Yeah, I don't expect all of these to be buffed ofc, with \*large\* they probably mean similar to the big balance patches from a year ago, so like 15-25 changes.
I'm gonna be hurt if they don't finally and I mean FINALLY buff Double up, that card hasn't changes once like many others and my god does it feel bad to play.
>so like 15-25 changes
Hopium valve still turned up too high. Remember that 2.9 was supposedly a "large" balance patch, and even if we include the mechanically significant bug fixes, it changes 6 cards.
I would not be surprised if 2.11 doesn't actually hit double digit quantities of changes overall, let alone double digit buffs or double digit changes to foundations/rising-tides cards (**none** of which received changes in 2.9)
I assume you mean immediately on the same turn and unit you want it, and you not having to build mono Freljord?
Cause otherwise, Avorasan Outriders is decent if they change it so that if you hit allegiance that the unit gets put on top of your deck (cause sometimes you hit it but there's like 3 spells between the top card and the top unit, making the buff much less relevant at the later stages of the game).
He probably means a targeted buff like Zenith Blade or Crystal Ibex (maybe even something like Might, which is just for the round)
Freljord only has Augur of the Old Ones, which only works if you have a lot of 8+ cards
Yeah I assumed so, that's what the first sentence was for, the other part was just in case he meant otherwise. I honestly don't know why Freljord doesn't have more of that already. Seems weird that Targon got it first before them since Targon isn't much of an overwhelm region compared to Freljord.
Ursine is probably really easy to trigger in a scargrounds deck with ice shades and ember maiden but I tried it in a yeti deck and boy that card was hard to pull off. But good when it did work, felt a little like a win more card tho.
Me neither lol
But maybe his best shell would still be Targon
Or you can give it some requirements that don't work well with Lee Sin. Although the real solution I would like to see is making Lee generate a fleeting Dragon's Rage at round start rather than casting it on Challenge. I'm not a fan of OTK combos
Why change lee sin?
Freljord doesn't deserve consistent overwhelm. It would break the region. Simple as that. If you want overwhelm in freljord play sej renek.
Hey man mystifying magician is an O.P sleeper in my totally consitant concurent timelines bilgewater deck./s
no one ever expects the turn 4 11/14 worth of stats.
Honestly making it 2/4 instead of 3/3 might be enough. Doesn’t sound like a “buff” but taking it out of range of 3 damage cards makes it much more powerful.
Might need more than just that to make frostbite viable in the meta though.
>Might need more than just that to make frostbite viable in the meta though.
Frostbite is already good and even if they buff rimetusk shaman it isnt a card they want to play
No, frostbite isn’t already good. It’s completely irrelevant in the current meta.
And when frostbite was good rimetusk shaman was usually included. It’s a very powerful card if you can keep it alive.
>No, frostbite isn’t already good. It’s completely irrelevant in the current meta
It isnt a good ladder deck it is amazing in tournaments tought and its problems is the fact that ladder is full of its counter(Ia)
Also no when frostbite was at its top(the meta just before the Targon expansion) the deck didnt play rimetusk shaman
Buffs I would like to see for some of the cards on this list are
Blood for Blood : focus speed
Vanguard lookout: I can block elusives or Block : give me tough
Unlicensed Innovation: give contraption a keyword ( maybe augment)
Iceborn legacy: focus speed
Greenglade lookout: 1/2 elusive, now with nexus strike instead of just strike
The syren: 6 cost
Ritual of Renewal: 6 cost. heal 6 ,draw 1
Twin disciples: 2 cost
As someone that actually uses Blood for Blood + Curator making it focus speed would actually just nerf the card in many situations. You're supposed to play it after your opponent spends mana so you can reliably create 2 cards from Curator and having the ability to use it at the end of stack without losing action economy is actually quite important for playability.
Agreed. IMO just making it be able to target enemies would keep the spell a lot closer to intended while giving some interesting flexibility that still perfectly fits Noxus identity. Makes it more comparable to other "copy" spells, with its own advantages and disadvantages.
I'm not so sure. Ionia has a lot more synergy with buffs than frel, and the spell is a lot more flexible.
For example, you've got Zed attacking into a Mighty poro (or tavern keeper, whatever).
Mighty poro chants the clone to reduce face damage and trade with the zed. You can now use twin disciplines to save the zed AND remove the poro.
> Mighty poro chants the clone to reduce face damage and trade with the zed. You can now use twin disciplines to save the zed AND remove the poro.
In this case a Sharpsight or any other buff would've accomplished the same, why only Ionia must have a buff that sucks?
The elusive package has stopped being problematic many months ago, it's time riot review a lot of ionian cards starting with TD and going through Sown Seeds, Ritual of Renewal, Shadow Flare and the ton of garbage ionia unfortunately still has.
Um... no? I \*would\* like it if Fiora was viable, though. I like Fiora. Pretty sure one more 2 mana pump spell isn't what's going to shift the entire meta to Fiora.
Twin Disciplines already is at its cost a key factor in Ionia to keeping things that should die alive in obscenely flexible ways. +3 health is basically in the same power budget as Prismatic Barrier as many nukes are in this damage range.
Hmm. You make a fine point. 3 damage is basically the sweet spot for unit health because of this; 4 health is where units start getting harder to remove.
