I’m not so sure about this card. It’s basically a worse version of the Targon “Invoke” spell (because what it generates is on average worse than a celestial). The only way I see this seeing play is if an Augment deck becomes meta or a deck really wants more of one of the three cards it generates.
This card seems amazing to me. All it needs are two Augment triggers and it becomes a better Solitary Monk without the summon effect. It also adds Elusive to the keyword pool for Give it All and Metallic Mimic.
Edit: I also love the name and art of this. It makes me wonder if Professor Von Yipp is only one of the super intelligent cats in PnZ. Maybe we’ll get lore on how some crazy experiment gave the cats of PnZ their powers! Maybe we’ll have a huge cat fight between the opposing cats of Piltover and Zaun as they fight over control of the cities!
In Aggro decks that don’t care about enemy draws this is basically an unconditional 3 Mana L2 Jinx that is almost impossible to remove. It’s also so low cost that Landmark removal isn’t even efficient against it. I could definitely see this in a burn Aggro or Casino deck. It also has the potential to make mill more possible. The one thing I’m confused about is why PnZ now has 2 Landmarks that give Value over time.
These cards seem crazy good! I also really like the direction they’re taking with making the “create in hand” cards very targeted instead of random, I was scared that LoR might go the HS route and add tons of random card creation.
I dislike how Riot makes keywords like Deep and Augment so limited instead of making them like Plunder or Nightfall. For example, this card could be Augment: Grant me +1|+0, which would allow cards like "Augment: Heal your Nexus 1" or "Augment: Give me +1|+1 this round." Maybe they can still have some of this design space by making cards with "When I gain Power, do X" or "Once I have 5+ Power, do X."
This card seems amazing to me, if you play just one Poro from Poro cannon this becomes a 5 Mana 4/4 Elusive. If you add Puffcaps and another Poro to that you can easily get it to a threatening 7/4 Elusive, almost the same stats as the Ionian 7 cost elusive. The only other keywords you’d really want would be Spellshield and Tough, but if you don’t draw any elusive cards, Quick Attack Plus Challenger can be another option. The way I look at this is that it’s a more synergy dependent Vi that can gain Elusive fairly easily, which seems pretty good
The Augment keyword ended up being way different than I expected, I thought it would be about upgrading cards in your hand. This makes a lot of sense though, it’s simple but has a lot of synergy with Targon, and if Riven generates Shards like her voice lines indicate, it could hopefully synergize with Noxus too. My most optimistic hope is that Viktor, Riven, and Zoe end up being more like the combination of Karma, Lux, and Heimerdinger (each combination has synergy) rather than one strict pairing plus an additional champion like TK, Soraka, and Shyvana. Augment also makes cards like Flash of Briliance more of a consideration, and it has major synergy with The University of Piltover.
On your first point, I'm pretty sure that Riot said that they won't introduce AU Champions or non-LoL champions until all LoL champions are in the game, so it definitely won't happen anytime soon. As for AU events such as K/DA, I remember some developers mention that AU Event cards have their own development pipeline outside of the normal expansion designing, so it's essentially a given that we will continue to get AU cards in between card sets. However, their development won't change the cadence of normal cards being released, so I don't think that there is any issue of the main lore not being explored quickly enough.
Yeah, I definitely think that the Aesthetic clash is the biggest problem for AU champions and cards. Hopefully they'll mitigate this somewhat by changing up the color scheme of some of the characters so that they fit the region better but are still recognizable. I think that a lot of this could honestly be accomplished by the lighting and environment, for example if they release Blood Moon cards they could put a Demacian one in bright daylight by a white stone building and put the SI one in a darker and more ruined-looking environment. The AU lore is pretty shallow so I'm sure that they could come up with something that ties them aesthetically to whatever region they're added to.
Personally, I really like the idea of alternate universes, so long as they keep a somewhat consistent art style across them so that they don’t visually clash as much. The way I think that they’ll ultimately do it is that players will get something like a Star Guardians expansion in which each region gets a SG version of one of their champions. Hopefully, they’ll also change up the design and color palette a little so that they aesthetically fit their region better. I think most skins have chromas so that should be too hard to justify.
It seems like your fixes would address pretty much all the issues I had with this version, and I can see how the excess Actions problem will be reduced when more cards are added and players can build their own decks. For the Battlefields, I also agree that it would be nice to have some things randomly generated at the beginning (like wall and barrel placements) to make games more different. I haven’t played on the desert battlefield so I can’t offer feedback on that. Also, another idea I had is to potentially experiment with a hexagonal battlefield. I think it would make sense to have most battlefields be made of squares, but I think that a few hexagonal battlefields could make the game play very differently.
For LoR, I think that it would be cool to have articles on the lore communicated through the information in the card images, card flavor text, and LoL stories. For example, an Article on Swain and the Second Invasion of Ionia (although that event still isn't over). Maybe a better example would be the lore of the Lunari and Solari or Dragons.
So I’ve played the game a bit and I have some feedback:
The tutorial:
The tutorial was pretty good, the only part I was confused about was where the end turn button was.
