Bruised By God Meta Rant

So Bruised by God one of the best Runeterra players strictly on ladder has come out to say that he thinks the Kenin Ezreal nerf was heavy handed.

https://youtu.be/7TGeMe3REbw

I personally agree, because the only thing keeping infinite value decks in cheque aka shellfolk cycle shenanigans (as an example) was the very real threat that you would just instantly lose queuing into a combo matchup that would just burn you down to 0 even if you had 100 cards.

That threat is gone now, taking the matchup options of aggro-> midrange -> control-> combo down to essentially midrange/aggro/control soup aka I start agressive, cycle hard, play midrange threats and then transition into infinite value lategame.

You compound this lack of deck building identity with limited viable champion compositions, and I can understand his frustration and the general lack of engagement with the game from popular streamers like Swim and Mogwai.

Afterall how can you cry for a nerf and simultaneously be responsible for the dumbing down of the game by limiting the deck building variety and matchup tables, and champ compositions.

Now this is more of an overall trend in the game, a lot of interesting and viable decks have been nerfed into the ground leading into a lack of build identity. I think Shen can be pushed back on top to fight dragons, Azir Irelia can be pushed back to fight aggro, and Fizz Tf can be pushed back to counter control, and yes Ezreal Kenin can be pushed to counter value decks.

If everything is broken and unbalanced by definition nothing will be and it will lead to more dynamic and unpredictable matchups and play experiences. Just my two cents, what do you guys think?

I respect BBG skill as player but his opinion on balance are frankly laughable to me, the guy was saying that 2 mana hush was Healthy for the game among other things.

With that being said I do agree it was a bit too soon to nerf Ezreal/Kennen, there are cases were a deck can seem too strong a first only to be revealed that its not the case. A good example of that would be dragons after their buff in patch 2.18 the deck was all over the place in ladder but after two weeks people figured out how to play against it and it ended up being a Tier 2 at best.

I do think that EZ/Kennen was genuinely OP be cause it was exactly one those "infinite value" type deck ( You created an ephemeral Kennen with God-Willow Seedling then you recall it which would remove the ephemeral which mean that you would never run out of Kennen and by extension Mark of the Storm even if your opponent managed to remove all three copies of that champion ) but I am an advocate for more wait and see approach to balancing ( as long as length between balance patches do not exceed one month ) 

Honestly, I do feel for BBG. I would be pretty devastated if you created a deck that basically shifted the tone of the meta and then for it to get hotfixed when there was almost no precedent. Swim also said the exact same thing when they hotfixed Zephyr Sage. But otherwise, they are very deserved nerfs that needed to happen regardless of their final standings in the meta. Kennen Ezreal less so because honestly Zephyr Sage abuse wasn't entirely intended and more annoying, but even then I think Kennen needed a nerf. Kennen Ezreal was honestly not that strong, you had a lot more ways to counter it than you'd expect, it's just that Kennen Ezreal had more ways to counter said counters. Also it was really slow to play against and frustrating even if you're winning so I can understand the hate for it. I don't think Kinkou Wayfinder should have been the nerf target even though it was the perfect card to hit because Kinkou Wayfinder isn't even that strong or played as much and this rendition finally made it useful. Still a good nerf though, God-Willow Seedling nerf after that might have been a bit overkill but nyeh.

Also, holy shit stop advocating for OP decks to return just because we have an OP deck that is equally or even more annoying to deal with than the previous ones. If EvErYtHiNg Is BrOkEn ThEn NoThInG wIlL bE. This is a statement I think I would have agreed upon, if it were possible. In theory, it is a fun and interesting concept. However, in reality, it'd be impossible and create the opposite effect intended. If you made everything OP, then there will always be something more OP than others. It'd be the exact state of a tier 0 meta, but worse. Because now, you would match up against OP decks a lot more often, and if you're using a shitty deck then obviously it'd feel like "Why don't I just use that deck?".There'd be less room for experiments and creativity when I consider that LoR is already doing that pretty well.

I don't think there's anything in this current meta that requires huge sweeping nerfs or anything outside of maybe Wounded Whiteflame which probably needs to be a 2/3 or a 3/3 and maybe an adjustment or two for Lee Sin. I just think they need more buffs to low tier cards and strategies to be mid tiers.

Since we are currently ranting about the meta and since Riot confirmed incoming nerfs for BC how about we brainstorm which nerfs we could think of:

My suggestions:

Otterpus: remove attune 1/1 -> 1/2 

Reason: he is a staple in every BC deck and overall too cheap for what he is doing (and hes annoying)

Conchologist: 2/2 -> 2/1 (if Loping Telescope is 2/1 why isn't this guy also?)

Pokey Stick: deal 1 draw 1-> deal 1 to draw 1(make the draw part interruptable allow punishment) 

Bandle City Mayor: 3mana -> 4 mana

(It's called the major package for a reason...)

Yordle Captain: 4/4 -> 4/3

Reason:High priority units should be well killable a 4 mana 4/4 is quite hard to kill 

Hidden Pathways: requirement: 2 created cards this game -> 4 cards created this game.

