They sure are printing a lot of ways to bait out the pings.
"Answer it if you can; you're in big trouble if you can't" seems to be the main theme in Ionia now.
I don't even think this is worth a ping. It's a 0/1: it gets blocked by anything, it dies. I know the dream is that you attack with a legion of supports and this guy is getting buffed while also giving a buff, but that assumes you have time to assembly a wide board which I think is a big ask in most matchups. In practice, I don't think anyone is going to run it unless he gets either a mana reduction, stat boost, or something to address the inherent card disadvantage (e.g., Last Whisper: gain a Whimsy!). Otherwise: it's like War Chefs with -2/-2 stats for 1 less mana.
The fact that it says I've seen makes it seem a bit to hard to level. The thing is I don't know if that's a bad thing. Since when he is leveled up he basically gives himself and another unite Unyielding Spirit or that turn. As we all know Unyielding Spirit is a a really really frustrating card. So in order for him to do that on level up they had to make it so he was really hard to level.
Agree--I played 2 hours last night and I didn't see a single Taric level up. ;-)
In all seriousness: wait until he actually comes out before drawing any conclusions. It could be that he's intended to play more like a Braum or Thresh: difficult to level up, but once they do provide a huge payoff. Or maybe he will be easier to level than he seems: if you have 2 other units including 1 support and 1 buff spell, that's 4 (assuming Taric's copy counts; I haven't seen confirmation). Or maybe it will be like Yasuo and Kalista where they intentionally set it a little high because they didn't want it to be overly toxic Day 1, and if it doesn't have high winrate they patch him to require fewer activations.
Very interesting card. At 1 HP, it's very vulnerable to Vile Feast and Make It Rain, both of which are practically auto-include 3x in their respective regions. On the other hand: its the first support card with inherent elusiveness so it will be extremely resilient in certain matchups, and its support effect will allow many early-game attacks go off without taking damage. The immediate call to mind is the Targon for the support synergies, but don't forget about challenger (specifically, Demacia / Fiora) either.
Bottom-line: its viability will be extremely dependent on how prevalent Bilgewater and SI are in the meta.
I agree with Vino and 40--this seems OK for expedition, but in constructed you're going to find better early-game units. Reminds me a bit like Vanguard Defender: fine on paper, but in practice there are 40+ other cards you'd rather have in your deck.
1 health is immidiate yellow card... but it generates 3 cheap spells (which is great) and if it lives, it grants +2/+2 on support.
Tough to judge.
1 support and 3 spells will reduce the cost of Arbiter of the Peak by 4, it also helps with leveling Taric up.
I think the way to think of it is as a slow-speed +2/+2 buff and 4 progressions for Taric/Arbiter with a free 1/1 body--9 times out of 10 the body won't mean anything, but every so often it let you chain with Mountain Sojourners / receive a support buff that would have otherwise gone unused / buff enough to trade with its blocker / use defensively as a clutch chump block / attack twice / etc.
I think it's going to be good. Contrast with Fury of the North (1 less mana for +1/+1 stats, but its temporary) and Take Heart (2 less mana, same stats but can only target damaged allies).
It's worth pointing out that all these buffs are permanent, not until end-of-turn. Targon is going to give Demacia a run for title of reigning board bully.
Comparing this to Plaza Guardian is understandable, but you have to remember that Overwhelm is about a million times better than Quick Attack in the endgame, when you're more often trying to deal lethal, not just fight for the board.
Anyway, there are plenty of decks already in existence that would have this costing less than 5 in short order. Targon doesn't need to bring more to the table in order to make this good, but I'm sure it will anyway.
I was thinking that comparison too, but I was thinking even with the overwhelm this--like Plaza Guardian--is more-so meme material than competitive.
Specifically, I envisioned a Targon + P&Z deck featuring:
This is going to be a total feast-or-famine card. 5 mana for 2/5 worth of stats is bad--massive tempo loss compared to other popular 5-drop like Avarosan Hearthguard, Thresh, Garen, Radiant Guardian, etc. But 5 mana for 6/9 worth of stats over 3 bodies is insane. So I think she's going to thrive on decks that can keep units on board (think today's bannerman decks), but in general the payoff isn't going to be enough for most decks.
I'm really liking all the support for Support, since that's a real cool mechanic that seems to be underutilized.
Regarding Bastion: its ambiguous, but based on what they've said and comparing it to Barrier I would expect:
It only lasts until the end of the round
Nullify works comparable to Fizz's ability--i.e., it is like the spell/ability never happened
Since they specifically qualify "...that would affect the unit", I think it would totally cancel things like The Ruination and Twisted Fate's red card. That's extremely generous though so I wouldn't be surprised to see it revised as "...that targets the unit".
