Honestly, I would just take the reducing cycling power in the 2 slot, and the minimorph change and call it a win.
I just wanted to provide a wide list of balance options as opposed to a all of the above approach.
Otter kinda is op though, like remember when they had to nerf that bouncing elusive 1/1. Or compare it to the bilgewater 2/1 attune that doesn't cycle its 10 times worse.
So post patch as the meta begins to settle its become fairly obvious that bandle city is just good...and there's very little mystery as to why.
Having every card in your archetype just cycle, while also allowing you to buff those little dudes with midrange threats like poppy/tristana while also having the best control tools in the game...is maybe a little much.
I've seen bandle VI, I've seen Bandle Lux, I've seen Bandle Poppy, I've seen burn Bandle, Combo bandle tree, I've literally seen every archetype and every deck with just add bandle city.
Are all these decks amazing...actually for the most part they get people to masters and are good for climbing, but let's say they aren't for argument...they are still good enough to fill in the gaps of every archetype and deck.
I have a few suggestions for bandle nerfs that would be healthy:
1. Take away attune on otter, it already cycles and gives you hand disruption
2. Turn all bandle 2/2 cycles into 2/1 to put them on par with telescope or 1/2
3 Put minimorph to 7 mana to put in on par with vengeance
4. Put stress test to 4 mana and buff the dmg to put in on par with fury of the north
5. Put poppy to a 4/2 so it's basically ekko and you can attack make it a 5/3 and protect with burst like usual
This would essentially fix the just add bandle city to every deck problem. Now maybe this doesn't happen till the next expansion to make sure there are new tools for the region and it isn't just deleted but right now it's too good and too universal.
It is the region to beat right now absolutely, and while you can do it, it shouldn't always feel like an uphill battle where you're 10 times better than the opponent just to win the game.
So last time we went over the top dogs of the new meta, which exist with much debate. So how about the under dogs the decks people don't see coming and can win just as much?
Not listed number 1 because it's the best it's simple the fastest and easiest to play. Only really looses to hard bandlewood control, minimorph, stress test, even like pokey stick into that 3 mana P and Z 3 dmg removal
But I guarantee you will pretty much win queuing into everything else and that's a good thing as Martha Stewart would say.
Auto leveled champ decks are a blast to play and the sheer amount of card advantage tools here means you won't even pay the usual price associated with that. This deck is basically designed to eat Bandlewood. We don't care about pokey or getting getting our swings minid or stressed because we just have so muuuiuch stuff.
Oh you want to win with big swings well here ya go, all in on overwhelm, and elusive and a burn finisher. Not even the easiest thing to control out because our initial dmg is all burst and can't be chumped.
I got all you Lux fans out there, usually remembence into like two 6/6's and a leveled lux is all you need to win games. Tf and the generated lock away card stops your opponent from running you over with anything too spooky. You even have a better version of dragons two mana challenger and we know how good he is.
There we go 5 midrange lists nobody will expect and will do very well right now, and has been play tested extensively...don't like the decks thats cool they arent bad you're bad and I have tons more you might like better.
No hush, minimorph, or stress defense, or frostbite, or hard removal of any kind that must be some insular high end deck building stuff because I laugh at Lee Sin everytime.
Admididly all my lists even the midrange ones are pretty reactive, and establish a board that is scary enough that they can barely even play Lee Sin they are so busy juggling keeping their eye of the dragons alive and their life total high.
Just gonna go over this article pretty quickly, and present my.own thoughts.
Dragons, plunder, Lurk, Sivir, and Sion are solid midrange decks and for that reason they are good right now, are they exceptional, hard to say but solid 9/10 decks for sure.
Lee Sin Zoe...no just no this deck has never been worse right now. Enjoy getting minimorphed, getting your eye of the dragons removed etc.
I would add quite a few more to the list, I belive landmark aggro with Renekton post buff and Ziggs can do some scary stuff, kind of a low ramp midrange list honestly.
Top end wise, turbo ramp into like a auto leveled Asol is scary as hell. Probably a lot worse with counters, but as something you run into once in a blue moon you'll get run over.
The buff to nightfall is actually relavent where playing multiple Champs still gives you his play effect, turns out thats huge. You can run better decks but you can climb with this.
A high rolled Ekko can be absolutely disgusting, I've seen some r and g nightmares where they pull crystal and duplicate it and play ekko leveled on curve into a automatic time wind, like really unbeatable situations.
