Skies Descend requires your opponent to drain every ounce of mana they have, unless they have a full board of celestial/dragons. (In which case the cost would be reduced by 6). But if your opponent has a full board of celestial/dragons, chances are you've already lost anyways since you haven't been controlling the board. And at that point, Skies Descend is meant to eliminate any potential blockers you have and clean up the game.
I'm actually fine with Skies Descend because unlike Ruination, it can ONLY be played while ahead. If you are behind and not developing any presence, you can't play Skies Descend, and if you are toe-to-toe, your opponent can either play around it, or try to challenge your units to make it unplayable.
In my opinion, ruination is actually the less balanced of the two board clears. For one, it can be played from behind making it an overall better stall card or "hail mary". Secondly, it is part of Shadow Isles, which holistically doesn't care about some of it's own units dying and in some ways benefits from it. So any deck running Ruination doesn't care about the "backlash" effect.
And most of the new targon/celestial spell cards are slow speed. Which means you have time to react, re-develop your board, etc. Slow is actually fine because I get tired of burst spells constantly outdoing things. Slow allows the back and forth play/counter play that LoR is supposed to be known for.
Read your post. Good stuff. Regarding Leona playing out like a midrange deck. Do you feel that Daybreak/Moonlight will have any life outside of this expansion?
I'm not a fan of gimmick mechanics that are designed to only hang around for one expansion. We've seen this in Hearthstone to a very disappointing effect. And now we are seeing it in LoR.
For example, Is plunder now a keyword exclusive to Bilgewater? We saw a few Frejlord units with it, so the assumption was that with the last expansion that it's a mechanic that could *in theory* go beyond the region's it was released with. Invoke (essentially LoR's version of Discover) is a region specific mechanic of discover that only discovers celestial cards. Discover, as the devs found out in Hearthstone, was a fantastic feature, that ended up being included in every expansion since it was released in League of Explorers.
However, mechanics like Daybreak/Moonlight don't lend themselves to further expansions, unless as you stated...they are "baked in". And you are absolutely correct. Baked in mechanics make deck building and playing the deck, a trivial effort, because the synergies are so obvious that you choose those cards. You don't try to make non-meta or non-standard decks because the cards that support the champion require baked in synergy instead of regional identity synergy.
To top it all off, I'm concerned that the Dev design philosphy of "paying close attention and making changes" will become less and less viable over time. What happens when people get bored, or LoR is no longer the "new shiny" and people just stop coming back? Will the devs still pay close attention when the revenue income isn't as high?
LoR seems like it's trying to re-invent the wheel, instead of learning from it's competition in the marketplace.
First: cards that replace themselves are already in the game from day one. You need to be more specific and name said cards for any productive discussion. Second: Targon has 0 CARD DRAW SPELLS. I have no idea what your card advantage notion even is. The best Targon can do is cycle and stay even outside of generating Gem cards. So i think giving Targon a different mechanic like generate/replace/multiple casts instead of the standard "Draw 2" spell is a nice idea for region identity. Third: Taric would take Ezreal over Karma any day.
FIRST: Pretty sure conversations can be productive without him naming specific cards. It may help, certainly, but it's not a *requirement* for a conversation to be had.
Second: The advantage of card size is something most juvenile card games go through. Original Hearthstone had the same feel as Legends of Runeterra, that is people actually had many situations where they got into topdeck mode. Now a days the ONLY classes that ever reach top deck mode are pure aggro classes that are smOrc decks. Any mid-range/control/combo deck will *never* run out of cards in Hearthstone. This is because powercreep took over and "control" cards like Boulderfist Ogre (a vanilla 6/7 for 6 mana) aren't used because cards like Smug Senior exist (a 6 mana 5/7 with taunt that has a deathrattle that effectively gives you another copy of the card (without deathrattle)). I understand you're attempting to gatekeep but it's not becoming. When you have conversations, it's better to assume the best of the person's intentions, instead of the worst.
Third: Taric might take Ez over Karma, but if you were on a budget or in an expedition, you'd still pick Karma if given the choice. There's still very obvious synergy there. Ignoring it and making a "I'd still take X over Y" without acknowledging the power of Y still given the context is....well again falls down to making assumptions like I said in the 2nd point.
