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guts and bolts
May 16, 2015

Have you heard the Good News?

DrOgreface posted:

If I’m starting up and wanting to build a Freljord/Noxus frostbite tempo deck, does it matter which region I level up first?
Freljord. You need Ashe to get that deck running and the Noxus cards you'll need aren't any rarer than Rare, so manufacturing enough shards/wildcards to get them is relatively simple. Leveling Freljord to 8 and 7-winning a draft puts you well on the way to getting that deck rolling.

Rhasa gets worse but still provides insane value. Ledros would be playable at 10 with no other changes made to him, and instead they made him 9 with a power increase to match. Wraithcaller lost Fearsome, which is vital, but he still provides a good amount of value in terms of efficiency and the body he summons will still have Fearsome. Hm. Those don't feel like they'll shake the meta overly much. Lux and Yasuo (!!) were incrementally buffed, but I'm not sure either change moves the needle much - I think Lux is still somewhat mediocre, and I think Yasuo is still pretty good, but more on Yas in a minute. Crimson Curator's buff is neat in concept but won't matter until more Crimson units exist to provide variety and encouragement to make decks based around Vlad. Jeweled Protector, Arena Battlecaster, and Tortured Prodigy buffs all make them more palatable in draft, but none of those changes make me excited to slot them in to a constructed deck.

On the whole, I still feel pretty solid about my prediction that many of the buffs would be incremental at best, and the focal point would be on the nerfs. Because holy moly.

Deny to 4 feels crushing for a lot of decks, and was wholly unnecessary. This seems like a "enough people complained about it, so we caved in" balance change rather than something made for the good of the game. Really rough stuff. Back to Back to 6 is probably a good move... but wow, does that limit a lot of teching options to punish open attacking in many different shells. Kinkou Lifeblade got hit and that's good - that card is ridiculous on its face, and should probably just strictly not exist, but it's curious that they hit Lifeblade and left Shadow Assassin alone. Inspiring Mentor is probably turbo loving dead, and paired with the Deny nerf, that hurts Yasuo tempo/control concepts real bad. Protecting Yasuo is much, much harder if you can't make him beefier or at least prevent him from dying so fast, so now you're likely to need to hold him until he levels up a la Ezreal, which makes the overall pace of that shell significantly worse.

If I had to guess I'd say that P&Z is the least-collected faction in Ranked, so I doubt we'll see too many rapid sub-Gold changes to the meta in terms of that, but I agree with mistaya and No Wave that they'll be showing up in droves before long. Ezreal and Heimer in particular seem like they're getting a solid boost from almost every change present, and even Jinx discard aggro shells will be happy with Deny to 4. That said, the two reasons why I think they put control on their "watch list"? Ezreal... and Karma. Ezreal in particular was already an excellent Champion, and now that it costs you double to stop Mystic Shot as opposed to casting it, it's significantly easier to play around (and impacts unit curve significantly, as you can't just fill spell mana and hold it for your "free Deny" mana). Karma becomes totally insane at round 10 as it is, and with Elusives getting whacked and Fearsomes seeing a dip, her two worst matchups improve pretty dramatically. I'd throw her into the pile of "get ready for this poo poo my man" along with Ez and Heimer.

Cards I was surprised weren't buffed: Kalista, Vladimir, Winter's Breath, most of the 8+ cost named followers (Jae/Ren/Corina/Tianna)
Cards I was suprised weren't nerfed: Hecarim, Glimpse Beyond, Frenzied Skitterer
Biggest winners: P&Z decks, Ezreal, Heimerdinger, and Karma
Biggest losers: non-Elusive Ionian decks, Ashe Frostbite decks (by virtue of Ezreal/Heimer now becoming a de facto top tier option), Demacia as a splash option instead of as the primary faction

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Studio
Jan 15, 2008



Heimer requires protection, and losing Deny at 3 might have a huge impact on him for that reason. Karma and Ezreal much less so, since you can play Karma on 9/10 to use her as a win condition, and Ezreal is quite often used for his level up state more than his (somewhat easily blocked) attacks.

Locke Dunnegan
Apr 25, 2005

Respectable Bespectacled Receptacle
If I had all the cards I'd play Lux in every deck, especially with Deny going up in cost. Big boy spells PWISH PEW PEW BZORP

guts and bolts
May 16, 2015

Have you heard the Good News?

