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Legends of Runeterra | Posted by | 5 years, 9 months ago
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Has Yoink Gone Too Far?

Hey so I thought it would be fun to run through a single game vs tempo yoink and outline every card that was stolen and the role it played in winning the game for the opponent, and how their absence of said cards would have resulted in a loss. Keep in mind yoinked cards are not revealed so I have to assume they can be playing any card from my deck so that doubles the number of variables to play around than your average game.

 

1. A harsh winds is stolen, nullifying an attack to kill a sejuani

2. A glimpse is stolen to nullify a vengence targeting a sejuani and drawing the opponent 2

3. A buffed hearth guard is stolen, buffing my opponent entire deck and providing a 6/6 body

4. A buffed sentry is stolen providing the opponent 1 draw and a 4/3 body for 2

5. A babbling berg is stolen tutoring for a sejuani

 

The plays made by the opponent were rather low impact relative to the card advantage and control answers provided by my own deck

So I look forward to the get good scrub, dark souls logic, but in those games you don't get your sword stolen only for the boss to stab you with it.

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  • Hey so I thought it would be fun to run through a single game vs tempo yoink and outline every card that was stolen and the role it played in winning the game for the opponent, and how their absence of said cards would have resulted in a loss. Keep in mind yoinked cards are not revealed so I have to assume they can be playing any card from my deck so that doubles the number of variables to play around than your average game.

     

    1. A harsh winds is stolen, nullifying an attack to kill a sejuani

    2. A glimpse is stolen to nullify a vengence targeting a sejuani and drawing the opponent 2

    3. A buffed hearth guard is stolen, buffing my opponent entire deck and providing a 6/6 body

    4. A buffed sentry is stolen providing the opponent 1 draw and a 4/3 body for 2

    5. A babbling berg is stolen tutoring for a sejuani

     

    The plays made by the opponent were rather low impact relative to the card advantage and control answers provided by my own deck

    So I look forward to the get good scrub, dark souls logic, but in those games you don't get your sword stolen only for the boss to stab you with it.

  • On average, a card from your opponent's deck will be worse than a card from your deck, so I think that it doesn't make sense to claim that yoinked cards are better than drawn cards. For every game in which your opponent yoinks a better than average card, in another game a player will yoink as worse than average card. The value of a card from the opponent's deck equals the average value of a card from their deck. In my opinion, the main issue is that drawing cards from the opponent's deck costs so much less than drawing cards from your deck. Since Pilfered Goods draws 2 cards for 2 Mana instead of 2 Cards for 4 Mana, Riot seems to evaluate cards drawn from the enemy deck as being worth 1 less Mana on average than cards from your deck, which I think is a little unrealistic. Honestly, the best solution is to make it so that the cards drawn are revealed, in order to reduce the value of the card drawn while keeping Bilgewater's ability to draw for cheap. 

    • Dude you should see mogwai rave about the mechanic, because card value is relative to context. For instance if I steal a ruination and that's exactly the card I need then the value can be considered to be 2x that of anything in my deck.

  • Well yeah but not every card in your deck is “The Ruination”, and you can apply that same logic to drawing from your own deck. If you mean that yoink has a higher variance in outcomes than drawing from your own deck, then I would agree with you. To fix that, maybe it could be changed to draw the lowest-cost card from the enemy deck? That way it wouldn’t be able to give players late game bombs that they didn’t include in their deck.

  • It's become enough of an issue that streamers are running deep just so that they steal toss cards which are awful for the opponent.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYHmPTL6qv4

  • Hmm. If yoink is so powerful that players are purposefully running high-synergy decks to counter it, then it might be a problem. I do think that having to play around all the cards in your deck as well isn't very fun, so I think it does need to be changed (to either reveal the cards drawn or draw the lowest-cost card)

  • The biggest issue with Pilfer is card advantage and additional complexity of playing around your own cards without knowing what they are.