Exactly. LoR took the last little slice of available market share. Don't think there is any room left for more competition. At this point for any company to even consider a slice of the card game market, they'd have to do not only something TRULY innovating but also blow the other competition out of the water. Something I don't see Artifact doing on either account...
Also Veteran Investigator also seems like a bad expedition card. You never want to give your opponent extra card draw.
I've never understood the logic behind this, myself. Of course, letting your opponent draw cards is generally disadvantageous. However, if I get to draw one at the same time, it pretty much cancels out, doesn't it? Only point I could see against this is if the opponent is running some sort of combo deck, which naturally benefits more from having a bigger hand than other decks.
True, but one in expeditions you don't have perfect decks. The other downside is that mirror card draw in "arena" type formats is bad because YOU are paying the up front mana cost for the card draw. Sure it could lead to finding a better card or better play, but chances are you're giving your opponent more options...and they don't even have to pay the 2 mana cost for it.
Long story short: Is it an auto-pass? Probably not. But it's definitely not an auto-pick either. If playing on curve it's not horrible, but you are giving your opponent the advantage to play the card with full mana. The only time mirror draws every saw the light of day in hearthstone were "mill" decks, and you saw how Blizzard handled that. (nerfed)
While I do think Deep needs to be tuned for expeditions specifically (something like +2/2 instead of +3/3 as it is for constructed)...
I also think Deep is a bit of a double edged sword.
Literally just won versus a guy with a Nautilus/Twisted Fate deck and a ton of sea monsters. I ended up winning cause I had enough tokens (thank god I drafted 3 house spiders) to block his guys and smartly managed to stay alive while he drew and tossed his deck. Long story short, first time I ever won an expedition to fatigue on my opponent's deck. :D
Also, word of advice Brash Gambler and Pool Shark can screw you over, so unless your deck curve is VERY low, I would advice against using these wantonly. Also Veteran Investigator also seems like a bad expedition card. You never want to give your opponent extra card draw.
In short, my region has been set to Europe for the entire time of beta. I'm not a European player though, (US East-American). I thought the region was incorrect due to beta, but now that the game has gone live, I'm not so sure. I did some searching and apparently a few years back Riot combind all regions? But I'm concerned that for LoR I'm somehow incorrect set. I never had a chance to tell it otherwise...
Thematically, you are correct. Balance wise, that would be batshit insane. Teemo with Scout would have to be severely nerfed...like...."When I attack insert 2 shrooms in the enemy deck" nerfed.
Otherwise if he was out on turn 1, he could attack twice, once for scout, and once again for regular attack which means on turn 1, you already have 10 shrooms in your deck. See how balance wise that's a nightmare?
Hypothetically if he was removed. He could attack again on turn 3, level up after his first scout attack, (15 shrooms in deck now). And then on his regular attack double shrooms. (30 shrooms in deck).
Turn 3, 30 shrooms in deck with 0 other cards played other than Teemo himself is broken. So that's probably why they didn't give him the "Scout" keyword.
Despite any balancing issues that may crop up, can we all just take a second to appreciate the wonderful animations for the champion level ups? Very nice overall, puts Hearthstone to shame in that regard.
I've warmed a little to this card after seeing how great some of the sea monster tribe is, but I'm still not impressed by it from a competitive point of view. I think he'll ultimately play out Vladimir or Shen: good enough to make some fun off-meta decks around, but you'll never see him in touraments.
Quote From Author
His level 1 is not that terrible it can block against aggro boards the strongest unit.
No man, it's bad. Compare it to Braum: he's less than half the mana, regenerates, and he can challenge so he even helps on offense, yet he's one of the least-played champions because zero attack is just so bad. I will grant that perhaps it isn't as difficult as I imagined to get deep in which case his L1 stats don't matter as much, but if you're paying seven mana for a toothless blocker you're going to be extremely sad--even moreso with as many On Attack effects that this expansion is going to bring.
I mean, I get what you're saying but...gotta be realistic for a sec...
