Kenin Ahiri 57% combo is doing well into the grindy card piles people are running
2. Spider aggro 57% yeeep good old Elise perhaps the best vanilla champ
3. Pirate aggro 56% never went anywhere always was good always will be
4. Lurk 55% the most resilient midrange deck in Runeterra will always have a place
5. Pantheon 54% Whiteflame is a good card bro
6. Rally Zed 54% you know the drill
7. Darkness 53% solid control
8. Poros 53% grindy aggro
Everything else has dropped to 0 like a bullet. Plunder midrange get out of here, poppy decks gone, yordle burn gone, Sion never knew yeee, Akshan who? Lee Sin what?
Honestly it's time for a new mobalytics tier list because all these nerfs, plus the recent buffs, plus meta defining grindy cards like white flame have absolutely upset the meta.
So good news some of the least well designed cards such as Ahiri, and whiteflame are being nerfed in the future each losing a point of life each. Better late than never, however I have to say my excitement for the new cards is at an all time low.
Beaters, beaters everywhere, they go face, they don't synergies, or have alternate wincons, or burn, or use landmarks or anything. Like we get it Riot the best cards are the ones you can just play and are just good on board and do their thing, so when they die you replay them.
But like geeze common at least give me a reason to want to pair certain cards together and not just turn the game blatantly into value piles like they have been for the last 8 months.
So in summary lame expansion, but good balance patch.
-case study-
For consistency sake I consider any card that creates archetypes and decks to be well designed, and cards that are obviously just good in a vacuum to be bad.
Icevail archer enables Ash and stalls for control decks, what a good card.
White flame is literally a superior laurent protégé that requires less board interaction ans reactive play, what a bad card.
So when the devs doubling down on the let's just release obviously good brain dead cards it makes me miss the high synergy build around champ focused meta decks we had before.
It is totally normal patch cadence which is to say they can patch what they want when they want.
Pretty sure the Braum overall was pre expansion and that literally changed how that character played.
Instead we got a Kindred mana reduction, pretty nice but not exactly game changing.
Its usually more exciting when they say reduced the number of jarvan strikes from 4 to 3 or if they had undone the nerf on TF to make him level able again.
But I'm not gonna spend all night going over why Champs are bad again, and how they could be better. Because those changes won't get made as long as people think that flipping as a lose condition is unacceptable in a game about leveling Champs.
So patch 3.1 would have been an interesting time to adjust some underplayed Champs going into the new expansion.
However we didn't get that which means things are set going into the expansion on the 16th and.beyond.
Future patches post expansion will likely focus on adjusted newly released cards.
So if you were desperately waiting on a Garen or Katarina buff, that isn't happening.
So I'll see you all in 16 days.
Hey sorry, I usually have like 17 notifications on this account at any given time and I don't really have time to answer them all.
For my stats I start with a tier list and then cross check winrates. Occasionally looking at play rates as well.
I agree that pirate aggro is S tier along with Mobalytics its essentially maintained a 56% -> 58% winrate for as long as the deck has existed.
Its meta resistant, easy to play, consistent and has stood the test of time even longer than midrange plunder which has fallen off the map.
As for the resurgence of Scouts that might be a temporary thing but enjoy it while it lasts I say.
Kenin Ahiri is obviously great, but the truth is play rates are low across the board. To the point that debating which is the best deck gets exceedingly difficult.
So at the end of the day the equation should look like this.
Win rate + time dominating = top tier
We got some pretty big shifts in the S tier again.
Not gonna waste much time.
Pirate aggro is in S tier again, some would argue mostly me that it never left based solely on the numbers it just got outshined by pre nerf Poppy.
Scouts, hey can't complain about this deck being in S tier, it has a clear champ focused wincon and Quin is just kinda cool from a design perspective.
Spiders drops down, to A only because one pure aggro deck gets to be in S tier and pirate aggro has always been more consistent for like the last two years...but it's nice to see the rankings reflect the obvious.
Zed rally drops down too, mainly because Kenin Ahiri can stun Zed all day and rallies become useless.
Honestly minus Kenin it's basically Bilgewater meta, and if you liked that you will be happy, if you hated it well too bad.
We'll talk about something other than meta shifts when there is something else to actually talk about.
https://youtu.be/dweH2TQ-Vdw
All jokes aside there are certain early indicators that perhaps the excitement for the overall direction of the game is starting to decline.