Studio posted:

Heimer requires protection, and losing Deny at 3 might have a huge impact on him for that reason. Karma and Ezreal much less so, since you can play Karma on 9/10 to use her as a win condition, and Ezreal is quite often used for his level up state more than his (somewhat easily blocked) attacks.
I basically agree. Ezreal becomes better because Deny at 4 hurts attempts to stop Mystic Shot, Get Excited!, and Statikk Shock, which gives him even more options to kill you after level up. Mystic Shot is a flat 4 to the Nexus and Get Excited! becomes a flat 5 that you probably straight up have to stop if he's been collecting Bursts all game, or else 20-0 becomes a legitimate threat. At 4 health on level up he's invulnerable to cheap removal upon hitting the board - you're basically stuck trying to Vengeance him or pulling him with a Challenger because he's never going to be on the front line. Most Ez players will level him up (which is itself easier with Deny being at 4, because now Statikk Shock is way more playable) and play him when they have the button, so you need to weather the storm of his first turn hitting the decks. If you want to try to Vengeance him straight off and stop a pending Get Excited! or Mystic Shot you're staring at 11 mana that is spoken for before you do anything else, and obviously the Bursts still happen, and Ezreal only costs 3 mana if they need to recast him. Timely deployments of Deny to prevent him from getting two targets or more toward his level up was somewhat stopping up the Ez/Freljord wombo combo deck, and that just got appreciably worse as a counter strategy.

Karma, as I said earlier (and before she was showing up on DoR everywhere!! Look at me!!), is already extremely good and until very recently wildly underappreciated, and while she liked having Deny in a lot of shells that ran her, it was by no means entirely necessary for the decks to function. With Deny weakened, stopping her crazy nonsense goes from difficult to probably impossible. The sibling is super pumped to continue rolling his Karma/Lux deck because it basically just strictly improved compared to where it was before. Dark times ahead my man.

That's also basically why I threw in the comment about the "control on watchlist" being owed to Ezreal and Karma. I have a bad feeling that you're about to see significantly more of deck types that run at least one or even both of these Champions, and Heimerdinger is probably worried that Deny is at 4 but I don't think that will keep him out of the meta entirely. As a result, I think Ashe Frostbite archetypes are going to see a dip in playability in the upper half of Ranked (Gold+).

Lux now can't get Culling Strike'd by default so that's good, but there's a lot of other stuff about her that I think kinda sucks. I'm still not sure if Ezreal/Lux is worthwhile. But paired with Karma and getting access to Greenglade Caretaker, she's marginally more playable, so that's fine. I think she should re-gain Barrier on level up for a slight buff, or I'd like to have seen her revert stat-wise but go down 1 in cost, but oh well.

dead in real life
Jun 17, 2012

guts and bolts posted:

Ledros would be playable at 10 with no other changes made to him, and instead they made him 9 with a power increase to match.

I mean, would he be theoretically playable in a meta where you just need an infinite value engine at the end regardless of tempo, sure. And I think that's what the card should be geared towards. But make no mistake, in this meta Ledros would be pretty trash at 10

The Ledros nerf is more than fine, and greatly reduces his effectiveness in aggressive decks, which I think was the main goal.

Studio
Jan 15, 2008



I primarily run a Karma/Ezreal control deck right now, so I'm fully aware how of how powerful they are :v:. I have a feeling the Ezreal Icebeam deck will be EXTREMELY good, since it didn't really utilize any of the nerfed cards, and it's going to be pretty hard to finish it off with the weaker end game of SI. He straight up could be the best champion in the game, as long as an extremely hyperfast meta doesn't take over.

Karma is much harder to place, since it really depends on what cards are paired with her as a win condition. Early game SI is pretty unnerfed, so a P&Z + Ionia deck might still get run over by the amount of fearsome the deck has.

I'm listening to Mogwai's vid right now though, he might have some Good Hot Takes.


Edit: Something to note is that Wraithcaller might be worse with how much the end game of SI has been slowed down. If people try to fill the 7 mana slot with non-SI cards, it becomes slightly more likely to blank on the Wraithcaller proc.

Studio fucked around with this message at 02:42 on Feb 18, 2020

guts and bolts
May 16, 2015

Have you heard the Good News?

Studio posted:

I primarily run a Karma/Ezreal control deck right now, so I'm fully aware how of how powerful they are :v:.
My fault, didn't know. Would you oppose throwing your deck code/a link up so I can check it out? I've been torn on what to play in an Ezreal/Karma deck myself.

Studio
Jan 15, 2008



guts and bolts posted:

My fault, didn't know. Would you oppose throwing your deck code/a link up so I can check it out? I've been torn on what to play in an Ezreal/Karma deck myself.

I'm only in gold, and I don't think this deck is particularly good. I do know that if I hit 10 mana, I win pretty handily.