Part of playing card games is having fun on your level. Why does it matter if you never see Braum or Vlad in tournaments? Just have fun with the card, enjoy making your own deck and coming up with something that works. It doesn't have to work all the time. A good thing to remember is that never validate how well your deck is doing in anything less than sets of 10. If you try a wonky deck and you play 10 games and go 1-9, then it might be time to reconsider some cards or the theme of your deck.
Is it too inconsistent? Is it too combo oriented and hard to pull off? Do you find yourself lacking card draw or late game closers? These are all things to consider.
But if the deck is anywhere around 5:5, 3:7, 6:4, then I'd say just go with the flow and have fun. I'm sure someone is gonna come up with a buff deck for Nautilius. I'm hoping that I can start making a "Tough" based deck soon, as I think Tough is severely underrated, but against decks like Miss Fortune which look to spam small damage repeatedly, Tough is going to be a godsend.
That's "Can't Attack" and "Can't Block" I believe. Which means they don't want powder kegs getting buffed and used to attack or block stuff. Considering it has vulnerable though, I'm guess that means it can still be actively destroyed by an opponent who pulls it into combat, but it can't be used as a cheap blocker like Caustic Cask.
I agree that it's a lazy addition of Eager Apprentice, it seems that it is going to encourage small scale spells or miracle style decks though, which I'm hesitant about as I absolutely HATED miracle rogue from Hearthstone, so I hope to god something like that doesn't occur in LoR.
Agreed, Twin disciplines only saving grace is that it's in the "3 cost spell mana" bracket of spells you can save up for from previous turns, that being said...as someone who played Hearthstone during it's beta....this is effectively a Blessing of Kings, which was a great card during Hearthstone's early days. I can see this being valuable in pretty much any Freljord deck.
1- Make elusives cost-inefficient; 2- Elusives lose the keyword elusive after a block/attack; 3- Elusives go back to the hand after a block/attack; 4- All Elusives have 1 HP; 5- Elusives can only block other Elusives; 6- Print a new Keyword: "Ward". Ward -> The unit and adjacent units can block Elusives; 7- Print situational spells that remove the Keywords: Elusive/Fearsome/Overwhelm. 8- Print units that can steal/remove Keywords; 9- Elusives can be blocked by any unit but they don't receive combat damage from non-elusive minions.
My favorite is number 9
Just wanted to comment on your ideas (I think some are good too!) Just providing my opinion on each idea.
Cost inefficiency can still be circumvented through buffs/handbuffs
Some elusives already only gain elusive for one turn. IMO still easily circumvented
This would make elusives unplayable, the goal is to make an interesting mechanic not to nerf something into obscurity.
Interesting, this could be useful because then all the "play - deal 1 damage" effects would see more play.
Isn't this what we have now? I'm confused...
Doesn't really solve anything..."ward" would be just another word for "elusive" and end up building a deck with elusives or wards. Nothing changes.
Good idea but there's already a card that does this "purify". When you pay 1 card (spell) for 1 card (minion in play) you're still down a card because they still have stats on the board. What we need is essentially more "purify" on a stick cards. (a minion that has a stronger effect to remove buffs)
Kind of the same as above. A unit that steals/removes buffs is a counter-tech card. Minions with more counter-effects is what the game needs.
A good idea and probably the best out of all the ideas you listed.
But isn't this kind of what fearsome is? Fearsome is "you can only block if you have attack greater than 3". It's more or less giving the attacking unit partial elusive. Again I can't help but feel that all the mechanics in LoR feel disjointed, like they were each designed by a different person and then everyone got together and put their ideas into the pot but now none of them feel fully fleshed out...and the result is going to be inherently stronger mechanics than others.
I mean a perfect point I made earlier which i want to highlight is the "Tough" mechanic. This should not just be "1 damage" but should be "this unit has Toughness (or Armor) 2, and blocks 2 damage from any source. Tough the spell should stack with existing tough. This prevents that unit from incremental damage but not burst damage. It can be more useful than regeneration in niche scenarios. But anyhow, my point being that you don't see anyone building "Tough" decks because the mechanic is just inherently weak due to design. Conversely Elusive is a strong mechanic because of the way the game is based AND becuase of how Ionia (the biggest offender of Elusive decks) works with their bounce/stun mechanics along with their ability to buff cards.
