This seems pretty bad. For 1 more mana you can play rummage, discard 1 more card and draw 2 actual cards from your deck instead of Daring Poros. If discard decks really need a lot of discards to consistently discard their discard synergy cards then I could see this seeing play. This is the only way to discard at burst speed other than rummage, so maybe that gives this some hope. In a Poro or Von Yip deck, the Daring Poro is good enough that you might even want to run more than 3 of it, so in that deck I could see it being viable. Finally, as a zero mana spell it could be useful in a fizz deck.
About Soraka, I really hope that she’s coming next, but I’m scared that it might be Aurelian Sol instead. Aurelia Soll’s theme is used in the Targon trailer, the coloring of the background to the last constellation matches his color scheme, and he is a very popular champion that riot might want to use to promote the expansion. However, if Soraka doesn’t come then we’ll have a bunch a heal cards that won’t really make a deck until the second or third expansion of the set, which would be annoying.
This seems pretty good in any deck that runs non-elusive 3+ Power units and wants a finisher. The 4/2 elusive body is worth somewhere between 4 and 5 mana, so adding on a Ghost for 1-2 Mana seems pretty good. I like that they’re printing an elusive card that doesn’t work well in pure elusive decks (this is far worse than Windfarer Hatchling in an elusive Ionia deck).
Drawing cards is so valuable in LoR, I think this will definitely see play. Even without the Draw a card it’s almost like a halved Fury of the North! With all of these Targon draw cards (guiding Light, Zenith Blade, and this card), TF Targon could be a real deck!
This can silence champions! Sure it’s only for a round, but the ability to have this be relevant in more matchups is important. One thing I wonder is if Silencing a champion resets its “I’ve seen” requirements (for example, if you silence a TF that has seen the opponent draw 6 cards, when it becomes unsilenced does it regain its progress or go back to 0?). Also, can a champion progress its level up or level up while silenced?
Yeah I agree with you that the set structure might be a bit disappointing for people who enjoy playing a few specific regions, but I feel like it's sort of a necessary evil because of the fact that sets include an additional region. Riot can't really release Targon with only 2 or 3 champions and expect it to feel like a full region, so they are forced to release a lot of Targon cards in the first expansion of the set. Given that they want each card release to be fairly small (so that card releases can be spread out more), they aren't left with enough extra card spots to give all regions a significant amount of cards. I think once all of the regions are released there will be a much more even distribution of each region's cards across expansions in a set.
On the plus side, there are some reasons why unequal region card distribution can be good. Unequal card distribution allows different regions to rotate in and out of high popularity. For example, imagine if Badgerbear and Grizzled Ranger had been released in the second expansion of a set. This would have made Demacia underpowered in the first expansion of the set, allowing other regions to be dominant for a while, and then when the second expansion launched Demacia would be really good and brought back into the meta. This would make the game feel more fresh because it wouldn't be perpetually dominated by the few best regions (for example, Ionia and Shadow Isles, or more recently Freljord), as long as the new cards are slightly better than the old ones. Also, a few cards can have a huge impact on decks. For example, Blighted Caretaker and Neverglade collector could be released as cards in an expansion where Shadow Isles doesn't receive a champion and they would significantly change what Shadow Isles decks are best. If Riot manages to be really smart about which cards they release in each expansion, I think that this system will work pretty well.
This card is also really good with all of the permanent buffs Targon has. Giving this a few gems or a Blessing of Targon makes this a real threat. Gems are also really good for triggering Nightfall, so the deck already has some natural synergy.
I think you’re underestimating the Crescent Guardian, since it’s basically a better version of the Noxus 4/3 Overwhelm (if you can reliably trigger Nightfall). I think if a Targon Aggro deck exists Crescent Guardian could be included in it, but it’s definitely possible that Targon won’t have an Aggro deck. The 1 drop is also really good, since it lets you trigger Nightfall on two turns for only one card, and it allows you to play Nightfall units a turn before they are supposed to hit the board.
