Nice idea, I think you captured a lot of his LoL abilities in this design! My only issue with it is that it's essentially a worse Tryndamere and doesn't really do enough for a 9 Mana card (Ledros, Mina, and the Dreadway are examples of powerful and unique 9 Mana cards). What if his Level Up were changed to "I've struck the enemy Nexus once. When I Level Up, Rally." That way he would essentially be a powerful 9 Mana card with two conditional "Relentless Pursuit"s attached who threatens a lot of immediate damage, whereas Tryndamere is more about slow and unstoppable damage. Do you think that makes sense as a design for him?
Yeah you're definitely right that we have no idea how much content LoR will get related to the Ruined King, it's entirely possible that they just wanted to tease him for LoL and decided that using the LoR "Ruination" card would be a good way to do that. However, given that they're making a big deal out of the reveal affecting all their games, I would expect some amount of content around it for LoR. At the minimum I would expect some cosmetics, but I'm really hoping for a small card set like K/DA.
I noticed something else important in the trailer: The LoR clips showcase "The Ruination"! I think this is an indicator that the next event will be a Ruination-style event, coinciding with the release of the Ruined King game and The Ruined King coming to LoL! My personal dream is that the event will focus on the Ruination and maybe give each region an event card that shows what would happen if that character was caught in the Ruination (kind of like the new LoL skins). They would be what-if cards, similar to the Death Knights in Hearthstone, meaning that they are alternative universe without breaking the aesthetic of the region! I'd honestly love seeing things like a Ghost version of Corina or a spooky-looking Windfarer hatchling. Honeslty, the potential is limitless and I think it could add a lot of really cool cards to LoR.
EDIT: For some reason the way I used to add images doesn't work anymore, so I'll just post this imgur link: https://imgur.com/a/H2XIWEi
1. Add Nightfall restriction to Go Hard
With this nerf, Go Hard would be far more difficult to use and much worse on turn 1. It also opens up the card to being used in a Nightfall deck (the deck likely wouldn't be trying to get "Pack Your Bags"
2. Reduce Damage and/or increase cost of Pack Your Bags
This is the most likely nerf, and would make Go Hard worse against midrange decks. It also opens up more counterplay because if the opponent taps below 4 mana, you know they can't used Go Hard.
3. Change Pack your Bags to "Drain 6 from anything"
This is one of my personal favorite nerfs for the card because it removes the most frustrating part of Go Hard: the fact that it removes almost your entire board. By making Pack your Bags a single-target Decimate/Vengeance with healing attached, Midrange decks can suddenly do a lot better against Go Hard. This preserves the "finisher" aspect of the card while making it more fun to play against (similar to Jinx's rockets).
I just had an idea for how to make her a little less combat focused and not cost 0 when recalled. What if her recall ability were instead “When I would die, Recall me instead if you spent spell mana this round.” That way she keeps her ability to survive enemy spells but doesn’t recall when you don’t want her to. It would also require you to spend 5 mana each time to play her again. As for whether she should have Attune, I think that she’s more interesting if she forces you to get spell mana through other cards, so I wouldn’t give her Attune.
I love this design! It reminds me a bit of both Hecarim and Katarina. I think that it’s also for the most part balanced because the recall ability basically makes you play a 1 Cost 2/2 Ephemeral when you spend spell mana, which is actually pretty weak (and might be more of a downside than an upside). The most powerful ability she has seems to be the Level Up spell, but even that’s not too insane.
In terms of changes that I would make, I think you could streamline her design a bit. I would change her LvL 1 text to “When I see you spend spell mana, Recall me and reduce my cost to 0 this round. Attack: Summon a Vulpine Spirit attacking.” Then when she levels up her Attack ability also generates a Fleeting Spirit Rush in hand (Spirit Rush’s text would be changed to only deal 3 to a unit). I think this would make her a lot simpler while keeping most of her functionality and toning down the one ability that might be a bit overpowered (getting a spirit rush every round). Overall, I like this design and I think it opens up a lot of possible synergies with multiple regions and strategies. Good job!