CEBACAICGEEQCBABDMPSIJZLGQ3DUAQBAECDKAYBAIBCSOIBAIAQEAJY

guts and bolts
May 16, 2015

Have you heard the Good News?

Studio posted:

I'm only in gold, and I don't think this deck is particularly good. I do know that if I hit 10 mana, I win pretty handily.

CEBACAICGEEQCBABDMPSIJZLGQ3DUAQBAECDKAYBAIBCSOIBAIAQEAJY
My man I am not a pro. This is super helpful. Thank you. I actually am super into people just generally posting more decks and deck tech in general, because my inane effortposting looks embarrassing otherwise

Monathin
Sep 1, 2011

?????????
?

I suppose if no one else is gonna try and make Ez/Lux playable I might as well give it a go.

Hauki
May 11, 2010


I just opened two kalista back to back last night out of region boxes, so I was hoping for some good news today. Maybe I’ll mess around with it anyways, but she looks real bad against ez etc.

guts and bolts posted:

My man I am not a pro. This is super helpful. Thank you. I actually am super into people just generally posting more decks and deck tech in general, because my inane effortposting looks embarrassing otherwise

Nah, I like random effort posting for pretty much the same reasons you just enumerated

Chernabog
Apr 16, 2007



Since I got 2X Ezreal I crafted one more and started experimenting. First I started with SI for all the the targeted removal but it became too SI oriented, so I moved on to Lux + Ezra, I really like it so far. Demacia obviously doesn't have that many enemy-target spells but Lux basically completes Ezreal's condition on her own and the Demacia buffs work really well with elusives.

Studio
Jan 15, 2008



guts and bolts posted:

My man I am not a pro. This is super helpful. Thank you. I actually am super into people just generally posting more decks and deck tech in general, because my inane effortposting looks embarrassing otherwise

I think the weirdest chunk of deck right now is probably the Chempunk Pickpockets, but that's exclusively a "I don't want to die to Fearsome" card.

guts and bolts
May 16, 2015

Have you heard the Good News?

Monathin posted:

I suppose if no one else is gonna try and make Ez/Lux playable I might as well give it a go.
Oh I've tried, I just can't make it work. You don't get access to any of the Freljord Bursts, which are all pretty good if you're going for a control wombo combo, because your factions are already spoken for. Demacia has 9 different Burst spells, but they are largely niche in terms of what they do for the deck Ezreal likes to be in or are about to be nerfed (Chain Vest, Mobilize, En Garde, Radiant Strike, Riposte, Prismatic Barrier, Back to Back), and without trying to be THE AUTHORITY ON THE SUBJECT your star here is absolutely Ezreal. Purify is the only universally almost-always-good Burst spell Demacia has access to in that it doesn't require you to have your own units in play or in hand, and while Purify is very good I'm not sure it's worth what you lose in Brittle Steel/Flash Freeze/Harsh Winds just by themselves. You also have no way to reliably clear the board in the face of cheap low-health aggro since Avalanche is gone, so you're at the mercy somewhat of how they draw early if you're against spiders aggro or even (probably) post-nerf Fearsome aggro.

That said, if you go for a kind of hybrid concept you can maybe skate by. Assembly Bot becomes a pretty big threat in Ezreal/Lux if you have the Bursts to back him up, and he can persist longer with access to Stand Alone, Riposte, and Prismatic Barrier in addition to the other P&Z poo poo you'll be running. You don't have Deny, however weakened it is, to save him from a Vengeance or other types of stiff removal, so there's that, but he can probably bully around some early game stuff if you can find the right formula for the deck. Plaza Guardian can also be employed here to great effect if you need to manufacture a beefy boardstate quickly, and Demacia's suite of buffs makes him even scarier on top of being ludicrously inexpensive in most games. You also gain access to Detain/Purify combo which (as the thread confirmed) deletes problem units that aren't subject to your cheaper P&Z burn options, so if the game goes slightly longer than you'd like you're not irrevocably screwed.

Something like this is where I've been starting from but I could also be way off base. It's fun and steals wins sometimes but can't compete with tuned aggro decks super well. I've included and cut Eager Apprentice here and there while testing it out, I tried to make Corina Veraza a thing for weeks, I've messed with adding and subtracting Whump units to generate some freebie Burst shroomspam, and toyed with absolutely dumb poo poo like Counterfeit Copies, but it usually takes away from Ezreal's ability to seal the game upon level up even more than this concept already does. You might could just drop Assembly Bot and Plaza Guardian entirely and include some other, better suite of units, I'm just not sure what the gently caress those would be. If you figure it out please share, because I kinda want Ez/Lux to work pretty badly.

guts and bolts fucked around with this message at 03:44 on Feb 18, 2020

Dias
Feb 20, 2011

by sebmojo
I still don't think the Jinx discard shell works, which sucks because I wanna go VERY fast and Jinx wincon is "go VERY VERY fast". She's the best champion that doesn't quite work right now and I don't know if it's a good thing if she actually does.

guts and bolts
May 16, 2015

Have you heard the Good News?