This is basically the 2/3 Bilgewater Narwhal but without the vulnerable! It being Nightfall and elusive also helps level up Nocturne faster because Nightfall units have to attack for his level up. I hope that Targon gets a few more elusive units (but not enough to make an elusive deck) so that Targon can be used as a tech against elusives if they become too dominant. A 2/3 is also a pretty good blocker to elusives.
This card is amazing! It acts as a Nightfall activator for 2 separate turns, and it lets you use spell mana to pay for Nightfall units. For example, you could play this on turn one, skip turn two, and then Duskpetal into Nocturne on turn 3! This card reminds me of Chump Whump, in that it has okay stats and generates useful token spells in hand. Duskpetal is actually even better than a puff cap if your deck is running Nightfall units!
1. Lack of card variety: Yeah I've felt that too in the last month or two, no matter how much they balance the game I feel like I've tried every card and strategy. However, with expansions coming every 2 months instead of 4, I think that this problem will be solved.
2. Champions limiting deckbuilding: I would disagree with you for the most part, since many champions can be used in multiple decks and regions, but I do agree that they've missed the mark on a few of them. Nautilus and Maokai, for example, are forced together in a Deep deck and aren't really viable anywhere else (except Maokai in some ephemeral decks). Also, some champions don't serve as win conditions and act as just good followers (For example, Sejuani and Braum were together in a midrange deck that wasn't focused on leveling either of them up).
3. Aggro being too good: I would disagree heavily with you here, since we've had multiple metas in which midrange is the most powerful and aggro decks aren't Tier 1. Although the game design might hypothetically make aggro powerful, riot always nerfs aggro when it's too good.
4. No AoE: I agree with you completely here, the only viable low cost boardclear is withering wail and maybe Twisted Fate (although they both only deal 1 damage). I think this will be solved with future expansions though.
5. No summoning Sickness: I don't think that missing out on tempo is that important in this game, especially since spell mana exists. Also, players often open attack, which makes summoning sickness irrelevant.
6. Broken Cards (Unyielding Spirit): Unyielding Spirit was nerfed to fast speed, which I think makes it a more healthy card. I think that there are some broken cards, but riot generally nerfs them when they become problematic.
7. Event Pass: I agree with you here, the event pass was annoying and made it feel like I had to play every day to complete it. Hopefully they make it take fewer games next time or reduce the first win of the day bonus (and scale back the total wins required to compensate). The missions were also poorly done.
8. Cosmetics costing real money: I think that cosmetics have to cost real money, just so that riot makes enough money to keep the game going. I think that they could include a few cosmetics to buy with F2P currency if they wanted.
Summoning blockers at burst speed is pretty powerful, this should hypothetically be similar to stunning a unit and dealing 2 to it. However, it isn't as good against Elusive or Overwhelm units, which is probably why Jury Rig isn't as good defensively as a stun card. The closest thing this card can be compared to is Jury Rig with Von Yip on board, which was a very powerful combo that can counter open attacks or allow you to summon units for the open attack without giving your opponent the chance to respond. All that being said, I think that this card would only be viable in a deck that also runs Mistwraith and/or Wraithcaller, which severely limits its use unless those cards become good enough to run in most SI decks.
Yeah, I do think that LoR does have a problem with introducing lots of mechanics, and I think it comes out of them trying to faithfully translate the LoL champions into LoR. For example, the Spellshield keyword seems to exist mainly because several champions in LoL have Spellshield abilities, rather than because the developers thought it would be a good keyword. I think that Spellshield is an okay keyword, but given than it's basically just a worse barrier in 90% of cases, I think the decision to include it was based in large part to it being necessary to translate LoL mechanics into LoR. Champions also disrupt region identity because in cases like Vladimir, they break region identity in favor of fulfilling the theme of the champion (Vladimir has Drain, while no other Noxus cards have Drain and Healing is meant to be a weakness of Noxus). For the most part this hasn't become a huge problem yet, but as they add champions whose themes contrast with the identity of their region they'll have to make sacrifices in either the theme of the champions or the identity of the region.