Bruised By God 3 weeks ago went on a meta rant with reddit and largely hasn't been playing much since (largely saying Champs aren't as flexible as they used to be aka are worse)
Mogwai and Swim typically spend more time not covering the game than they do over the past year. Like Swim used to break Runeterra with his decks like it was a fulltime job.
Generally awareness and excitement for the game among casual players and the community at large is fading.
Like at the end of the day of Champs aren't A) flexible B) win cons C) flashy nobody is going.to play this game over Hearthstone which has literally been on the market for like 20 years.
Am I trolling not really, the more time every one spends with their panties in a bunch the faster the game will die with us too afraid to have legitimate discussions about design and balance.
Case study: In MTG when Tefari Time Raveler was released in Dominaria he basically broke the game...and that was okay he had a good run and he got banned when necessary but God what a good card sold well too.
When Ekko released in Legends he was fun but under-powered in-flexible and under-baked. He remains at a negative winrate in the only deck he's playable something like 6-8 month after release. This is bad people...it's bad for hard-core players its bad for monetization at Riot and it's bad for the casual player base too.
Case study 2: Nautelus the coolest Champ Riot has made remains at a negative winrate 2 years after release...yes this is also bad people. Better to let the card be broken like Oko for 3 months than for him to stay like wet fart in the wind. God I feel bad for deep players they literally only get 1 playable deck and it's bad.
Case study 3: Yassao! Literally a ronin samurai with a katana, and practically one of the faces of League of Legends and he's unplayable...Jinx is too. The reality is that 95% of the Champs in this game are bad, and if they arent bad they were nerfed until they were bad.
I dont want to play a card game where the main selling point of its existence as a video game is being massochistically tortured out of its own design philosophy.
Anyways you guys have fun in your little club house.
Complaining about your D tier Champs.
Instead of talking about the meta or the actual game or whatever.
Forums are yours to do nothing with.
Enjoy!!!
Its not the same topic they literally overhauled the entire tier list.
Decks have dropped as many as 3 tiers or are gone entirely.
Youre free to make posts about any non topics you wish.
Right now this is the news when there's a new expansion we'll talk about that.
Take a look with your eyeballs where's poke city, where's Poppy, where's Lee Sin, where's Plunder Midrange everything has shifted massively. So what do you want to talk about troll bro?
Sorry here's a forum topic for you guys nerf Lee Sin to 7 mana even though he gets hard countered by Ash just buffed and doesn't even win enough to be C tier.
He just punishes greed, and we kind of need him for that. So start running burst spells, hard removal, and build your own decks? Like I'm sorry I don't share your torch burning sentiments when you're getting your butt kicked by a D tier champ.
Case study: your deck is pass pass white flame, zenith blade, dragon girl. Yeah you'll get denied, concussive palmed, and kicked to death. Oh well maybe don't run a deck with nothing but big creatures buffed by a slow speed spell?
https://lor.mobalytics.gg/meta-tier-list
Hey look they did that thing I suggested...hey look spider aggro is in S tier who guessed that....maybe you guys should stop bad mouthing me when my calls and suggestions literally are meta before the meta?
S tier - Spiders, Ahiri, rally, Pantheon
A tier - everything else
Wow they literally even kicked Lee Sin of the tier list entirely not sure who called that? Need I go on guys, money talks bs walks.
Like some of the high minded stuff like the general decline of champ based win cons in favor of over powered followers...we might not really see the ramifications of that for a other year but it will happen if Riot doesn't start changing up its knee jerk champ nerf reactions in favor of buffing other weaker under played Champs.
Like its not enough that a ton of amazing decks have either dropped a tier or have disappeared all together practically overnight? How big and bright does the bat signal need to be till we start taking notice?
Oh wow I was 1 percent off the top of my head and thats an aggregate I probably saw a list specific score.
Also saying you don't have to be a genius to build Ekko to only realize that rhe deck has like a 48% winrate.
You would have to be a genius to pilot a list to masters with Ekko in it. Do you guys even think about the words you write prior to posting?
Also 52% for a S tier champ focused strategy is awful like absolutely awful.
Face it hard nerfing every champ that begins to perform slightly statistically better than your average common follower is a stupid design philosophy and it's killing the game slowly.
Like was Poppy thaaaat bad as a 3/3 for 4 mana did she need to be a 2/3. Did Fiora really need to be a 3/2 for 3 mana like literally the same stats as the 2 mana dragon challenger.
Did TF need to be impossible to level?
What about Shen he's not even an op card?
