Theme-wise, I love this. Vi was one of my favorite LoL champions, and I really like how they are making her support peacekeeper-focused and setting up Peacekeeper v underworld interactions in P&Z comparable to Lux v mageseekers in Demacia.
Logistic-wise, this looks to be the worst set announced so far. Let's start with Vi herself. She looks like she'll be really difficult to level up--not only do you have to get her attack up to 10, but you need to successfully strike which is not trivial AND progression is tied to individual cards so if she dies or is recalled you're starting back from scratch--think leveling Braum. That alone isn't a deal breaker--Swain, Sejuani, and Malokai all look difficult to level too--but unlike the aforementioned, her L2 form is just good, not game-closing. That 10/6 statline is just awkward IMHO: sure you can kill almost anything while dealing 5 nexus damage, but without barrier, quick attack, and/or overwhelm there's no advantage to have such high attack.
Then there's the other cards. Both spells seem powerful enough to see some play, but the followers all seem weaker than current options. The Veteran Investigator feels bad--you NEVER want to give your opponent draw. The Insightful Investigator seems too situational: only draws when you play something that's exactly 2, and even then its a fleeting card. And again: its going to feel SUPER bad when you draw into something you either want to save or don't have enough mana to play that turn, or when you want to spend your last 2 mana on a spell but know this effect is going to essentially mill a card. Finally there's a Patrol Wardens, a vanilla 4/3 that costs 2-3 mana: this at least I could see people wanting to play, but it seems like the first card you cut once you're trying to improve your deck's synergies. All 3 just feel like "pack filler". I hope I'm just being overly pessimistic here; I was really hoping this expansion would make P&Z be something more than a splash for Mystic ShotsBADCARDNAME, Get Excited!, Thermo beams, and the occasional Progress Day.
So, have anyone figured out a use for this card? I opened her on launch and have no idea if there's any way at all I can play her. That 3 health is an insult for such a cool concept. Compared to Waxadred it's worse in every single way.
I agree--they definitely misfired on this card. Don't feel too sorry for yourself for opening her, though--there are a LOT of bad legendaries in this set. Myself, I've opened Megtherdon, Reliquary of Souls, and Bulwark so far.
My personal opinion is that yetis are trash. Sure the 5/5 for 1 mana looks great, but you have to remember that you are also depriving yourself of drawing a card from your deck. So how often is drawing a vanilla 5/5 better than drawing a card from your deck? Early in the matchup, sure, but soon after you'd much rather draw either a spell or unit with abilities. Watch the game that DoubleSummon linked: even there in a "Yeti" deck, you can see that Whirling Death is putting in much more work than the Enraged Yeti.
I find it really weird that they're buffing Libram of Justice. Isn't it already pretty good?
Why would you think that?
https://hsreplay.net/cards/#text=libram&sortBy=playedWinrate has it as the worst libram out of the 3: deck winrate of 48.5%, played winrate of 45.4%. In other words: it's the only libram where you're winrate actually DECREASES when playing it--presumably due in large part to it acting as a "lose less" card more than the stabilization it was intended to provide.
We can give Blizzard a pass on that though, it's good to see them quickly reacting to their new class.
YOU can give them a pass if you want, Flux, but personally I feel like I'm getting whiplash from trying to play this game. This is the second straight expansion where they release a handful of grossly OP cards and respond with a two emergency balance patches. At this point, I have to seriously question their balancing strategy.
Kalista definitely has a lot of upside potential once leveled and attacking, but she's fairly vulnerable otherwise. Single Combat, Get Excited!, Thermo Beam Whirling Death, and roughly half the challengers take care of her nicely.
I hear you, og. I feel that their ongoing ignorance of Ramming Speed's dominance is the biggest upset since their failure to nerf Unseen Saboteur, and that is in no way biased by the fact I have 3 of the latter.
Changing Sac Pac to only target friendly Demons would maintain the original intention of the card while eliminating the stupid "herp derp I instakilled Lord Jaraxxus" interaction. Want people to play J-rax? That's how you do it. Otherwise he'll never see the light of day, especially with Zephrys the Great still around in Standard.
Jaraxxus has bigger problems than just Sac Pac. Zephrys was definitely the final nail in his coffin, but he was virtually unplayable even before SoU. Between him limiting your HP to 15 max and costing 9 mana, he's just too much of a liability.
Is anyone else frustrated how much Early AoO meta looks like the pre-rotation meta?