Swain, Viktor, these niche Champs are also seeing some really strong winrates again due to their midrange identities, Lux can do work, and yes even in very small instances Braum.
So yeah play midrange or aggro-midrange and win games...that's the real lesson from the post patch meta.
I think thats the point that its no where on the tier list and youre better off climbing with any random midrange list you're comfortable with right now.
Or you can always wait for other people to do it for you, and climb with their deck instead. Someone always has to pave the way creatively.
If you're still a mobalytics slave you might think that bandle tree is the best deck in the game post nerfs.
But honestly I haven't seen a single person play it, people were running bandle aggro for a while post nerfs but it seems people have learned it doesn't work. Zed poppy who cares.
We get lots of dragons, and for good reason it s a strong deck, lots of Veigar Senna, it's a strong control list
But the real surprise here is that midrange is just freaking good again. Any sort of deck that is flexible, can deal with early threats, play scary midrange stuff, and yes maybe even go over the top with an Asol or other crazy win con.
Those decks are the best to climb with right now...it's not sexy, it's not gonna show up all over mobalytics, but honestly I would feel more confident playing a dumb Braun deck right now, then anything in the tier 1 recommendations.
Thats just where we are at, like Mogwai was playing pursuit of perfection for christ sake, literally dumbest win con there is, and that's because midrange lists with late game payoffs are that strong.
Grappler was playing a discard deck with Viktor, because...midrange. honestly, I love it, it's fantastic, everyone can play they want and win how they want.
I'd say mayor is probably the only card left the devs are probably looking at real closely. Like how many decks are literally just Add mayor and telescope and stress defense, and minimorph and boom you're done.
The aggro bandlewood stuff was hit hard as it should have been, the fact that stone stackers used to just be better then that 2/3 noxious card was dumb.
Otherwise so much stuff went right, every deck can be scary now in its own way, with the exception of garen or like Kindred but even then they buffed that 3 mana elite card which helps.
Its no secret I found the vanilla release of bandlewood to be basically unplayable once the meta settled.
Gangppank burn, scion Draven, Nami, and shadow creating this really poor play space where it was impossible to tech against everything.
But fortunately this balance patch did two major things.
It hit all the major decks and nerfed them, but secondly it made a lot of my favorite decks and play styles viable again.
Yes Ekko is great now, like actually great if you build him right, same with Lux. TF is playable again, just by merit of bringing down the overall power curve.
Asol absolutely Targon is playable again, while we are still seeing a lot of just add vandlewood decks, the truth is it feels way easier to beat deal with.
Same thing with Poppy Zed etc. Because now you only need to tech against aggro, instead of like 5 different things.
I love it I'm actually enjoying the game again for the first time since Bandlewood released great patch, fixed a lot of the games problems.
So its no secret that Legends of Runterra only received 15,000 views on its worlds tournament on twitch.
By Riot standards this is an exceptionally low viewer count.
And it has a lot to do with the way Legends plays as a spectator game as of right now.
It prioritizes efficiency, go wide strategies, infinite value engines, all of which aren't particularly interesting to watch.
Meanwhile the "cool" cards ie mono shurima, champions with interesting level up mechanics/quests are generally relegated to meme territory.
This is the one area where hearthstone and and magic when at its best is infinitely more interesting to watch.
Whether it be old school quest warrior, or a magic player going off with some insane combo these things were actually viable competitively.
It wasn't just play a thing that tutors for another thing, do it again, play poppy swing. Or play a thing, tutor for darkness do it again, play Senna.
It really is just watching paint dry in most respects.
So the big advice for the devs make the cool stuff playable, and competitive, this will up the presentation value of your tournaments and make them more exciting to watch.
Now that people have stopped deck building and having fun, the stats are locked in for most popular decks to encounter when playing ladder. Which I'll go over here.
Actually I'm a diamond player mostly and I do it over my phone in my spare time.
With zero meta lists only my own decks.
And I'm free to play
Anyways let's talk about worlds.
What do we see, we see Nami, we see Catlyn, we see Sivir.
We dont see poppy strongly indicating the current poppy lists dont perform well in tournaments.
The reality is building decks being original is hard and so is climbing while being original. Criticizing others because youre bad at the game is easy...so keep on doing you guys.
Man these "bad" poppy decks I made sure do win a lot just started my climb after meeming hard easy gold. Then on to Plat and we'll see if I have the patience for Diamond again depending on how busy I get with RL.