Dias posted:

I still don't think the Jinx discard shell works, which sucks because I wanna go VERY fast and Jinx wincon is "go VERY VERY fast". She's the best champion that doesn't quite work right now and I don't know if it's a good thing if she actually does.
Jinx is fun and is fine for game health in my opinion. If you ball so hard that you get her to level up, you are one removal card away from essentially having forfeited the game, because the deck straight up does not function post-Jinx level and pre-you winning the game if she's dead. Losing all your loving cards to get rockets is only worth it if you can fire off at least two of them, and against some decks that is pretty dicey.

That said Draven is undervalued in this specific context. He will absolutely truck a lot of units early on, so they will spend mana and cards to kill him at all costs. I do think he could stand for a buff - maybe he gives you a Spinning Axe on play and at the start of every round instead of play/strike - but he actually does a surprising amount of work toward establishing an early aggro pace. Get Excited! is way more playable if Deny is 4 mana, and with Elusives getting hit it makes some of the other more aggressively statted early game bodies more attractive, like Sump Dredger (especially after eating a Vision to cast him, since he still gets the buff). If they have to spend 3+ mana to kill your Sump Dredger or immediately soak up 4~5 damage, that's pretty good, and he can block, so he provides some value compared to the Noxian suite of RDW boys.

Of note is that Jinx/Draven's cards were not affected directly by these patch notes at all, and a lot of the rest of the deck is indirectly buffed by Deny getting worse. I piloted Jinx/Draven to Gold, and while that isn't exactly spectacular, it's not terrible considering how often the deck gets trashed here and elsewhere. Shadow Isles removal was the major problem before and will remain the major problem afterward, but it remains to be seen if people are going to stick with SI in such overwhelming fashion. I think it works.

Evrart Claire
Jan 11, 2008
edit: Wrong thread!

Dias
Feb 20, 2011

by sebmojo

guts and bolts posted:

Jinx is fun and is fine for game health in my opinion. If you ball so hard that you get her to level up, you are one removal card away from essentially having forfeited the game, because the deck straight up does not function post-Jinx level and pre-you winning the game if she's dead. Losing all your loving cards to get rockets is only worth it if you can fire off at least two of them, and against some decks that is pretty dicey.

That said Draven is undervalued in this specific context. He will absolutely truck a lot of units early on, so they will spend mana and cards to kill him at all costs. I do think he could stand for a buff - maybe he gives you a Spinning Axe on play and at the start of every round instead of play/strike - but he actually does a surprising amount of work toward establishing an early aggro pace. Get Excited! is way more playable if Deny is 4 mana, and with Elusives getting hit it makes some of the other more aggressively statted early game bodies more attractive, like Sump Dredger (especially after eating a Vision to cast him, since he still gets the buff). If they have to spend 3+ mana to kill your Sump Dredger or immediately soak up 4~5 damage, that's pretty good, and he can block, so he provides some value compared to the Noxian suite of RDW boys.

Of note is that Jinx/Draven's cards were not affected directly by these patch notes at all, and a lot of the rest of the deck is indirectly buffed by Deny getting worse. I piloted Jinx/Draven to Gold, and while that isn't exactly spectacular, it's not terrible considering how often the deck gets trashed here and elsewhere. Shadow Isles removal was the major problem before and will remain the major problem afterward, but it remains to be seen if people are going to stick with SI in such overwhelming fashion. I think it works.

Oh, yeah, don't get me wrong, I don't think it's unviable, my first Jinx/Darius deck actually did some work early on, it's just one of those "SI does it better" situations but I'm terrified of a Jinx deck that actually feels top-tier consistent. It got better and it's a fun, healthy deck, I'm just not sure how you support her without making it a "delete or die" situation, especially because that means you'd play something like Elusives or Fearsomes with her. Right now getting Jinx to hit is pretty tricky.

Monathin
Sep 1, 2011

?????????
?

