I actually really the synergy with L2 Nocturne: you can play the spell at any time for a free nightfall activation, then after he levels drop the 2x Daring Poro such that all allies have fearsome while all enemies have -2/-0. I just don't know if that's a strong enough combo to carry an entire deck--especially if you lose access to the Targon nightfall units.
So maybe this card isn't the Dumpster fire it appears to be. It's half the cost of Wyrding Stones, and it can block a spider or two at the very least, or absorb a burn spell that might have otherwise hit the nexus. Played on curve, and assuming it lives, you can cast Catalyst of Aeons on the very next turn (turn 3, which is a pretty good investment). That bumps you up to 6 mana the following turn, when your opponent has only 4.
Except its not any more. They lowered the cost of Wyrding Stones a few patches back, and they still haven't found a spot other than super-ambitious Warmother's decks. Here, you're paying 1 less mana for -0/-2 stats and the possibility the effect doesn't occur, and now it instantly dies to Fleetfeather Tracker, Sapling, and keg + AoE. The one thing I can think of is perhaps if you triple down on ramp then there's a like an escape velocity factor where you can stabilize that much faster; otherwise it just seems almost always inferior to Stones.
Hmm...we really only have one more space for a champion, don't we. I thought we had two left, for ASol and Soraka together, but I miscounted (stupid Nocturne). It's got to be Soraka, though...right? They've been showcasing Soraka cards throughout the week D:
Watch it be Tahm Kench and totally mess up all your predictions. :-P
I know exactly what you mean. It's such a bizarre archetype to theorycraft for--it feels really wrong to completely ignore early game board, but maybe if you can ramp fast enough and heal back up with Revitalizing Roar it all works out?
I’m curious about the focus on budget decks here. Does that really matter in Runeterra? I’ve been almost entirely a F2P player (other than the new player bundle), and I’ve had no trouble crafting a brand new deck every few weeks using the resources I get from the region road and my level 10 vaults (occasionally level 11). I won’t be able to dive into Targon as soon as the expansion comes out, but otherwise I have all the in-game resources I could want.
Great question, Nevin! I think it depends entirely on the audience. As you point out, LoR is relatively generous with crafting resources every week to those who play regularly, but many players are either just starting out or only play infrequently. I intentionally chose this archetype as it's the best of both worlds: novel enough to interest veteran players yet affordable enough for those with limited resources. Honestly, I don't know how readers here skew, so I'm very excited to see if there is communal preference for one or the other.
I know it feels wrong to drop Anivia, but I think at the end of the day you either commit to running 3x Trundle + 3x Tryndamere or you keep the historic 3x Anivia + some combination of Tryn and Thresh. Decks that try to "hedge" with 2/2/2 usually don't do as well.
6 mana at slow speed sounds like a deal breaker to me--it calls to mind Trueshot Barrage and Winter's Breath, both of which sound incredible on paper but in practice no one runs them due to how awkward they are to use.
It's interesting to me that so many of the new champions (Leona, L2 Nocturne, and to a lesser extent Taric) really want you to develop rather than open-attack. I wonder how the new meta will develop since so many popular cards (Riptide Rex, Yone, Twisted Fate, Sejuani, The Ruination, Swain + nexus damage) severely punish developing in the late game.
This is a slightly above average card. 5 mana for a 5/5 + random card is usually the type of card you try to squeeze in but ultimately cut--compare it with Avarosan Hearthguard, who provides so much more value and still gets cut from many Frejlord decks, or Greathorn Companion who in practice only exists as a product of Remembrance. However I'm willing to be bullish on Rahvun because I'm predicting Leona will provide a nice payout for playing/using daybreak cards, and this single card is giving 2+ daybreak activations.
Perhaps. Your logic does remind me a bit of Sejuani, where when Rising Tides first launched people were trying (unsuccessfully) to jam her into decks like Teemo puffcaps and Swain crimson and she was widely regarded as the worst new champion; then they started just jamming her as a 6 mana tempo play with no particular support and now she's everywhere.
That's the clever thing--they are extremely easy to trigger; they are less easy to get value from. Notice that Solari Soldier, Solari Shieldbearer, and Sun Guardian are all only "until end of turn" effects. Smart opponents will try to always open-attack to prevent you from getting a crazy value block. So really, you're probably only getting value from these cards if you have an attack token and you develop instead of open-attack.
