We're definitely expecting a lot of stuff about the Ruined King, on Friday; TBD exactly how much of it spills into LoR.
For everyone not read-up: a big part of Shadow Isle's lore is this arrogant king that basically caused The Ruination and black mist, making SI what it is today. His name is Viego, and he's going to be the next new champ in League of Legends released this month. LoL has also just revealed some new skins, "Ruined Karma", "Ruined Draven", and "Ruined Shyvana". We also know there's a big RPG-style single player game, The Ruined King, coming out early this year too which seems like it's going to be all about him. Finally, if you watch to the end there's a long scene of Senna (her backstory is she's killed by Thresh and her soul is imprisioned in his lamp but miraculously makes it out and is somewhat reborn / somewhat undead) hearing the following:
"The Mist...he's close...ruination...VIEGO!"
Personally, my money is on another cross-game event built around TRK -- and I think that'd be pretty cool.
I've seen a few people try to use it via discard to mixed success (e.g., Draven's Ax, Get Excited!).
I think there's also potential for a "i'm just going to have a lot of high attack + low health units, play this, and then you either don't block and die now or lose your entire board and die on my next attack" style of play -- I just haven't seen a deck that can do that consistently yet.
So, is the size of LoR’s team appropriate, or are penny-pinchers in management keeping it too small? I would like to believe that a game as successful as this could handle basic balance changes, etc. around the holidays without overworking their employees
I don't think we know the size of the entire team, but Live Design, the group responsible for balance patches, is two people: Steve Rubin and Dave (I forget his last name). Steve mentions that he has other duties as well; I'm not sure about Dave.
If that sounds small, compare to Hearthstone who has no dedicated Live Design team and has to pull developers off other projects whenever they do a balance patch. Candidly, that's why when Hearthstone "balances" a card, they usually just make a popular card unplayable -- that doesn't take as much labor as tuning a card to be fair but still viable, or improving unpopular cards.
IMHO, the biggest problem with Arena mode is the cost of entry. When I was playing HS daily, I never played Arena except when I was awarded a free token because I was afraid of going <3 wins and "losing value". Especially once I learned that there were 3rd party PC tools that helped other players optimize their draft picks (I was exclusively mobile at that time) -- if you're not going to go through the same effort, you're essentially playing handicapped.
I know they can't just make the mode entirely free and keep the same rewards, but it seems like they could do something to make it a more casual friendly.
The tokens should have taunt or rush, this card is so bad. It doesn't matter if you can summon 2 in one turn when they can just ignore it.
It still would be terrible it would need that ,with easier requirement to maybe see some play
It's a cool concept, but I think they really dropped the ball on "Who is this for?"
If it's for aggro / SMOrc: you need to be better than just a standard Pirate Warrior or Galakrond Warrior deck, which it clearly isn't.
If it's strictly value for control decks, then you really need to provide better value than a couple of 4|3s -- I'm thinking more like the 6|6s that Jaraxxas provides, and even then he isn't competitive enough to see play.
If it's for midrange, then you need to do the delicate balancing act of making sure the quest is quick enough it to respond to aggro while still powerful enough to pressure control & combo decks.
But as is, Hack the System doesn't do any of those things. :-(
I wouldn't mind a format that is based around a rotating theme. E.g., maybe they have the theme be Explorers for ~3 months, and you are allowed to use cards from Saviors of Uldum and League of Explorers and a few select others that synergize with them. Somewhat comparable to MtG's "blocks", if you're familiar with that format.
I've always been a little sad that Blizzard puts so much effort into lore and backstory and aesthetics, but it all goes to the wayside if the cards themselves can't beat whatever the standard meta is at that time.
I wouldn't say that it's awful, but it definitely needs some work and fine tuning.
I hope they can balance it by putting some treasures into different buckets to prevent a few broken combos (like Cannibalism and the Swamp Creature one). I also hope they ban some more cards. I'm sick and tired of facing C'Thun, the Shattered every second game.
It's completely new, so Blizzard at least has the opportunity to collect some data, see what works, and tweak accordingly.
I too have been playing a lot more expeditions lately (although for me its to progress the prismatic quests), and I would say overall my experience is much more positive than yours. While I have unexpected lost games due to my opponent having more luck than I will play around in a limited format (e.g., Fiora + 2 barriers in the first 5 rounds, The Ruination, etc), on average I'd say most games come down to both players making the best with what they have and very limited "cheese".
Something's funky with this one's data since the average turns are shown as 1.5. Despite the amount of ramp Druids have, I still suspect you're not done at that point, at least not with a break-even winrate the deck has.
Perhaps you're just demoralizing your opponents into an immediate surrender? ;-)
It's definitely throwing a huge amount of RNG into your game on both sides, but I do like that it feels so different from most of the other decks out there right now. I've been thinking about writing up a deck spotlight on it.
You can't revert them back? luckily i've read this article before trying it, i don't like cosmetic stuffs on cards
As of this writing it's permanent; however Riot is extremely receptive to community feedback and has said they will probably make the option to disable it in the future.
Assuming we're talking about guardians: it's hard to say for sure without knowing which ones are in question but some of them have been part of event rewards. I think all of those have required purchasing the event pass to obtain them. Can't think of any other that could be considered as rewards.