Like God I can do this all day all these once great cards went form unique and interesting to deleted just shot dead in the heart because a minority of bad players cried about it because they couldn't hard counter specific strategies.
Ezreal might be the worst victim pretty sure he's been nerfed on like 5 seperate ocassions or decks where he featured prominently...burn is op guys we can't have non linear non hit face strategies we just can't...too small brain for the big brain folk out there.
Its not brain dead because you actually had to build a high synergy deck for your champion.
Like if you lost to Malphite coming down on 7 I' sorry but youre the brain dead one.
Its just also happens to simultaneously be a terrible card that will never ever happen.
Same thing with Fiora, or Tf or any other card that made players go waaaah I had 8 cards in my 0 synergy greed list and lost anyway thats unfair!
How can I be small brain me big big brain?
Case study: I got to diamond easily one season with Renekton like literally considered one of the worst Champs. I did it by feeding exclusively off greed with fast paced high synergy overwhelm list that included interesting card choices.
Now try running Renekton go ahead just try value trading into the beefy game winning commons every deck is made up of now...I'll wait.
Reality check: plunder midrange is at 51% guys like literally the top tier bilgewater deck that has been around for as long as I remember. Want to know why? Too champ focused commons aren't strong enough to win games even when they literally steal your opponents deck? Like come on the writings on the wall.
Honestly, if Champs aren't wincons they have no place in the game.
They are chronically under-stated by design therefore if they arent questing wincons they essentially serve no purpose at all and come with a massive build around cost to boot.
Like look at just streamers covering the game Swims gone, Mogwais gone they are too afraid to articulate why the game isn't fun anymore because they'll get bogged down in discussion.
I'm not afraid of that ineffectual Champs that can't win games are ruining Runeterra and so is over nerfing Champs in favor of over-stated followers.
I should be scared when a 7 mana champ hits the board I shouldn't be scared when a 3 mana common names white flame hits the board I just shouldn't.
It should be the card I play that delays things till I actually win with my champ it shouldn't be the main win con on its own. It's just too bland and vanilla. Also the main dynamic of Runeterra is protecting Champs with burst spells well you ain't gonna do that if they generally suck.
Lee Sin is literally a 51% winrate champ focused win con and one of the only ones left in the game.
Is he an outlier absolutely because every single champ that win on level up has been nerfed into the ground and I guess he's soon to join them.
Yes card games need variance. They need variance in terms of the power between the cards aka legendaries are better than commons, and they need variance in terms of win conditions and play patterns.
Like of we talk about MTG tournaments I remember top deck glory bringer because it's a cool card and it was very strong at the time.
If this was Riot we're talking about they would nerf on a common scale so any rare or legendary or champion card that out performs a common needs to get slapped.
The only cost to pay is that champions have become redundant and useless foe the most part.
Like is Pantheon the card that wins nah its white flame, does Sion win nope its Zaunite urchin. In fact you don't even see many level ups these days, why would you if you're just gonna lose anyway.
Edit: you guys seem to forget but it used to be if a champion leveled you would just auto win.
1. Tf carding things to oblivion
2. Sejuani chain freezing at burst speed
3. Fiora OTK
4. Deep board flooding
5. Azir extra attacks
Now it's oh your champ leveled I don't care cuz you're dead, stop questing and get back to playing Runeterra at its most vanilla and brain dead version ever.
Variance is fun folks, strong champions auto winning games is fun...otherwise it's just nail dragging value wars and its boring. Synergy is dead, deck building is dead, Champs are dead, strategy is dead.
Omg are we nerfing Lee Sin now too even with its abysmal winrate.
Killing Poppy and Azir and literally every single champ focus strategy wasn't enough in the game?
God we really are looking at Gwent all over again.
Champs are supposed to win games guys its literally the reason they are in the game.
Case study: When burn aggro was the best deck in the game for what felt like 2 years running they could of nerfed temo said plant 4 mushrooms given him quick attack instead of elusive or whatever.
But the devs said no that's stupid let's nerf the followers instead so we dont take the fun out of our game. When Nab was oppressive once again they nerfed the follower instead of gangplank because they knew Champs go in lots of decks followers go in 1 deck.
Now they seem to have reverted that design philosophy and we are feeling its affects now. Less deck building, less originality, less hard muliganing to keep Champs always muliganing for combo or curve. Like it dumbs everything down to pure math, and honestly as a game of math Legends sucks you needs quests and high rolls and lucky draws if you want the game to remain relevant.