But what makes me really psyched is that I think this means
Leona is being revealed tomorrow and will have daybreak synergies
Diana will likely get nightfall synergies to mirror Leona's daybreak synergies
Targon will get some nightfall cards (because honestly what they showed for SI / Nocturne was few and underwhelming)
Hmn... is Rahvun's text just a spice like Power Overwhelming or does it indicate that the added card can trigger Daybreak despite playing other cards earlier in the turn?
I think it means the latter--Daybreak triggers irregardless of how many cards you've played
Often better than Vile Feast unless you care about spiders. Nightfall units aren't great, but a card's a card. (And if you have the mana to play the unit immediately, you've already got the trigger.)
Then again, you have to plan more carefully to be sure you get the Nightfall value, so bad players may struggle to use it well.
Here I was thinking Vile Feast was better ~80% of the time, as you're guaranteed a free 1/1 which often makes a good chump blocker. For Unspeakable Horror: sometimes yes you'll get a consequential unit which you'll value more than a spiderling, but other times you'll get a something that you just plan to chump block with anyways, except now you have to spend non-spell mana and your action to summon it.
The one big "upside" I see is that there aren't many nightfall units announced yet--so far, just Stygian Onlooker, Doombeast, Duskrider, and Nocturne--so if that's it for the Aug 26 release, any Nocturne decks practically need to run this card just to get more units to level him.
A FEW WEEKS LATER: "Uh, guys, I think we have to nerf Mistwraiths."
A FEW MONTHS LATER: "Mistwraiths are great! Fearsome isn't that OP. Let's give the players Mistwraiths at Burst speed!"
To be fair, the nerf was to Wraithcaller, because 6+ damage with fearsome on turn 4 is usually very punishing. Mistwraith hasn't seen much play since that change, implying the value of that incarnation was relying heavily on that Round 4 power swing.
4 mana for a 2/2 is pretty bad by itself, so obviously you're banking heavily on the Mistwraith boon. I guess the question becomes: are you an aggressive deck that's trying to chip in a lot of early damage via fearsome attackers, or are you a value deck that's trying to juice the biggest attack bonus you can?
You mentioned in your first point that you dropped HS completely yet included Scholomance Academy in one of your 'examples'.
It's unfortunate, but I agree that Ashes of Outland's Demon Hunter meta was dominating the ladder for at least the first half of Ashes of Outland. Anyway, Day 1 meta is not an accurate representation of what the meta would become. In your example, you mentioned that Big Druid (I'll assume you meant Guardian Animals Druid because Big Druid is a totally different archetype and has not seen play in Day 1 of Scholomance) was dominating the ladder. I wouldn't go as far as saying it dominated the ladder as the deck was far from optimized and it was a very 'all or nothing' deck. Highlander Priest and Pure /Libram Paladin were also very prevalent in Day 1. And if you are in the loop about the high legend meta (as early as Day 3, there were fewer players who were playing Guardian Animals Druid as it was hard countered by Tempo/Highlander Mage decks). Although it came back with some minor adjustments, like Living Dragonbreath and Animated Broomstick. And it will be culled with the upcoming Kaelthas nerf.
Your assumptions are true--I haven't actively played since AoO, so my data points were based solely off of what I recalled from browsing articles. I have edited in your corrections; thank you. To your point about hard countering: I would argue that would mean the original deck is still defining the meta which, while not as reprehensible as having high-played rate + high-win rate, is still a red flag for balance issues.
It's interesting to me--you specifically call out LoR's nerfs to the Deep and Nab as part of the reason why you left, but in my eyes both those archetypes are still alive and well. Conversely: if I compare to the last big HS balance patch I recall, the January 9 DoD patch (yeah I know; it's been a minute), that nerfed Ancharrr (Pirate Warrior), Necrium Apothecary (Deathrattle Rogue), and Dragon's Pack (Galakrond Shaman) to a degree that--in my eyes--killed those archetypes. I makes me wonder how much is in the eye of the beholder.
Note that the text is "attacked with 5+ Nightfall allies", not activating Nightfall.
I'm not 100% confident I understand exactly nightfall works. If you watch the video from Riot's twitter, it shows little moon icons on units implying that all you need to do is attack with a unit that had the nightfall text, irregardless of whether you proc'ed nightfall when it was summoned or not. That said, there are some inconsistencies with that video--e.g., at 0:32 just before the level-up the Stygian Onlooker on the far right is just a 2/1, but at 0:42 post level-up its now a 4/1--so I'm not sure how representative it is of final product.