I love this! It creates a sort of mini-game where you try to destroy the Marked enemy and the opponent tries to keep it alive, which seems like really compelling gameplay. It also allows for a lot of cool support cards that also mark enemies. In terms of the phrasing, I think I would change it to something like “Plant an Explosive Charge on an enemy” and then have Explosive Charge mean “Last Breath: Deal 1 to all allies.” I would also change her Level Up ability to something like “Round Start: Plant an Explosive Charge on the Strongest enemy” because otherwise she’s way too good at destroying Aggro decks by essentially casting 4 Mana Fast speed “deal 3 to an enemy and 1 to all other enemies” every round.
In terms of balance, I’m actually having a really hard time figuring out if she’s too weak or too powerful. At Level 1, she’s much weaker than MF in most decks, but her Level Up is fairly easy and makes her an Aggro crushing powerhouse. I think that shows that you balanced her as much as is possible without playtesting, so good job on the balancing!
Interesting article! For the Mechanized Mimic, I actually like the concept art better because her arms look more inhuman and scary. In her actual art they made her look a lot more human and conventionally attractive, which I think takes away from the uniqueness of her character.
If you want to add images, the best way I've found is to use imgur to host the image and then copy the image link, then copy the image address and use the "Insert Image" tool on Outof.cards to insert it. Alternatively, you can post a link to an album containing the card or a reddit post. I hope this helps!
I think they only nerf something if it has a high winrate and a high play rate. I’ve personally never played against that deck you think is OP, which likely indicates that it isn’t a huge part of the meta like Lee Sin was at its peak. It doesn’t matter how OP the deck is, if it has a low play rate Riot likely won’t nerf it.
Also, I’m not sure if the deck you’re talking about is really low on interactivity. Those regions don’t have access to much protection, so I assume something like vengeance or ruination could stop Swain and Sejuani from winning the game, and adding healing to your deck makes it better against burn. I have never played against the deck so I don’t know if those are true counters, but pretty much every deck offers some interactivity against it (except maybe the old Ionia Elusives deck with crazy amounts of protection tools).
Yeah, for the most part the answers were just “we’re working on it” or “we’re thinking about it.” It’s nice to hear what their priorities are though, I’m excited for what they decide to do with PvE modes!
Zoe's not that bad if you use her as a 1/1 Elusive that generates cards. Just think of her as something like a 1/1 Elusive that also creates at least 1 "Supercool Starchart" card in hand. Zoe is actually more like a 1 Mana 1/1 Rivershaper with elusive than a true champion.
I’m pretty sure that the issue is just a single user downvoting comments for no reason, not the whole community being toxic. I’ve seen a few posts get random downvotes, but after I upvoted them to balance it out they stayed at “0” upvotes. It seems like in general people don’t upvote a post unless they really like it, so if someone downvotes a post it usually stays downvoted for a while.
I think the fact that Riven has Badgerbear stats shows that Riot doesn't expect the Reforge mechanic to be very good. Riven herself does look pretty great, but I worry that a lot of decks that would run her could just run Draven instead. The only case where I see Riven being better than Draven in a generic deck without synergy is if the meta is full of 3/3s or Fearsomes.
Blade of the Exile: Give +2|+0, Quick Attack, and Overwhelm for the round
I think that Quick Attack and Overwhelm are likely because they would make the 7|3 Challenger make at least some sense, and given that the other Blade Fragments likely have other effects than just giving Power, Quick Attack and Overwhelm feel like the most natural keywords.
I love this! The fragment Tokens open up the possibility of Viktor/Riven, Zoe/Riven, and Taric/Riven. As for this card, it seems amazing because compared the Gift Giver it generates a card that is essentially a better Gem (assuming that all the Blade Fragments are approximately equal value). I really think that Taric/Riven or even Jae/Riven/Draven could be possible with this.
EDIT: I just realized that it’s give and not Grant. It still seems pretty good though, it’s like a better Draven’s Axe in a deck that doesn’t want to discard.
I honestly think it's so weird that they made this an "I've Seen" Level Up. They should do something like what they did with Fiora and have her Level Up from seeing 5 cards with different names played, then change her Level 2 to "Once I've seen you play 10+ cards with different names, for the rest of the game, when you summon a unit, grant its keywords to all allies." Then she would be able to keep at least some of her progress.
Edit: Alternatively, they could change her level up to "Copies of Zoe have seen you play 10 cards with different names."