I think printing more cards *might* work, but 1) that may dilute the region fantasy/theme. and 2) It might make matters worse printing all these niche cards to counter other cards to counter other cards. IMO keeping the core game simple is necessary because if the core game just prints a ton of cards instead of making balanced core regions, then the game is going to quickly spiral out of control into an unorganized mess.
Frostbite effects are generally temporary soft counters. You either play a unit that frostbites an enemy for one turn (in which case they just don't attack with it), or you use a burst spell to frostbite the enemy (in which case you still need your own elusive to actually kill it). We aren't considering combos like Frostbite+Shatter or Winter's Breath because then you're using MULTIPLE resources just to kill an elusive unit. (And barring super expensive setup end game combos like enlightened Karma+Winter's Breath) you should avoid using multiple resources just to kill a single card unless it's a champion.
In the circumstances where you use multiple card combos to kill a champion, especially one that is central to the opponents gameplan, like Ezreal or Teemo, then I agree it's fine to "waste" resources.
But in general discussion of elusives as a card mechanic on the whole, it's not a great idea to waste removal. Even in the circumstances where you use efficient removal of 1:1 ratios to kill elusives, you're then using your removal on relatively weak cards. The whole idea behind removal is that you are using it to efficiently control the state of the board.
As for challenger, Yes challenger can pull Elusives, but it's a mechanic that only favors attacking. Your challenger units can't block a buffed elusive, and in general if you're trying to counter elusives currently you need a mechanic that can be used for both offense and defense. (like spells for example) I've used challenger to pull and kill Elusives, but generally speaking it's hard to consistently pull it off, because often you'll get stunned/recalled. (i.e. stalled out) while they continue to progress their gameplan.
You're welcome to contribute, just saying my post this morning was because I know there's lot of contention about Elusive and it's effect on the meta. You don't necessarily have to agree with me, but there are times when I think the mechanic has caused more harm to the game because of it's design limitation, then it helps.
True, the biggest problem I see is that mechanics are naturally supposed to be stronger in some regions, and weaker in others. For example "Tough" is a mechanic you'd expect to see in Demacia, but not something you'd expect to see in Shadow Isles.
Elusive has some smattering of units in each area. But for reference:
Demacia: 1
Freljord: 0
Ionia: 10 + 1 spell that grants elusive
Noxus: 0
P&Z: 5 + multiple other cards that grant elusive through various means.
Shadow Isles: 0
Point being that the region restriction is both LoR biggest draw as well as it's biggest weakness. Want to counter elusives? Guess you have to run Ionia as 1/2 your deck.
I'm not even sure at this point how they balance some of the stuff (not even talking about elusives at this point) because it seems like they've dug themselves into a corner.
Just play a good spider deck to crush Ez decks. As an aggro/midrange player. I lick my chops at Ez decks when I play aggro. The reason Ez is rising is because Bannerman is, was/kind of the best deck. Bannerman is midrange and Control beats Midrange.
Aggro beats Control Control beats Midrange Midrange beats Aggro
It is a vicious brutal cycle, Ez is the result of Elusive Midrange and Bannerman Midrange taking tier 1 status. It was natural a control deck would become the solution.
I hate control players, but I understand the necessary evil. If there were no control decks. There would be no aggro decks and the only thing you'll have is midrange. I welcome Ez's rise, because it will mean the end of bannerman and elusives.
If you keep seeing Ez deck crop up. Build a Spider or Discard burn deck and make them wish they didn't play that deck. If you want to become a good player you have to adapt.
Adapt? Seems like a kinda conceited thing "If you want to be a good player, just carbon copy known good meta decks" is what you're saying. I'd hardly quantify that as a good player. Playing a deck well, knowing when to play counters is what makes a good player. There's a reason people call certain decks "auto-pilot" decks, because they are easy to play and provide high winrates. Holistically those types of decks are....that's right..."aggro/midrange" decks. Wait...what's that you pilot? Aggro/Midrange?