This card seems amazing to me! For 1 Mana you threaten to deal 4 damage to the enemy Nexus unless they take an awful trade by blocking with a 3+ Attack unit. It’s like Navori Bladescout but with less guaranteed damage and more potential damage. That being said, it is very vulnerable to removal, so if Make it Rain or Withering Wail are a big part of the meta, it might struggle to actually deal damage.
This seems really bad. Pretty much any case in which this could be used, Deny could also be used (I know they’re different regions, but Deny shows the power level of counters in this game). Deny is also pretty much always useful, whereas this will often do nothing (For example, Deny against Burn Aggro prevents a Decimate, this card would do literally nothing). However, I think that the incredibly limited and underpowered nature of this card shows that there will either be some way to summon units for the opponent (Like Hunting Fleet but for Shadow Isles) or there will powerful unit-summoning cards in this set that Riot wants to provide a counter for.
The main weakness I see is that Encroaching Shadows also effects champions. Currently, even champions like Hecarim would usually prefer to not have +2|+2 and Ephemeral. However, if Nocturne has Ephemeral or works well with Ephemeral, that could be a different story.
This seems way worse than a Kindly Tavernkeeper, which leads me to believe that they'll release a champion that synergizes with healing (likely Soraka) to justify this card existing.
This seems pretty great, no card has ever granted Overwhelm or Regeneration permanently before, so I'm excited to see how powerful it is. The most obvious use I can see for this is to use it on Scarthane Steffen, so that his high attack stat can actually translate to Nexus damage, and so that he remains at high health despite self-damage cards.
2/7 is an interesting statline that we haven't yet seen, so I'm excited to see how powerful it is. Also, the way its worded implies that if you're at full health it doesn't take any damage, which ensures that you always get the full heal out of it. It also works well with Vlad and could be part of a Gem Vlad deck. I think Soraka will probably synergize with Healing too, so maybe this will be a part of that archetype too. Honestly a self-damage plus healing Targon/Noxus deck would be really cool.
Since Ice Pillar refunds its mana cost, it's basically like Enlightened but for 8 Mana. Trundle also provides a very good body that can take down a lot of units and survive, so even if the game ends before turn 8 he's still good.
This seems pretty bad. For 1 more mana you can play rummage, discard 1 more card and draw 2 actual cards from your deck instead of Daring Poros. If discard decks really need a lot of discards to consistently discard their discard synergy cards then I could see this seeing play. This is the only way to discard at burst speed other than rummage, so maybe that gives this some hope. In a Poro or Von Yip deck, the Daring Poro is good enough that you might even want to run more than 3 of it, so in that deck I could see it being viable. Finally, as a zero mana spell it could be useful in a fizz deck.
About Soraka, I really hope that she’s coming next, but I’m scared that it might be Aurelian Sol instead. Aurelia Soll’s theme is used in the Targon trailer, the coloring of the background to the last constellation matches his color scheme, and he is a very popular champion that riot might want to use to promote the expansion. However, if Soraka doesn’t come then we’ll have a bunch a heal cards that won’t really make a deck until the second or third expansion of the set, which would be annoying.
This seems pretty good in any deck that runs non-elusive 3+ Power units and wants a finisher. The 4/2 elusive body is worth somewhere between 4 and 5 mana, so adding on a Ghost for 1-2 Mana seems pretty good. I like that they’re printing an elusive card that doesn’t work well in pure elusive decks (this is far worse than Windfarer Hatchling in an elusive Ionia deck).
Drawing cards is so valuable in LoR, I think this will definitely see play. Even without the Draw a card it’s almost like a halved Fury of the North! With all of these Targon draw cards (guiding Light, Zenith Blade, and this card), TF Targon could be a real deck!
This can silence champions! Sure it’s only for a round, but the ability to have this be relevant in more matchups is important. One thing I wonder is if Silencing a champion resets its “I’ve seen” requirements (for example, if you silence a TF that has seen the opponent draw 6 cards, when it becomes unsilenced does it regain its progress or go back to 0?). Also, can a champion progress its level up or level up while silenced?