I'll try to respond by enumerating what I understand to be your points and responding to them one at a time:
1.) Does Riot really have a plan for this game?
I'm not sure if you meant this question literally or figuratively. For the former: they absolutely have plans, and they have been very open about them on their patch notes, YouTube channel, and Twitter. For the latter: that is subjective; I personally have been extremely satisfied with LoR to the point of dropping HS completely, but it sounds like your personal experience was the reverse.
2.) Concern that the new release will be radically unbalanced (specifically due to new mechanics)
This paragraph is going to come off as cynical, so apologies in advance. I don't believe balance is critical for a CCG's success. Consider the last three releases of Hearthstone:
Descent of Dragons: ladder is dominated by Galakrond Shaman by the end of Day 1
Ashes of Outlands: ladder is dominated by Demon Hunter by the end of Day 1
Scholomance Academy: ladder is dominateddefined by Big DruidGuardian Animals Druidby the end of Day 1very early
Of course, that's just the high-side of balance. There's also the low side: cards which aren't powerful enough to be viable, and in many ways that's even more heart breaking. It's become common practice to designate legendaries and epics as "safe to disenchant" because everyone is convinced that Team 5 won't ever buff them, so their own value is as a resource to craft other cards.
I'm not as familiar with MtG, but I think they've had similar recent Day 1 misfires via Oko and companions.
I don't say these things to throw shade at those games. Rather, I submit them as objective evidence that--despite what forum posts and twitter rants imply--players are actually extremely tolerant of imbalance issues and willing to forgive so long as any overly-powerful archetypes are eventually addressed through patch / rules change. In other words: for the most part, it doesn't alter players' long-term behaviors.
That said: I've been not but impressed with how Riot has been balancing LoR--both in terms of timeliness and quality. They buff and nerf, the meta shifts on an almost weekly basis, and every champion has at least one home that is if not competitive at least viable. Again: if this was a true priority for players, I would expect to see more defecting from those games to LoR or at the very least being more vocal in their comparisons between LoR and their games of choice. Regardless, I am very confident Riot will continue to excel with this expansion.
3.) Concern that adding many different mechanics will compromise their ability to balance
I actually have the opposite concern: that not having enough mechanics makes the game too linear to balance well. Recently, many of the top tier meta decks have had a theme of "just add good cards" (e.g., Ashe Noxus, Ezreal TF, less recently bannerman and kinkou elusives). These decks don't invest heavily on any particular synergy and instead just look to make big plays with the minimal amount of moving parts. You can tamp down on this somewhat through nerfs as both the latter 2 decks have seen, but if the gameplay is too linear then all you're doing is encouraging a card substitution as seen when elusives dropped Inspiring Mentor and picked up Omen Hawk.
Put another way: experts have theorized that the reason why chess hasn't been "solved" has been because of the knight. His unusual pattern and ability to hop over other pieces add a lot of unique options to that game, whereas if he moved like a rook he would ostensibly be more individually powerful but also more predictable.
I think that's all I've got. I sound like I total Riot-fanboi now, don't I? :-P
I think this is the best from the bunch revealed today, draining 2 with a 2 mana body and potential nightfall synergies (nocturne is gonna have either a similar effect to the horse revealed or have nightfall itself.
Swim theorized that Nocturne and/or Diana might level up from Nightfall triggers. That is pretty much the only reason I'd ever use this card. (And I'd probably still never use Duskrider.)
I'm predicting Nightfall and Nocturne will be somewhat like Toss and Maokai: you're doing it primarily for the champion's level-up effect which is a game-changer if you can pull it off. The difference will be that whereas Toss is no immediate benefit for literally game-ending effect, Nightfall will be so-so benefit for (only) game-swinging effect.
I actually really the synergy with L2 Nocturne: you can play the spell at any time for a free nightfall activation, then after he levels drop the 2x Daring Poro such that all allies have fearsome while all enemies have -2/-0. I just don't know if that's a strong enough combo to carry an entire deck--especially if you lose access to the Targon nightfall units.
Except its not any more. They lowered the cost of Wyrding Stones a few patches back, and they still haven't found a spot other than super-ambitious Warmother's decks. Here, you're paying 1 less mana for -0/-2 stats and the possibility the effect doesn't occur, and now it instantly dies to Fleetfeather Tracker, Sapling, and keg + AoE. The one thing I can think of is perhaps if you triple down on ramp then there's a like an escape velocity factor where you can stabilize that much faster; otherwise it just seems almost always inferior to Stones.