    Pilfer is just far too efficient, getting 2 cards for 2 mana. THAT is the problem. This is a card game, and anytime you can significantly out-draw your opponent, you have automatic advantage in that game, regardless of what cards you draw. 

    I agree that the best solution would be to make the stolen cards visible to the opponent. That should be enough to level the playing field.

    Lastly, anyone who is super tilted by yoink mechanics has just not played many other card games (such as MtG or Eternal). Those games have plenty of steal effects as well. You get used to it or you stop playing, but there is no point in raging about it. Personally, the only things that bother me about the yoink mechanics is that I don't know what they got, and that they gained significant card advantage over me. (Also, the fact that Yordle Grifter always succeeds on his Allegiance ability.)

    • I played mtg Arena extensively, Gwent, Hearthstone, and others. Stealing has never been a thing in those games, that's probably why it's been difficult to balance for riot, they have nothing to draw upon experience wise. Now randomization sure, that's pretty normal in hearthstone, but it's always from a random card pool not your opponents deck. Random cards have huge variance, but your opponents cards are usually good, otherwise why would they run them to begin with. Like hey thanks for the rekindler so I get a 4/4 and I get to bring back a champion, what if I draw 2 for 2 mana, that's nuts, and I don't even have to run shadow isles to play them.

    • Quote From sto650

      The biggest issue with Pilfer is card advantage and additional complexity of playing around your own cards without knowing what they are.

      Pilfer is just far too efficient, getting 2 cards for 2 mana. THAT is the problem. This is a card game, and anytime you can significantly out-draw your opponent, you have automatic advantage in that game, regardless of what cards you draw. 

      I agree that the best solution would be to make the stolen cards visible to the opponent. That should be enough to level the playing field.

      Lastly, anyone who is super tilted by yoink mechanics has just not played many other card games (such as MtG or Eternal). Those games have plenty of steal effects as well. You get used to it or you stop playing, but there is no point in raging about it. Personally, the only things that bother me about the yoink mechanics is that I don't know what they got, and that they gained significant card advantage over me. (Also, the fact that BMM always succeeds on his Allegiance ability.)

      You're absolutely right that the Yoink mechanic is too mana efficient, and making it more expensive might naturally solve the problem it presents, but the comparison to MTG is a little unfair. Specifically, in MTG because the deck size is so much larger, and because a non-trivial number of cards are largely useless to your opponent (i.e. land cards), the odds of consistently having good cards to steal is much lower, as are the odds of stealing a critical card that your opponent absolutely needs.

      That's why this version of card stealing is so much more tilting. Not only is it nowhere near properly priced in the game, but it's also dealing with different deck-building rules that make card stealing way more valuable than other games with similar mechanics.

  • It should be - steal a copy of a card, at least.

  • The problem, IMO, is the Hearthstonish-like RNG factor that comes along with this mechanic. When you steal something from the opposing deck, you either get worthless trash -because it's a highly synergistic card- or you get the exact answer you needed and that your region doesn't provide. Without mentioning that you can remove from your opponent deck a card that it's his win condition. Yes, I think this mechanic sucks and should get rid of, or at least made so that the cards are copied and not stolen, that would fix PART of the issue.

    BMM and Stolen goods need a nerf too. BMM should be a 2/1 and Stolen Goods should cost 3 mana.

  • Edit - You're talking agent of treachery which is 7 mana and steals off board. I would be fine with that, if there was 10 mana card in legends of runterra that said steal a follower I don't think anyone would care, because it would be really bad, it's when you get to literally deny value from your opponents deck and transplant it into your that's where you find problems.