Yeah I agree with you that the set structure might be a bit disappointing for people who enjoy playing a few specific regions, but I feel like it's sort of a necessary evil because of the fact that sets include an additional region. Riot can't really release Targon with only 2 or 3 champions and expect it to feel like a full region, so they are forced to release a lot of Targon cards in the first expansion of the set. Given that they want each card release to be fairly small (so that card releases can be spread out more), they aren't left with enough extra card spots to give all regions a significant amount of cards. I think once all of the regions are released there will be a much more even distribution of each region's cards across expansions in a set.
On the plus side, there are some reasons why unequal region card distribution can be good. Unequal card distribution allows different regions to rotate in and out of high popularity. For example, imagine if Badgerbear and Grizzled Ranger had been released in the second expansion of a set. This would have made Demacia underpowered in the first expansion of the set, allowing other regions to be dominant for a while, and then when the second expansion launched Demacia would be really good and brought back into the meta. This would make the game feel more fresh because it wouldn't be perpetually dominated by the few best regions (for example, Ionia and Shadow Isles, or more recently Freljord), as long as the new cards are slightly better than the old ones. Also, a few cards can have a huge impact on decks. For example, Blighted Caretaker and Neverglade collector could be released as cards in an expansion where Shadow Isles doesn't receive a champion and they would significantly change what Shadow Isles decks are best. If Riot manages to be really smart about which cards they release in each expansion, I think that this system will work pretty well.
This card is also really good with all of the permanent buffs Targon has. Giving this a few gems or a Blessing of Targon makes this a real threat. Gems are also really good for triggering Nightfall, so the deck already has some natural synergy.
I think you’re underestimating the Crescent Guardian, since it’s basically a better version of the Noxus 4/3 Overwhelm (if you can reliably trigger Nightfall). I think if a Targon Aggro deck exists Crescent Guardian could be included in it, but it’s definitely possible that Targon won’t have an Aggro deck. The 1 drop is also really good, since it lets you trigger Nightfall on two turns for only one card, and it allows you to play Nightfall units a turn before they are supposed to hit the board.
This is basically the 2/3 Bilgewater Narwhal but without the vulnerable! It being Nightfall and elusive also helps level up Nocturne faster because Nightfall units have to attack for his level up. I hope that Targon gets a few more elusive units (but not enough to make an elusive deck) so that Targon can be used as a tech against elusives if they become too dominant. A 2/3 is also a pretty good blocker to elusives.
This card is amazing! It acts as a Nightfall activator for 2 separate turns, and it lets you use spell mana to pay for Nightfall units. For example, you could play this on turn one, skip turn two, and then Duskpetal into Nocturne on turn 3! This card reminds me of Chump Whump, in that it has okay stats and generates useful token spells in hand. Duskpetal is actually even better than a puff cap if your deck is running Nightfall units!
@Kaladin
Here are my thoughts on your points.
1. Lack of card variety: Yeah I've felt that too in the last month or two, no matter how much they balance the game I feel like I've tried every card and strategy. However, with expansions coming every 2 months instead of 4, I think that this problem will be solved.
2. Champions limiting deckbuilding: I would disagree with you for the most part, since many champions can be used in multiple decks and regions, but I do agree that they've missed the mark on a few of them. Nautilus and Maokai, for example, are forced together in a Deep deck and aren't really viable anywhere else (except Maokai in some ephemeral decks). Also, some champions don't serve as win conditions and act as just good followers (For example, Sejuani and Braum were together in a midrange deck that wasn't focused on leveling either of them up).
3. Aggro being too good: I would disagree heavily with you here, since we've had multiple metas in which midrange is the most powerful and aggro decks aren't Tier 1. Although the game design might hypothetically make aggro powerful, riot always nerfs aggro when it's too good.
4. No AoE: I agree with you completely here, the only viable low cost boardclear is withering wail and maybe Twisted Fate (although they both only deal 1 damage). I think this will be solved with future expansions though.
5. No summoning Sickness: I don't think that missing out on tempo is that important in this game, especially since spell mana exists. Also, players often open attack, which makes summoning sickness irrelevant.
6. Broken Cards (Unyielding Spirit): Unyielding Spirit was nerfed to fast speed, which I think makes it a more healthy card. I think that there are some broken cards, but riot generally nerfs them when they become problematic.
