Rotation Is Coming

https://playruneterra.com/en-sg/news/dev/rotation-in-legends-of-runeterra/

Official news here, LOR is becoming like other CCG's now.

So lets list pros and cons and try to be civil.

Pros:

Balancing old archetypes and regions namely Bilgewater has been like a two year commitment on the part of the devs, and it's something they have to spend constant time and resources on.

Cards like TF while interesting and unique as far as champions are concerned are constantly ending up in some of the best decks in the game (tf swain, tf nami, tf fizz)

It's possible with rotation that newer champs will be seeing more play

Broadens the design space so the devs don't have to balance around legacy interactions

Less time spent updating old champs to be viable again with re-designs

Cons:

The main thing that makes LOR unique is the evergreen state of the meta and how every champ and every card remains playable and somewhat viable in the competitive space in terms of a deck building consideration even if not in terms of the power curve.

Updating old archetypes, followers, and champs is what makes patches so interesting in LOR

Your favorite deck/playstyle potentially getting rotated out of ladder, unless there is a separate equally competitive ladder for the evergreen mode

Personally I weigh in on the con side as the entitled gamer I am saying devs just keep doing amazing comprehensive balance patches forever - just do it.

But again easier said then done, especially as the card pool continually expands over the years and there's more and more to balance.

Not sure how much you play rotating formats in other cardgames but from what I know being a mtg standard player for multiple years now:

Rotation is the most refreshing time in year and most players are looking forward to the rotation round about half way in a year.

Old archetypes will come back over and over into the meta as new cards get released and even if we overall don't have as toxic archetypes in LoR than we had in MTG standard the last years (and I am talking decks being tier 1 for years that compare to tk soraka) it's good to know that something like bard isn't an archetype to stay and that there will be the day you don't need to deal with his archetype anymore.

The way rotations work in MTG is that they refresh the field, remove old archetypes, remove answers and enable archetypes that would never take off because they were hosed too much by certain answers/decks. On one hand this can cause for decks having no effective counter and can cause huge balance issues. On the other hand... it's just such a new experience and it enables cards that otherwise would never see play over their region's staples to be played in tier decks and I enjoy nothing more than a significant change in the way decks works.

To put it in a nutshell: 

Rotations are a risk but they are worth the risk

Yeah I used to play a lot of arena in diamond between the beta with amohnket and ixilan, well past war of the spark.

Speaking of arena as a perfect example I actually stopped playing and moved to lor exactly because rotation exists and I could no longer play my favorite decks and archetypes outside of historic.

I think a lot of people did including well known streamers.

Like yes it will be a very fresh time if they delete tf, or lee sin.

Because as we've seen players typically flock to what's good excluding me of course who is happy to make a lot of off meta archetypes work.

It's that mostly even balance curve - like meta being defined as 50% average champ, and 56% top tier is actually a very slim margin

So for the devs to throw that all away and only focus on that top 1% competitive crowd I think is a bit of a waste.

But if it has to be done then what can you do.

Serious question: why is having to switch from standard to historic a problem?

Is changing the game mode that big of a deal? I mean WotC skrewed up in arena's case a lot by injecting new cards to historic that never were in standard and rebalancing cards that then became op/useless in historic. But in LoR's case I don't think Riot will do something like this.

The concern that old archetypes will get neglected by riot once they rotate out is a concern that I would agree on but then: more focus on new cards and new archetypes? That's not too bad eighter.

In the end the game is supposed to be open in deckbuilding and diverse and removing cards from an available cardpool can actually increase diversity which is why I think rotation is good as long as it is optional

The only concern would be that evergreen won't have a permanent ladder from their statement.

Thats probably a mistake.