The whole point of Egghead Researcher is to provide Demacia decks with more dragons. I'm baffled as to why people are trying to build non-Targon decks without it.
I tried theorycrafting this with Demacia/Shyvana last night without luck -- not enough dragons. I might try again with Targon -- I think that could go much better.
Steven Rubin previously tweeted something about how the latency between when they decide to commit a change and when it actually makes it into a patch is something like 2 weeks; it's likely they didn't have a chance to respond in time for it to be incorporated into this one.
Now if you think the card is bad, just say so and explain why. Now back to the card text...
Alright: I think it's a bad card for the same reason that Terror of the Tides doesn't get any play -- it's too much "win more". Successful deep decks have cut their sea monsters to little more than Devourer of the DeepBADCARDNAME, Abyssal Eye, and Nautilus because really those are the cards that will change a near loss into win; if you ever reach a point where you can play Terror and have enough sea monsters out to make a difference you most likely would have won eventually even without it.
Similarly: Kadregrin I'm sure will make some hilarious YouTube videos (I'm already hearing Saucy Mailman's uncontrollable giggles in my head), but he costs even more to cast and his effect -- while great on paper -- is even less likely to instantly close out a game the same way Terror / Fearsome does.
I find it very interesting that every region got an epic landmark except Demacia, who got Kadregrin the Infernal and Ionia, who got Trevor Snoozebottom. I can get Kadregrin -- he synergizes with Shyvana so there's incentive to release him now -- but Snoozebottom seems rather lame which makes me think Ionia's landmark is really badass and they made a conscious decision to delay it until December for some reason.
2 mana 3/2 challenger is very good. Unfortunately, the challenger tag is conditional and without it, the card isn't strong enough to make the cut, so this card is getting play exclusively in dragon decks. Normally that couldn't be a deal killer, except we already have some very competitive dragon decks that basically have Herald of Dragons as the only 2-drop and go for more of a ramp / catch-up-in-midgame approach so I'm not sure they want this card. I'll tell you what, though: I can't wait to see!
If this was Demacia, I would 5-star this card without reservation.
In Noxus, it's a shade less convincing. Noxus has a lot of high-attack / low-health units, so the possibility of having them chump themselves dead is very real. You also lose direct access to strike-loving units like dragons, Garen, and Radiant Guardian. You can still splash those units as your second region, of course, but you usually want more synergies before you commit an entire deck build around and I'm not immediately seeing them.
If the cards were from your deck, this would landmark would be busted. If the cards were reduced mana cost, or perhaps if they were guaranteed 3 mana or less so you were less likely to get unplayable cards, then maybe. But there are a LOT of substandard cards this could generate, AND you always discard your hand. I'm not feeling this.
I can't ever imagine running this AND Deny -- that would be excessive. I also can't imagine running this and NOT Deny -- you'd pay 2 extra mana to ensure protection against Warmother's Call, Vengeance, etc. So maybe like a 2x Deny + 1× Nopeify!, but honestly I'm just not seeing the point.
Just a reminder: the unreleased cards are in the deckbuilder, so you can theorycraft to your heart's content. Or if you want to check out what other people are scheming up, you can either click on the individual cards to see "5 Hot Runeterra Decks with Card X" or go Menu -> Decks -> Contains Card.
Since so many landmarks are shaping up to be the types of cards you'd build a deck around, it's nice to see them also provide a tutor to make them more consistent. At 3 mana it's more expensive than Entreat which sees no play outside of Fiora buff decks, but given this card can also be used to destroy an opposing landmark I'm guessing it will actually get a fair amount of play.
Like all alt win conditions, this card is going to get a lot of attention regardless of how viable it is.
I share many of the concerns that it's too powerful / affordable / easy to activate, but given how well Riot has predicted numbers lately (everyone thought Taric would be impossible to flip at 7 triggers, but he's actually surprisingly easy) combined with the super-specific number "22" makes me think they've done a lot of playtesting/finetuning around this already.
I don't like it. It does effectively allow you to "chain" Behold 8+, which I guess is a good thing; however you're paying a lot of mana for mid-game ramp and maybe 1-2 draws with no impact on board state. I just can't help but think there are existing popular Warmothers decks that already do ramp better, usually a la 3x Wyrding Stones and 3x Catalyst of Aeons.
For those interested: it does look like the Targon expansion is dedicated to Soraka, so I would anticipate Level 28 to be that free copy of her.
Great point! I also question why people are so bullish on Dragonguard Lieutenant but not on Egghead Researcher or Stony Suppressor.
I tried theorycrafting this with Demacia/Shyvana last night without luck -- not enough dragons. I might try again with Targon -- I think that could go much better.