    Examples

    1. Deck Buffs/hand buffs tempo can't run this because they need allegience and fast plays, but if they get yours it's huge

    2. Additional sources of draw, if they get yours this multiplies their card advantage

    3. Fast speed answers, again they don't have it but if they get yours they literally get to role play as control

    4. Burst speed tricks, against always useful regardless of your deck

    5. Value creatures or champion tutors, they run Sej but no tutors so taking yours is huge

     

    I literally just listed things that exist in almost every deck, the only deck that doesn't run these things is deep because they just need to toss and play big creatures, and unlike deck buffs, the deep buff doesn't transfer to the opponent when stolen because it counts the number of cards left in your deck

  • Everyone here talking about highly synergistic and what not is kind of forgetting about the fact that most top decks literally just have good cards in them with synergy being the second checkmark they fulfill, not the main one. Unless you're playing vs Deep most of the time whatever card you steal you can use. As someone who literally climbed to Masters in 6 days with Tempo Sejuani, I can tell you the number of times I *didn't* use a stolen card was less than 5% of the cards. This bullshit of "it's a card from your opponent's deck so it isn't as good" needs to actually analize what's being played and how much synergy really matters to current top decks.

    Unless this game gets a much needed meta balance change to make synergy more important decks will still just run really powerful cards that just happen to synergize well.



    Edit: If you want more experience about this, I normally make my own decks and reached Plat 1 with 2 completely unique decks I made myself. When playing a friend who plays Yoink TF/Lee Sin, he started stealing cards from my deck and as he was using them they kept giving him almost 0 value and his literal words where: "Wow, this has never happened to me. I have never played against a deck that is so well built to counter it's own cards, it's like I can't use what I steal".

    The reason the above happened is because I enjoy making truly synergistic decks, where synergy > card effectiveness (it's why it can't beat top decks unfortunately) and when he drew the cards they weren't as powerful without the rest of the synergy present in my deck, the fact it doesn't happen to him when he plays ranked is because top decks don't really do synergy > card effectiveness. They play good cards that happen to synergize well, but the fact that the cards are good on their own mean that when stolen they can still be used pretty effectively even when they don't synergize at all with your own deck.

  • I think they will be changed heavily even a rework of sort.. (Edit: this post got longer than I thought it would be..)

    I can see them going in many directions, specially since TF depends on that mechanic to level up in a deck he is in, also it's kind of Bildgewater's main mechanic together with plunder.

    People have been complaining about the mechanic being unfun to play against so at this point.. it really doesn't matter how balanced or not the mechanic ACTUALLY is.

    I will tackle this problem with the main complains I saw around reddit/the forums or how I think it is. (spoiler tag cause it's too long)

    Show Spoiler
    1. The first obvious one is "the top of the deck" Freljord has a big theme of top of the deck buffing,generating yetis and also a champion reward which is generated on top of your deck , this not only negates those buff/cards but steals them, which is a HUGE "feels bad" moment for those kind of players (I actually quite like that type of archtype.. but I wouldn't play it as long as yoink (so that's the term now?) is at it is), the change is simple-> steal from the bottom of your deck.

    2. The second point is stealing as opposed to the priest mechanic in HS that copies, I think this is overrated, there's little difference between stealing and copying in games that don't go to deckout, and those that do.. are mostly toss decks anyway so you can think of those cards as being tossed cards and essentially they are helping you to reach deep so, als it helps you to get to your champion faster.

    3. Now the biggest point about those cards.. is that they are too efficient.. and grant card advantage for low costs and on top of that there's the card reduction.. I can see the Black Market Merchant getting his discount totally removed, andPilfered Goods.. I think without the merchant discount.. is probably more manageable now I would suggest a mana increase but I think it will kill that deck entirely, and that's not how Riot did stuff so far.

    4. playing around stuff that you wouldn't otherwise, there's 2 ways to go about it.. one is to reveal stolen cards which actually makes sense as they are originally yours, the other is to make the stolen cards fleeting which will reduce the power level of the card draw substantially.

     

    TL;DR  in conclusion those are the changes that I think are the options that are viable for the solution of the frustration:

    1. Top-> bottom of the deck..

    2. Steal-> copy.

    3. Remove merchant discount.

    4. Increase Pilfered Goods mana cost. (2->3)

    5. Make stolen cards fleeting.

    6. Reveal stolen cards.

    I think the best for the game and mechanic would be changes: 1. cause Freljord, 3. to reduce power level, and 6. to increase counterplay.