Watch it be Tahm Kench and totally mess up all your predictions. :-P
But seriously, I think you're right about Soraka and that she'll have a healing synergy--cards like Broadbacked Protector, Resplendent Stellacorn, and Guiding Touch just seem too weak without payout from a champion synergy.
I know exactly what you mean. It's such a bizarre archetype to theorycraft for--it feels really wrong to completely ignore early game board, but maybe if you can ramp fast enough and heal back up with Revitalizing Roar it all works out?
For reference, here's what I ended up with:
Is it just me, or are these sooo much better than the SI nightfall cards?
2 mana 2/3 elusive and 3 mana 5/3 overwhelm versus 1 mana 2/1 with a temporary +2/+0 (Stygian Onlooker) and 3 mana 3/2 with Drain 2 (Doombeast).
Great question, Nevin! I think it depends entirely on the audience. As you point out, LoR is relatively generous with crafting resources every week to those who play regularly, but many players are either just starting out or only play infrequently. I intentionally chose this archetype as it's the best of both worlds: novel enough to interest veteran players yet affordable enough for those with limited resources. Honestly, I don't know how readers here skew, so I'm very excited to see if there is communal preference for one or the other.
I know it feels wrong to drop Anivia, but I think at the end of the day you either commit to running 3x Trundle + 3x Tryndamere or you keep the historic 3x Anivia + some combination of Tryn and Thresh. Decks that try to "hedge" with 2/2/2 usually don't do as well.
6 mana at slow speed sounds like a deal breaker to me--it calls to mind Trueshot Barrage and Winter's Breath, both of which sound incredible on paper but in practice no one runs them due to how awkward they are to use.
It's interesting to me that so many of the new champions (Leona, L2 Nocturne, and to a lesser extent Taric) really want you to develop rather than open-attack. I wonder how the new meta will develop since so many popular cards (Riptide Rex, Yone, Twisted Fate, Sejuani, The Ruination, Swain + nexus damage) severely punish developing in the late game.
This is a slightly above average card. 5 mana for a 5/5 + random card is usually the type of card you try to squeeze in but ultimately cut--compare it with Avarosan Hearthguard, who provides so much more value and still gets cut from many Frejlord decks, or Greathorn Companion who in practice only exists as a product of Remembrance. However I'm willing to be bullish on Rahvun because I'm predicting Leona will provide a nice payout for playing/using daybreak cards, and this single card is giving 2+ daybreak activations.
Perhaps. Your logic does remind me a bit of Sejuani, where when Rising Tides first launched people were trying (unsuccessfully) to jam her into decks like Teemo puffcaps and Swain crimson and she was widely regarded as the worst new champion; then they started just jamming her as a 6 mana tempo play with no particular support and now she's everywhere.
That's the clever thing--they are extremely easy to trigger; they are less easy to get value from. Notice that Solari Soldier, Solari Shieldbearer, and Sun Guardian are all only "until end of turn" effects. Smart opponents will try to always open-attack to prevent you from getting a crazy value block. So really, you're probably only getting value from these cards if you have an attack token and you develop instead of open-attack.
But what makes me really psyched is that I think this means
I think it means the latter--Daybreak triggers irregardless of how many cards you've played
Here I was thinking Vile Feast was better ~80% of the time, as you're guaranteed a free 1/1 which often makes a good chump blocker. For Unspeakable Horror: sometimes yes you'll get a consequential unit which you'll value more than a spiderling, but other times you'll get a something that you just plan to chump block with anyways, except now you have to spend non-spell mana and your action to summon it.
The one big "upside" I see is that there aren't many nightfall units announced yet--so far, just Stygian Onlooker, Doombeast, Duskrider, and Nocturne--so if that's it for the Aug 26 release, any Nocturne decks practically need to run this card just to get more units to level him.
To be fair, the nerf was to Wraithcaller, because 6+ damage with fearsome on turn 4 is usually very punishing. Mistwraith hasn't seen much play since that change, implying the value of that incarnation was relying heavily on that Round 4 power swing.
4 mana for a 2/2 is pretty bad by itself, so obviously you're banking heavily on the Mistwraith boon. I guess the question becomes: are you an aggressive deck that's trying to chip in a lot of early damage via fearsome attackers, or are you a value deck that's trying to juice the biggest attack bonus you can?
Your assumptions are true--I haven't actively played since AoO, so my data points were based solely off of what I recalled from browsing articles. I have edited in your corrections; thank you. To your point about hard countering: I would argue that would mean the original deck is still defining the meta which, while not as reprehensible as having high-played rate + high-win rate, is still a red flag for balance issues.