I jest. I jest...but seriously. Your response coming right after Hellcopter's response...
Personal opinion: I also dislike the very existence of OTK decks, because there is nothing that can be done exept: FINISHING THE GAME BEFORE THEY WIN! Just imagine there is reaper hidden in your match whispering: You only have X turns left before you DIE!
This concept sets a timer and puts a lot of pressure on the opponent. So in order to win, its necessary to build a deck in a certain way that allows to close games before X turn, where X is the average turn the OTK assembles their combo. This limits a lot of deck build creativity and pushes many decks out of the meta. For example, one of the reasosn i believe Vladimir doesn't see any play despite many recent buffs on the archetype, its because he lacks an explosive finisher so can't beat ez wich is pretty popular right now.
I am ok with OTK existing but as a guy who likes to build OOTB decks, i would probably be happier if they didn't.
See the bolded part?
Balance. The problem is that despite LoR having MORE control over phases of the game, ways to counter players...ironically as of late I've found it LESS and LESS interactive than hearthstone. Hearthstone may have RNG filled moments, but even as a control player up against an aggro Demon Hunter deck I feel like I have a chance.
But when I'm playing a deck in LoR, if I'm up against the currently stupidly popular Shadow Isle control deck, I know there's very little chance of me winning. The problem is that you can only have 2 regions in a deck. And some regions have little or NO tools to combat certain mechanics. This isn't hearthstone where I can just include a neutral tech card if I'm having trouble with removal or a big unit, or aoe. In hearthstone you can include Big Game Hunter in your deck if your deck lacks hard removal, in LoR unless you have Vengeance and are playing a shadow isles deck, chances are your removal only comes in the form of multi card combos (think Frostbite+Shatter for Freljord) . The problem I'm starting to see is that by restricting cards to regions and not having "neutral" cards, you end up obviating entire regions during metas.
If the entire point of the game is to have fun while playing decks that interest you, being forced to play certain regions because the current meta is angled in some way, isn't fun, it's restrictive. And that is going to do two things: One it's going to disenfranchise players from joining/playing. Two even if it doesn't kill the game or playerbase, it's going to restrict creativity. Neither of those prospects is good for LoR in the long term.
Just want to chime in and say mine's been doing the same thing. Across 3 different devices/OS's
My old home built gaming PC still on Win7.
My new laptop I use for work and play sometimes on Win10.
My android phone.
All 3 when I launch Legends of Runeterra it attempts to update every single time....
Skies Descend requires your opponent to drain every ounce of mana they have, unless they have a full board of celestial/dragons. (In which case the cost would be reduced by 6). But if your opponent has a full board of celestial/dragons, chances are you've already lost anyways since you haven't been controlling the board. And at that point, Skies Descend is meant to eliminate any potential blockers you have and clean up the game.
I'm actually fine with Skies Descend because unlike Ruination, it can ONLY be played while ahead. If you are behind and not developing any presence, you can't play Skies Descend, and if you are toe-to-toe, your opponent can either play around it, or try to challenge your units to make it unplayable.
In my opinion, ruination is actually the less balanced of the two board clears. For one, it can be played from behind making it an overall better stall card or "hail mary". Secondly, it is part of Shadow Isles, which holistically doesn't care about some of it's own units dying and in some ways benefits from it. So any deck running Ruination doesn't care about the "backlash" effect.
And most of the new targon/celestial spell cards are slow speed. Which means you have time to react, re-develop your board, etc. Slow is actually fine because I get tired of burst spells constantly outdoing things. Slow allows the back and forth play/counter play that LoR is supposed to be known for.
@meisterz39
Read your post. Good stuff. Regarding Leona playing out like a midrange deck. Do you feel that Daybreak/Moonlight will have any life outside of this expansion?
I'm not a fan of gimmick mechanics that are designed to only hang around for one expansion. We've seen this in Hearthstone to a very disappointing effect. And now we are seeing it in LoR.