Regarding comparisons to Deny: it's somewhat apples and oranges. Deny hard-counters big finishers like Warmother's Call and The Harrowing, which Bastion has no effect on. Bastion can be used proactively to prevent frostbite whereas Deny is limited to fast and slow speed spells/abilities. A more fitting comparison might be Prismatic Barrier: for the same 3 mana, Barrier will effectively negate 1 hostile damage-based spell with the benefit that it could also be used in normal combat and the drawback that it has no effect on non-damage spells like Culling Strike and Vengeance.
I want to know how you feel, has anyone made similar experiences? What do you do to still enjoy the game? Or is hearthstone just not the right game for me anymore?
I've actually been having an unexpected amount of fun with the new lab. It's a nice blend of randomness + strategy; discovering which cards are ridiculously powerful versus which aren't is entertaining; and if a game goes sideways you can easily chalk it up to luck, concede, and requeue.
A week after I posted my Hecarim/Kalista deck over half of the decks in ranked are slight variants of it... lol. The funny part is now its hard to find the usual meta decks because Hecarush beats them ;p Unfortunately for me, Hecarush is weak to Hecarush so mirror comes down to who gets sharks/kalista up and running first... T_T
"If you don't like the meta in LoR, wait a day."
In all seriousness, I finally got around to trying your decklist today and I actually enjoyed it a lot, so thanks.
I don't like that idea, mostly because of cards like Thernogenic Beam. When you have 0 mana left and thst card in your hand, the game won't skip automatically because you could play it for 0.
Since it is one of very few cards that cost 0 you basically tell your opponent that you have this card in your hand.
It's more than just that--e.g. if I have 1 mana and was playing Frejlord, then you could tell whether or not I had an Elixir of Iron and/or Brittle Steel in hand. But this is just an implementation issue--it's easy enough to make it so auto-pass waits ~1 second so to imitate a human. Heck--you could even make it randomize between 0.5 and 3.0 seconds statistically weighted around 1.0 if you're worried about it becoming too recognizable.
My Zombie Ashe deck runs 3x Ruination. It does help against Demacia; however not so much against that popular Frejlord + Noxus deck: Accessor gives them disgusting card draw and any clever opponent will hold on to some cheap 5 attack minions as Ruination insurance.
Quote From https://playruneterra.com/en-us/news/patch-1-7-notes/
Before we dive in, we've got some important timing info on the next few patches. As we just announced over on the Riot Games site, Riot's taking the week of August 10th off to disconnect, recharge, and reboot. To make sure we're not just shifting more work onto people in the following weeks, we're adjusting timelines for the next few LoR patches.
Patch 1.7 will go live normally tomorrow, but will last an extra week (so three weeks in total rather than the usual two) before we update again.
Patch 1.8 will go live August 26 (rather than August 19), and will also last for three weeks. 1.8 will contain a couple minor card changes but won't be a full-fledged balance patch, though it may feature a few other things…
Patch 1.10 (yes, we're skipping 1.9) will land on September 16, and will contain our next significant round of balance updates. This patch will last the usual two weeks and resume our normal update cadence.
This patch-note fills me with uncertainty regarding a new region actually coming out anywhere near August, unless they are really trying to keep it a surprise for some reason.
The general consensus on reddit is that Aug 28th's "a few other things" is the new region + its champions and support cards; may or may not include new cards for other regions at that time.
Confession time: I have been know to, after my opponent makes a game-swinging play and decides to celebrate by sending multiple Braum emotes, decide that that is the time for me to make an impromptu mid-game bathroom trip. O:-)
I don't even think this is worth a ping. It's a 0/1: it gets blocked by anything, it dies. I know the dream is that you attack with a legion of supports and this guy is getting buffed while also giving a buff, but that assumes you have time to assembly a wide board which I think is a big ask in most matchups. In practice, I don't think anyone is going to run it unless he gets either a mana reduction, stat boost, or something to address the inherent card disadvantage (e.g., Last Whisper: gain a Whimsy!). Otherwise: it's like War Chefs with -2/-2 stats for 1 less mana.
Agree--I played 2 hours last night and I didn't see a single Taric level up. ;-)
In all seriousness: wait until he actually comes out before drawing any conclusions. It could be that he's intended to play more like a Braum or Thresh: difficult to level up, but once they do provide a huge payoff. Or maybe he will be easier to level than he seems: if you have 2 other units including 1 support and 1 buff spell, that's 4 (assuming Taric's copy counts; I haven't seen confirmation). Or maybe it will be like Yasuo and Kalista where they intentionally set it a little high because they didn't want it to be overly toxic Day 1, and if it doesn't have high winrate they patch him to require fewer activations.