Reason if i can fullfill this card's condition on turn 1 by just playing Poro Cannon then the requirement is just too easy

The Bandle Tree: 5 mana -> 6 mana

Reason: i have no better ideas :P

Minimorph: 6 mana-> 5 mana, permanent-> until round end

Reason: make it good at stopping all in strategies but not the death sentence for those

Curious Shellfolk: limit it's effect to once per round

Reason: it provides too much value even for a 6 drop

Quote From TheTriferianGeneral

Otterpus: remove attune 1/1 -> 1/2 

Reason: he is a staple in every BC deck and overall too cheap for what he is doing (and hes annoying)

I don't think Otterpus in particular warrants a nerf but that is a fair nerf regardless. Would effectively kill the card outside of Prank decks.

Quote From TheTriferianGeneral

Conchologist: 2/2 -> 2/1 (if Loping Telescope is 2/1 why isn't this guy also?)

Honestly, prefer it if they were both 1/2 or 1/3 which I don't think is better than a 2/2.

Quote From TheTriferianGeneral

Pokey Stick: deal 1 draw 1-> deal 1 to draw 1(make the draw part interruptable allow punishment)

Interesting nerf, probably not as impactful as making it 3 mana or making it slow though.

Quote From TheTriferianGeneral

Bandle City Mayor: 3mana -> 4 mana

(It's called the major package for a reason…)

Yeah it's either this or make it so mana reduction won't go below 1.

Quote From TheTriferianGeneral

Yordle Captain: 4/4 -> 4/3

Reason:High priority units should be well killable a 4 mana 4/4 is quite hard to kill 

100% agreed.

Quote From TheTriferianGeneral

Hidden Pathways: requirement: 2 created cards this game -> 4 cards created this game.

Reason if i can fullfill this card's condition on turn 1 by just playing Poro Cannon then the requirement is just too easy

I agree, just unsure if 4 instead of 3 is overkill.

Quote From TheTriferianGeneral

The Bandle Tree: 5 mana -> 6 mana

Reason: i have no better ideas :P

Yeah this one's a bit more complicated. From my experience of playing this, I felt like you can slot it in pretty much every deck as a countdown clock. The only counter to it is simply landmark removal which doesn't even stop it if they have another in hand. I think the nerf needs to slow down the gameplan or make it have a higher deckbuilding cost. Maybe make it so that you need to play a Yordle or Multi-region follower to make it create a card from another region.

Mana nerf is also good though.

Quote From TheTriferianGeneral

Minimorph: 6 mana-> 5 mana, permanent-> until round end

Reason: make it good at stopping all in strategies but not the death sentence for those

Well there's a lot of takes on how to nerf Minimorph, this one's pretty standard but I don't expect to see it come through. My take on what they should do is that Minimorph should be reworked so that it can no longer silence Champions but still turn them into a 3/3 statline, but for followers, they would also silence them.

Quote From TheTriferianGeneral

Curious Shellfolk: limit it's effect to once per round

Reason: it provides too much value even for a 6 drop

That's a good nerf. My take is that making the copied card cost 1 more instead would also be good, but I have no idea what the implications of that would be.

But also in my mind, when Riot mentions that they have "a huge patch note" they always include a lot more buffs than they do nerfs. So I expect that half of the cards mentioned won't even get a single change, but I think I would honestly almost prefer it that way. I'm hoping that one day Ephemeral would get buffed, maybe its archetype or just the keyword. Elites would get a better payoff card or rework to make it so that its current cards don't entirely rely on units dying. Malphite actually does something pre-level. Evidently, all of these are written after taking a huge dose of copium.

Nyeh, at this point I might as well just make custom cards for it.

My personal list of nerfs would be :

Conchologist and Loping Telescope :  1/2

- 2 power is good stat line that allow them to trade well into most early unit, they already generate value they don't need to trade well.

Stone Stackers : 2/2

- With 3 health this unit sit comfortably outside the range of every board wipe, that should not be the case for cheap aggro unit's.

Lecturing Yordle : 3/4

- With 5 health there is no mana efficient way to remove this card outside of Monster Harpoon, 4 would put him within the range of more removal cards and make him less likely to survive trades.

Bandle City Mayor: The first multi region you play each round cost 1 less.

- Reducing the mana cheat on this unit should limit bandle city swarming power without making him unplayable.

Curious Shellfolk : 4/5 and remove the discount from the created copy.

- I think it fine for 6 drop to generate lots of value what makes this card overtuned in my opinion is the combination of resource generation and mana cheat which is why I suggest getting rid of the latter.

Wounded Whiteflame : 2/3 or 2/2

- Pretty much impossible to kill without hard removal can reach crazy stat line very fast and if you think that you can just keep chump blocking it there is always Zenith Blade or Iula to turn him into a legitimate win con.

Given that Boomcrew Rookie never Was a problem since he got nerfed to a 1/3 statline and that stonestackers are very similar to that makes me think that it has a reasonable powerlevel.

Lecturing Yordle: how could i have forgotten about this annoying engine? Well how about we nerf his atttack instead of HP? This way it would be a direct compensation for it's indirect damage which seem better imo.

When it comes to Wounded Whiteflame it's obvious that it has too much health. How about switching the statline from 2/4 to 4/2? It would turn the card from an value town to an aggressive 3 drop that might get a lot of value but offen enough won't get there anymore

Yeah like it's possible that we can just continue with a nerf only mindset that's what Riot has been doing to balance the game so far.

I find it's a little like removing the spice from all your favorite dishes until everything tastes the same but I understand my oppinion is the minority one, I more so wanted to share Bruised.by God's rant to foster healthy discussion and its working just fine.