For example, Is plunder now a keyword exclusive to Bilgewater? We saw a few Frejlord units with it, so the assumption was that with the last expansion that it's a mechanic that could *in theory* go beyond the region's it was released with. Invoke (essentially LoR's version of Discover) is a region specific mechanic of discover that only discovers celestial cards. Discover, as the devs found out in Hearthstone, was a fantastic feature, that ended up being included in every expansion since it was released in League of Explorers.
However, mechanics like Daybreak/Moonlight don't lend themselves to further expansions, unless as you stated...they are "baked in". And you are absolutely correct. Baked in mechanics make deck building and playing the deck, a trivial effort, because the synergies are so obvious that you choose those cards. You don't try to make non-meta or non-standard decks because the cards that support the champion require baked in synergy instead of regional identity synergy.
To top it all off, I'm concerned that the Dev design philosphy of "paying close attention and making changes" will become less and less viable over time. What happens when people get bored, or LoR is no longer the "new shiny" and people just stop coming back? Will the devs still pay close attention when the revenue income isn't as high?
LoR seems like it's trying to re-invent the wheel, instead of learning from it's competition in the marketplace.
FIRST: Pretty sure conversations can be productive without him naming specific cards. It may help, certainly, but it's not a *requirement* for a conversation to be had.
Second: The advantage of card size is something most juvenile card games go through. Original Hearthstone had the same feel as Legends of Runeterra, that is people actually had many situations where they got into topdeck mode. Now a days the ONLY classes that ever reach top deck mode are pure aggro classes that are smOrc decks. Any mid-range/control/combo deck will *never* run out of cards in Hearthstone. This is because powercreep took over and "control" cards like Boulderfist Ogre (a vanilla 6/7 for 6 mana) aren't used because cards like Smug Senior exist (a 6 mana 5/7 with taunt that has a deathrattle that effectively gives you another copy of the card (without deathrattle)). I understand you're attempting to gatekeep but it's not becoming. When you have conversations, it's better to assume the best of the person's intentions, instead of the worst.
Third: Taric might take Ez over Karma, but if you were on a budget or in an expedition, you'd still pick Karma if given the choice. There's still very obvious synergy there. Ignoring it and making a "I'd still take X over Y" without acknowledging the power of Y still given the context is....well again falls down to making assumptions like I said in the 2nd point.
Exactly. LoR took the last little slice of available market share. Don't think there is any room left for more competition. At this point for any company to even consider a slice of the card game market, they'd have to do not only something TRULY innovating but also blow the other competition out of the water. Something I don't see Artifact doing on either account...
True, but one in expeditions you don't have perfect decks. The other downside is that mirror card draw in "arena" type formats is bad because YOU are paying the up front mana cost for the card draw. Sure it could lead to finding a better card or better play, but chances are you're giving your opponent more options...and they don't even have to pay the 2 mana cost for it.
Long story short: Is it an auto-pass? Probably not. But it's definitely not an auto-pick either. If playing on curve it's not horrible, but you are giving your opponent the advantage to play the card with full mana. The only time mirror draws every saw the light of day in hearthstone were "mill" decks, and you saw how Blizzard handled that. (nerfed)
While I do think Deep needs to be tuned for expeditions specifically (something like +2/2 instead of +3/3 as it is for constructed)...
I also think Deep is a bit of a double edged sword.
Literally just won versus a guy with a Nautilus/Twisted Fate deck and a ton of sea monsters. I ended up winning cause I had enough tokens (thank god I drafted 3 house spiders) to block his guys and smartly managed to stay alive while he drew and tossed his deck. Long story short, first time I ever won an expedition to fatigue on my opponent's deck. :D
Also, word of advice Brash Gambler and Pool Shark can screw you over, so unless your deck curve is VERY low, I would advice against using these wantonly. Also Veteran Investigator also seems like a bad expedition card. You never want to give your opponent extra card draw.
https://imgur.com/a/BinJmT5
In short, my region has been set to Europe for the entire time of beta. I'm not a European player though, (US East-American). I thought the region was incorrect due to beta, but now that the game has gone live, I'm not so sure. I did some searching and apparently a few years back Riot combind all regions? But I'm concerned that for LoR I'm somehow incorrect set. I never had a chance to tell it otherwise...
Thoughts?