Yes and I provide mobalytics stats that directly contradict what is being said. Also I'm honored you made a meme about me not sure if that speaks to your abundance of spare time or my influential nature in the community.
I dont know if I can trust that website its saying pirate aggro is winning 60% of games which would make it the best deck in the game for ladder and I actually belive pirate aggro has never been worse.
Now bandle tree Swarm I can find stats for aka tristana poppy and it's at 54% but Poppy Lulu I know it's seen a huge drop in play and there's gotta be a reason for that.
And I think that fleet feather tracker into lulu is easy to counter so people stopped playing it.
The big problem with having mobalytics curated by essentially 2 people is that you can run into issues where personal bias plays a big role into how tier lists are designed.
Honestly, I would just take the reducing cycling power in the 2 slot, and the minimorph change and call it a win.
I just wanted to provide a wide list of balance options as opposed to a all of the above approach.
Otter kinda is op though, like remember when they had to nerf that bouncing elusive 1/1. Or compare it to the bilgewater 2/1 attune that doesn't cycle its 10 times worse.
So post patch as the meta begins to settle its become fairly obvious that bandle city is just good...and there's very little mystery as to why.
Having every card in your archetype just cycle, while also allowing you to buff those little dudes with midrange threats like poppy/tristana while also having the best control tools in the game...is maybe a little much.
I've seen bandle VI, I've seen Bandle Lux, I've seen Bandle Poppy, I've seen burn Bandle, Combo bandle tree, I've literally seen every archetype and every deck with just add bandle city.
Are all these decks amazing...actually for the most part they get people to masters and are good for climbing, but let's say they aren't for argument...they are still good enough to fill in the gaps of every archetype and deck.
I have a few suggestions for bandle nerfs that would be healthy:
1. Take away attune on otter, it already cycles and gives you hand disruption
2. Turn all bandle 2/2 cycles into 2/1 to put them on par with telescope or 1/2
3 Put minimorph to 7 mana to put in on par with vengeance
4. Put stress test to 4 mana and buff the dmg to put in on par with fury of the north
5. Put poppy to a 4/2 so it's basically ekko and you can attack make it a 5/3 and protect with burst like usual
This would essentially fix the just add bandle city to every deck problem. Now maybe this doesn't happen till the next expansion to make sure there are new tools for the region and it isn't just deleted but right now it's too good and too universal.
It is the region to beat right now absolutely, and while you can do it, it shouldn't always feel like an uphill battle where you're 10 times better than the opponent just to win the game.
So last time we went over the top dogs of the new meta, which exist with much debate. So how about the under dogs the decks people don't see coming and can win just as much?
Here we go!
Not listed number 1 because it's the best it's simple the fastest and easiest to play. Only really looses to hard bandlewood control, minimorph, stress test, even like pokey stick into that 3 mana P and Z 3 dmg removal
But I guarantee you will pretty much win queuing into everything else and that's a good thing as Martha Stewart would say.
Auto leveled champ decks are a blast to play and the sheer amount of card advantage tools here means you won't even pay the usual price associated with that. This deck is basically designed to eat Bandlewood. We don't care about pokey or getting getting our swings minid or stressed because we just have so muuuiuch stuff.
Oh you want to win with big swings well here ya go, all in on overwhelm, and elusive and a burn finisher. Not even the easiest thing to control out because our initial dmg is all burst and can't be chumped.
An oldy that is well positioned to clean house again, you have midrange plays, and you have shromes, with an alt wincon of permanent freeze.
I got all you Lux fans out there, usually remembence into like two 6/6's and a leveled lux is all you need to win games. Tf and the generated lock away card stops your opponent from running you over with anything too spooky. You even have a better version of dragons two mana challenger and we know how good he is.
There we go 5 midrange lists nobody will expect and will do very well right now, and has been play tested extensively...don't like the decks thats cool they arent bad you're bad and I have tons more you might like better.
No hush, minimorph, or stress defense, or frostbite, or hard removal of any kind that must be some insular high end deck building stuff because I laugh at Lee Sin everytime.
Admididly all my lists even the midrange ones are pretty reactive, and establish a board that is scary enough that they can barely even play Lee Sin they are so busy juggling keeping their eye of the dragons alive and their life total high.
https://mobalytics.gg/blog/lor-top-dogs-post-bandlewood-balance-patch-meta/
Just gonna go over this article pretty quickly, and present my.own thoughts.