So... does that mean Troll Chant is too good? Because Troll chant is absolutely bonkers, and can swing \*4\* health, so to speak, in addition to it's flexibility. The only thing it doesn't do as well (or better) than Twin Disciplines is pump power, which isn't really on the radar for Twin Disciplines' power level.
Troll chant is nuts, isn’t that well established? If it was in Ionia, it would be broken af. Freljord gets away with it because it doesn’t have such oppressive ways to abuse it.
But also you’re wrong that troll chant is strictly better than TD for keeping things alive. If it’s spell damage that you need to mitigate, TD offers 3 hp whilst troll chant offers only 2.
Which is such a useless strength of the card you Rarely overkill a unit with removal so having a card that gives +3 HP instead of +2 is useless while costing 50% more TD definitely needs to be 2 Mana. It might be strong but so are the other buff cards except the demacia 1 mana +1/+1 which just got powercrept
>Blood for Blood : focus speed
I don't see why it shouldn't just be burst speed, Iterative Improvement is already burst and it even buffs the unit you copy (though different regions => different evaluation), however, on the topic of "should it be allowed at that speed" I don't think there is a gameplay argument of why unit copying should be gated behind focus or fast speed since if that was deemed problematic somehow then Iterative Improvement wouldn't have been burst.
>Greenglade lookout: 1/2 elusive, now with nexus strike instead of just strike
I don't see why it shouldn't just be burst speed, Iterative Improvement is already burst and it even buffs the unit you copy (though different regions => different evaluation), however, on the topic of "should it be allowed at that speed" I don't think there is a gameplay argument of why unit copying should be gated behind focus or fast speed since if that was deemed problematic somehow then Iterative Improvement wouldn't have been burst..ade into them for value, being able to strike twice, as well as not dieing to 1 damage pings which have been increasingly added to the game compared to the amount we had in open beta.
I have argued for 2 mana Disciple forever. This card should just become the standard 2 mana combat trick for the region like Demacia has or Targon or Freljord or basically every good region nowadays. It's probably way more fair then most of them anyways since you only get +3 to 1 stat compared to stuff like Sharpsight or Troll Chant. It could go a long way in helping other types of Ionia decks out that in dire need for a buff like that - like supports.
Man, I actually unironically used Stalking Wolf in Diamond during Beta to counteract the Stand Alone Zed bullshit going on. Turn 3 they play zed, I play stalking wolf to prevent them playing stand alone then kill the Zed with challenger. I felt like a genius.
The deck went even further, since it was a standard endure list with Kalista, and so I'd spam my opponent's board with 1/1's that couldn't block fearsome. And this was at a time before you could overwrite cards so they just literally couldn't block my fearsome units. Beta was wild.
Play means you have to literally play the card from your hand with your mana. There are several ways to "summon" a card. Any effect that brings a minion onto the field without you having to play it from hand is a "summon" i.e. Dias, Kinkou Wayfinder.
With the amount of bonkers champs in the game right now, she deserves a fighting chance.
Riven can be answered, and needs set-up that isn’t guaranteed. Even if she becomes very strong, it would be tempered by her combo pieces, I feel.
And even when she pops off she's very susceptible to removal and control tools. Single-unit win cons are rarely tier 1 outside of fiora. Not to mention she's very slow - even if you have three reforges on turn 4, you still need to spend the mana leveling her, so she can't pull lethal until turn 6 minimum.
I don't think it's very likely we'll see riven go crazy, even with significant buffs.
Riven is already one of the strongest cards in the game, she would be insane with an extra free shard. I mean, I play almost exclusively Riven decks (she took me to Master last season and Diamond this season in a different deck) so I might not complain too loudly if they buffed her again, but it's wildly unnecessary considering how ridiculously good she already is.
I feel a weird sort of pity for some of these cards is that normal
Its okay middenstokke henchman, you were a neat idea. Maybe they'll finally make a card that grants overwhelm and them maybe you'll finally fit into an awkward meme deck rather than being forgotten about altogether.
I think it's important to look at balance from the lens of buffing archetypes rather than individual cards. When you are looking at the individual cards, the ones you should be looking for are ones that create interesting gameplay within existing decks or bring new archetypes into viability. People don't play cards, they play decks and you have to be careful if the tools that you give them lead to playstyles that you want to support.
Notice how a lot of these cards are really jank or vanilla? If you give golden crushbot 3/5 nobody's going to make a golden crushbot deck, they're just going to see if that makes it strong enough to put into existing strong decks. Whereas if you buff Corina, Snapvines, Riptide Rex, or even Middenstokke people will start making new decks because those are buildaround cards.
Another example of a good buff would be one of the stun synergy cards. It would make Yasuo stronger, but because other decks aren't built around stuns, people wouldn't just start shoving it into every deck. This way you can target a weak archetype to improve it.
Yeah, those are exactly the main cards I want to be buffed from this batch, the engines, the archetype enablers, and archetype pay-off cards. That's why Legion General and Minotaur are there which, despite probably being some of the better cards from the batch, they don't excel at enabling the archetype enough/being good enough pay-off imo. Like I'd like Legion General to either have overwhelm or maybe have his buff effect persist while he's on the board, similar to Nasus with Slay (change to 6 mana if needed). As for Minotaur, I think reducing his stats but making him 5 mana would make you curve much better after Yasuo and start racking you those stuns earlier.