Thematically, you are correct. Balance wise, that would be batshit insane. Teemo with Scout would have to be severely nerfed...like...."When I attack insert 2 shrooms in the enemy deck" nerfed.
Otherwise if he was out on turn 1, he could attack twice, once for scout, and once again for regular attack which means on turn 1, you already have 10 shrooms in your deck. See how balance wise that's a nightmare?
Hypothetically if he was removed. He could attack again on turn 3, level up after his first scout attack, (15 shrooms in deck now). And then on his regular attack double shrooms. (30 shrooms in deck).
Turn 3, 30 shrooms in deck with 0 other cards played other than Teemo himself is broken. So that's probably why they didn't give him the "Scout" keyword.
Despite any balancing issues that may crop up, can we all just take a second to appreciate the wonderful animations for the champion level ups? Very nice overall, puts Hearthstone to shame in that regard.
I mean, I get what you're saying but...gotta be realistic for a sec...
Part of playing card games is having fun on your level. Why does it matter if you never see Braum or Vlad in tournaments? Just have fun with the card, enjoy making your own deck and coming up with something that works. It doesn't have to work all the time. A good thing to remember is that never validate how well your deck is doing in anything less than sets of 10. If you try a wonky deck and you play 10 games and go 1-9, then it might be time to reconsider some cards or the theme of your deck.
Is it too inconsistent? Is it too combo oriented and hard to pull off? Do you find yourself lacking card draw or late game closers? These are all things to consider.
But if the deck is anywhere around 5:5, 3:7, 6:4, then I'd say just go with the flow and have fun. I'm sure someone is gonna come up with a buff deck for Nautilius. I'm hoping that I can start making a "Tough" based deck soon, as I think Tough is severely underrated, but against decks like Miss Fortune which look to spam small damage repeatedly, Tough is going to be a godsend.
That's "Can't Attack" and "Can't Block" I believe. Which means they don't want powder kegs getting buffed and used to attack or block stuff. Considering it has vulnerable though, I'm guess that means it can still be actively destroyed by an opponent who pulls it into combat, but it can't be used as a cheap blocker like Caustic Cask.
I agree that it's a lazy addition of Eager Apprentice, it seems that it is going to encourage small scale spells or miracle style decks though, which I'm hesitant about as I absolutely HATED miracle rogue from Hearthstone, so I hope to god something like that doesn't occur in LoR.
My Vlad/Braum deck is looking forward to this! Easily counters token decks so this seems like a win win.
Agreed, Twin disciplines only saving grace is that it's in the "3 cost spell mana" bracket of spells you can save up for from previous turns, that being said...as someone who played Hearthstone during it's beta....this is effectively a Blessing of Kings, which was a great card during Hearthstone's early days. I can see this being valuable in pretty much any Freljord deck.
Just wanted to comment on your ideas (I think some are good too!) Just providing my opinion on each idea.
But isn't this kind of what fearsome is? Fearsome is "you can only block if you have attack greater than 3". It's more or less giving the attacking unit partial elusive. Again I can't help but feel that all the mechanics in LoR feel disjointed, like they were each designed by a different person and then everyone got together and put their ideas into the pot but now none of them feel fully fleshed out...and the result is going to be inherently stronger mechanics than others.
I mean a perfect point I made earlier which i want to highlight is the "Tough" mechanic. This should not just be "1 damage" but should be "this unit has Toughness (or Armor) 2, and blocks 2 damage from any source. Tough the spell should stack with existing tough. This prevents that unit from incremental damage but not burst damage. It can be more useful than regeneration in niche scenarios. But anyhow, my point being that you don't see anyone building "Tough" decks because the mechanic is just inherently weak due to design. Conversely Elusive is a strong mechanic because of the way the game is based AND becuase of how Ionia (the biggest offender of Elusive decks) works with their bounce/stun mechanics along with their ability to buff cards.
I think printing more cards *might* work, but 1) that may dilute the region fantasy/theme. and 2) It might make matters worse printing all these niche cards to counter other cards to counter other cards. IMO keeping the core game simple is necessary because if the core game just prints a ton of cards instead of making balanced core regions, then the game is going to quickly spiral out of control into an unorganized mess.
