I can see both sides here, but I agree with meisterz that the barrier negating the damage entirely would be more intuitive (so basically emphasizing a difference between zero damage and no damage). Even though you could argue that an amount of 0 damage is still damage, I don't find that very convincing.
From a design standpoint, I'd say the idea is that Crimson followers trigger an effect when they suffer a wound; when they're hit with a wet noodle and take 0 damage as a result, their ability shouldn't trigger.
I can see why Sanns would be unhappy about the Frostbite situation, but personally, I think that having 0-attack units not strike at all in battle is fine from both a design and mechanical standpoint. It doesn't have anything to do with Frostbite, but is instead a fundamental rule of the game itself.
In the meantime, I had a 2nd game with Yasuo where my 2 early-game Navori Conspirators didn't count towards his level-up. Then I played Yasuo on round 4 or 5, played a stun spell the next turn, and that brought him up to 1/5.
I reported both scenarios in as much detail as I could via support ticket, and they told me they forwarded the data to the development team. Fingers crossed they'll be able to snuff out the bug.
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).
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.
I don't like seeing old cards get rotated out, personally. Mainly because it can potentially ruin certain deck strategies in the future that I'm enjoying now. But I guess I'll have to live with it - assuming I'll continue to keep playing Runeterra until then.
Personally, I'm neither looking to complete my collection of the base set at all cost, not do I plan to save up a lot for the 1st expansion. I simply don't use my crafting materials until I absolutely want a specific card (or further copies of said card) for a deck I'm building. So depending on how many different decks I feel like crafting over the next couple of weeks/months, I may end up with very few or a lot of crafting materials once the expansion arrives.
I just lost a match after my Yasuo didn't level up when I expected him to. I've always been under the impression that you can mix and match stuns and recalls to achieve his level-up requirement (e.g. recall 3 allies and stun 2 enemies).
However, this match points to the contrary. My deck had a lot of recalls and a few stuns. When my opponent attacked, my Yasuo was at 4/5. I set him to block and then queued the "Stun an attacking unit" spell. However, when battle commenced, my stun spell resolved properly (and Yasuo struck the enemy as he should), but Yasuo didn't level up (and consequently died). The next round, I played another recall effect, and suddenly Yasuo jumped to 5/5 (as I could tell by clicking on my deck).
So I'm wondering: Is it intentional that you have to apply either 5 recalls or 5 stuns? Or was my stun spell not being counted a bug that I should report?
I believe my current count is a bit over 16,000. I have yet to craft a single card with shards; I only use them to pay for Expedition fees, and I'm gaining them at a much faster rate than I'm spending.
I've been running it in 2s, later in 3s since the beta launch in my Freljord/Ionia deck. It was a bit of a mish-mash at first, but I've molded it into Braum + Take Heart + Avalanche (plus some small followers) to survive the early game, then mana ramp and Karma + Anivia for the late game. I figured if I claw my way into the late game, the 6-point heal might be a lifesaver. But you're right, of course - I hardly ever play the card before turn 9. I'd rather let it sit in my hand as long as I can play literally anything else.
I think the moment of empty space is still a relevant aspect of Shadowshift.
Now that you guys have been bringing up some arguments, I guess the fact that Shadowshift summons a new creature sets it apart from Stand United, which merely affects 2 units that are already out on the board. I still would like to see targeted spells hitting the Shadow, and I think there's sold justification for it from a game-mechanics point of view, but I can see good reasons for the opposite side, too.
The +3/+3 from Jeweled Protector is also slow: you need to have the target in hand when you play him, and you probably aren't playing that target on the same turn so its a delayed effect. Contrast with Avarosan Hearthguard, who conceivably can give ~20/~20 worth of stats for that same 5 mana but because most of those stats trickle out he goes from auto-include 3x to worthy consideration.
Point taken. I'm still not entirely convinced that this buff was the right move, but compared to Hearthguard, it doesn't seem so crazy after all. Then again, perhaps Hearthguard's effect could turn out a bit overbearing, at least in certain kinds of decks.
As you said, the metagame hasn't really solidified, so I don't think there's too much point in trying to nail down which cards to look out for. Maybe Chempunk Shredder will be the next big thing in Piltover & Zaun decks, so that's be a 1-health breakpoint. Similar story for Death Lotus if self-damage decks somehow rise to the top. You could basically add all direct-damage effects and Challenger units to the list. Unless you want to update the list constantly to reflect what's being played the most at the moment.
Ignoring the debate about the OP's sanity, I think the patch changes to XP were pretty much spot-on. For the past 2 weeks, I've slowly been feeling pressured into grinding out as many expeditions as possible due to the high bonus XP rewards. This has actually diminished my enthusiasm to try playing constructed. Now I might just invest a bit more time into building and playing my own decks.
I'd actually appreciate a slower rate of expansion releases, too. It keeps the card pool from becoming overwhelming, especially for new players, but even for some folks like me. When I build a deck, I don't netdeck, I don't just search for cards the meta considers 'strong' - I look over each and every card and take at least a moment to consider whether it fits my deck strategy. Doing that in Hearthstone these days is nigh impossible (although the Standard format helps with this, I guess).