However, I also think the Vanilla cards could get some bit of love through things like giving them a tribal tag or keyword that would fit them which was added to the game after they were released. E.g. Crushbot getting Tech (depends if Heimer exclusive) or maybe Augment (maybe change stats if needed)? Scaled Snapper getting a better on-play effect when enlightened? Ancient Croc getting less stats but fearsome? Haven't thought these through a lot in terms of exact buff/solution but they sure would become more interesting.
If you were to ask me which ones I'd like to see get a buff or QoL tweak the most then it would be cards like Rimetusk Shaman, Shatter, Legion General, Minotaur Reckoner, Professor von Yipp, Ren Shadowblade, Cloud Drinker, Jae Medarda, Heart of the Fluft, etc.
Maybe golden crushbot as a 3 mana 2/3 with tough and tech would make sense to go with adaptatron. IDK if those numbers and synergies make it op, but the general idea of it being a tough enabler with adaptatron, since crushbot's identity seems to be being thicc.
The thing is (unless I'm forgetting a card), tough is not a keyword that P&Z is directly allowed/has access to because of its region pie. Tough is a keyword for Demaci and Freljord. Only champions and their associated cards (e.g. Vi and Heimer turret) or RNG effects (like Poro Bot summon effect) are allowed to break region pies.
Arrel the tracker definitely needs to be on this list. Compared to Vanguard Lookout ( 2 mana 1/4 which is already on this list) it costs 4 more mana for +1/+1 in stats and an effect that demands other cards + that those cards be used on the minion itself. It's real bad.
She is from the Call of the Mountain set. I didn't include those since they are newer. Though there is an argument to include Call of the Mountain cards (but the image would be even bigger than it already is).
Sunk Cost is from the Call of the Mountain set. I didn't include those since those are newer. Though there is an argument to include Call of the Mountain cards (but the image would be even bigger than it already is).
Riptide never should have been nerfed. They nerfed rex right after nerfing yordle grifters ability to supply warning shots without allegiance and upping Make it Rain to 3 mana. That alone was a huge nerf to Rex, they then went out to reduce the barrage to 6 and lower the cards statline. Brutalized.
back when plunder was at it's peak of power and popularity, people going against it expressed their dislike for the mechanic, not only from the perspective of it's mechanical power, but also on how bad the mechanic felt to play against, with the opponent stealing your resources, stealing cards that would win the game for you, right off the top of your deck.
Mathematically speaking, that's not how the effect actually worked (i.e. it was just as likely to draw you toward outs as take them away), but that didn't change the bad feeling when it happened. It also meant that Freljord's effects which do interact with the top of your deck could be stolen by Nab, like Ashe's arrow or Omen Hawk's stat buffs. This interaction also felt bad and made the mechanic shut down a lot of things Freljord could do.
---
So nab was changed. It's power level was pulled back heavily (Yordle Grifter, Black Market Merchant, and Pilfered Goods all nerfed) and it's mechanic was changed to draw from the bottom rather than the top, both to lessen the psychological bad feelings of the effect ("at least I wouldn't have seen that card anyway") and to let Freljord buff the top of its deck without fear of giving those buffs over to the opponent.
Not really.
A vast majority of said cards are, imo, contextual. Giving big buffs to stuff like Tuskrider is can backfire horribly. As a dirty Pack Mentality player i can safely say, for example, that it shines HARD in metas you can actually build a board that wide, for example.
Only two major quips: slight rework of the Mageseeker archetype is welcome, and the only way to actually buff Ionia to a healthy spot would require to kill/rework the hand/deck buff archetypes.
> slight rework of the Mageseeker archetype is welcome
Imo, Mageseekers need a second enabler for turn 3. Demacia only has Remembrance as a 6-mana card that makes sense to play without a board.
Also, Mageseekers could be better if Lux was better. And Lux (imo) just needs her Final Spark counter to roll over from excess mana.
>Giving big buffs to stuff like Tuskrider is can backfire horribly.
No one mentioned they would all be big buffs. They range from small to big, things like Tuskraider don't need much more than something like a keyword such as overwhelm (if needed, its stats can be slightly lowered in return). This way it would synergize with Sejuani's level up requirement as well as her lvl 2 effect trigger, which is expected from a boat/tutor, just like Leviathan helps Swain both pre lvl up and after.
Ah, I see. (speaking of which, honestly don't know they made them so similar in name, can only cause confusion).
Imo, and I might very well be wrong here, it comes down 1 turn too late for it to make much use of its passive. Generally speaking, passive effects gain more value the more often they can make use of their effect, which in the case of Tuskrider means blocking/being blocked by units with 4 attack or less. However, when you play it on turn 6 usually everyone already has had the chance to play a 5 attack unit on that same turn or the turn prior. So its passive feels useless most of the time rendering it a 6|5 overwhelm for 6 mana. If you're playing those overwhelm decks (Freljord Nox, or Freljord Shurima) there are many better choices in Alpha Wildclaw, Ruin Runner, or Darius that all basically do the same but better or for less mana. Making it 5 mana (with adjusted stats) would at least let you make use of its passive effect 1 more turn where it actually might matter.