Frostbite effects are generally temporary soft counters. You either play a unit that frostbites an enemy for one turn (in which case they just don't attack with it), or you use a burst spell to frostbite the enemy (in which case you still need your own elusive to actually kill it). We aren't considering combos like Frostbite+Shatter or Winter's Breath because then you're using MULTIPLE resources just to kill an elusive unit. (And barring super expensive setup end game combos like enlightened Karma+Winter's Breath) you should avoid using multiple resources just to kill a single card unless it's a champion.
In the circumstances where you use multiple card combos to kill a champion, especially one that is central to the opponents gameplan, like Ezreal or Teemo, then I agree it's fine to "waste" resources.
But in general discussion of elusives as a card mechanic on the whole, it's not a great idea to waste removal. Even in the circumstances where you use efficient removal of 1:1 ratios to kill elusives, you're then using your removal on relatively weak cards. The whole idea behind removal is that you are using it to efficiently control the state of the board.
As for challenger, Yes challenger can pull Elusives, but it's a mechanic that only favors attacking. Your challenger units can't block a buffed elusive, and in general if you're trying to counter elusives currently you need a mechanic that can be used for both offense and defense. (like spells for example) I've used challenger to pull and kill Elusives, but generally speaking it's hard to consistently pull it off, because often you'll get stunned/recalled. (i.e. stalled out) while they continue to progress their gameplan.
You're welcome to contribute, just saying my post this morning was because I know there's lot of contention about Elusive and it's effect on the meta. You don't necessarily have to agree with me, but there are times when I think the mechanic has caused more harm to the game because of it's design limitation, then it helps.
True, the biggest problem I see is that mechanics are naturally supposed to be stronger in some regions, and weaker in others. For example "Tough" is a mechanic you'd expect to see in Demacia, but not something you'd expect to see in Shadow Isles.
Elusive has some smattering of units in each area. But for reference:
Point being that the region restriction is both LoR biggest draw as well as it's biggest weakness. Want to counter elusives? Guess you have to run Ionia as 1/2 your deck.
I'm not even sure at this point how they balance some of the stuff (not even talking about elusives at this point) because it seems like they've dug themselves into a corner.
Adapt? Seems like a kinda conceited thing "If you want to be a good player, just carbon copy known good meta decks" is what you're saying. I'd hardly quantify that as a good player. Playing a deck well, knowing when to play counters is what makes a good player. There's a reason people call certain decks "auto-pilot" decks, because they are easy to play and provide high winrates. Holistically those types of decks are....that's right..."aggro/midrange" decks. Wait...what's that you pilot? Aggro/Midrange?
I jest. I jest...but seriously. Your response coming right after Hellcopter's response...
See the bolded part?
Balance. The problem is that despite LoR having MORE control over phases of the game, ways to counter players...ironically as of late I've found it LESS and LESS interactive than hearthstone. Hearthstone may have RNG filled moments, but even as a control player up against an aggro Demon Hunter deck I feel like I have a chance.
But when I'm playing a deck in LoR, if I'm up against the currently stupidly popular Shadow Isle control deck, I know there's very little chance of me winning. The problem is that you can only have 2 regions in a deck. And some regions have little or NO tools to combat certain mechanics. This isn't hearthstone where I can just include a neutral tech card if I'm having trouble with removal or a big unit, or aoe. In hearthstone you can include Big Game Hunter in your deck if your deck lacks hard removal, in LoR unless you have Vengeance and are playing a shadow isles deck, chances are your removal only comes in the form of multi card combos (think Frostbite+Shatter for Freljord) . The problem I'm starting to see is that by restricting cards to regions and not having "neutral" cards, you end up obviating entire regions during metas.
If the entire point of the game is to have fun while playing decks that interest you, being forced to play certain regions because the current meta is angled in some way, isn't fun, it's restrictive. And that is going to do two things: One it's going to disenfranchise players from joining/playing. Two even if it doesn't kill the game or playerbase, it's going to restrict creativity. Neither of those prospects is good for LoR in the long term.