Dragons, plunder, Lurk, Sivir, and Sion are solid midrange decks and for that reason they are good right now, are they exceptional, hard to say but solid 9/10 decks for sure.
Lee Sin Zoe...no just no this deck has never been worse right now. Enjoy getting minimorphed, getting your eye of the dragons removed etc.
I would add quite a few more to the list, I belive landmark aggro with Renekton post buff and Ziggs can do some scary stuff, kind of a low ramp midrange list honestly.
Top end wise, turbo ramp into like a auto leveled Asol is scary as hell. Probably a lot worse with counters, but as something you run into once in a blue moon you'll get run over.
The buff to nightfall is actually relavent where playing multiple Champs still gives you his play effect, turns out thats huge. You can run better decks but you can climb with this.
A high rolled Ekko can be absolutely disgusting, I've seen some r and g nightmares where they pull crystal and duplicate it and play ekko leveled on curve into a automatic time wind, like really unbeatable situations.
Swain, Viktor, these niche Champs are also seeing some really strong winrates again due to their midrange identities, Lux can do work, and yes even in very small instances Braum.
So yeah play midrange or aggro-midrange and win games...that's the real lesson from the post patch meta.
Umm if you say so you should look at my decks lol.
Everything is off meta and powerful and unique.
But youre right most people are meta slaves.
Now I just looked at the play rates of mobalgtics and they are at an all time low since the patch about 1.5% is the highest.
Which implies nobody is playing tier list decks post patch, because they are bad during this midrange meta.
If you dont build your own lists you're at huge disadvantage right now.
I think thats the point that its no where on the tier list and youre better off climbing with any random midrange list you're comfortable with right now.
Or you can always wait for other people to do it for you, and climb with their deck instead. Someone always has to pave the way creatively.
Title pretty much says it all.
If you're still a mobalytics slave you might think that bandle tree is the best deck in the game post nerfs.
But honestly I haven't seen a single person play it, people were running bandle aggro for a while post nerfs but it seems people have learned it doesn't work. Zed poppy who cares.
We get lots of dragons, and for good reason it s a strong deck, lots of Veigar Senna, it's a strong control list
But the real surprise here is that midrange is just freaking good again. Any sort of deck that is flexible, can deal with early threats, play scary midrange stuff, and yes maybe even go over the top with an Asol or other crazy win con.
Those decks are the best to climb with right now...it's not sexy, it's not gonna show up all over mobalytics, but honestly I would feel more confident playing a dumb Braun deck right now, then anything in the tier 1 recommendations.
Thats just where we are at, like Mogwai was playing pursuit of perfection for christ sake, literally dumbest win con there is, and that's because midrange lists with late game payoffs are that strong.
Grappler was playing a discard deck with Viktor, because...midrange. honestly, I love it, it's fantastic, everyone can play they want and win how they want.
I'd say mayor is probably the only card left the devs are probably looking at real closely. Like how many decks are literally just Add mayor and telescope and stress defense, and minimorph and boom you're done.
The aggro bandlewood stuff was hit hard as it should have been, the fact that stone stackers used to just be better then that 2/3 noxious card was dumb.
Otherwise so much stuff went right, every deck can be scary now in its own way, with the exception of garen or like Kindred but even then they buffed that 3 mana elite card which helps.
Its no secret I found the vanilla release of bandlewood to be basically unplayable once the meta settled.
Gangppank burn, scion Draven, Nami, and shadow creating this really poor play space where it was impossible to tech against everything.
But fortunately this balance patch did two major things.
It hit all the major decks and nerfed them, but secondly it made a lot of my favorite decks and play styles viable again.
Yes Ekko is great now, like actually great if you build him right, same with Lux. TF is playable again, just by merit of bringing down the overall power curve.
Asol absolutely Targon is playable again, while we are still seeing a lot of just add vandlewood decks, the truth is it feels way easier to beat deal with.
Same thing with Poppy Zed etc. Because now you only need to tech against aggro, instead of like 5 different things.
I love it I'm actually enjoying the game again for the first time since Bandlewood released great patch, fixed a lot of the games problems.
Keep it up
Or to put it in simpler terms. The things that make competitive sports interesting, are the same things that make e-sports interesting.