It's interesting to me--you specifically call out LoR's nerfs to the Deep and Nab as part of the reason why you left, but in my eyes both those archetypes are still alive and well. Conversely: if I compare to the last big HS balance patch I recall, the January 9 DoD patch (yeah I know; it's been a minute), that nerfed Ancharrr (Pirate Warrior), Necrium Apothecary (Deathrattle Rogue), and Dragon's Pack (Galakrond Shaman) to a degree that--in my eyes--killed those archetypes. I makes me wonder how much is in the eye of the beholder.
Note that the text is "attacked with 5+ Nightfall allies", not activating Nightfall.
I'm not 100% confident I understand exactly nightfall works. If you watch the video from Riot's twitter, it shows little moon icons on units implying that all you need to do is attack with a unit that had the nightfall text, irregardless of whether you proc'ed nightfall when it was summoned or not. That said, there are some inconsistencies with that video--e.g., at 0:32 just before the level-up the Stygian Onlooker on the far right is just a 2/1, but at 0:42 post level-up its now a 4/1--so I'm not sure how representative it is of final product.
Normally 2 mana for drawing a single card won't be that good, but
I think it will be 3x for Nocturne decks. I'm less certain about other SI decks--e.g., would Endure rather have this card or just another minion?
I'll try to respond by enumerating what I understand to be your points and responding to them one at a time:
1.) Does Riot really have a plan for this game?
I'm not sure if you meant this question literally or figuratively. For the former: they absolutely have plans, and they have been very open about them on their patch notes, YouTube channel, and Twitter. For the latter: that is subjective; I personally have been extremely satisfied with LoR to the point of dropping HS completely, but it sounds like your personal experience was the reverse.
2.) Concern that the new release will be radically unbalanced (specifically due to new mechanics)
This paragraph is going to come off as cynical, so apologies in advance. I don't believe balance is critical for a CCG's success. Consider the last three releases of Hearthstone:
Of course, that's just the high-side of balance. There's also the low side: cards which aren't powerful enough to be viable, and in many ways that's even more heart breaking. It's become common practice to designate legendaries and epics as "safe to disenchant" because everyone is convinced that Team 5 won't ever buff them, so their own value is as a resource to craft other cards.
I'm not as familiar with MtG, but I think they've had similar recent Day 1 misfires via Oko and companions.
I don't say these things to throw shade at those games. Rather, I submit them as objective evidence that--despite what forum posts and twitter rants imply--players are actually extremely tolerant of imbalance issues and willing to forgive so long as any overly-powerful archetypes are eventually addressed through patch / rules change. In other words: for the most part, it doesn't alter players' long-term behaviors.
That said: I've been not but impressed with how Riot has been balancing LoR--both in terms of timeliness and quality. They buff and nerf, the meta shifts on an almost weekly basis, and every champion has at least one home that is if not competitive at least viable. Again: if this was a true priority for players, I would expect to see more defecting from those games to LoR or at the very least being more vocal in their comparisons between LoR and their games of choice. Regardless, I am very confident Riot will continue to excel with this expansion.
3.) Concern that adding many different mechanics will compromise their ability to balance
I actually have the opposite concern: that not having enough mechanics makes the game too linear to balance well. Recently, many of the top tier meta decks have had a theme of "just add good cards" (e.g., Ashe Noxus, Ezreal TF, less recently bannerman and kinkou elusives). These decks don't invest heavily on any particular synergy and instead just look to make big plays with the minimal amount of moving parts. You can tamp down on this somewhat through nerfs as both the latter 2 decks have seen, but if the gameplay is too linear then all you're doing is encouraging a card substitution as seen when elusives dropped Inspiring Mentor and picked up Omen Hawk.
Put another way: experts have theorized that the reason why chess hasn't been "solved" has been because of the knight. His unusual pattern and ability to hop over other pieces add a lot of unique options to that game, whereas if he moved like a rook he would ostensibly be more individually powerful but also more predictable.
I think that's all I've got. I sound like I total Riot-fanboi now, don't I? :-P
I'm predicting Nightfall and Nocturne will be somewhat like Toss and Maokai: you're doing it primarily for the champion's level-up effect which is a game-changer if you can pull it off. The difference will be that whereas Toss is no immediate benefit for literally game-ending effect, Nightfall will be so-so benefit for (only) game-swinging effect.