Rez Priest, Big Druid, Face Hunter, Highlander Hunter, Highlander Mage, Galakrond Rogue, Highlander Rogue, and Control Warlock all just incorporated a few new cards into an existing archetype. The Pirate Warrior and Galakrond Warlock decks listed above have literally no new cards. Demon Hunter, Spell Mage, Totem Shaman, and Libram Paladin are basically the only new decks--and the latter is almost unplayable weak.
I think it's important to remember that levelling up Maokai doesn't only remove the opponent's deck until 4 cards are left, but it is also guaranteed to obliterate all champions in the deck.
Unless they have 2 Karmas in hand/board--then they can start double-cast Karma's Insight of Ages to spawn 4 random spells plus shuffle 2 additional Karma into their deck.
Hopefully they address that before this expansion launches; otherwise Maokai will just lose to any Karma decks--probably to the point of being unplayable, since she's in all the popular control decks right now.
did shark get a buff? each time it dies it adds one shark to ur graveyard. meaning when u revive it the first time and it dies the next time u attack with an ephemeral u get 2 sharks instead of just one. maybe im wrong but its what i get from the new text
I can't guarantee that what I'm about to write is how it will actually work, but my read is that the intention is for each last whisper to only spawn one future shark which in turn has a last whisper that can spawn one future shark and so on. I.e., if your opponent attacked with an ephemeral and that revived 2 previously-killed sharks and then you Purified one and killed it sans LW, then the next time your opponent attacked with an ephemeral it would only revive 1 shark (specifically, the that wasn't purified).
If they instead got 3 under the above scenario, that would be insanely busted and quickly exploited, so I can't imagine that was the intention.
The plan is to get card reveal threads going up for all the reveals just like with Hearthstone.
First we need to get some code deployed onto the site to turn that on and to change some data things with Runeterra cards to properly support sets, with all the usual options that Hearthstone has for sets included.
Things been a bit funky with the Easter weekend and other tasks, but I'm hoping we'll have all that together early this week so we can officially kick off the reveal season.
The Draven change is really good--most players don't even try to level him up any more as he can be so difficult. With this, you still need to put in some effort and play around tricks but at least you can get both hits in a single turn.
The Kato, Seer, and Wyrding Stones HP increments I think are all too minor at first glance, but we'll see. The Crimson Curator buff from 2 -> 3 seemed too minor at first too but it totally turned that card around.
Shady Character really needs an archetype to support him moreso than consolation for when he fizzles. And for all I know, there is a good deck already that we just haven't discovered/popularized. Including him in the patch notes MIGHT inspire someone to discover said deck, but on its own that 2 extra HP won't mean jack.
Blood for Blood is still awful. At most, it should cost 1 and it needs either to be Burst or not require survival or able to target enemy followers. I am simply dumbstruck that the same people who thought Fading Memories should just 0 mana : Burst also though B4B should be 2 mana : Fast.
Seems like you can make a suicide token deck and then just delete your opponent's deck. Hmm.
Yeah but 25 tokens dying is A LOT.. tossing AND playing tokens is the way to level him up.
Also is a 4 turns timer on the enemy worth it? I mean unless it's a control v control games tend to end quite quickly and a turn 1X Maokai level up doesn't mean there will be turn 1x +4
I agree that these numbers sound super discouraging, but I have to believe Riot did some internal testing to generate them. Plus: they are just numbers--very easy to patch/tune, and I've been extremely impressed with their commitment to ensuring no archetype completely fails (*cough* librium paladin *couch*).
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Maokai's level one SUCKS though it's 2 mana for actually nothing (1/4 stat line is a bad 2 drop stats), it's a dead card the whole game until he is your win condition.. well like with ezreal.
I dunno; the free 2/1 challengers aren't anything to sneeze at. Plus I think the ephemeral tag is actually a boon here: it would probably die regardless, but now it also enables sharks and Hecarim. I admit he's not looking like a top-tier candidate, but I'm definitely seeing the potential for some fun off-meta decks.
Normaly when Yasuo appears on the board it is instantly removed. It is very hard to protect him because there are so many ways to deal 3 damage.
Now my Yasuo deck will play out so much more effective!
Really? I'm afraid its too much. 4/4 Quick Attack for 4 mana would be good enough to see some play on its own, but then you add on L2 Yasuo's potential synergies with Minotaur, Roar, Yone, etc... If you're going to have that potential for insane upside, then IMHO you need to also give your opponent opportunities to remove Yasuo, and for most decks that means 3 HP. I'm predicting they are actually going to ultimately revert this buff.
so if I'm reading this correctly you can just get some mystic shots and then perma freeze everyone?
Sort of. You still need to level her up, which isn't trivial. And she needs to survive on board long enough for your mystic shot to resolve, which isn't trivial for as popular as Single Combat, Vengeance, Will of Ionia, Detain, and Noxian Guillotine are. And finally: she only does it once per round, so you can still buff afterwards to poke damage.