Chernabog posted:

Since I got 2X Ezreal I crafted one more and started experimenting. First I started with SI for all the the targeted removal but it became too SI oriented, so I moved on to Lux + Ezra, I really like it so far. Demacia obviously doesn't have that many enemy-target spells but Lux basically completes Ezreal's condition on her own and the Demacia buffs work really well with elusives.

What's your deck look like, compared to guts and bolts'?

guts and bolts
May 16, 2015

Have you heard the Good News?

Dias posted:

Oh, yeah, don't get me wrong, I don't think it's unviable, my first Jinx/Darius deck actually did some work early on, it's just one of those "SI does it better" situations but I'm terrified of a Jinx deck that actually feels top-tier consistent. It got better and it's a fun, healthy deck, I'm just not sure how you support her without making it a "delete or die" situation, especially because that means you'd play something like Elusives or Fearsomes with her. Right now getting Jinx to hit is pretty tricky.
Yeah, that's fair, I didn't mean to come off like I was jumping all over you. Me, I think Jinx will forever walk the line of being edge case high-tier playable. Unless the entire concept of removal ceases to exist, you are always only a card/couple cards away from just giving the game away in the effort to get her online, but if you don't want to get her online you should just not include her at all. She is monstrously strong but can be played around in a variety of different ways, from creating a boardstate that isn't cheaply removed to killing her swiftly yourself to effectively racing her if she didn't draw answers well. What Jinx does do is absolutely ruin decks that don't have a true game plan or intend to durdle around accomplishing very little for the early turns, because stuff like Draven's Biggest Fan -> Sump Dredger eating Vision represents 8 immediate damage coming your way on round 2, with the added bonus of knowing for a fact that Draven is waiting on a round 3 draw. Or you can Rummage to push out a 1|1 and a 0|2 Challenger to draw two cards at game start. Or any number of other crazy-rear end things.

Jinx/Draven is also a pretty valuable piloting experience because it will teach you how to adapt to drawing inconsistently. For as much as I've extolled the virtues of my brother's off-meta Lux/Karma deck, if he mulligans and still ends up with garbage he's basically better off surrendering in several common matchups. Yasuo tempo/control post-patch will also probably suffer from this problem pretty heavily. Jinx/Draven rarely gives you absolutely nothing to work with, it just won't always be the same stuff to work with every game, which dramatically influences your build path. If you pull that Sump Dredger opener you just race 'em full stop; if you pull a lot of removal you bide your time to drop a larger quantity of cheap threats and roll in; etc. etc. A lot of decks are intentionally built to play more or less the same way every game - Ashe Frostbite has some cool plays to make and requires thought, but you're always trying to build to that "here's lethal and you can't block, hope you have an answer" turn to win - and Jinx/Draven really, really doesn't do that, because I've had games where Sump Dredger killed them, games where Draven took over the game, games where they couldn't establish a board owing to my removal, games where Jinx takes over and wins, blah blah.

There are absolutely still losing matchups, but it never feels completely out of reach based on the early game draws, for me, playing the deck. Instead of "oh poo poo they picked Ez/Heimer into my Ashe deck, let me just bend over" it becomes "hmmmm can I make this random assortment of bullshit work????" and you just roll with it.

guts and bolts fucked around with this message at 04:35 on Feb 18, 2020

Monathin
Sep 1, 2011

?????????
?

guts and bolts posted:

Words about Ez/Lux

I think this is a good start but I think Stand Alone might be too niche here. I think you also at least want Mageseeker Conservator and Mageseeker Investigator in the mix here as things you can play while waiting on Ez/Lux. I think this is exactly the right deck where Investigator shines and while the pool of spells Conservator can pull from is a bit of a crapshoot he's a 1/1 chump blocker (in addition to the Jury Rigs you'll hopefully just be discarding to get scuttlers out) that can theoretically get a useful spell that'll instantly level Lux up on his own. I'm not entirely sure I like Radiant Strike at 3 - it's a good, cheap buff, which you want with this deck, but if you draw too many you're kind of in a bitch of a spot.

My recommendations, which might be off base but might be worth looking at:
- Stand Alone
- 1 Radiant Strike
- 1 Progress Day (not sure about this, but needing to cut somewhere)
- 1 Jury Rig? (Possible cut if we're adding more chump blockers from Demacia)
+ 2 Mageseeker Conservator
+ 2 Mageseeker Investigator

This is all just spitballing but I think you get enough support in there for your stars with those picks and cut down on spells that don't immediately advance your win conditions (Ez online, Lux online, Ridiculously Buff Assembly Bot)

e: My rational for cutting a second progress day is that if you're already running Rummage that if you haven't won by the time you need both Progress Days you probably aren't going to, this deck runs hot and while Demacia doesn't really have any good draw tech to work with you still have plenty of fuel.

e2: Obviously this doesn't do much for Fearsomes which is probably this deck's biggest weakness by a mile after the Elusive nerf, since a lot of Fearsomes are 3+. I think there's room to workshop it further but I think this isn't going to hard win against Fearsome SI unless you get a god draw.