    • I think you broke it down pretty well. I think if they remove Merchant's discount, Upped Pilfered's cost to 3 and made it steal from the bottom it would be really good.  I think they could also leave in Merchant's discount and up him to a 3 cost 3/2, it would make it so stealing isn't as cheap, the advantage you get would require higher value plus you would have to do it a bit later in the game. Also you wouldn't be able to chain all these cards so easily if Merchant and Pilfered cost 1 more each.


  • In the casual que right now 4/5 games are against yoink decks so hopefully they are addressing this in the patch notes tomorrow

  • changes are outlined here, yoink will now take from the bottom of the deck, and black market merchant will have one less health.

    This does one very key thing, yoink will no longer deny you valuable draws, but it will still be top tier probably, it will just work as intended.

     

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU7nzJsR6eg&t=1127s

    • Quote From Nifty129

      changes are outlined here, yoink will now take from the bottom of the deck, and black market merchant will have one less health.

      This does one very key thing, yoink will no longer deny you valuable draws, but it will still be top tier probably, it will just work as intended.

       

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU7nzJsR6eg&t=1127s

      I mean is it OP? I don't think it was/is that strong.. just annoying to play against as they steal your cards, I mean the 1 hp change to the merchant is quite significant power drop and they hit the freljord matchup which is probably the most frustrating.

      At least they lowered the frustration with the top-> bottom change (which I would be disappointed if they didn't implement) and 1 stat drop in a 2/2 is 25$ less stats for the unit now it isn't even a decent blocker anymore...

      it will change some %s for sure.. you don't want to totally overnerf it as well..

      The patch notes are not always about what got changed sometimes about what didn't got changed, so control states heimer not getting nerfed is a big oversight.. I say probably.. but maybe the buffs give access to decks that are good against that deck, the juggernaut buff seems quite significant to me.

      will need to discuss it later when everyone will see the patch notes in English (without google translate).

      • The health change isn't that big of a deal because you can just play pilfered goods at burst speed so you still get your discounts, but now merchants die to withering wail and vile feast which is very significant. Grabbing from the bottom just means that you aren't denying your opponent draws, which pilfered goods should have never done in the first place. Should lead to fewer instances of like hey I got your undying you were just about to draw and now my board survives ruination and yours doesn't even though that's the entire point of your deck.

        • Quote From Nifty129

          The health change isn't that big of a deal because you can just play pilfered goods at burst speed so you still get your discounts, but now merchants die to withering wail and vile feast which is very significant. Grabbing from the bottom just means that you aren't denying your opponent draws, which pilfered goods should have never done in the first place. Should lead to fewer instances of like hey I got your undying you were just about to draw and now my board survives ruination and yours doesn't even though that's the entire point of your deck.

          About pilfered goods thing yes it's unchanged, but I will argue that would just destroyed the whole mechanic, they probably looked at the win rate I assume it's not high enough to hit 2 cards instead of 1 they hit.

          the hp nerf is significant the card is played as a 6 cards package, the allegiance is not always played but when you play pilfer you play the merchant and the goods so cutting 25% of the stats of a card is significant power drop.

          Now about the top vs bottom.. except the obvious Freljord match up IT DOESN'T MATTER also Riot stated that on the patch notes (if for some reason you don't believe this reasoning)  a card in your deck is totally random most of the time it's from the top or bottom.. it doesn't matter at all, if the toss mechanic was from the top of the deck it would be the exact same mechanic (Except anti synergy with freljord.. but freljord deep isn't a thing (yet)) for example.

          They might have stolen your undying and ruination or that farmer guy that is totally useless the probabilities are the same and they are as likely to get it no matter from where they steal the card it's purely psychological.

  • People talk about synergies, yet they dont understand nab is the synergy.