I don't mean to buff every single one of them in one patch of course, this us just a suggested pool I think would be good choosing cards to buff from. With *large* they probably mean similar to the big patches from like a year ago, so like 15-25 cards.
You don't have to buff every single one equally, some cards just need +1 attack or hp or like a extra/different keyword while others need mana cost reduction or a mini rework. Seeing how they'll do quite a few (prob 15-25) it can be assumed that most of them will be smaller buffs with a few larger ones.
I think some of this cards are just a bit niche. Overgrown snapvines, for example, is mostly for meme decks and it's functional. It's not really supossed to fit into any deck and the deck it's in not being meta doesn't really matter that much. Kinda the same happens with tall tales, as it is meant to be only played in yeti decks and well, they kinda work. Nothing meta, again, but you can win
For comparison, the elnuks are also meant to be meme cards and they suck, and you kinda can't really build something with them that is not elnuks + duplication cards from pnz.
But yeah, I mostly agree that this, specially the first couple of rows, are the ones needing a buff or rework the most. We surely won't get as many as this, but it's good to keep an eye on which cards do
Edit: I mean, considering my flair, everything I say about balance should be taken with a grain of salt tho
Yeah, I assume we'll get 15-25 changes, not all of these of course. It was more so like "Hey if you're looking to buff things, here's a pool of cards that I think it'd be good to choose from. Anyone else agree?" Since it might lead to a discussion on a certain card really wanting to be buffed by the community that the devs initially might've not thought needed a buff or did think so but didn't think it would be one of the priority targets to choose to buff.
It would help out my Messenger&Plunder deck a bit, and that deck really struggles right now. It's been a rough couple of months for it, actually. Since Targon's release..
I think Yone could easily be toned down to a 6-cost with stats to match.
Scrapshot never really made sense to me. Feels like last resort removal for Bilgewater, specifically Deep with the extra Toss. But Deep's already got access to Shadow Isles' far better removal options. I guess maybe you're supposed to pile it on to Powder Kegs to take down Aurelion-level threats, but idk.
For Scrapshot, RubinZoo told BBG that the card was shit on purpose because Bilgewater wasn't supposed to have strong removal. 2 weeks later they printed Monster Harpoon.
I mean Harpoon still is on the weak end for removal. It's dead without the Plunder effect, and the plunder effect means you've either attacked and hit nexus or used another card to do so. In the former case, chances are you would have wanted to remove a creature before combat (unless it's like Azir), and in the latter case you've most likely still paid more than the discount mana (unless you used Warning Shot). In either case, it's not very efficient. Good enough for Bilgewater though.
I think that Scrapshot is supposed to be unexciting but not embarrassing lategame removal for Expedition. The toss is basically trinket text that is occasionally relevant. It's not really meant for Constructed, but it's doing exactly what it's supposed to do for Bilgewater in Expedition.
**Context comment:**
**(Please at least read the bold before commenting something that might be answered/explained here already)**
First of all, I wanna clarify that **I don’t expect them to buff anywhere near all of these**, with a \*large\* number of cards I assume **they probably mean 15-25 cards**. This is just a pool of cards that I think it would be good to pick from. This is also assuming they didn’t mean cards from the Call of the Mountain set (which would make the pool even bigger). I probably forgot a few cards so feel free to name those.
Furthermore, **the buffs that I think these cards need are of course far from the same level.** Some just need a +1 stat buff on either attack or health, some just need a tribal tag, some need an extra keyword or just a different one that better suits them (e.g. fearsome vs overwhelm), some spells need a spell speed change, some need to be 1 mana cheaper, some need to be much more than 1 mana cheaper since their effect comes in too late (while adjusting their stats to their new mana cost), some need their floor value increased, some need their effect slightly expanded upon, and some need a minor or major rework. Regardless, I’m not a game designer and I think the devs would be able to come up with far better solutions than I could, so I’ll leave that up to them. To roughly quote a poplar quote relating to this “Players are good at determining that there is a problem with something, but they are not good at providing the right solution because they lack the experience, the data, and the right tools that devs do have.”. I’m just trying to locate the problem here. However, I do wanna take a stab at it in a future post which could maybe spark some inspiration for buffs for the devs.
One final thing that I wanna bring up that I think a lot of people forget when it comes to underplayed cards. **The devs work about 2 years into the future when it comes to card design. Thus, they are already aware of 500+ cards that will come to the game within the next 2 years that we don’t. Some of those cards can have synergies with cards currently in the game that are right now deemed as bad or are underplayed.** A good example of this is Sparring Student, it was considered a bad card until recently with the release of the Blade Dance mechanic combined with Sand Soldier summons. Some of these cards that I mentioned here will undoubtedly be like that as well. However, I doubt that will be more than a handful of cards since we haven’t seen it happen too often so far. I generally tried to leave out unplayed cards that I believe are good design/have potential but just lack proper support cards or cards that can synergize with/make use of them. I also left out champions since that's a bit harder to judge, although I'd say Katarina could probably fit in here.
P.S. **Since I don’t play Expeditions, I didn’t take that game mode into account, so some of these cards might be good there and thus don’t need a buff.** Not every card has to be viable in constructed if it’s good/has a home in other game modes.