Monathin fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Feb 18, 2020

Dias
Feb 20, 2011

by sebmojo

guts and bolts posted:

Yeah, that's fair, I didn't mean to come off like I was jumping all over you. Me, I think Jinx will forever walk the line of being edge case high-tier playable. Unless the entire concept of removal ceases to exist, you are always only a card/couple cards away from just giving the game away in the effort to get her online, but if you don't want to get her online you should just not include her at all. She is monstrously strong but can be played around in a variety of different ways, from creating a boardstate that isn't cheaply removed to killing her swiftly yourself to effectively racing her if she didn't draw answers well. What Jinx does do is absolutely ruin decks that don't have a true game plan or intend to durdle around accomplishing very little for the early turns, because stuff like Draven's Biggest Fan -> Sump Dredger eating Vision represents 8 immediate damage coming your way on round 2, with the added bonus of knowing for a fact that Draven is waiting on a round 3 draw. Or you can Rummage to push out a 1|1 and a 0|2 Challenger to draw two cards at game start. Or any number of other crazy-rear end things.

Jinx/Draven is also a pretty valuable piloting experience because it will teach you how to adapt to drawing inconsistently. For as much as I've extolled the virtues of my brother's off-meta Lux/Karma deck, if he mulligans and still ends up with garbage he's basically better off surrendering in several common matchups. Yasuo tempo/control post-patch will also probably suffer from this problem pretty heavily. Jinx/Draven rarely gives you absolutely nothing to work with, it just won't always be the same stuff to work with every game, which dramatically influences your build path. If you pull that Sump Dredger opener you just race 'em full stop; if you pull a lot of removal you bide your time to drop a larger quantity of cheap threats and roll in; etc. etc. A lot of decks are intentionally built to play more or less the same way every game - Ashe Frostbite has some cool plays to make and requires thought, but you're always trying to build to that "here's lethal and you can't block, hope you have an answer" turn to win - and Jinx/Draven really, really doesn't do that, because I've had games where Sump Dredger killed them, games where Draven took over the game, games where they couldn't establish a board owing to my removal, games where Jinx takes over and wins, blah blah.

There are absolutely still losing matchups, but it never feels completely out of reach based on the early game draws, for me, playing the deck. Instead of "oh poo poo they picked Ez/Heimer into my Ashe deck, let me just bend over" it becomes "hmmmm can I make this random assortment of bullshit work????" and you just roll with it.

No worries, I worded my thoughts kinda awkwardly anyway. I see your point, my Jinx fear is basically "what if she always gets there by turn 5?" with value discard BS, but I'm not a game designer so maybe enough removal makes that less of a threat. It's probably okay if she's always this very strong card that's not a clear play every time, Jinx discard is pretty fun to play and it's not just a coin toss.

guts and bolts
May 16, 2015

Have you heard the Good News?

Monathin posted:

Ez/Lux ideas
The win con for this deck is still basically Ezreal blowing up their Nexus, but instead of immediately destroying it in one round, you have to get help from other sources - Lux can help with Final Spark if they are running units you can destroy, or inexpensive units that punch above their weight can do it if you can clear the way for them. Dropping Stand Alone and Radiant Strike is probably fine, but Jury Rig generates a 1|1 blocker who also pings the Nexus for 2 and starts to turn the knob on Lux's ability if you draw it later in the game. Progress Day! is a 2-of because you really want to draw at least one of them, and if you go to 1-of you might burn Rummages and still not find it, which is a super bummer. If I knew for a fact I could tutor out Progress Day! by turn 6 every game I'd gladly go to 1 copy. I don't think you really ever want to cast both Progress Day!s in matches where you get both, but I'd rather have 2 and sometimes get 2 than have 1 and only see it in half of my games. Not finding Thermogenic Beam can be tough but usually isn't game-ending, and if you do get it, great. Not finding Trueshot Barrage can be tough in some matchups but it also doesn't derail your entire deck, and if you do get it and they've got cheapies on board, it's a more expensive Avalanche that is almost half of Ezreal's level up, so that's neat. Stand Alone I'm finding trouble justifying at 1-of compared to Investigator, though.

