New Balance Patch

Finally, we got it so let's see what has changed.

https://playruneterra.com/en-us/news/game-updates/patch-2-9-0-notes/

They buffed Thaliyah and Malphite woo.

Its a 1 point stat change and the problem isn't the champs its their supporting package being too low tempo...boo

They nerfed blossoming blade by 1 mana that's huge yaaah, they didn't really do anything else and players think it's not enough...boo

Honestly, I've been having a good time climbing more recently. Early on it was all face face face and I had to do my overwhelm thing but now at Plat I can slow down and play spooky swain.

So I do feel of you're a committed deck builder you can squeeze by and.have fun, but there are very very few decks that are playable right now.

Also, Mogwai is pissed ;)

https://youtu.be/4DNivFzYeDA

Mogwai isn't alone in that sentiment, not even among streamers.

For sure. There were definately a lot of comprehensive changes that could of been made and weren't.

Particularly absent is the lack of any relavent or exciting buffs to the weaker archetypes introduced in the expansion.

It seems like the philosophy now is let's release more new cards to fix things instead of buffing pre-existing non Champs 

Yeah, and that is not going to be the mentality that keeps them afloat in my opinion. The thing that made LoR so note worthy in its early stages was the fact that they gave the impression that they wanted to keep things in motion with constant changes in the form of both nerfs and buffs. Without that I don't feel like the game has a lot to offer that sets itself apart from other games. I'm not saying the game is bad, but is it so much better when compared to MTG or HS if it just takes the same mentalities as they have and just rely on new cards and nothing else to change things up? In my opinion it isn't, not when those games have such a large following comparatively. You need something that will not just keep players interested, but that will draw players in as well from other CCGs. 

I'm not trying to sound like a fanatic that is assuming the end is nigh. I am just saying that the end will be nigh somewhere down the road if this level of disappointment becomes the norm. 

Maybe it's just me but I really feel that they're very indecisive. They're saying that they want the community to shape the meta but it feels to me that they want the exact opposite. The fact that they're trying to make sure they're not just giving a deck a major nerf and instead a minor one where it just bumps down the winrate makes it so that the meta won't change too much as it probably won't introduce newer decks into the pool but shift the tiers slightly. For example the meta with TF Fizz and Aphelios being persistent didn't allow for new decks to be put into the meta for a long time until they got nerfed pretty severely then people could start playing decks like Thresh Nasus. Not saying that it was better or anything but it was at least different from the previous one. If they were so worried about the power level of other decks being put down then they could just put in a lot of minor changes to the cards instead of hitting 2 major ones to cards that is only 1/5th of the issue. I didn't just want Azir Irelia nerfs as much as others want but I wanted more changes to other tier 1 decks like maybe Ezreal Draven, Thresh Nasus or Trundle Lissandra Control.

Also, I'm pretty sure at this point they're doing less changes than Hearthstone is at this point. Hearthstone got 15 card changes in their recent one and the month before that contained 6 nerfs. They nerf cards a week after the release of a new expansion. I feel like LoR has been slowly drifting away from this style of drastic changes.

I agree with you on a lot of that, pretty much all of it. In my opinion having more ambitious changes should be their approach, because if they did so regularly then they wouldn't even need to worry about going over board. That deck would go down for a bit and could come back up next patch when they gave the deck a boost to bring it back up a bit. I'm not asking for them to solve the balance for the game. I am just asking that they keep things fresh and interesting like they implied they intended to back when they started the game. 

As for the other decks I agree with that as well. I think TLC is the worst offender outside of Azirelia and if that deck isn't addressed then a meta shift is impossible since that deck serves as a gate keeper for anything that tries to go for the long haul. I used HS as an example but you are right that they have been more aware and more proactive, though that has been pretty recent and up until then they built a bit of a reputation for silently leaving the game in a less than ideal state. 

After this patch i am inclined to believe they want players to stay in the Lab rather then normal games

When Hearthstone balance team is doing a better job, you know you got a problem. 

Worth noting that someone from the Dev Team as replied to the recent controversy, which is somewhat promising. It is of course impossible to say whether they will follow up on it until 2.11.0 rolls around but that is something worth keeping in mind. I do think that those at Riot to tend to be pretty good at getting the clue, so given that they've stated they will be trying to absolve the issues I think there is reason to be hopeful.

Here’s hoping the low quality of recent patches is just because of the work on the champion expansion like they said and not their design philosophy moving forward

Yeah I had heard that they got destroyed on redit and responded with a oh no wait we're totally gonna do what we did before soon.

So yeah, when ignoring the community doesn't work the next logical step is to put your arrogance aside as a game dev and listen.

It's definitely the work of their design philosophy this post more than confirms it : 

https://www.reddit.com/r/LegendsOfRuneterra/comments/nqp1q0/big_balance_patches_like_14_arent_guaranteed_to/h0bs3rm/?context=3

The whole champion expansion is just an excuse.  Anyway they did make another post were they said that they were going to  re-evaluate their design philosophy. All we can do now is hope that they are honest and have learned from their mistakes.

Here's the second post for anyone interested :

https://www.reddit.com/r/LegendsOfRuneterra/comments/nr2ckp/we_hear_you_updates_to_live_cards_and_the_future/