^ This mostly. On very rare occasions they are available for free under certain circumstances -- namely, Moonstruck Poro was given to everyone who played in the open beta and Rainbow Poro was available to anyone who logged in during a certain time period back in July to celebrate IDAHOT 2020.
Wait... do we actually have more builds for zoe who is expected to be... not good, than we have for viktor?
Its a crazy world we live in i guess... its like you would build more teemo decks than twisted fate decks just for the memes.
But hey proably I am very exeptional with my taste and maybe the majority of players do not care about competetiveness...
Keep in mind 4 of these 8 decks are Zoe + Viktor, so only 4 for Zoe without Viktor versus 6 for Viktor without Zoe. We did it like that because we are expecting Viktor to be more independent, but ultimately time will tell.
We're definitely expecting a lot of stuff about the Ruined King, on Friday; TBD exactly how much of it spills into LoR.
For everyone not read-up: a big part of Shadow Isle's lore is this arrogant king that basically caused The Ruination and black mist, making SI what it is today. His name is Viego, and he's going to be the next new champ in League of Legends released this month. LoL has also just revealed some new skins, "Ruined Karma", "Ruined Draven", and "Ruined Shyvana". We also know there's a big RPG-style single player game, The Ruined King, coming out early this year too which seems like it's going to be all about him. Finally, if you watch to the end there's a long scene of Senna (her backstory is she's killed by Thresh and her soul is imprisioned in his lamp but miraculously makes it out and is somewhat reborn / somewhat undead) hearing the following:
"The Mist...he's close...ruination...VIEGO!"
Personally, my money is on another cross-game event built around TRK -- and I think that'd be pretty cool.
I've seen a few people try to use it via discard to mixed success (e.g., Draven's Ax, Get Excited!).
I think there's also potential for a "i'm just going to have a lot of high attack + low health units, play this, and then you either don't block and die now or lose your entire board and die on my next attack" style of play -- I just haven't seen a deck that can do that consistently yet.
I like that Rhino is soliciting / recognizing novel decks from the community -- that's really cool!
I don't think we know the size of the entire team, but Live Design, the group responsible for balance patches, is two people: Steve Rubin and Dave (I forget his last name). Steve mentions that he has other duties as well; I'm not sure about Dave.
If that sounds small, compare to Hearthstone who has no dedicated Live Design team and has to pull developers off other projects whenever they do a balance patch. Candidly, that's why when Hearthstone "balances" a card, they usually just make a popular card unplayable -- that doesn't take as much labor as tuning a card to be fair but still viable, or improving unpopular cards.
IMHO, the biggest problem with Arena mode is the cost of entry. When I was playing HS daily, I never played Arena except when I was awarded a free token because I was afraid of going <3 wins and "losing value". Especially once I learned that there were 3rd party PC tools that helped other players optimize their draft picks (I was exclusively mobile at that time) -- if you're not going to go through the same effort, you're essentially playing handicapped.
I know they can't just make the mode entirely free and keep the same rewards, but it seems like they could do something to make it a more casual friendly.
I got something similar today:
Activate Augment OR
Play Games (Wins count double)
0/10 OR
0/6
I would guess moreso they don't want players with small collections to feel forced to craft new cards or reroll just to clear a quest.
It's a cool concept, but I think they really dropped the ball on "Who is this for?"
But as is, Hack the System doesn't do any of those things. :-(
Recurring Villain
I wouldn't mind a format that is based around a rotating theme. E.g., maybe they have the theme be Explorers for ~3 months, and you are allowed to use cards from Saviors of Uldum and League of Explorers and a few select others that synergize with them. Somewhat comparable to MtG's "blocks", if you're familiar with that format.
I've always been a little sad that Blizzard puts so much effort into lore and backstory and aesthetics, but it all goes to the wayside if the cards themselves can't beat whatever the standard meta is at that time.
It's completely new, so Blizzard at least has the opportunity to collect some data, see what works, and tweak accordingly.
I too have been playing a lot more expeditions lately (although for me its to progress the prismatic quests), and I would say overall my experience is much more positive than yours. While I have unexpected lost games due to my opponent having more luck than I will play around in a limited format (e.g., Fiora + 2 barriers in the first 5 rounds, The Ruination, etc), on average I'd say most games come down to both players making the best with what they have and very limited "cheese".
Perhaps you're just demoralizing your opponents into an immediate surrender? ;-)
Great "Year in Review" summary, Demon!
I'm still surprised they are nerfing Braum now; seems like if they hadn't done yet they would be OK just waiting until he rotates out next expansion.
It's definitely throwing a huge amount of RNG into your game on both sides, but I do like that it feels so different from most of the other decks out there right now. I've been thinking about writing up a deck spotlight on it.
Where you under the impression there's any other kind? ;-)
https://twitter.com/Gamebreak0r/status/1341009214169374725?s=20
As of this writing it's permanent; however Riot is extremely receptive to community feedback and has said they will probably make the option to disable it in the future.
^ This mostly. On very rare occasions they are available for free under certain circumstances -- namely, Moonstruck Poro was given to everyone who played in the open beta and Rainbow Poro was available to anyone who logged in during a certain time period back in July to celebrate IDAHOT 2020.
Keep in mind 4 of these 8 decks are Zoe + Viktor, so only 4 for Zoe without Viktor versus 6 for Viktor without Zoe. We did it like that because we are expecting Viktor to be more independent, but ultimately time will tell.