I don't think the thrust of what you're suggesting is wrong. I could try rolling 2-of Mageseeker Investigator into the shell, but I think my cuts might be Stand Alone and a copy of Prismatic Barrier instead of any of Jury Rig, Progress Day!, or Radiant Strike. Radiant Strike makes Assembly Bot +2|+2 for the round for 1 and permanently makes him bigger thereafter, as well as making Plaza Guardian cheaper to cast in the future, and provides cheap Burst fodder for Ezreal to force damage through if you draw too many or pull them later in the game. It'd only be really devastating if you ended up with all 3 in hand suuuuuper early, and the odds of that happening are vanishingly small. Eat them for Rummage if you have to, or whatever, as well, that's a fine use for them.

I actually just played a game while I was still typing this post running Mageseeker Investigator over Stand Alone and 1 copy of Prismatic Barrier, and despite some tough early draws (ironically enough too few Radiant Strikes to make my Bot a beefy boy), I still won the game. It was against some total jank, but winning your first game with a deck always feels fun.

Dias posted:

No worries, I worded my thoughts kinda awkwardly anyway. I see your point, my Jinx fear is basically "what if she always gets there by turn 5?" with value discard BS, but I'm not a game designer so maybe enough removal makes that less of a threat. It's probably okay if she's always this very strong card that's not a clear play every time, Jinx discard is pretty fun to play and it's not just a coin toss.
That's a good summary of how I feel about her in far fewer words. Jinx is strong, but presents enough counters to what she's trying to do that I don't think she'll ever get too crazy. She dies to a ton of stuff and I get the feeling we're only going to see more burn coming to P&Z in the future. Jinx/Draven is maybe my ideal deck in terms of game balance - it wins some, it loses some, and it seems to be almost matchup independent. It's like 5:5 against Most Things. The only time Jinx/Draven discard aggro feels genuinely unplayable is probably a state in which the game needs to adjust whatever is totally crowding her out - in most cases thus far it's been Shadow Isles, and Shadow Isles did need a nerf, so there's that.

mistaya
Oct 18, 2006

Cat of Wealth and Taste

re: Ledros, didn't his skill already round up? I'm very confused about that. If it didn't why was it killing on 1hp? Also the absolute best answer to his stupid rear end is Purify and pretty much the main reason I swapped from SI-Ionia to SI-Demacia a few days ago was how stupidly good Purify is.

I had a game today go long and my opponent was sitting on attack token / 8 with no spell mana, thinking, and I was praying for him to drop the Ledros so I could finish developing my board, purify the ugly fucker, and win around him. He did, I did, it felt so good.

Blocking ledros with a spiderling is the best BM.

Arzaac
Jan 2, 2020


Ledros' text was always "Cut your opponent's nexus health in half", not "deal damage equal to half their nexus health", which is why rounding up is making him deal less damage.

guts and bolts
May 16, 2015

Have you heard the Good News?

mistaya posted:

re: Ledros, didn't his skill already round up? I'm very confused about that. If it didn't why was it killing on 1hp? Also the absolute best answer to his stupid rear end is Purify and pretty much the main reason I swapped from SI-Ionia to SI-Demacia a few days ago was how stupidly good Purify is.

I had a game today go long and my opponent was sitting on attack token / 8 with no spell mana, thinking, and I was praying for him to drop the Ledros so I could finish developing my board, purify the ugly fucker, and win around him. He did, I did, it felt so good.

Blocking ledros with a spiderling is the best BM.
Purify is amazingly good, and I actually think it should probably be a teensy, tiny bit weaker. It straight up deletes cards that buff on ETB and I think there should be exceptions made for cards like They Who Endure (who is literally unplayable in an environment where Purify is a common card, and it is/should be), and it also chumps out stuff like Ledros if a player tries to eat him for cards to recast him alongside stuff like The Undying, who, lol, Purify. Also there's still plenty of use in Detain/Purify as a hard removal combo, which is fun.

BUT ANYWAY, LEDROS.

Arzaac posted:

Ledros' text was always "Cut your opponent's nexus health in half", not "deal damage equal to half their nexus health", which is why rounding up is making him deal less damage.
This is actually just a change in which they spell out exactly what he does. His current text is "Play: Cut the enemy Nexus Health in half. Last Breath: Return me to hand." The changed text doesn't actually change what he does at all, it's strictly a clarification change so that you know it will be half of your Nexus' HP rounded up. Which it already does, but does not explicitly say how it rounds off odd damage. He's literally just going to 9 mana and becoming 9 power, those are his only actual changes.

Monathin
Sep 1, 2011

?????????
?