Also, there seem to be a ton of interesting deck archetypes which are at least semi-viable, so that coupled with playing Expeditions will surely keep me hooked enough to wait a couple of months for a new set.
Commander Ledros - almost, didn't predict the rounding nerf (there's a thread asking for it..), and didn't expect the small buff.
There was no rounding nerf - he still rounds up, but now it's explicitly stated in the card text. Oops - looks like I actually read it wrong. I thought the damage done to the nexus was rounded up, not the remaining nexus health. I don't think it makes much of a difference either way.
I'm mostly happy with the patch changes, although I have a feeling that Rhasa and Ledros will still be stupid strong.
Was also very surprised at the hefty buff to Jeweled Protector - total stats of 7/7 for 5 mana seems a bit crazy (I would've reduced the hand buff to +2/+3, myself). I might just pick him back up for my control deck.
I will mention that I love a lot of the changes and fixes outside of balancing, but that's a matter for a different thread.
The trouble with that argument is that Elusives aren't dominant anymore. And the fact that they were shifted from the top spot in a couple of weeks makes it clear that dominance is the result of a shifting meta, not power level. So why would Riot intervene in the meta to resolve something which isn't a power level issue? There's no reason to do so beyond silencing some whiners.
I think there's still a point to be made about the (at least temporarily) high success of Elusive decks. They may have dropped off now due to the emergence of Fearsome decks, but that's only one archetype that's apparently able to beat Elusives consistently. Rather than concluding that all is well and dandy this way, I think it'd be prudent to ponder if maybe Elusive and Fearsome decks (which, incidentally, both use mechanics to prevent the opponent from blocking) are a tad too strong compared to the rest of the game's (plentiful) deck archetypes.
What meisterz said. I started playing the game from the open beta launch, and I got confused when I read some card descriptions / guides online that said "Ready your attack," as that's not a phrase that appears in the live game.
In the SI cards' cases, it's because of the word 'to' in the text. You have to do the former to trigger the latter.
Good catch. I think it's kind of similar to cards like Get Excited! in this way, which says "To play, discard 1 card." It's not quite the same, obviously (For Get Excited!, discarding is the prerequisite to being able to play it in the first place), but I agree that the word "to" seems to be a key term here.
Bystekhilcar has a point in that we're kind of moving away from the original intention of the thread. However, I think examining the card as a whole has merit.
I really like a suggestion that I've read in a different thread (the patch predictions, I believe): Make Ledros bounce to the top of its owner's deck instead of their hand. Boom, suddenly the immense card advantage Ledros generates is gone. If your opponent keeps playing him turn after turn, they at least won't accumulate additional cards. He might still be a bit too strong and need some tweaking from there, but I think it'd be a great start to balancing Ledros while preserving his identity.
I can see both sides here, but I agree with meisterz that the barrier negating the damage entirely would be more intuitive (so basically emphasizing a difference between zero damage and no damage). Even though you could argue that an amount of 0 damage is still damage, I don't find that very convincing.
From a design standpoint, I'd say the idea is that Crimson followers trigger an effect when they suffer a wound; when they're hit with a wet noodle and take 0 damage as a result, their ability shouldn't trigger.
I can see why Sanns would be unhappy about the Frostbite situation, but personally, I think that having 0-attack units not strike at all in battle is fine from both a design and mechanical standpoint. It doesn't have anything to do with Frostbite, but is instead a fundamental rule of the game itself.
In the meantime, I had a 2nd game with Yasuo where my 2 early-game Navori Conspirators didn't count towards his level-up. Then I played Yasuo on round 4 or 5, played a stun spell the next turn, and that brought him up to 1/5.
I reported both scenarios in as much detail as I could via support ticket, and they told me they forwarded the data to the development team. Fingers crossed they'll be able to snuff out the bug.
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'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.
I don't like seeing old cards get rotated out, personally. Mainly because it can potentially ruin certain deck strategies in the future that I'm enjoying now. But I guess I'll have to live with it - assuming I'll continue to keep playing Runeterra until then.
Personally, I'm neither looking to complete my collection of the base set at all cost, not do I plan to save up a lot for the 1st expansion. I simply don't use my crafting materials until I absolutely want a specific card (or further copies of said card) for a deck I'm building. So depending on how many different decks I feel like crafting over the next couple of weeks/months, I may end up with very few or a lot of crafting materials once the expansion arrives.
It was a regular Steel Tempest.
I just lost a match after my Yasuo didn't level up when I expected him to. I've always been under the impression that you can mix and match stuns and recalls to achieve his level-up requirement (e.g. recall 3 allies and stun 2 enemies).