Core Mechanics:
I think that base movement should be lower or cost more actions. Units can move so far that a lot of the positioning in the game is irrelevant. Also, this makes things like getting additional movement and Archers very underpowered and ineffective.
Balance:
1. Archers are very bad because their Power charges up very slowly. I think that they should gain something like +2 Power every round, or maybe make it so that you can refill their quiver by spending an action. Also, right now the Archer cards don’t have a keyword or any indication of how they work, so it was very confusing to play the Archer cards and have them work differently than all the other cards. You need to add an “Archer” keyword to add make it understandable for new players.
2. The Deploy mechanic doesn’t seem like it’s very fun because it can lead to crazy turn 1s that give one player a huge advantage, but if you draw them later in the game they are just worse versions of existing cards. I think that you could change Deploy to something like “This costs X less if it’s the first card you play in a round.”
3. I think that you should add some way to use excess actions that you have in a round. Two ways that I can think of to do this are Hero Powers like in Hearthstone or Spell Mana like in LoR.
4. I felt like the card draw was a bit low compared to the actions you have each turn for some classes (specifically the Archer). One solution is to allow players to spend 2 Actions once per turn to draw 1 card.
I just wanted to make this thread because I've noticed that recently I've seen some discussion threads in the forums section that say that someone posted on them a few hours ago, but when I click them I see that nobody has responded in months. The most recent example is the "Top Secret" card design competition from 7 months ago. Is anyone else having this issue? Is this a known bug already?
Aww, I was really hoping for a December 8th release and reveals this weekend, but the evidence for December 15th is very strong. Despite the changes in the last patch I'm still kind of bored with LoR right now, so I was hoping that the next expansion could come soon and add some cool strategies, such as a mono-Targon Celestials deck with Zoe, some kind of damaging or Blade Tokens archetype with Riven, and a cool PnZ focused deck with Viktor. I'm looking forward to PnZ in particular because they haven't really gotten any new archetypes since launch (Vi hasn't really created any decks other than meme ones trying to give her Overwhelm). Also, if Zoe has discard synergy I'll be really happy because then a PnZ/Targon gems discard deck could be a real thing. I have pretty much no idea what Riven will do, but her cards seem to be able noncombat damage to allies and enemies, so maybe she'll work with Vladimir or Swain (her working with Vladimir could also explain him getting so few buffs).
I’m not so sure about this card. It’s basically a worse version of the Targon “Invoke” spell (because what it generates is on average worse than a celestial). The only way I see this seeing play is if an Augment deck becomes meta or a deck really wants more of one of the three cards it generates.
This card seems amazing to me. All it needs are two Augment triggers and it becomes a better Solitary Monk without the summon effect. It also adds Elusive to the keyword pool for Give it All and Metallic Mimic.
Edit: I also love the name and art of this. It makes me wonder if Professor Von Yipp is only one of the super intelligent cats in PnZ. Maybe we’ll get lore on how some crazy experiment gave the cats of PnZ their powers! Maybe we’ll have a huge cat fight between the opposing cats of Piltover and Zaun as they fight over control of the cities!
In Aggro decks that don’t care about enemy draws this is basically an unconditional 3 Mana L2 Jinx that is almost impossible to remove. It’s also so low cost that Landmark removal isn’t even efficient against it. I could definitely see this in a burn Aggro or Casino deck. It also has the potential to make mill more possible. The one thing I’m confused about is why PnZ now has 2 Landmarks that give Value over time.
These cards seem crazy good! I also really like the direction they’re taking with making the “create in hand” cards very targeted instead of random, I was scared that LoR might go the HS route and add tons of random card creation.
I dislike how Riot makes keywords like Deep and Augment so limited instead of making them like Plunder or Nightfall. For example, this card could be Augment: Grant me +1|+0, which would allow cards like "Augment: Heal your Nexus 1" or "Augment: Give me +1|+1 this round." Maybe they can still have some of this design space by making cards with "When I gain Power, do X" or "Once I have 5+ Power, do X."
This card seems amazing to me, if you play just one Poro from Poro cannon this becomes a 5 Mana 4/4 Elusive. If you add Puffcaps and another Poro to that you can easily get it to a threatening 7/4 Elusive, almost the same stats as the Ionian 7 cost elusive. The only other keywords you’d really want would be Spellshield and Tough, but if you don’t draw any elusive cards, Quick Attack Plus Challenger can be another option. The way I look at this is that it’s a more synergy dependent Vi that can gain Elusive fairly easily, which seems pretty good
The Augment keyword ended up being way different than I expected, I thought it would be about upgrading cards in your hand. This makes a lot of sense though, it’s simple but has a lot of synergy with Targon, and if Riven generates Shards like her voice lines indicate, it could hopefully synergize with Noxus too. My most optimistic hope is that Viktor, Riven, and Zoe end up being more like the combination of Karma, Lux, and Heimerdinger (each combination has synergy) rather than one strict pairing plus an additional champion like TK, Soraka, and Shyvana. Augment also makes cards like Flash of Briliance more of a consideration, and it has major synergy with The University of Piltover.