Big swings, underdogs, out of left field plays, nobody wants to watch competitive autism unless we're literally talking about chess.
So its no secret that Legends of Runterra only received 15,000 views on its worlds tournament on twitch.
By Riot standards this is an exceptionally low viewer count.
And it has a lot to do with the way Legends plays as a spectator game as of right now.
It prioritizes efficiency, go wide strategies, infinite value engines, all of which aren't particularly interesting to watch.
Meanwhile the "cool" cards ie mono shurima, champions with interesting level up mechanics/quests are generally relegated to meme territory.
This is the one area where hearthstone and and magic when at its best is infinitely more interesting to watch.
Whether it be old school quest warrior, or a magic player going off with some insane combo these things were actually viable competitively.
It wasn't just play a thing that tutors for another thing, do it again, play poppy swing. Or play a thing, tutor for darkness do it again, play Senna.
It really is just watching paint dry in most respects.
So the big advice for the devs make the cool stuff playable, and competitive, this will up the presentation value of your tournaments and make them more exciting to watch.
Now that people have stopped deck building and having fun, the stats are locked in for most popular decks to encounter when playing ladder. Which I'll go over here.
https://lor.mobalytics.gg/stats/regions
Zoe Nami and Draven War are 20% of the meta.
You can expect to run into one of these decks one out of 5 games.
Darkness control and Temo traps are about 15% of the meta. You can expect to run into one of these decks on average 6.5 games.
Shurima landmarks, and TF Gangplank burn are 10% of the meta. You'll find then one out of 10 games.
Everything else we see a pretty big drop of in play rate of 4% or less.
So what do we think, how are we enjoying the meta now that you can realistically know what decks you'll run into 50% of the time?
All those cards you just listed are core region cards and are unlikely to change. Like how is demacia answering temo without Sharp sight?
Sparkle fly is a meme
Aloof could maybe discard lowest cost, but then it would instantly see no play.
Hidden pathways could be 4 mana.
But the real powerhouse card in bandlewood and the one no one expected.
Is loping telescope because he pulls snake every single game.
So you get a 2/1, you get a 1/1 challenger you push dmg and eat their card for free.
This is problematic, bandlewood does card advantage I get that but it shouldn't also get massive tempo at the same time.
Just hit Plat with Poppy's pirate ship, will update again when I hit diamond...sooo much conjecture.
Actually I'm a diamond player mostly and I do it over my phone in my spare time.
With zero meta lists only my own decks.
And I'm free to play
Anyways let's talk about worlds.
What do we see, we see Nami, we see Catlyn, we see Sivir.
We dont see poppy strongly indicating the current poppy lists dont perform well in tournaments.
The reality is building decks being original is hard and so is climbing while being original. Criticizing others because youre bad at the game is easy...so keep on doing you guys.
Man these "bad" poppy decks I made sure do win a lot just started my climb after meeming hard easy gold. Then on to Plat and we'll see if I have the patience for Diamond again depending on how busy I get with RL.
All without a single meta deck 😝
So much for "conjecture"
Yes and I provide mobalytics stats that directly contradict what is being said. Also I'm honored you made a meme about me not sure if that speaks to your abundance of spare time or my influential nature in the community.
Either way thanks :)
I dont know if I can trust that website its saying pirate aggro is winning 60% of games which would make it the best deck in the game for ladder and I actually belive pirate aggro has never been worse.
Now bandle tree Swarm I can find stats for aka tristana poppy and it's at 54% but Poppy Lulu I know it's seen a huge drop in play and there's gotta be a reason for that.
And I think that fleet feather tracker into lulu is easy to counter so people stopped playing it.
The big problem with having mobalytics curated by essentially 2 people is that you can run into issues where personal bias plays a big role into how tier lists are designed.
https://lor.mobalytics.gg/meta-tier-list
I'm speaking specifically of thr Poppy Swarm style decks currently listed on the tier list.
They aren't registering on stats meaning they either loose so often you can't find the stats or nobody is playing then for much the same reasons.
The reality is there are much strong Poppy Swarm style decks as soon as you realize you can cut bandlewood.
You can run Poppy in scouts with 1 cost synergy and its actually very scary when there isn't a lot of wither whail or avalanches
You can run her in demacia so you can take advantage of elite synergy
Like dont get me wrong lulu into fleet feather tracker is strong but thats a one trick ponny and it basically stopped working after a week.
Experiment, evolve try new brews!