It's a super strong and exciting ability, but I don't think it will be broken. I predict she will actually combo better with Noxus than P&Z, since Noxus has lots of cheap hard-to-prevent nexus poke like Precious Pet, Saboteur, and Vlad.
I have won literally ONE game with DH after playing well over 50. If this class is OP, then I'm horrible at this game, which I know isn't true, because I have a 60% winrate with almost every other deck I play.
Counter point: I threw together one of Blizzard's premade decklists, substituted the 3 cards I was missing, and then went 8-0 for the night. If this class isn't OP then I'm incredible at this game, which I know isn't true because I generally have a ~45% winrate.
Lol no. This class is just insane. You say most other classes haven't figured out how to beat it yet; I say DH hasn't even figure out what the most optimal decklist is yet.
I'm curious if anyone is willing to say they've had regular success going the 'shroom/Timo route. I always fiercely avoid it since I've read comments implying it was just bad.
Theme-wise, I love this. Vi was one of my favorite LoL champions, and I really like how they are making her support peacekeeper-focused and setting up Peacekeeper v underworld interactions in P&Z comparable to Lux v mageseekers in Demacia.
Logistic-wise, this looks to be the worst set announced so far. Let's start with Vi herself. She looks like she'll be really difficult to level up--not only do you have to get her attack up to 10, but you need to successfully strike which is not trivial AND progression is tied to individual cards so if she dies or is recalled you're starting back from scratch--think leveling Braum. That alone isn't a deal breaker--Swain, Sejuani, and Malokai all look difficult to level too--but unlike the aforementioned, her L2 form is just good, not game-closing. That 10/6 statline is just awkward IMHO: sure you can kill almost anything while dealing 5 nexus damage, but without barrier, quick attack, and/or overwhelm there's no advantage to have such high attack.
Then there's the other cards. Both spells seem powerful enough to see some play, but the followers all seem weaker than current options. The Veteran Investigator feels bad--you NEVER want to give your opponent draw. The Insightful Investigator seems too situational: only draws when you play something that's exactly 2, and even then its a fleeting card. And again: its going to feel SUPER bad when you draw into something you either want to save or don't have enough mana to play that turn, or when you want to spend your last 2 mana on a spell but know this effect is going to essentially mill a card. Finally there's a Patrol Wardens, a vanilla 4/3 that costs 2-3 mana: this at least I could see people wanting to play, but it seems like the first card you cut once you're trying to improve your deck's synergies. All 3 just feel like "pack filler". I hope I'm just being overly pessimistic here; I was really hoping this expansion would make P&Z be something more than a splash for Mystic ShotsBADCARDNAME, Get Excited!, Thermo beams, and the occasional Progress Day.
Regis posted a fun looking priest deck ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMBhdcphedg ) and Dekkster did quest Paladin ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4q3X5SecU0 ), but I wouldn't consider either competitive.
I agree--they definitely misfired on this card. Don't feel too sorry for yourself for opening her, though--there are a LOT of bad legendaries in this set. Myself, I've opened Megtherdon, Reliquary of Souls, and Bulwark so far.
My personal opinion is that yetis are trash. Sure the 5/5 for 1 mana looks great, but you have to remember that you are also depriving yourself of drawing a card from your deck. So how often is drawing a vanilla 5/5 better than drawing a card from your deck? Early in the matchup, sure, but soon after you'd much rather draw either a spell or unit with abilities. Watch the game that DoubleSummon linked: even there in a "Yeti" deck, you can see that Whirling Death is putting in much more work than the Enraged Yeti.
Why would you think that?
https://hsreplay.net/cards/#text=libram&sortBy=playedWinrate has it as the worst libram out of the 3: deck winrate of 48.5%, played winrate of 45.4%. In other words: it's the only libram where you're winrate actually DECREASES when playing it--presumably due in large part to it acting as a "lose less" card more than the stabilization it was intended to provide.
YOU can give them a pass if you want, Flux, but personally I feel like I'm getting whiplash from trying to play this game. This is the second straight expansion where they release a handful of grossly OP cards and respond with a two emergency balance patches. At this point, I have to seriously question their balancing strategy.
Lol those were the first 2 champions I thought of when I saw that card Demolitionist to.
Kalista definitely has a lot of upside potential once leveled and attacking, but she's fairly vulnerable otherwise. Single Combat, Get Excited!, Thermo Beam Whirling Death, and roughly half the challengers take care of her nicely.