Nice idea, I think you captured a lot of his LoL abilities in this design! My only issue with it is that it's essentially a worse Tryndamere and doesn't really do enough for a 9 Mana card (Ledros, Mina, and the Dreadway are examples of powerful and unique 9 Mana cards). What if his Level Up were changed to "I've struck the enemy Nexus once. When I Level Up, Rally." That way he would essentially be a powerful 9 Mana card with two conditional "Relentless Pursuit"s attached who threatens a lot of immediate damage, whereas Tryndamere is more about slow and unstoppable damage. Do you think that makes sense as a design for him?
Yeah you're definitely right that we have no idea how much content LoR will get related to the Ruined King, it's entirely possible that they just wanted to tease him for LoL and decided that using the LoR "Ruination" card would be a good way to do that. However, given that they're making a big deal out of the reveal affecting all their games, I would expect some amount of content around it for LoR. At the minimum I would expect some cosmetics, but I'm really hoping for a small card set like K/DA.
I noticed something else important in the trailer: The LoR clips showcase "The Ruination"! I think this is an indicator that the next event will be a Ruination-style event, coinciding with the release of the Ruined King game and The Ruined King coming to LoL! My personal dream is that the event will focus on the Ruination and maybe give each region an event card that shows what would happen if that character was caught in the Ruination (kind of like the new LoL skins). They would be what-if cards, similar to the Death Knights in Hearthstone, meaning that they are alternative universe without breaking the aesthetic of the region! I'd honestly love seeing things like a Ghost version of Corina or a spooky-looking Windfarer hatchling. Honeslty, the potential is limitless and I think it could add a lot of really cool cards to LoR.
EDIT: For some reason the way I used to add images doesn't work anymore, so I'll just post this imgur link: https://imgur.com/a/H2XIWEi
1. Add Nightfall restriction to Go Hard
With this nerf, Go Hard would be far more difficult to use and much worse on turn 1. It also opens up the card to being used in a Nightfall deck (the deck likely wouldn't be trying to get "Pack Your Bags"
2. Reduce Damage and/or increase cost of Pack Your Bags
This is the most likely nerf, and would make Go Hard worse against midrange decks. It also opens up more counterplay because if the opponent taps below 4 mana, you know they can't used Go Hard.
3. Change Pack your Bags to "Drain 6 from anything"
This is one of my personal favorite nerfs for the card because it removes the most frustrating part of Go Hard: the fact that it removes almost your entire board. By making Pack your Bags a single-target Decimate/Vengeance with healing attached, Midrange decks can suddenly do a lot better against Go Hard. This preserves the "finisher" aspect of the card while making it more fun to play against (similar to Jinx's rockets).
I just had an idea for how to make her a little less combat focused and not cost 0 when recalled. What if her recall ability were instead “When I would die, Recall me instead if you spent spell mana this round.” That way she keeps her ability to survive enemy spells but doesn’t recall when you don’t want her to. It would also require you to spend 5 mana each time to play her again.
As for whether she should have Attune, I think that she’s more interesting if she forces you to get spell mana through other cards, so I wouldn’t give her Attune.
I love this design! It reminds me a bit of both Hecarim and Katarina. I think that it’s also for the most part balanced because the recall ability basically makes you play a 1 Cost 2/2 Ephemeral when you spend spell mana, which is actually pretty weak (and might be more of a downside than an upside). The most powerful ability she has seems to be the Level Up spell, but even that’s not too insane.
In terms of changes that I would make, I think you could streamline her design a bit. I would change her LvL 1 text to “When I see you spend spell mana, Recall me and reduce my cost to 0 this round. Attack: Summon a Vulpine Spirit attacking.” Then when she levels up her Attack ability also generates a Fleeting Spirit Rush in hand (Spirit Rush’s text would be changed to only deal 3 to a unit). I think this would make her a lot simpler while keeping most of her functionality and toning down the one ability that might be a bit overpowered (getting a spirit rush every round). Overall, I like this design and I think it opens up a lot of possible synergies with multiple regions and strategies. Good job!
I love this! It creates a sort of mini-game where you try to destroy the Marked enemy and the opponent tries to keep it alive, which seems like really compelling gameplay. It also allows for a lot of cool support cards that also mark enemies. In terms of the phrasing, I think I would change it to something like “Plant an Explosive Charge on an enemy” and then have Explosive Charge mean “Last Breath: Deal 1 to all allies.” I would also change her Level Up ability to something like “Round Start: Plant an Explosive Charge on the Strongest enemy” because otherwise she’s way too good at destroying Aggro decks by essentially casting 4 Mana Fast speed “deal 3 to an enemy and 1 to all other enemies” every round.