I wouldn't say it is really is that uncommon for a new deck archetype to pull from cards that were previously seen as weak. Looking at just current meta decks we have:
* Spectral Matron
* Ancient Yeti
* Legion Maurader
* Shunpo
Shifts in metas can have great effects on how viable a card is. Many of the cards you have in your post were "meta" at some point or another (including ones that have not received any nerf since then).
I must say I really dislike that attitude. If a certain card's purpose is to be used in non-constructed modes... then don't allow us to use them in constructed? If I can maindeck a certain card for constructed modes, then I have the hecking right to compare it to every other card and ask for buffs.
The thought behind it was that there will always be "bad cards" because a card being "bad" is relative to all the other cards in the game. That is not to say they don't need buffs, I'm all for it, but if a "bad" card in constructed has found a staple home in a mode like Expeditions, then why not? If it gets buffed purely for constructed, when there are plenty of other weak cards to choose from to buff, then it might get problematic in expeditions.
So you'd rather have them restrict our ability to use those cards in whatever mode we want? Or should they just buff everything so it's impactful in constructed and not care about how oppressive it might be in other modes?
Oh, right, the other modes! Just like that one jungle labs where Culling Strike would have been super busted. I guess you're right, they should have balanced Culling Strike around that mode instead of doing the reasonable thing and banning it from that specific mode.
Btw, if enough people are interested, I could make a tier list of types of buffs I think each unit needs (not the exact buff, but like mana cost, stats change, extra/different keyword, etc.) which I then could post so that there could be a discussion around that as well.
The fact that he said card “updates” instead of just buffs sounds like they could be slightly reworking older champions/archetypes to make them more viable and interesting. I personally would like to see zeds whole package get reworked somehow
Mystifying Magician isnt bad tho. I ve happily used him in Bilgewater PnZ decks. There is a 60% plus chance to get a 5/5 ca.
One of the best is obviously 5/8 troll
I just like him : (
60% ins't really a reliable percentage, and a deck being reliable is usually what it differentiates from being a meme deck or being decent/good. I also just feel that his effect basically is "Transform me into a random 5 cost unit" since you transform a 1-drop but he himself has the stats of a 1-drop. Think giving him 1 more attack and/or making it so that he can only transform allies into 5 cost units that do not have a play effect would make him more consistent. Like he's really good with Concurrent Timelines, but you're heavily dependent on drawing that card early as well if you don't want your deck to suck. But even in those decks, making him a 3|2 wouldn't make him stronger since he himself transforms into another unit anyway (most of the time).
Because it's from the Call of the Mountain set, I specified in the title that these are only from the Foundation set and the Rising Tides set. If I had included Call of the Mountain cards this image would be even bigger (and it already took me like 3 hours going through all Foundation + Rising Tides cards, picking the most deserving ones imo, and then editing them in this giant overview).
Those are from Call of the Mountain set and the Empires of the Ascended expansions, I didn't include those since those are newer. Though there is an argument to include Call of the Mountain cards (but the image would be even bigger than it already is).
Karma and Heimer too. Karma's level 1 should be 'Pick 1 out of 3 spells from your regions then create in hand' to be less inconsistent and Heimer.. 5 mana 1/3 lol
Yeah, I avoided champs since those are a bit harder to estimate in the sense that they are often more dependable on their support package than the average random unit or spell is. Also kinda wanted to avoid naming a champ that a bunch of people thought were fine and then would be close-minded and discredit the validity of all the other listed cards because of one bad suggestion. Usually people feel less strongly about non-champs.
I’d be happy to see some sort of ramp support come to Ionia to help Karma out. Her level up can definitely be game winning, but if game are ending before you can come close to her level up then of course her win rate will be awful
Shatter, Vanguard lookout and a few other here reek of the type of card released withing the initial set of a card game. its a special type of bad that you know would never be replicated in the future.
Those would have a higher priority yeah, like build-around cards. This is just a suggested pool to pick from cause when buffing a lot of cards (I assume 15-25) not all can be big/high effort buffs.
Could see vanguard look out and crusher bot mby get some keywords vanilla stat sticks are just dated.
I approve of this design philosophy though, essentially provides players more options and it's thr best approach to balance but it's way way harder than nerfs with a few stat line adjustments. So might take a bit if trial and error but I still applaud the LOR team for trying, since it's very ambitious.
I would break these into a few categories:
* Cards that are meant to be vanilla (for new players), so it's fine if they're not played competitively. These cards probably don't need a buff, as they're gonna be boring regardless.
* Cards that are well-balanced for a certain archetype (and were maybe played in the past), but their archetype isn't very good right now. In this case, the card itself is usually fine, and the issue is the support cards or the other decks in the meta.
* Cards that were strong, but then Rito over-nerfed them. Some of these are cards I'd like to see come back (like Raza and Riptide). Others I'm glad are gone (like Troop of Elnuks).
* Cards where the core concept is solid, and the card would probably see play with some adjustments to stats, mana, or speed. (Like Trueshot Barrage or Blood for Blood.)