7. Event Pass: I agree with you here, the event pass was annoying and made it feel like I had to play every day to complete it. Hopefully they make it take fewer games next time or reduce the first win of the day bonus (and scale back the total wins required to compensate). The missions were also poorly done.
8. Cosmetics costing real money: I think that cosmetics have to cost real money, just so that riot makes enough money to keep the game going. I think that they could include a few cosmetics to buy with F2P currency if they wanted.
Summoning blockers at burst speed is pretty powerful, this should hypothetically be similar to stunning a unit and dealing 2 to it. However, it isn't as good against Elusive or Overwhelm units, which is probably why Jury Rig isn't as good defensively as a stun card. The closest thing this card can be compared to is Jury Rig with Von Yip on board, which was a very powerful combo that can counter open attacks or allow you to summon units for the open attack without giving your opponent the chance to respond. All that being said, I think that this card would only be viable in a deck that also runs Mistwraith and/or Wraithcaller, which severely limits its use unless those cards become good enough to run in most SI decks.
Yeah, I do think that LoR does have a problem with introducing lots of mechanics, and I think it comes out of them trying to faithfully translate the LoL champions into LoR. For example, the Spellshield keyword seems to exist mainly because several champions in LoL have Spellshield abilities, rather than because the developers thought it would be a good keyword. I think that Spellshield is an okay keyword, but given than it's basically just a worse barrier in 90% of cases, I think the decision to include it was based in large part to it being necessary to translate LoL mechanics into LoR. Champions also disrupt region identity because in cases like Vladimir, they break region identity in favor of fulfilling the theme of the champion (Vladimir has Drain, while no other Noxus cards have Drain and Healing is meant to be a weakness of Noxus). For the most part this hasn't become a huge problem yet, but as they add champions whose themes contrast with the identity of their region they'll have to make sacrifices in either the theme of the champions or the identity of the region.
This card seems amazing to me! For 1 Mana you threaten to deal 4 damage to the enemy Nexus unless they take an awful trade by blocking with a 3+ Attack unit. It’s like Navori Bladescout but with less guaranteed damage and more potential damage. That being said, it is very vulnerable to removal, so if Make it Rain or Withering Wail are a big part of the meta, it might struggle to actually deal damage.
This seems really bad. Pretty much any case in which this could be used, Deny could also be used (I know they’re different regions, but Deny shows the power level of counters in this game). Deny is also pretty much always useful, whereas this will often do nothing (For example, Deny against Burn Aggro prevents a Decimate, this card would do literally nothing).
However, I think that the incredibly limited and underpowered nature of this card shows that there will either be some way to summon units for the opponent (Like Hunting Fleet but for Shadow Isles) or there will powerful unit-summoning cards in this set that Riot wants to provide a counter for.
The main weakness I see is that Encroaching Shadows also effects champions. Currently, even champions like Hecarim would usually prefer to not have +2|+2 and Ephemeral. However, if Nocturne has Ephemeral or works well with Ephemeral, that could be a different story.
This seems way worse than a Kindly Tavernkeeper, which leads me to believe that they'll release a champion that synergizes with healing (likely Soraka) to justify this card existing.
This seems pretty great, no card has ever granted Overwhelm or Regeneration permanently before, so I'm excited to see how powerful it is. The most obvious use I can see for this is to use it on Scarthane Steffen, so that his high attack stat can actually translate to Nexus damage, and so that he remains at high health despite self-damage cards.
2/7 is an interesting statline that we haven't yet seen, so I'm excited to see how powerful it is. Also, the way its worded implies that if you're at full health it doesn't take any damage, which ensures that you always get the full heal out of it. It also works well with Vlad and could be part of a Gem Vlad deck. I think Soraka will probably synergize with Healing too, so maybe this will be a part of that archetype too. Honestly a self-damage plus healing Targon/Noxus deck would be really cool.
Since Ice Pillar refunds its mana cost, it's basically like Enlightened but for 8 Mana. Trundle also provides a very good body that can take down a lot of units and survive, so even if the game ends before turn 8 he's still good.