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Legends of Runeterra | Posted by | 6 years, 1 month ago
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Frostbite is the new problem child

i know that might sound weird to many of you but since the nerfs to elusives and SI in general we got to a point where aggro decks hardly ever win a game against Ezreal/heimerdinger control decks that are using frostbite.

Right now the whole ladder that i experience consists of ezreal decks and its not likely to change anytime soon. 

The fact that frostbite makes it way too easy to shut down the board while a transformed ezreal is basically a game over if you aren't out of cards -what is not likely at all- breaks the philosophy of legends of runeterra that the board matters and that creatures are the way to go to win. 

What can we do to fix that problem? I think the best way is to change the frostbite mechanic.

My version would be: frostbitten units deal their damage after the enemies fighting with them ( basically give them slow attack) and lose elusive until the end of the turn instead of reducing the current attack to 0. 

It might not look like a big deal but it forces frostbite decks to run more creatures and not play 20 frostbite cards + 6 winconditons and removal for the rest. 

Maybe you have a different point of view but thats what i experience on high diamond right now

 

 

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  • i know that might sound weird to many of you but since the nerfs to elusives and SI in general we got to a point where aggro decks hardly ever win a game against Ezreal/heimerdinger control decks that are using frostbite.

    Right now the whole ladder that i experience consists of ezreal decks and its not likely to change anytime soon. 

    The fact that frostbite makes it way too easy to shut down the board while a transformed ezreal is basically a game over if you aren't out of cards -what is not likely at all- breaks the philosophy of legends of runeterra that the board matters and that creatures are the way to go to win. 

    What can we do to fix that problem? I think the best way is to change the frostbite mechanic.

    My version would be: frostbitten units deal their damage after the enemies fighting with them ( basically give them slow attack) and lose elusive until the end of the turn instead of reducing the current attack to 0. 

    It might not look like a big deal but it forces frostbite decks to run more creatures and not play 20 frostbite cards + 6 winconditons and removal for the rest. 

    Maybe you have a different point of view but thats what i experience on high diamond right now

     

     

  • Frostbite-heavy decks were always annoying, so it makes sense that they would be even more so after nerfs to the other strong keywords.

    However, I'm finding the Yasuo archetype equally annoying, and for similar reasons -- they are both slightly too good at shutting down unit-based strategies, so they are highly polarizing. You either have what it takes to beat them, or you don't. It sometimes feels like there's no real point to playing out the game.

    I think a major mistake that runs through all of these "problem children" -- including Fearsome, Elusive, Frostbite, and Stun/Recall -- is too much redundancy in the set. When players have access to too many cards with the same keyword, it's just too easy to build an extremely consistent deck that exploits it.

    Not to mention, the meta starts to feel a bit same-y when every deck is a one-trick pony. It would be better if the top decks were ones that mix keywords to create some stronger synergy instead of just typing a keyword into the search bar and clicking every card that comes up.

    • I think one of the problems is that they're too liberal with the "Burst" title. Stun and frostbite would be a little less annoying if they were just fast.

      I literally just played a mirror Ez game and we both passed our first three turns because no one wanted to play a unit, because you just start leveling up the other player's Ez and it's not like you can attack anyway, because you're just going to get hit with brittle steel or get excited

      I"m also seeing all these Heimer decks are that ~75% spells. You should be getting punished way more often for running this kind of style, but there's so much control in the 1-3 mana spells that you can easily control the board without any units.

  • Yeah, I'm with 40 here--especially if you're still running this Lucian / Darius midrange deck from your profile.  Decks of that speed are EXPECTED to lose to Frejlord control decks, man: you're just slow enough that you can't burst them before they get Ezreal/Heimer online, and too little value to win the long game.  Your opponents probably couldn't ask for a better matchup outside of Fiora decks.

    If you really want to burst them, I think you're looking at SI/Noxus spiders, SI/P&Z mistwraiths, or Noxus/P&Z discard.  If you want to out-value them, I think its either Heimer/Karma, Heimer/Lux, or maybe SI/Demacia dawnspiders.  Or you can try to invent something new--and I think that's the real issue right now.  There are still so many archetypes waiting to be refined, and most players latch on to whatever they see stream and/or read off Mobalytics (full disclosure: I referenced their site just now to craft this response).  As clutch as frostbite can be, its still just a 1-turn stall and its costed fairly expensive.  There HAS to be decks that can easily out-swarm it, and there HAS to be decks that out-weather it.  The fact that answers don't readily come to mind just shows how far we have to yet to grow as a community.

    Good luck!

    • You are getting me wrong tho I AM playing Heimer Ezreal control myself and i would not play Darius Lucian in this meta at all.

      I beat spider/elusive lists with ease and the only deck that i lose to is the exact same /more burnish list.

      That way it seems to be tier 0 right now and beats even yasuo with ease since once yasuo is flipped... well he cant Attack  while frostbitten right?