Yeah, when I had typed that I forgot that Radiant Strike on Assembly Bot is essentially a +2/+2 for the round and +1/+1 permanent which is insane value. I still think finding cuts somewhere to try and fuel Lux through use of Conservator is a good idea but shuffling out a Barrier and Stand Alone for the Investigators was probably the proper call.

Today's FFXIV patch day so I won't be doing MUCH testing but I have more than enough Wildcards to put this deck together and throw it at some people to figure out where best to optimize..

where the red fern gropes
Aug 24, 2011


elusives are bullshit and i just won a lost expedition due to my opponent simply not having an elusive to block me. to be fair, him playing Zed + Stand Alone on turn 3 was equally bullshit

ledros + atrocity is 1 off lethal so i guess that's A Thing you can do on turn 10 now. might pair him with noxus for the overwhelm just so they have to try and block

TyrantWD
Nov 6, 2010
Ignore my doomerism, I don't think better things are possible
This patch completely ruined the only complete deck I had (Freljord/Ionia elusive/buff).

It's going to be difficult to switch to something new without buying some champion wild cards, so I'll probably take things slow for the next few weeks and just complete quests to get more unlocks.

TyrantWD fucked around with this message at 14:27 on Feb 18, 2020

CitizenKeen
Nov 13, 2003

easygoing pedant

TyrantWD posted:

This patch completely ruined the only complete deck I had (Freljord/Ionia elusive/buff).

It's going to be difficult to switch to something new without buying some champion wild cards, so I'll probably take things slow for the next few weeks and just complete quests to get more unlocks.

This definitely feels like a game that wants you to spend some money but not too much.

Studio
Jan 15, 2008



What time is the patch droppin'?

Baller Time
Apr 22, 2014

by Azathoth
Apparently they are doing their stuff always at 11am pacific, which is in 3 hours.

No Wave
Sep 18, 2005

HA! HA! NICE! WHAT A TOOL!
I'm going to spend at least the first week this month trying to counter Ezrael with PnZ Vlad. I am going to be so mad about Elnuk pulls within a weeks time (Elnuks are currently meta in the Ezrael deck because you are around 50% to pull 2 or more if you troop on 5).

I like all the nerfs except mentor, not because mentor didnt need a nerf but because the card just looks ugly now.

No Wave fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Feb 18, 2020

Chernabog
Apr 16, 2007



I spent like $15 and I've been able to craft most of the decks I've wanted to play. Definitely worth it.

Monathin posted:

What's your deck look like, compared to guts and bolts'?
From what I can tell I basically run a completely different set of followers.

3X Ezreal
3X Lux
3X Thermogenic beam
3X Mageseeker conservator
3x Eager apprentice
3X Mystic shot
2X Single combat
2X purify
3X amateur aeronaut
3X Laurent bladekeeper
2X riposte
3X static shot
2X detain
2X radiant guardian
2X trueshot barrage
1X progress day

I still haven't tested it that much TBH but here's a bit of my rationale:
-Funsmith: Too slow. I might try a couple at some point though, because sometimes you do need the extra punch.
+Mageseeker: You want to play Ez at 3, and you also want to start casting his shots ASAP, so this gives you an early body for "free".
+Bladekeeper: Goes well with elusives and he can get your Ez out of range of most direct damage spells.
+Riposte and single combat: Still not sure about these, but riposte is just a really strong card in general and SC gives you another targeted spell.
+Radiant guardian: Another solid card, works well with bladekeeper as well.
+Progress day: haven't tried it yet but sometimes you run out of cards. I was between this and the guy who discards your hand but since this is a spell I went with it to activate Lux.

Firebert
Aug 16, 2004


lol I only leveled to 12 vault instead of 13 but the game is like 'I got you'

This happens for anything I guess!

DrManiac
Feb 29, 2012

I hate that overwhelm bleeds through barriers.

Ra Ra Rasputin
Apr 2, 2011
My first instinct on the overwhelm/barrier interaction is the overwhelm would do 0 bleedthrough but it is what it is, I guess the barrier only counts for as much HP as the unit has.

kaschei
Oct 25, 2005

What if you barrier a tough follower and it blocks an enemy with overwhelm? Say 10 attack against 5 health + tough, do you take 4 or 5 damage?

Eraflure
Oct 12, 2012


I don't think I'm really looking forward to a month of PZ control.

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Arzaac
Jan 2, 2020


How overwhelm seems to work is that it assigns exactly enough damage to kill the blocker, and the rest to the enemy nexus.

So in that scenario it would assign 6 damage to the blocker, and the remaining 4 to the nexus.

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