On your first point, I'm pretty sure that Riot said that they won't introduce AU Champions or non-LoL champions until all LoL champions are in the game, so it definitely won't happen anytime soon. As for AU events such as K/DA, I remember some developers mention that AU Event cards have their own development pipeline outside of the normal expansion designing, so it's essentially a given that we will continue to get AU cards in between card sets. However, their development won't change the cadence of normal cards being released, so I don't think that there is any issue of the main lore not being explored quickly enough.
Yeah, I definitely think that the Aesthetic clash is the biggest problem for AU champions and cards. Hopefully they'll mitigate this somewhat by changing up the color scheme of some of the characters so that they fit the region better but are still recognizable. I think that a lot of this could honestly be accomplished by the lighting and environment, for example if they release Blood Moon cards they could put a Demacian one in bright daylight by a white stone building and put the SI one in a darker and more ruined-looking environment. The AU lore is pretty shallow so I'm sure that they could come up with something that ties them aesthetically to whatever region they're added to.
Yeah it seems like they’re going to do a mix of new characters and AU skins.
Personally, I really like the idea of alternate universes, so long as they keep a somewhat consistent art style across them so that they don’t visually clash as much. The way I think that they’ll ultimately do it is that players will get something like a Star Guardians expansion in which each region gets a SG version of one of their champions. Hopefully, they’ll also change up the design and color palette a little so that they aesthetically fit their region better. I think most skins have chromas so that should be too hard to justify.
@Firescale
It seems like your fixes would address pretty much all the issues I had with this version, and I can see how the excess Actions problem will be reduced when more cards are added and players can build their own decks. For the Battlefields, I also agree that it would be nice to have some things randomly generated at the beginning (like wall and barrel placements) to make games more different. I haven’t played on the desert battlefield so I can’t offer feedback on that.
Also, another idea I had is to potentially experiment with a hexagonal battlefield. I think it would make sense to have most battlefields be made of squares, but I think that a few hexagonal battlefields could make the game play very differently.
For LoR, I think that it would be cool to have articles on the lore communicated through the information in the card images, card flavor text, and LoL stories. For example, an Article on Swain and the Second Invasion of Ionia (although that event still isn't over). Maybe a better example would be the lore of the Lunari and Solari or Dragons.
So I’ve played the game a bit and I have some feedback:
The tutorial:
The tutorial was pretty good, the only part I was confused about was where the end turn button was.
Core Mechanics:
I think that base movement should be lower or cost more actions. Units can move so far that a lot of the positioning in the game is irrelevant. Also, this makes things like getting additional movement and Archers very underpowered and ineffective.
Balance:
1. Archers are very bad because their Power charges up very slowly. I think that they should gain something like +2 Power every round, or maybe make it so that you can refill their quiver by spending an action. Also, right now the Archer cards don’t have a keyword or any indication of how they work, so it was very confusing to play the Archer cards and have them work differently than all the other cards. You need to add an “Archer” keyword to add make it understandable for new players.
2. The Deploy mechanic doesn’t seem like it’s very fun because it can lead to crazy turn 1s that give one player a huge advantage, but if you draw them later in the game they are just worse versions of existing cards. I think that you could change Deploy to something like “This costs X less if it’s the first card you play in a round.”
3. I think that you should add some way to use excess actions that you have in a round. Two ways that I can think of to do this are Hero Powers like in Hearthstone or Spell Mana like in LoR.
4. I felt like the card draw was a bit low compared to the actions you have each turn for some classes (specifically the Archer). One solution is to allow players to spend 2 Actions once per turn to draw 1 card.
Oh okay, thanks for the response! I just wanted to make sure that it wasn’t an issue that just I was having.
I just wanted to make this thread because I've noticed that recently I've seen some discussion threads in the forums section that say that someone posted on them a few hours ago, but when I click them I see that nobody has responded in months. The most recent example is the "Top Secret" card design competition from 7 months ago. Is anyone else having this issue? Is this a known bug already?
Thanks for the suggestion, I hadn’t thought about how she’d synergize with the Poro Generation cards.
Aww, I was really hoping for a December 8th release and reveals this weekend, but the evidence for December 15th is very strong. Despite the changes in the last patch I'm still kind of bored with LoR right now, so I was hoping that the next expansion could come soon and add some cool strategies, such as a mono-Targon Celestials deck with Zoe, some kind of damaging or Blade Tokens archetype with Riven, and a cool PnZ focused deck with Viktor. I'm looking forward to PnZ in particular because they haven't really gotten any new archetypes since launch (Vi hasn't really created any decks other than meme ones trying to give her Overwhelm). Also, if Zoe has discard synergy I'll be really happy because then a PnZ/Targon gems discard deck could be a real thing. I have pretty much no idea what Riven will do, but her cards seem to be able noncombat damage to allies and enemies, so maybe she'll work with Vladimir or Swain (her working with Vladimir could also explain him getting so few buffs).
At the Darkmoon Fair
Was it silenced by hush?