The refund policy of HS was a cheap way to just dump problematic cards without having to actually balance them around: simply throw them away and forgot they've ever existed. It's just a lazy solution for a very complex issue.
LoR's team targets are very ambitious, so let's see how they'll going to achieve them. But I cannot hide that I appreciated their approach.
If the blocker of an Overwhelm minion si removed before combat resolves, than the attacker inflicts full damage because the "placeholder" for the blocking minion is considered as having 0 health.
I don't really see Karma fits since you don't have any spell that you really want to duplicate (like direct damage to the Nexus or other single target shots).
Spells resolve first and only after minions inflict damage.
You technicaly lost before your opponent so the game has considered the match closed at the time your Nexus was destroyed, regardless of anything that happened after that event.
Its cost - 3 mana can easily be saved up as spell ones since almost the beginning of a match, threatening the opponent to have a counter with basically no downside in each turn.
Its from Ionia - being on the same Region as the most powerfull Elusive minions make both of them a pretty nasty combination to deal with.
The easy way to "fix" it will probably be to increase its cost so that keeping open mana for it will require an actual drawback. Other solutions such as limiting what spells can be countered or "gifting" the opponent with something in exchange (refund mana, draw card and so on) seems too much.
Counterspell is something that has always existed in MtG and per se it's an ok mechanic so nothing really broken.
The detained minion, once free, will be reset to it's original stats (buffs and damage will be canceled) and will be placed as the last of its owner board.
If the board is already full when it's released, than it'll be destroyed.
Heroes of the Storm but they killed that game so it doesn't really count.
Well, they killed the e-sport and downsized the Devs team but those few remaining are doing a pretty good job with costant update and new content. But slower than the old pace.
Probably removing the HGC has opened up some design choices that before wouldn't be allowed in the name of said e-sport. Imho, the game is not doing terribly and on EU (at last) it still has a solid playerbase.
Elusive per se is ok, as others already said it's a common mechanic in card games so nothing impossibile to balance (if needed). The strongest thing is that the best Elusive minions are from Ionia and there you also have Deny, that basically protects them against spell removal making very hard to deal with them for Regions that doesn't have good Elusive creatures themselves.
The whole probelm will probably fix itself once counterspell will be nerfed or reworked, but I don't think that Elusive as keyword need any tuning itself.
Overwhelm is not supposed to hit the nexus unless the unit dies (or is removed from combat, which should probably be the actual wording).
Not exactly...
It never says anywhere that the target must die or be removed from combat in order to inflict damage to the Nexus. Overwhelm just inflict excess damage to the enemy's Nexus, ignoring whatever is actually happening to the minion that was defending.
The wording on the tooltip is pretty clear in explaining it and that's why I was saying that it's "working as intended".
The comparison with Withering Wail was to explain that Overwhelm act in a similar manner: it consider the Nexus just as another target for the damage, so Barrier has nothing to do with the damage inflicted to the Nexus since it's not affecting it at all but it just protect the minion.
The point is that Overwhelm doesn't care what happens to the blocking minion: it just calculates the difference between the attack value and the health value and everything exceeding is inflicted as damage to the Nexus.
Barrier protect only the minion with it from the first istance of damage, but that doesn't affect in any way further injuries dealt to other targets. Another example of this is Withering Wail: if one of the enemy minion has Barrier, the damage is prevented only for that single one but not for all the others.
The interaction between Overwhelm and Barrier is working as intended: Overwhelm does damage to the Nexus for whatever amount exceed the blocking minion's health. Said minion taking or preventing damage has nothing to do with how Overwhelm works actually. Also, if you Stun or Recall the blocking minion than the attacking Overwhelm one will do full damage to the Nexus because the "placeholder" that stay in place of the blocking is considered has having 0 health.
Using the Oracle's Eye to see the outcome of an attack can be very usefull, expcially now in the beginning when some interaction are not so clear (I myself have lost couple of match because things didn't go as I thinked - and because I forget to check with the blue eye).
In terms of value, the pack is worth indeed. Issue are that the card that are in there are not so useful. But it could help you to get some more shards is if buy it after having already taken some rewards here and there.
I too have found Expeditions very interesting, far more than Heartstone's Arena: the chance to modify your deck after each match (swapping cards or adding new ones) and also the more friendly "loss two consecutive games" before getting out are what I like the most about them.
But also constructed feels pretty good, mostly because almost no one can get a complete deck already thanks to the shop's limitation. Maybe next week things will be already different after everyone will open their treasure box.
Because actually winning for your own skill instead of pure luck is boring.
Sorry if I sound sarcastic, but HS has taken fun away from me long ago due to all those random things that too often decide the result of a match.
Back on topic: LoR takes pretty much all the good things that its competitors have already "tested" in recent years and copy them brilliantly, with also adding a smooth interface and clean visual. The funny cosmetics are just a plus that should keep the economy of the game F2P-friendly instead (since the game doesn't need to sell packs to sustain itself).
Puffcaps Teemo decks are mostly on the meme side of the game, they're not even near competitive unless their opponent play terribly or get horrible draws. I've yet to see a decent deck that revolves around that.
And I too I'm looking to build mine puffcaps, because afterall is a fun concept to tool around. But, again, not for ranked.
This is exactly what I'm feeling now: finally the time has come!
Sadly I'm pretty fed up with the current HS situation: the game has gone too far on a road I don't like anymore for many reasons and DoD Adventure it was probably my last purchase there. I've been in all of LoR closed beta and I've found it's pretty amazing and entertaining so I was really looking for the open beta to start (so that there will be no more account resets).
It's not the first time that some weird interaction take place with "replay" effects: if I'm not wrong, Team 5 stated that for this kind of mechanic a minion is not specificly that minion but just an "item 1" so if it got transformed by something the change is not even considered by the "replay" that simply use "item 1" in its new form without caring.