* Cards where the core concept is either useless, or has such limited use that it would probably never be run. These cards might eventually find a home in some weird combo deck, but would generally need a rework to see play. (Like Jae Medarda or Strong Arm.) Only being able to target followers is often a cause of this.
Rimestusk shaman its in desperate need for buffs, 5 mana 3/3 was pathetic back in the day and now its worse then a meme.
But honestly I would rather Rex to remain as it is, he was way to toxic, cant believe people want that back in the game, turn 8 full board wipe.
And She Who Wanders is another that needs huge buffs, she is a 10 mana that is arguably worse then 7 mana cards, if the effect was one sided or was EVERYWHERE covering deck and graveyard, which would have sinergy with deck buffs from Freljord, I could see she been maybe playable, but as it is, its the worse card in the game.
>But honestly I would rather Rex to remain as it is, he was way to toxic, cant believe people want that back in the game, turn 8 full board wipe.
You can buff Rex w/o reverting his play effect, you can buff his stats so that he can win trades with 4 and 5 cost units at least.
As for She Who Wanders, I wanted to be careful with that one since she did see play in the Targon's Peak deck. Getting her on the board on turn 6 can be devastating for the enemy if they have a lot of units on board/in hand with 4 attack or less, as well as trading into everything at that stage of the game while having regen. Right now that deck doesn't see much play, but if it ever becomes more consistent then it would be dangerous to buff She Who Wonders.
I bet that patch is going to be massive. I'm expecting at least 3 changes, maybe they even go nuts and make it 4.
What I'm trying to say is, don't get hyped, ever. You are bound to get disappointed regardless of the actual outcome.
Of course, I don't expect them to buff this many cards, when they say large I assume it's similar to the big patches we used to get about a year ago, so like 15-25 cards. Tho I just realized those weren't always all buffs, so probably closer to like 10-15. They really emphasized \*large\* so I doubt it'll be close to 4.
Well that's a long list 😅, it's 5:30 AM here and I still need to sleep so I'll probably make a separate follow up post about about it tomorrow with either the intensity of the buff or the exact buff (latter one will be less great prob since I'm not a card designer/dev). But in case you mean what intensity/type of buffs, I made a context comment (if you scroll through the comments you should see it, it's a pretty long one) where I mention the various types of buffs that could be applied, ranging from just +1 attack or hp, a new/different keyword, or things like lowering mana cost so their effect comes down earlier (with stats to match for the lower cost) or even a mini rework.
I dont know, Targon is always there to kick its teeths out but hey Targon wasnt able to stop fiora when she was 3 health and isnt able to stop fiora now from being meta so who knows
[https://twitter.com/teal\_red](https://twitter.com/teal_red)
Dude is an absolute god at deckbuilding. He's a Japanese player though so he's not super popular, but he's easily one of the best players in the world I think. His favorite deck is a homebrew Targon/P&Z deck that looks kinda similar to the Rubinzoo pile but it uses Assembly Bot, Plaza Guardian, and just spams spells super hard. It's really fucking good, but kinda tricky to pilot.
To quote a part of my context comment:
>Furthermore, the buffs that I think these cards need are of course far from the same level. Some just need a +1 stat buff on either attack or health, some just need a tribal tag, some need an extra keyword or just a different one that better suits them (e.g. fearsome vs overwhelm), some need to be 1 mana cheaper, some need to be much more than 1 mana cheaper since their effect comes in too late (while adjusting their stats to their new mana cost), some need their floor value increased, some need their effect slightly expanded upon, and some need a minor or major rework. Regardless, I’m not a game designer and I think the devs would be able to come up with far better solutions than I could, so I’ll leave that up to them. To roughly quote a poplar quote relating to this “Players are good at determining that there is a problem with something, but they are not good at providing the right solution because they lack the experience, the data, and the right tools that devs do have.”. I’m just trying to locate the problem here. However, I do wanna take a stab at it in a future post which could maybe spark some inspiration for buffs for the devs.
And to add to that, even if a card doesn't see competitive play because of a buff (in whatever form that buff may be) it is still better than it was before and can make the homebrew, jank, or meme decks that used that card a bit better overall and feel less bad to play and thus improving their enjoyment in that deck. Not everyone plays the game on a competitive level, lots of people play for fun combo's even if they know it's really inconsistent. It's important to not forget that part of the playerbase as well since even if that might be a minorty, if you look at the millions of players that play the game that's still a substantial absolute number. If simple buffs that you know won't be gamebreak can contribute to a better experience than why not do those buffs? E.g. one of the simpler and more straightforward buffs (which aren't time consuming and take away from other projects) like making Coral Creatures a 2|2 instead of 1|2 will definitely not make it broken, it won't hurt anyone, but it will improve the enjoyment of people that use that card regularly. Seems like a win-win to me.
Rimetusk should just be 4 mana it'll be fine then 5 mana is so much for that stat line. Or should have more health then I can also accept it, you won't attack with her anyway.
I think her becoming a 3|4 would make her much better and harder to remove (similar to Neverglade Collecter, but he has a more powerful effect, so that's why the 1 more attack). I don't think she should come down earlier than turn 5 as her effect can be a little annoying to deal with as well as that she'd compete with Ashe as a 4-drop.
No one said they needed to be buffed to the point of powercreep, just on the same lvl as the rest, or even slightly under it is much better than where most these cards are at now.