You meant "Rexxar" instead of "Rengar", I presume? ;-)
Saw the subject on this thread from the homepage and clicked it, thinking there was some LoR/LoL content I missed. :-P
Steven Rubin previously tweeted something about how the latency between when they decide to commit a change and when it actually makes it into a patch is something like 2 weeks; it's likely they didn't have a chance to respond in time for it to be incorporated into this one.
Alright: I think it's a bad card for the same reason that Terror of the Tides doesn't get any play -- it's too much "win more". Successful deep decks have cut their sea monsters to little more than Devourer of the DeepBADCARDNAME, Abyssal Eye, and Nautilus because really those are the cards that will change a near loss into win; if you ever reach a point where you can play Terror and have enough sea monsters out to make a difference you most likely would have won eventually even without it.
Similarly: Kadregrin I'm sure will make some hilarious YouTube videos (I'm already hearing Saucy Mailman's uncontrollable giggles in my head), but he costs even more to cast and his effect -- while great on paper -- is even less likely to instantly close out a game the same way Terror / Fearsome does.
I find it very interesting that every region got an epic landmark except Demacia, who got Kadregrin the Infernal and Ionia, who got Trevor Snoozebottom. I can get Kadregrin -- he synergizes with Shyvana so there's incentive to release him now -- but Snoozebottom seems rather lame which makes me think Ionia's landmark is really badass and they made a conscious decision to delay it until December for some reason.
This came to my attention too late for the article, but here's a neat TK + Soraka deck that NicMakesPlays tweeted on Friday.
Side note: Nic, why you no save deck to DB? :*-(
As much as I love dragons, I'm slightly underwhelmed by these specific cards
The lone exception is Eclipse; I really the utility and could see him easily squeezing into existing dragon decks.
I really enjoyed the Spirit Blossom event, so even though K-Pop isn't my usual jive I'm looking forward to this.
2 mana 3/2 challenger is very good. Unfortunately, the challenger tag is conditional and without it, the card isn't strong enough to make the cut, so this card is getting play exclusively in dragon decks. Normally that couldn't be a deal killer, except we already have some very competitive dragon decks that basically have Herald of Dragons as the only 2-drop and go for more of a ramp / catch-up-in-midgame approach so I'm not sure they want this card. I'll tell you what, though: I can't wait to see!
If this was Demacia, I would 5-star this card without reservation.
In Noxus, it's a shade less convincing. Noxus has a lot of high-attack / low-health units, so the possibility of having them chump themselves dead is very real. You also lose direct access to strike-loving units like dragons, Garen, and Radiant Guardian. You can still splash those units as your second region, of course, but you usually want more synergies before you commit an entire deck build around and I'm not immediately seeing them.
If the cards were from your deck, this would landmark would be busted. If the cards were reduced mana cost, or perhaps if they were guaranteed 3 mana or less so you were less likely to get unplayable cards, then maybe. But there are a LOT of substandard cards this could generate, AND you always discard your hand. I'm not feeling this.
I can't ever imagine running this AND Deny -- that would be excessive. I also can't imagine running this and NOT Deny -- you'd pay 2 extra mana to ensure protection against Warmother's Call, Vengeance, etc. So maybe like a 2x Deny + 1× Nopeify!, but honestly I'm just not seeing the point.
Looks really good!
The only thing I don't like is no Broadbacked Protector -- I think that card is going to be auto-include for any 3x Soraka + 3x Star Spring deck.
Just a reminder: the unreleased cards are in the deckbuilder, so you can theorycraft to your heart's content. Or if you want to check out what other people are scheming up, you can either click on the individual cards to see "5 Hot Runeterra Decks with Card X" or go Menu -> Decks -> Contains Card.
A few cool theorycrafts I've noticed:
Deck ID Not Found
Since so many landmarks are shaping up to be the types of cards you'd build a deck around, it's nice to see them also provide a tutor to make them more consistent. At 3 mana it's more expensive than Entreat which sees no play outside of Fiora buff decks, but given this card can also be used to destroy an opposing landmark I'm guessing it will actually get a fair amount of play.
Like all alt win conditions, this card is going to get a lot of attention regardless of how viable it is.
I share many of the concerns that it's too powerful / affordable / easy to activate, but given how well Riot has predicted numbers lately (everyone thought Taric would be impossible to flip at 7 triggers, but he's actually surprisingly easy) combined with the super-specific number "22" makes me think they've done a lot of playtesting/finetuning around this already.
Will this card finally make Leona + Yasuo a viable partnership? Probably not, but it's fun to pretend.
What I'm really excited about are frostbite shenanigans. Winter's Breath + this card = good OTK potential.
I don't like it. It does effectively allow you to "chain" Behold 8+, which I guess is a good thing; however you're paying a lot of mana for mid-game ramp and maybe 1-2 draws with no impact on board state. I just can't help but think there are existing popular Warmothers decks that already do ramp better, usually a la 3x Wyrding Stones and 3x Catalyst of Aeons.