The refund policy of HS was a cheap way to just dump problematic cards without having to actually balance them around: simply throw them away and forgot they've ever existed. It's just a lazy solution for a very complex issue.
LoR's team targets are very ambitious, so let's see how they'll going to achieve them. But I cannot hide that I appreciated their approach.
If the blocker of an Overwhelm minion si removed before combat resolves, than the attacker inflicts full damage because the "placeholder" for the blocking minion is considered as having 0 health.
I don't really see Karma fits since you don't have any spell that you really want to duplicate (like direct damage to the Nexus or other single target shots).
I quote this at 101% !
Deny is actually so powerfull that Ionia is splashed almost everywhere just for it.
Spells resolve first and only after minions inflict damage.
You technicaly lost before your opponent so the game has considered the match closed at the time your Nexus was destroyed, regardless of anything that happened after that event.
The main issues with Deny are:
The easy way to "fix" it will probably be to increase its cost so that keeping open mana for it will require an actual drawback. Other solutions such as limiting what spells can be countered or "gifting" the opponent with something in exchange (refund mana, draw card and so on) seems too much.
Counterspell is something that has always existed in MtG and per se it's an ok mechanic so nothing really broken.
The detained minion, once free, will be reset to it's original stats (buffs and damage will be canceled) and will be placed as the last of its owner board.
If the board is already full when it's released, than it'll be destroyed.
Well, they killed the e-sport and downsized the Devs team but those few remaining are doing a pretty good job with costant update and new content. But slower than the old pace.
Probably removing the HGC has opened up some design choices that before wouldn't be allowed in the name of said e-sport. Imho, the game is not doing terribly and on EU (at last) it still has a solid playerbase.
That Silverwing pet animation is just... lol.
Elusive per se is ok, as others already said it's a common mechanic in card games so nothing impossibile to balance (if needed). The strongest thing is that the best Elusive minions are from Ionia and there you also have Deny, that basically protects them against spell removal making very hard to deal with them for Regions that doesn't have good Elusive creatures themselves.
The whole probelm will probably fix itself once counterspell will be nerfed or reworked, but I don't think that Elusive as keyword need any tuning itself.
Not exactly...
It never says anywhere that the target must die or be removed from combat in order to inflict damage to the Nexus. Overwhelm just inflict excess damage to the enemy's Nexus, ignoring whatever is actually happening to the minion that was defending.
The wording on the tooltip is pretty clear in explaining it and that's why I was saying that it's "working as intended".
The comparison with Withering Wail was to explain that Overwhelm act in a similar manner: it consider the Nexus just as another target for the damage, so Barrier has nothing to do with the damage inflicted to the Nexus since it's not affecting it at all but it just protect the minion.
The point is that Overwhelm doesn't care what happens to the blocking minion: it just calculates the difference between the attack value and the health value and everything exceeding is inflicted as damage to the Nexus.
Barrier protect only the minion with it from the first istance of damage, but that doesn't affect in any way further injuries dealt to other targets. Another example of this is Withering Wail: if one of the enemy minion has Barrier, the damage is prevented only for that single one but not for all the others.
The interaction between Overwhelm and Barrier is working as intended: Overwhelm does damage to the Nexus for whatever amount exceed the blocking minion's health. Said minion taking or preventing damage has nothing to do with how Overwhelm works actually. Also, if you Stun or Recall the blocking minion than the attacking Overwhelm one will do full damage to the Nexus because the "placeholder" that stay in place of the blocking is considered has having 0 health.
Using the Oracle's Eye to see the outcome of an attack can be very usefull, expcially now in the beginning when some interaction are not so clear (I myself have lost couple of match because things didn't go as I thinked - and because I forget to check with the blue eye).
In terms of value, the pack is worth indeed. Issue are that the card that are in there are not so useful. But it could help you to get some more shards is if buy it after having already taken some rewards here and there.
I too have found Expeditions very interesting, far more than Heartstone's Arena: the chance to modify your deck after each match (swapping cards or adding new ones) and also the more friendly "loss two consecutive games" before getting out are what I like the most about them.
But also constructed feels pretty good, mostly because almost no one can get a complete deck already thanks to the shop's limitation. Maybe next week things will be already different after everyone will open their treasure box.
Because actually winning for your own skill instead of pure luck is boring.
Sorry if I sound sarcastic, but HS has taken fun away from me long ago due to all those random things that too often decide the result of a match.
Back on topic: LoR takes pretty much all the good things that its competitors have already "tested" in recent years and copy them brilliantly, with also adding a smooth interface and clean visual. The funny cosmetics are just a plus that should keep the economy of the game F2P-friendly instead (since the game doesn't need to sell packs to sustain itself).
Puffcaps Teemo decks are mostly on the meme side of the game, they're not even near competitive unless their opponent play terribly or get horrible draws. I've yet to see a decent deck that revolves around that.
And I too I'm looking to build mine puffcaps, because afterall is a fun concept to tool around. But, again, not for ranked.
This is exactly what I'm feeling now: finally the time has come!
Sadly I'm pretty fed up with the current HS situation: the game has gone too far on a road I don't like anymore for many reasons and DoD Adventure it was probably my last purchase there. I've been in all of LoR closed beta and I've found it's pretty amazing and entertaining so I was really looking for the open beta to start (so that there will be no more account resets).
It's not the first time that some weird interaction take place with "replay" effects: if I'm not wrong, Team 5 stated that for this kind of mechanic a minion is not specificly that minion but just an "item 1" so if it got transformed by something the change is not even considered by the "replay" that simply use "item 1" in its new form without caring.