Runeterra just isn't very fun if Champs feel like follower, or are even worse than followers.
Like I would never play Fiora over Laurent protégé now, and that's really bad.
Tf is basically just a cycle or removal tool that's bad too.
Thresh is a worse challenger dragon in every sense this is also bad.
Like I can do this all day but the point is Runeterra as a card game doesn't function unless Champions feel like planeswalkers aka have inherent deck synergies, have level requirements that are game winning.
Its like when Gwent got rid of gold immunity and gold cards felt worse than bronze cards. It literally destroyed their game and belive it or not fans asked for this. Like nerf gold cards they are too strong and now all of a sudden your motivation for playing the game is gone.
I've had this buff Champs stance for like six months now. I don't actually want anymore nerfs. I've said that too.
Like every single time they buff a champ I revisit the game braum, anivia, Trundle, Kindred, Jarvan, etc.
And I'll do the same if TF is actually possible to level again, or Fiora.
Like every single champ nerf narrowed the valid play field and sometimes this is necessary when a deck is oppressive but assuming that certain Champs will remain oppressive for the rest of the games life cycle is kinda dumb.
Like TF is cool, people want to play TF and they want to level him, like that's the game.
Just using card Boi as an example.
#strongchampions #onlybuffs #funreuneterra
I used a example of decks people know about that featured Champs as primary win cons.
But like sure if we are dreaming let's go top tier Ash Thres, Thaliyah Malphite, top tier deep.
I just want champ focused win cons to actually win games.
Most decks that win seen to win despite any Champs they are running as opposed to because of them.
Ezreal Kenin used to win because kenin burned opponents down to 0.
Now Kenin delays the game until Ahiri can elusive swing you down to 0. Like if she just was a vanilla 2/3 elusive quick attack follower it would literally change nothing.
Good Champs, with unique play styles and wincons, over grindy value wars where you just swing over ans over again with hard to remove stuff for value.
Edit: Champs are supposed to be Runeterras plainswalkers (mtg) and unfortunately Legends doesn't work as a card game if 95% of those planeswalkers (aka the characters you care about) are just a joke. Like they hit the board and they are less threatening than 1 one mana fur ball...that's the game right now.
My big thing is I like when Champs are good. Like the kindred buff was nice. A while back the jarvan level up buff was great.
But when vanilla followed cards like whiteflame, iceborn tribal, generic value card piles are the optimal way to play the game things feel pretty boring.
So I'd rather see something toxic like fiora Shen, tf Fizz, Azir Irelia, because those decks actually do things and have unique play patterns etc.
Like hate them all you want but what's less stupid a fizz level up into a bunch of small free elusive, or a 1/1 elusive poro grinding out value into a big chonker. No animation, no card synergy, no champ, just blaaaaaah.
Like actual card vomit turned into a deck. So one solution is to again keep saying this buff Champs and keep buffing underplayed Champs till they aren't underplayed. That takes priority over nerfs for me.
Yeah I have nothing against the meta persay it seems to punish a lot of traditional deck building styles like midrange or many forms of spell control.
Youre either the aggro, the one combo deck always Ahiri, or you're just grindy board value card pile.
So I think in general Champs just seem bad right now, like trying turbo level something or build around in general. It would explain why Poros is doing as well as it's doing its just grindy value beef.
Man the tier list is straight up out the window right now.
https://lor.mobalytics.gg/stats/regions
When you actually examine the up to date win rates for decks the existing tier lists are essentially useless.
We have seen a massive number of decks drop to a barely playable winrate like 51%
So I'll list only the decks that are currently 53% and higher, yes the list is kinda scuffed.
1. Kenin Ahiri 57% combo is doing well into the grindy card piles people are running
2. Spider aggro 57% yeeep good old Elise perhaps the best vanilla champ
3. Pirate aggro 56% never went anywhere always was good always will be
4. Lurk 55% the most resilient midrange deck in Runeterra will always have a place
5. Pantheon 54% Whiteflame is a good card bro
6. Rally Zed 54% you know the drill
7. Darkness 53% solid control
8. Poros 53% grindy aggro
Everything else has dropped to 0 like a bullet. Plunder midrange get out of here, poppy decks gone, yordle burn gone, Sion never knew yeee, Akshan who? Lee Sin what?
Honestly it's time for a new mobalytics tier list because all these nerfs, plus the recent buffs, plus meta defining grindy cards like white flame have absolutely upset the meta.