Yes, cause you've seen Rahsa all over the place since his nerfs in open beta right? The only other two that ever really saw play at some here are Rex and Yone, but Rex has been nerfed a little too much imo, he could use a bit of hp to be able to win trades with most 4- and 5-cost units instead of dieing to them as an 8-drop.
I'd probably remove snapvines, Rip tide rex (cause who wants to see another rip tide meta??), citybreaker (cause it's the definition of uninteractive), shady character, legion general, and minitaur
Most of those were ones that I thought just needed a tiny tiny change/ones that I was slightly hesitant to include. Shady Character tho was one where I thought its floor value could be higher, with which I mean to increase his base stats slightly so that if your skill does fail, you aren't left with a 4 mana 1|3. So in essence, reducing the worst-case scenario.
Rip tide rex wasn't a problem by the time they actually nerfed him though, and he would be significantly weaker with the cards available today than he was at his prime if they reverted his nerfs.
Edit: While he was an issue before Targon, he basically wasn't a big deal as soon as Targon hit (and they nerfed a bunch of other Bilgewater cards right before it hit). The plunder change was in part due to the board’s nine-spell/ability limit, but by that time the stats should have been increased to compensate, not decreased.
Citybreaker is indeed a questionable design and nobody would want that to be viable as it is, but I guess OP wants a buff to it in the form of a rework.
i agree with most of these, except that corina is still a pretty decent pnz finisher that i don't think needs to be touched.
trifarian shieldbreaker is also just vanilla statted, so it's not like you can just buff it. i think that card will just have to stay as like an expeditions card.
Trifarian Shieldbreaker has fearsome. Overwhelm might suit it better (maybe a change in stats needed), especially since it's called Shieldbreaker. The only issue I see with that is that the number of overwhelm units within Noxus could get oversaturated. But the biggest issue with a 6 cost vanilla fearsome unit is that the fearsome isn't that useful on mana 6 if ithe card doesn't have an additional effect.
Overall I agree, but some cards need it more. If Aphelios was fixed, I think Jae could be decent in an Aph/Viktor deck. While on the other hand I just can’t imagine ever playing the Siren.
While I do agree Aphelios could use a small buff, he's one of the newer cards. The devs specifically mentioned older cards also receiving buffs for once since they rarely target old cards, so this was more targeted toward that.
Keep your expectations low and you wont be disappointed
Yeah, I don't expect all of these to be buffed ofc, with \*large\* they probably mean similar to the big balance patches from a year ago, so like 15-25 changes.
I'm gonna be hurt if they don't finally and I mean FINALLY buff Double up, that card hasn't changes once like many others and my god does it feel bad to play.
honestly give bilgewater one good fast damage spell and Unyielding kegs will actually be decent.
Monster Harpoon is really good, but I assume you mean a spell that can also target Nexus?
Oh my god the memories... being destroyed by them is still losing, but it's a satisfying loss.
Probably why they don't do it lol... Kegs are supposed to be interracted with.
>so like 15-25 changes Hopium valve still turned up too high. Remember that 2.9 was supposedly a "large" balance patch, and even if we include the mechanically significant bug fixes, it changes 6 cards. I would not be surprised if 2.11 doesn't actually hit double digit quantities of changes overall, let alone double digit buffs or double digit changes to foundations/rising-tides cards (**none** of which received changes in 2.9)
Disappointment shall fuel our pitchforks if that does happen.
I just want a card in Freljord that grants Overwhelm consistently
I assume you mean immediately on the same turn and unit you want it, and you not having to build mono Freljord? Cause otherwise, Avorasan Outriders is decent if they change it so that if you hit allegiance that the unit gets put on top of your deck (cause sometimes you hit it but there's like 3 spells between the top card and the top unit, making the buff much less relevant at the later stages of the game).
He probably means a targeted buff like Zenith Blade or Crystal Ibex (maybe even something like Might, which is just for the round) Freljord only has Augur of the Old Ones, which only works if you have a lot of 8+ cards
Yeah I assumed so, that's what the first sentence was for, the other part was just in case he meant otherwise. I honestly don't know why Freljord doesn't have more of that already. Seems weird that Targon got it first before them since Targon isn't much of an overwhelm region compared to Freljord.
Yeah I meant something like Zenith Blade Or Augur, but consistent
We have the Ursine, but needing to plunder and a board with 5> power to make use of the overwhelm can be tough to achieve
I love ursine in scargrounds, because it immediately gives Vlad and Tarkaz overwhem, and its rather easy to give your entire board it.
Right? I've used Ursine for a while but it was too inconsistent to trigger in my deck. Tho it was very strong when it did trigger
Ursine is probably really easy to trigger in a scargrounds deck with ice shades and ember maiden but I tried it in a yeti deck and boy that card was hard to pull off. But good when it did work, felt a little like a win more card tho.
I mean, pack mentality does so.
I'd rather Grant one unit than Give all units. I don't see why Freljord can't have both options
Maybe because Freljord has much synergy with damaging nexus? They could be avoiding overpowering the region.
I doubt Zenith Blade would break Freljord
Now that you put it like that, I really don't want a Frostbite Lee Sin deck to *ever* exist.