      So i see the problem from the playing side not angry aggro player perspective and dont want to see just 1 matchup in ladder

      • I see; sorry for assuming.

        I've been playing Frejlord/Noxus Battle Scars and even with my oddball decklist I am DESTROYING the solo Ezreal decks.  Words cannot describe how deeply gratifying it is to attack into them with a wide board that includes Legion Veteran and Vladimir: they immediately frost bite the biggest guys and setup value blocks, then they must use the blue eye to see they still die so they setup desperation blocks, then they exhaust their mana trying every trick they can and slowly realize there just is no getting around the damage from Crimson Pact or the way it is giving everyone additional attack... 

        Admittedly, I'm seeing that version a lot more than the Heimer variant lately and the few times I have seen Heimer I've struggled.  I've also been seeing an interesting Noxus/P&Z champion-less decklist that is 100% aggro; I struggle to keep up with that and imagine its even worse for the decks you mention as they tend to skimp on early game board presence.

        • I have to admit that the full aggro list ist hard to deal with but that is actually true for almost every deck in the game right now. Even control decks often get into the situation that they eighter have avalance in their starting hand or get overun.

          While i see that this is what oppressive control deck like heimer+ ezreal decks cause, I also think that noxus/p&z's early game cards might need some adjustments since hardly a deck can acutally deal with the tempo that a 1-3 cost card deck (with not a single bad card) has.

          cards that have in mind for that are:

          legion saboteur     (from 2/1 to 1/2)

          Boomcrew rookie  (from 1/4 to 1/3)

          Brother's Bond      (from permanent to until end of turn)

           

           

           

           

  • I don't think I'd call Frostbite a problem child. Then again, I wouldn't have called Fearsome-centric aggro OR Elusive decks problem children either. An archetype being strong isn't a problem; the problem comes when one archetype gets too overwhelmingly strong such that it either chokes out or entirely defines a metagame for an extended period. If the final point of the meta's evolution becomes 'either play this or hate-pick for it', that's when you've got a problem. We've reached that point in Hearthstone a fair few times now.

    LoR has never actually reached that point. Elusive decks were already on the way out to Fearsome aggression before any balance changes happened, and given how quickly they got nerfed after that shift we never hit that point with Fearsome decks either. We're now only a few days past a balance patch which had a heavy impact on major meta decks - it's far too soon to say that any particular deck now needs balancing.

    I will continue to disagree with the idea of reflexive nerfs before the meta has a chance to react properly, and will continue to express my frustration at the tendency of players to want to nerf whatever's currently doing well simply because it's doing well.

    • Quote From Bystekhilcar

      I will continue to disagree with the idea of reflexive nerfs before the meta has a chance to react properly, and will continue to express my frustration at the tendency of players to want to nerf whatever's currently doing well simply because it's doing well.

      But you have to keep in mind the developers' stated intent to do frequent balance patches -- far more frequent than other card games I've played. How much do you expect the meta to settle amid that constantly shifting landscape?

      So far, it seems like Riot is basing their decisions mostly on hard data, with player sentiment possibly giving a nudge when they are on the fence about something. I don't think there's any reason to get too stressed out about players calling for nerfs if you truly believe something isn't a problem. If it is a problem, it will show up in the data; if it's not, Riot may put it on the watch list but probably won't change it without reason.

      • Quote From FortyDust

        But you have to keep in mind the developers' stated intent to do frequent balance patches -- far more frequent than other card games I've played. How much do you expect the meta to settle amid that constantly shifting landscape?

        So far, it seems like Riot is basing their decisions mostly on hard data, with player sentiment possibly giving a nudge when they are on the fence about something. I don't think there's any reason to get too stressed out about players calling for nerfs if you truly believe something isn't a problem. If it is a problem, it will show up in the data; if it's not, Riot may put it on the watch list but probably won't change it without reason.

        That's actually touching on a concern I have about LoR in the longer term. Looking at League as a reference, Riot have tended to make balance changes frequently and constantly. They're usually fairly small, with only a couple of major changes per patch, but they still happen. That, generally speaking, is a good thing specifically in a MOBA environment - the player-base there tends to be quite trend-chasing, and people will pick/ban whatever's perceived as the strongest around at that time without going deeper on counters. Riot's balance strategy there does work fairly well to continually mix up the meta.

        The trouble is, that doesn't really translate well into a card game sphere. Often the buffs Riot hands out on League are small enough that they don't make a significant functional difference, but are more of a prompt to make people play different things. That kind of interventionalist approach works well in MOBAs, but I don't think it translates well to card games because people are a lot less happy to drop the deck they lovingly created (well, let's be honest, lovingly netdecked :P) to play something else just because Riot decided to mix it up.

        For clarity - the above is supposition, and obviously I don't know Riot's overarching goals when it comes to balancing LoR. And, in fairness to them, they've been fairly good at restricting their intervention in TFT, so presumably they're aware that different genres require different levels of intervention - I'm just hoping they don't get into a habit of making changes for change's sake, and that their intervention tails off over time.

