I keep losing games because of confusing text / mechanics

I keep losing many games of LoR, purely because of wrongly understanding what cards do. It's so easy to get confused by complicated, contradictory, inconsistent and ambiguous text; it's worrisome to think how new and more casual players experience the game and how they get into it, at all.

For example: Riptide Rex. How the hell that card works? I spent half an hour reading the text, on google... experienced it 20 times, played it 20 times myself... still I don't get it what's happening there. Where dmg goes? 

Statikk Shock. Who is "an enemy" who is not "enemy Nexus", and who is "another"? And how much dmg goes... where? I studied logic from Aristotle to Kripke, and I have never experienced a sentence constructed like that one. 

I remember from before - if you remove Commander Ledros... or Chempunk Shredder, their effects (Skill) would trigger regardless. But when I played [Hearthstone Card (Devourer of the Depths) Not Found] today and my opponent Vengeance him, his Skill didn't trigger afterwards? Why? Why is it suddenly different? 

Can Vladimir Crimson Pact an 1hp minion? Can you get Vlad's effect from a minion who is going to die from it?

What about "I've seen" effect? A champion needs to be on the bench. Ok. But what if he dies after completing just 75% of the effect? Is everything reset, or not?

These are just the most representative examples.

Thanks.

Devourer is totally not obvious, but I'll admit it's logical. They are very consequent exactly here where all other similar cards do differently. 

Statikk. So, it can go, for example, twice to the Nexus? It seems very hard to get this one out of confusion even after your nice explanation. :D

Ok, now it's finally clear.

just a little extra for ya if your  enemy has no units you still can play it targeting the nexus it will deal 1 to it and draw a card it is rare, but can be useful sometimes.

A lot of the mechanics of this game is learned through experience. Some things I have learned.

Ally = Means any of your units or Nexus.
Unit = Any champion or non-champion.
Follower = Any non-champion

Ally always confused me because I don't see your Nexus as an "ally".

This issue comes up with Healing effects. "Heal Ally 3."
But the same time there is "Damage any target 1."

The reason for the "Ally' term is to make sure you can't target your opponent. Just like the word "Enemy" on some cards prevents you from targeting your own cards.

I also lost a game to Tryn once because "I killed his first form. Thinking it would stop the attack and return it back to backline in his second form. Do not fall for this as he stays alive and smacks you in second form. That mechanic triggered me a bit when I was new, but thankfully we don't see Tryn that often.

Are you sure about "Allies" ...that it targets your Nexus, too?

Maokai's Sap Magic doesn't heal your Nexus. Luckily I didn't lost the game in which I realized that. 

Also, many cards explicitly distinguish Allies and the Nexus.

P. S. maybe they corrected text recently.

Quote From Tuscarora87

Are you sure about "Allies" ...that it targets your Nexus, too?

 

Initially, many cards ambiguously referred to "Allies" sometimes also meaning Nexus.  They have been tweaking the wording since through the patches to explicitly identify when Nexus is an option, implying that "Ally" doesn't include Nexus.

Examples: Health Potion, Kindly Tavernkeeper, Citrus Courier

Good to know they finally updated the text, Health Potion and Kindly Tavernkeeper use to say: "Heal Ally 3"

The only problem I've ever had with this games wording is when they switched "ally" to mean what I originally thought it meant.  So I had a moment of confusion when my cards could heal my nexus, and another moment of confusion when newer heal cards didn't

But, yaknow, it was in beta, changes were made.

It could be just my programming background and my tendency to think about things differently and more logically compared to most people in general, but many of these examples just sorta made sense the first time :/

Riptide Rex: In this example, it helps to know that if a card references another card/token in its text (in this case, Cannon Barrage), you can right click the card and scroll through.  linkblade91 already broke down this card earlier, though, if you need more information.

Statikk Shock: I don't get peoples misunderstanding/problem about this cards wording.  "Deal 1 to An enemy or the enemy nexus" not only establishes the subject and "An enemy or the enemy nexus" , but also tells you that the enemy nexus is a different subject than an enemy, leaving only enemy units as what an enemy could possibly mean.  "And deal 1 to another" by definition would be an additional different subject of the same type previously established: "An enemy or the enemy nexus"
So yeah I don't really get why people hate Statikk Shocks card text.

As for Vlad.  Yeah, Vlad only requires that he can do damage to an ally, not that it survives said damage.


Also, as of recent text changes since beta
Ally / Allies = Friendly Units, champion or non-champion.  Does not include nexus.
Enemy / Enemies = Opponent Units, champion or non-champion.  Does not include nexus.
Follower = Non-champion Unit.

Other people have answered your questions already, but I'll just add this little nugget for some general advice:

Legends of Runeterra is a LOT more complex than Hearthstone; therefore, the learning curve is steeper for understanding how everything works. When you see a surprising interaction or an unexpected result, you need to choose to try to understand what happened and why, rather than just getting angry. 

Also, as already mentioned, you can click on any card that involves another card or effect to see a copy of the other card or effect (example: Riptide Rex and Cannon Barrage - if you click Riptide Rex, you can see a copy of Cannon Barrage behind him). By the way, Riptide Rex requires you to hit the enemy nexus first (Plunder) in order for his effect to happen at all.

For the last few days, I've realized myself that anger can be diminished by willing to admit I'm making numerous mistakes and that I should try to learn more about some complex interactions. Committing to this resulted in me playing much, much better, after just several days. My problem was not playing around anything! The game looked inconsistent and messy to me. Then I stumbled across some streamers and content creators who suggested learning the most common removals and power plays in the meta decks. That was like - eureka! Suddenly, I started winning games and climbing... by playing around Riposte, Fury of the North, Will of Ionia, Deny, Noxian Fervor, Thermogenic Beam, Get Excited!, Withering Wail and many others. There's no need to rush, often is better to bait, force an opponent's plays and test for the previously mentioned tricks. My hand reading, sequencing and timings got much better. I keep open a page with the meta decks to know what's the best play my opponent can do with a given amount of mana. 

Here's another constatation: LoR seems a much better game now! This may be due to my insufficient knowledge and current personal experiences. But, it just seems better now then during Beta when my involvement in the game got reduced to casual levels. I resented various design solutions, lack of enough counterplays and domination of those dull Elusive and Fearsome decks (these 2 keywords locked down everything). What I see now is that there is a lot more viable archetypes and variations... counterplays ...and "back and forth" gameplay is much more meaningful. A great number of games are - very dramatic - in a positive way. Tough decisions to save 2hp, a minion, a buff... end being absolutely crucial. And emotionally rewarding. Every other game is close and epic. I'm not giving up, nor my opponent. In the last several days there was a dozen of epic games worth remembering. Different matchups - different challenges, too.

Sure, I don't ignore issues this game still has. I would certainly remove / rework more than several cards, but in general LoR is now what I wanted it to be. Art, flavor and design of a lot of cards is great, too. Conclusion: Hearthstone was rather good during Galakrond's Awakening; LoR was bad. Now HS sucks (DH killing other honest aggro forever, half the classes useless), but LoR shines. LoR is simply not worse than HS, anymore.