Very interesting card. At 1 HP, it's very vulnerable to Vile Feast and Make It Rain, both of which are practically auto-include 3x in their respective regions. On the other hand: its the first support card with inherent elusiveness so it will be extremely resilient in certain matchups, and its support effect will allow many early-game attacks go off without taking damage. The immediate call to mind is the Targon for the support synergies, but don't forget about challenger (specifically, Demacia / Fiora) either.
Bottom-line: its viability will be extremely dependent on how prevalent Bilgewater and SI are in the meta.
Agreed--5 out of 5. I don't even know if it will be any good, but damn if it doesn't make me smile every time I look at it
I agree with Vino and 40--this seems OK for expedition, but in constructed you're going to find better early-game units. Reminds me a bit like Vanguard Defender: fine on paper, but in practice there are 40+ other cards you'd rather have in your deck.
I think the way to think of it is as a slow-speed +2/+2 buff and 4 progressions for Taric/Arbiter with a free 1/1 body--9 times out of 10 the body won't mean anything, but every so often it let you chain with Mountain Sojourners / receive a support buff that would have otherwise gone unused / buff enough to trade with its blocker / use defensively as a clutch chump block / attack twice / etc.
I think it's going to be good. Contrast with Fury of the North (1 less mana for +1/+1 stats, but its temporary) and Take Heart (2 less mana, same stats but can only target damaged allies).
This will definitely be a cornerstone for the inevitable Targon-support decks.
It's worth pointing out that all these buffs are permanent, not until end-of-turn. Targon is going to give Demacia a run for title of reigning board bully.
I was thinking that comparison too, but I was thinking even with the overwhelm this--like Plaza Guardian--is more-so meme material than competitive.
Specifically, I envisioned a Targon + P&Z deck featuring:
...with an goal of creating a bunch of cheap Arbiters, then attacking en-masse.
This is going to be a total feast-or-famine card. 5 mana for 2/5 worth of stats is bad--massive tempo loss compared to other popular 5-drop like Avarosan Hearthguard, Thresh, Garen, Radiant Guardian, etc. But 5 mana for 6/9 worth of stats over 3 bodies is insane. So I think she's going to thrive on decks that can keep units on board (think today's bannerman decks), but in general the payoff isn't going to be enough for most decks.
I'm really liking all the support for Support, since that's a real cool mechanic that seems to be underutilized.
Regarding Bastion: its ambiguous, but based on what they've said and comparing it to Barrier I would expect:
Regarding comparisons to Deny: it's somewhat apples and oranges. Deny hard-counters big finishers like Warmother's Call and The Harrowing, which Bastion has no effect on. Bastion can be used proactively to prevent frostbite whereas Deny is limited to fast and slow speed spells/abilities. A more fitting comparison might be Prismatic Barrier: for the same 3 mana, Barrier will effectively negate 1 hostile damage-based spell with the benefit that it could also be used in normal combat and the drawback that it has no effect on non-damage spells like Culling Strike and Vengeance.
I don't know much about Runeterra lore so I've been trying to read up. As near as I can tell after a half-hour of Googling:
Solari
Lunari
You should try Legends of Runeterra!
I've actually been having an unexpected amount of fun with the new lab. It's a nice blend of randomness + strategy; discovering which cards are ridiculously powerful versus which aren't is entertaining; and if a game goes sideways you can easily chalk it up to luck, concede, and requeue.
Spoiler: insane cards include
"If you don't like the meta in LoR, wait a day."
In all seriousness, I finally got around to trying your decklist today and I actually enjoyed it a lot, so thanks.
It's more than just that--e.g. if I have 1 mana and was playing Frejlord, then you could tell whether or not I had an Elixir of Iron and/or Brittle Steel in hand. But this is just an implementation issue--it's easy enough to make it so auto-pass waits ~1 second so to imitate a human. Heck--you could even make it randomize between 0.5 and 3.0 seconds statistically weighted around 1.0 if you're worried about it becoming too recognizable.
My Zombie Ashe deck runs 3x Ruination. It does help against Demacia; however not so much against that popular Frejlord + Noxus deck: Accessor gives them disgusting card draw and any clever opponent will hold on to some cheap 5 attack minions as Ruination insurance.
The general consensus on reddit is that Aug 28th's "a few other things" is the new region + its champions and support cards; may or may not include new cards for other regions at that time.
Confession time: I have been know to, after my opponent makes a game-swinging play and decides to celebrate by sending multiple Braum emotes, decide that that is the time for me to make an impromptu mid-game bathroom trip. O:-)