        That said, that's not what my previous post was about. My previous post was, more than anything, a plea to the player base. The first few thoughts you should have (in my opinion) when meeting a strong deck or seeing a powerful interaction should be 'how do I play around that in future' or 'how do I counter that'. Maybe even 'I want to try that for myself'. I really don't want people to jump straight to 'that should be nerfed!' because that restricts creative thinking and has a deleterious effect both on the game itself, and on the community around that game.

        P.S. One of these days I'm going to learn to restrict myself to not posting essays...

        • Quote From Bystekhilcar

          That said, that's not what my previous post was about. My previous post was, more than anything, a plea to the player base. The first few thoughts you should have (in my opinion) when meeting a strong deck or seeing a powerful interaction should be 'how do I play around that in future' or 'how do I counter that'. Maybe even 'I want to try that for myself'. I really don't want people to jump straight to 'that should be nerfed!' because that restricts creative thinking and has a deleterious effect both on the game itself, and on the community around that game.

          I agree that players should think that way, but I have accepted that many of them never will.

  • *-slowly raises hand in shame-*
    Frostbite Ashe-Ezreal was actually my solution to counter the Elusive and other aggro decks

  • UHmm yeaah you know that control should beat aggro thats just normal ...

    • Quote From NLbouncyknight

      UHmm yeaah you know that control should beat aggro thats just normal ...

      I'm pretty sure general consensus in the CCG community says the opposite (unless there's sarcasm in there which I'm not picking up on). Aggro plays a lot faster and thus can often overwhelm the control deck before the latter has a chance to stabilize. This is assuming we have roughly the same understanding of aggro, midrange, and control decks.

      • Quote From BlueSpark
        Quote From NLbouncyknight

        UHmm yeaah you know that control should beat aggro thats just normal ...

        I'm pretty sure general consensus in the CCG community says the opposite (unless there's sarcasm in there which I'm not picking up on). Aggro plays a lot faster and thus can often overwhelm the control deck before the latter has a chance to stabilize. This is assuming we have roughly the same understanding of aggro, midrange, and control decks.

        That is incorrect. Control's original purpose was to counter aggro decks by continually clearing their units until the aggro player runs out of gas.

        Aggro's fast pressure is meant to beat midrange, which typically lacks enough removal to deal effectively with early threats. Because midrange is slower to develop a board, it never establishes the presence needed to push back before aggro wins.

        Midrange generally beats control by developing stronger, stickier board presence that eventually outpaces control's removal. (This falls apart when developers provide control with endgame that is too strong or too inevitable -- quite often a legitimate reason for control nerfs.)

  • That's interesting. I've been watching / listening to a bunch of Swim's videos, who seems to be a pretty competent CCG player. He explained it the exact opposite way: If your deck plays slightly more slowly than your opponent's, you can take a bit of nexus damage and in turn play more costly, higher-value cards to eventually 'break even' and then take the lead in terms of board presence.

    However, according to him, control is often too slow to survive the early onslaught of aggro decks (I would assume that is because removal can only clear so much, especially in a game such as Runeterra where removal spells are relatively expensive).

  • I think you guys might be meaning to say the same thing but using different interpretations of what is control, mid-range, etc.

    Swim's whole speal from that video (and others will tell you this too, its a fairly generic CCG principle) is that you want to be either slightly slower than your opponent or a lot faster.  So you end up with a paper->rock->scissors that looks something like:

    • Noxus/P&Z  burn aggro decks beat P&Z/Ionia Heimer+Karma control decks
    • P&Z/Ionia Heimer+Karma control decks beat SI Fearsome midrange decks
    • SI Fearsome midrange decks beat the aforementioned Noxus/P&Z decks.

    Except this game is complex enough that you can't oversimplify.  For example: whereas the P&Z/Ionia versions of Karma are typically waiting for Heimerdinger and as such are slow to answer these new aggro burn decks, there's a new SI/Ionia version that can drop early answers + healing via Withering Wail, Grasp of the Undying, and Darkwater Scourge.  However that change sacrifices a lot of its potential to address fat boards, so it struggles against things like Dawn Spiders and Elnuks--decks which are traditionally described as midrange.  And that's not even getting into sub-variants: e.g., Warmothers control generally beats other types of control because it gets so much value late game.  So you can't make generic statements like "control beats X but loses to Y", you really need to put it in context of tempo.

    • Quote From OldManSanns

      Except this game is complex enough that you can't oversimplify.

      That is definitely true!

      However, I often find that decks get mislabeled, which leads to confusion about the their place in the rock-paper-scissors paradigm.

      In your examples, it might be more correct to label the Fearsome deck as aggro -- it certainly plays like aggro, even if the units are slightly higher in cost than your typical aggro deck.

      Most importantly, the existence of spell mana in this game throws off a lot of the old assumptions around the "speed spectrum." This is surely a contributing factor in the mislabeling problem.