    If deny said "Deny any spell or ally from entering play, put that card into hand, you may cast it for 1 less.  Plunder, draw a card from your opponents deck and you may also play that" people would freak out and want it banned.

    Yet for 2 you can do pretty much that.  Deck disruption and card advantage is the synergy.  Its a broken mechanic and it needs to go away. Changing it to the bottom is mostly meaningless. 

    Its crazy that a card game with so few cards, and so few mechanics would actually foster this type of play style.  Its beyond  me, and has completely turned me off from the game.

    • Quote From NICAIN

      People talk about synergies, yet they dont understand nab is the synergy.

      If deny said "Deny any spell or ally from entering play, put that card into hand, you may cast it for 1 less.  Plunder, draw a card from your opponents deck and you may also play that" people would freak out and want it banned.

      Yet for 2 you can do pretty much that.  Deck disruption and card advantage is the synergy.  Its a broken mechanic and it needs to go away. Changing it to the bottom is mostly meaningless. 

      Its crazy that a card game with so few cards, and so few mechanics would actually foster this type of play style.  Its beyond  me, and has completely turned me off from the game.

      That's got to be the worst analogy/comparison/whatever you wanna call it I've seen in a while. "Imagine this one card that is now an extremely exaggerated effect of another card, yeah that'd be broken wouldn't it?"

      Deck disruption, especially now that it's drawn from the bottom of your deck, isn't a thing. Very little, if any, games go to fatigue (unless you're talking about deep, for which Nab only compliments its gameplan) so you never would've been able to play that exact card during that exact game anyway. 

      With that out of the way, the opponent basically just gets a random card at a potential mana discount. Except you can play around it far better than an actual random card, because it's one from your deck.

      I really don't get the excessive amount of hate towards Nab when it really isn't unbalanced. It feels bad, sure. But from a logical card-game perspective it's just another mechanic.

  • Yeah you do have to increasingly ask yourself, will this card loose me the game against yoink, when it should be do I want to run this card because it's fun.  The harrowing is a great example I had to cut it because it got yoinked, so out it goes.

     

    Deck ID Not Found

     

    You have to run a control list with only cards that are either removal or help you land your combo

  • Now that we have the patch changes where yoink was turned into nab, and cards are stolen from the bottom of the deck, issues have been resolved. As long as you are running two of a given card, you have decent odds to draw it even if one is stolen. Streamers call this a buff because it means you are less likely to draw your champ because you aren't getting milled from the top anymore, but I would say that any list that can't function without a champ in hand is fundamentally broken. This is why most ionia control lists should be running solitary monk on top of shadow assassin, giving you a good plan B option, or just run tutors...

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Let's say you're playing keg control, with 3 gangplanks and 3 dreadway. That's effectively 6 gankplank draws, if you count thresh that goes up to 9. So now one third of your deck is gangplank, you are guaranteed to have him, and have multiple copies as insurance. So yoink milling you was a bug not a feature, and rebuild your lists accordingly. 

    • That's some interesting math there. 9/40 equals one-third, somehow. And then, in the next sentence, one-third becomes guaranteed 100% multiples. Nice. 

  • I think Nab would be fine if it was simply underpowered and something you only see occasionally as a meme deck. Playing 1 game out of a hundred where your opponent Nabs something important and wins with it can be an interesting and fun moment, like when you get killed by an Elnuk deck that drops a 3/3 and 3 4/5s on turn 5. But when it’s 1 out of every 4 games that you lose due to Nabbed cards, it starts to feel unfair and unfun. I think if Pilfered Goods were simply moved to 3 Mana the Nab package would be a fun meme deck, like Elnuks, instead of an auto include package in every Bilgewater deck.

  • I was the one that started this thread, and that was largely do to the issue of value denial. It was less that a card gets stolen, and more that the card stolen denied you the potential to draw it. Not to mention that stupid things like stealing Ashe's arrow was possible, or buffed units, or yetis. So yes, nab is far better than yoink and we even see the deck it was in go down to tier 2.