However, this match points to the contrary. My deck had a lot of recalls and a few stuns. When my opponent attacked, my Yasuo was at 4/5. I set him to block and then queued the "Stun an attacking unit" spell. However, when battle commenced, my stun spell resolved properly (and Yasuo struck the enemy as he should), but Yasuo didn't level up (and consequently died). The next round, I played another recall effect, and suddenly Yasuo jumped to 5/5 (as I could tell by clicking on my deck).
So I'm wondering: Is it intentional that you have to apply either 5 recalls or 5 stuns? Or was my stun spell not being counted a bug that I should report?
I believe my current count is a bit over 16,000. I have yet to craft a single card with shards; I only use them to pay for Expedition fees, and I'm gaining them at a much faster rate than I'm spending.
I've been running it in 2s, later in 3s since the beta launch in my Freljord/Ionia deck. It was a bit of a mish-mash at first, but I've molded it into Braum + Take Heart + Avalanche (plus some small followers) to survive the early game, then mana ramp and Karma + Anivia for the late game. I figured if I claw my way into the late game, the 6-point heal might be a lifesaver. But you're right, of course - I hardly ever play the card before turn 9. I'd rather let it sit in my hand as long as I can play literally anything else.
Now that you guys have been bringing up some arguments, I guess the fact that Shadowshift summons a new creature sets it apart from Stand United, which merely affects 2 units that are already out on the board. I still would like to see targeted spells hitting the Shadow, and I think there's sold justification for it from a game-mechanics point of view, but I can see good reasons for the opposite side, too.
Point taken. I'm still not entirely convinced that this buff was the right move, but compared to Hearthguard, it doesn't seem so crazy after all. Then again, perhaps Hearthguard's effect could turn out a bit overbearing, at least in certain kinds of decks.
As you said, the metagame hasn't really solidified, so I don't think there's too much point in trying to nail down which cards to look out for. Maybe Chempunk Shredder will be the next big thing in Piltover & Zaun decks, so that's be a 1-health breakpoint. Similar story for Death Lotus if self-damage decks somehow rise to the top. You could basically add all direct-damage effects and Challenger units to the list. Unless you want to update the list constantly to reflect what's being played the most at the moment.
Ignoring the debate about the OP's sanity, I think the patch changes to XP were pretty much spot-on. For the past 2 weeks, I've slowly been feeling pressured into grinding out as many expeditions as possible due to the high bonus XP rewards. This has actually diminished my enthusiasm to try playing constructed. Now I might just invest a bit more time into building and playing my own decks.
I'd actually appreciate a slower rate of expansion releases, too. It keeps the card pool from becoming overwhelming, especially for new players, but even for some folks like me. When I build a deck, I don't netdeck, I don't just search for cards the meta considers 'strong' - I look over each and every card and take at least a moment to consider whether it fits my deck strategy. Doing that in Hearthstone these days is nigh impossible (although the Standard format helps with this, I guess).
Also, there seem to be a ton of interesting deck archetypes which are at least semi-viable, so that coupled with playing Expeditions will surely keep me hooked enough to wait a couple of months for a new set.
There was no rounding nerf - he still rounds up, but now it's explicitly stated in the card text. Oops - looks like I actually read it wrong. I thought the damage done to the nexus was rounded up, not the remaining nexus health. I don't think it makes much of a difference either way.
I'm mostly happy with the patch changes, although I have a feeling that Rhasa and Ledros will still be stupid strong.
Was also very surprised at the hefty buff to Jeweled Protector - total stats of 7/7 for 5 mana seems a bit crazy (I would've reduced the hand buff to +2/+3, myself). I might just pick him back up for my control deck.
I will mention that I love a lot of the changes and fixes outside of balancing, but that's a matter for a different thread.
I think there's still a point to be made about the (at least temporarily) high success of Elusive decks. They may have dropped off now due to the emergence of Fearsome decks, but that's only one archetype that's apparently able to beat Elusives consistently. Rather than concluding that all is well and dandy this way, I think it'd be prudent to ponder if maybe Elusive and Fearsome decks (which, incidentally, both use mechanics to prevent the opponent from blocking) are a tad too strong compared to the rest of the game's (plentiful) deck archetypes.
What meisterz said. I started playing the game from the open beta launch, and I got confused when I read some card descriptions / guides online that said "Ready your attack," as that's not a phrase that appears in the live game.
Good catch. I think it's kind of similar to cards like Get Excited! in this way, which says "To play, discard 1 card." It's not quite the same, obviously (For Get Excited!, discarding is the prerequisite to being able to play it in the first place), but I agree that the word "to" seems to be a key term here.
Bystekhilcar has a point in that we're kind of moving away from the original intention of the thread. However, I think examining the card as a whole has merit.
I really like a suggestion that I've read in a different thread (the patch predictions, I believe): Make Ledros bounce to the top of its owner's deck instead of their hand. Boom, suddenly the immense card advantage Ledros generates is gone. If your opponent keeps playing him turn after turn, they at least won't accumulate additional cards. He might still be a bit too strong and need some tweaking from there, but I think it'd be a great start to balancing Ledros while preserving his identity.