I hear you, og. I feel that their ongoing ignorance of Ramming Speed's dominance is the biggest upset since their failure to nerf Unseen Saboteur, and that is in no way biased by the fact I have 3 of the latter.
Jaraxxus has bigger problems than just Sac Pac. Zephrys was definitely the final nail in his coffin, but he was virtually unplayable even before SoU. Between him limiting your HP to 15 max and costing 9 mana, he's just too much of a liability.
Is anyone else frustrated how much Early AoO meta looks like the pre-rotation meta?
Rez Priest, Big Druid, Face Hunter, Highlander Hunter, Highlander Mage, Galakrond Rogue, Highlander Rogue, and Control Warlock all just incorporated a few new cards into an existing archetype. The Pirate Warrior and Galakrond Warlock decks listed above have literally no new cards. Demon Hunter, Spell Mage, Totem Shaman, and Libram Paladin are basically the only new decks--and the latter is almost unplayable weak.
Unless they have 2 Karmas in hand/board--then they can start double-cast Karma's Insight of Ages to spawn 4 random spells plus shuffle 2 additional Karma into their deck.
Hopefully they address that before this expansion launches; otherwise Maokai will just lose to any Karma decks--probably to the point of being unplayable, since she's in all the popular control decks right now.
I can't guarantee that what I'm about to write is how it will actually work, but my read is that the intention is for each last whisper to only spawn one future shark which in turn has a last whisper that can spawn one future shark and so on. I.e., if your opponent attacked with an ephemeral and that revived 2 previously-killed sharks and then you Purified one and killed it sans LW, then the next time your opponent attacked with an ephemeral it would only revive 1 shark (specifically, the that wasn't purified).
If they instead got 3 under the above scenario, that would be insanely busted and quickly exploited, so I can't imagine that was the intention.
Awesome--thanks Flux
The Draven change is really good--most players don't even try to level him up any more as he can be so difficult. With this, you still need to put in some effort and play around tricks but at least you can get both hits in a single turn.
The Kato, Seer, and Wyrding Stones HP increments I think are all too minor at first glance, but we'll see. The Crimson Curator buff from 2 -> 3 seemed too minor at first too but it totally turned that card around.
Shady Character really needs an archetype to support him moreso than consolation for when he fizzles. And for all I know, there is a good deck already that we just haven't discovered/popularized. Including him in the patch notes MIGHT inspire someone to discover said deck, but on its own that 2 extra HP won't mean jack.
Blood for Blood is still awful. At most, it should cost 1 and it needs either to be Burst or not require survival or able to target enemy followers. I am simply dumbstruck that the same people who thought Fading Memories should just 0 mana : Burst also though B4B should be 2 mana : Fast.
I agree that these numbers sound super discouraging, but I have to believe Riot did some internal testing to generate them. Plus: they are just numbers--very easy to patch/tune, and I've been extremely impressed with their commitment to ensuring no archetype completely fails (*cough* librium paladin *couch*).
I dunno; the free 2/1 challengers aren't anything to sneeze at. Plus I think the ephemeral tag is actually a boon here: it would probably die regardless, but now it also enables sharks and Hecarim. I admit he's not looking like a top-tier candidate, but I'm definitely seeing the potential for some fun off-meta decks.
Really? I'm afraid its too much. 4/4 Quick Attack for 4 mana would be good enough to see some play on its own, but then you add on L2 Yasuo's potential synergies with Minotaur, Roar, Yone, etc... If you're going to have that potential for insane upside, then IMHO you need to also give your opponent opportunities to remove Yasuo, and for most decks that means 3 HP. I'm predicting they are actually going to ultimately revert this buff.
Sort of. You still need to level her up, which isn't trivial. And she needs to survive on board long enough for your mystic shot to resolve, which isn't trivial for as popular as Single Combat, Vengeance, Will of Ionia, Detain, and Noxian Guillotine are. And finally: she only does it once per round, so you can still buff afterwards to poke damage.
It's a super strong and exciting ability, but I don't think it will be broken. I predict she will actually combo better with Noxus than P&Z, since Noxus has lots of cheap hard-to-prevent nexus poke like Precious Pet, Saboteur, and Vlad.
Counter point: I threw together one of Blizzard's premade decklists, substituted the 3 cards I was missing, and then went 8-0 for the night. If this class isn't OP then I'm incredible at this game, which I know isn't true because I generally have a ~45% winrate.
Lol no. This class is just insane. You say most other classes haven't figured out how to beat it yet; I say DH hasn't even figure out what the most optimal decklist is yet.
I'm curious if anyone is willing to say they've had regular success going the 'shroom/Timo route. I always fiercely avoid it since I've read comments implying it was just bad.