In terms of balance, I’m actually having a really hard time figuring out if she’s too weak or too powerful. At Level 1, she’s much weaker than MF in most decks, but her Level Up is fairly easy and makes her an Aggro crushing powerhouse. I think that shows that you balanced her as much as is possible without playtesting, so good job on the balancing!
Interesting article! For the Mechanized Mimic, I actually like the concept art better because her arms look more inhuman and scary. In her actual art they made her look a lot more human and conventionally attractive, which I think takes away from the uniqueness of her character.
If you want to add images, the best way I've found is to use imgur to host the image and then copy the image link, then copy the image address and use the "Insert Image" tool on Outof.cards to insert it. Alternatively, you can post a link to an album containing the card or a reddit post. I hope this helps!
I think they only nerf something if it has a high winrate and a high play rate. I’ve personally never played against that deck you think is OP, which likely indicates that it isn’t a huge part of the meta like Lee Sin was at its peak. It doesn’t matter how OP the deck is, if it has a low play rate Riot likely won’t nerf it.
Also, I’m not sure if the deck you’re talking about is really low on interactivity. Those regions don’t have access to much protection, so I assume something like vengeance or ruination could stop Swain and Sejuani from winning the game, and adding healing to your deck makes it better against burn. I have never played against the deck so I don’t know if those are true counters, but pretty much every deck offers some interactivity against it (except maybe the old Ionia Elusives deck with crazy amounts of protection tools).
Yeah, for the most part the answers were just “we’re working on it” or “we’re thinking about it.” It’s nice to hear what their priorities are though, I’m excited for what they decide to do with PvE modes!
Zoe's not that bad if you use her as a 1/1 Elusive that generates cards. Just think of her as something like a 1/1 Elusive that also creates at least 1 "Supercool Starchart" card in hand. Zoe is actually more like a 1 Mana 1/1 Rivershaper with elusive than a true champion.
Does anyone know if Clutchmother Zavas was an HS original character? If so, I came up with a good idea for her.
I’m pretty sure that the issue is just a single user downvoting comments for no reason, not the whole community being toxic. I’ve seen a few posts get random downvotes, but after I upvoted them to balance it out they stayed at “0” upvotes. It seems like in general people don’t upvote a post unless they really like it, so if someone downvotes a post it usually stays downvoted for a while.
I think the fact that Riven has Badgerbear stats shows that Riot doesn't expect the Reforge mechanic to be very good. Riven herself does look pretty great, but I worry that a lot of decks that would run her could just run Draven instead. The only case where I see Riven being better than Draven in a generic deck without synergy is if the meta is full of 3/3s or Fearsomes.
Wow I predicted all of the keywords of the Fragments correctly!
My prediction for the other Blade Fragments:
1. Give Quick Attack and +1|+0 for the round
2. Give Overwhelm and +1|+0 for the round
Blade of the Exile: Give +2|+0, Quick Attack, and Overwhelm for the round
I think that Quick Attack and Overwhelm are likely because they would make the 7|3 Challenger make at least some sense, and given that the other Blade Fragments likely have other effects than just giving Power, Quick Attack and Overwhelm feel like the most natural keywords.
I love this! The fragment Tokens open up the possibility of Viktor/Riven, Zoe/Riven, and Taric/Riven. As for this card, it seems amazing because compared the Gift Giver it generates a card that is essentially a better Gem (assuming that all the Blade Fragments are approximately equal value). I really think that Taric/Riven or even Jae/Riven/Draven could be possible with this.
EDIT: I just realized that it’s give and not Grant. It still seems pretty good though, it’s like a better Draven’s Axe in a deck that doesn’t want to discard.
If Riven makes Gem-like tokens, Arrel could be very good. Also, she's a good combination with Taric.
I honestly think it's so weird that they made this an "I've Seen" Level Up. They should do something like what they did with Fiora and have her Level Up from seeing 5 cards with different names played, then change her Level 2 to "Once I've seen you play 10+ cards with different names, for the rest of the game, when you summon a unit, grant its keywords to all allies." Then she would be able to keep at least some of her progress.
Edit: Alternatively, they could change her level up to "Copies of Zoe have seen you play 10 cards with different names."