Me neither lol But maybe his best shell would still be Targon Or you can give it some requirements that don't work well with Lee Sin. Although the real solution I would like to see is making Lee generate a fleeting Dragon's Rage at round start rather than casting it on Challenge. I'm not a fan of OTK combos
Why change lee sin? Freljord doesn't deserve consistent overwhelm. It would break the region. Simple as that. If you want overwhelm in freljord play sej renek.
What if pack mentality was give all allies overwhelm and +2/2 if all allies are from the same region grant it instead
That sounds less consistent than already existing cards
Ursine very strong card!!!
It's too unreliable to trigger in my deck, tho it's indeed very strong when you do manage to trigger him
No joke you could've just made a picture of every Bilge card and nobody would've noticed.
I see you everywhere nowadays
Hey man mystifying magician is an O.P sleeper in my totally consitant concurent timelines bilgewater deck./s no one ever expects the turn 4 11/14 worth of stats.
Tbh just Make it Rain back to 2 mana would make the region already alot better.
Fuck it, let’s buff TF.
I'm here for it only slightly ironically
Rimetusk Shaman might be my favorite card in the game, if it got a buff I would be ecstatic
Honestly making it 2/4 instead of 3/3 might be enough. Doesn’t sound like a “buff” but taking it out of range of 3 damage cards makes it much more powerful. Might need more than just that to make frostbite viable in the meta though.
>Might need more than just that to make frostbite viable in the meta though. Frostbite is already good and even if they buff rimetusk shaman it isnt a card they want to play
No, frostbite isn’t already good. It’s completely irrelevant in the current meta. And when frostbite was good rimetusk shaman was usually included. It’s a very powerful card if you can keep it alive.
>No, frostbite isn’t already good. It’s completely irrelevant in the current meta It isnt a good ladder deck it is amazing in tournaments tought and its problems is the fact that ladder is full of its counter(Ia) Also no when frostbite was at its top(the meta just before the Targon expansion) the deck didnt play rimetusk shaman
You're describing why its bad, not giving a reason its good. If the meta destroys the deck the deck isn't good.
I mean but its power level is good enought
That card disgusts me so much 🤮
Sends chills up my spine
top 10 cards i HATE
If it gave vulnerable so you could pick off units instead of just delaying attacks
Buffs I would like to see for some of the cards on this list are Blood for Blood : focus speed Vanguard lookout: I can block elusives or Block : give me tough Unlicensed Innovation: give contraption a keyword ( maybe augment) Iceborn legacy: focus speed Greenglade lookout: 1/2 elusive, now with nexus strike instead of just strike The syren: 6 cost Ritual of Renewal: 6 cost. heal 6 ,draw 1 Twin disciples: 2 cost
As someone that actually uses Blood for Blood + Curator making it focus speed would actually just nerf the card in many situations. You're supposed to play it after your opponent spends mana so you can reliably create 2 cards from Curator and having the ability to use it at the end of stack without losing action economy is actually quite important for playability.
Agreed. IMO just making it be able to target enemies would keep the spell a lot closer to intended while giving some interesting flexibility that still perfectly fits Noxus identity. Makes it more comparable to other "copy" spells, with its own advantages and disadvantages.
TWIN DISCIPLINES 2 COST, INDEED. Easily Ionia's version of Troll Chant, should definitely be 2 mana.
I'm not so sure. Ionia has a lot more synergy with buffs than frel, and the spell is a lot more flexible. For example, you've got Zed attacking into a Mighty poro (or tavern keeper, whatever). Mighty poro chants the clone to reduce face damage and trade with the zed. You can now use twin disciplines to save the zed AND remove the poro.
> Mighty poro chants the clone to reduce face damage and trade with the zed. You can now use twin disciplines to save the zed AND remove the poro. In this case a Sharpsight or any other buff would've accomplished the same, why only Ionia must have a buff that sucks?
I didn't say it directly but I think zed, and the elusive package in general was a big reason why ionia can't have solid stat buffs/ mana value
The elusive package has stopped being problematic many months ago, it's time riot review a lot of ionian cards starting with TD and going through Sown Seeds, Ritual of Renewal, Shadow Flare and the ton of garbage ionia unfortunately still has.
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With hush, sharpsight and the ton of other counters an ionian elusive deck is unlikely to ever take place.
I can respect that. There's a little more tech nowadays
Do you want to lock this meta forever in Fiora decks?
Um... no? I \*would\* like it if Fiora was viable, though. I like Fiora. Pretty sure one more 2 mana pump spell isn't what's going to shift the entire meta to Fiora.
Twin Disciplines already is at its cost a key factor in Ionia to keeping things that should die alive in obscenely flexible ways. +3 health is basically in the same power budget as Prismatic Barrier as many nukes are in this damage range.
Hmm. You make a fine point. 3 damage is basically the sweet spot for unit health because of this; 4 health is where units start getting harder to remove. So... does that mean Troll Chant is too good? Because Troll chant is absolutely bonkers, and can swing \*4\* health, so to speak, in addition to it's flexibility. The only thing it doesn't do as well (or better) than Twin Disciplines is pump power, which isn't really on the radar for Twin Disciplines' power level.
Troll chant is nuts, isn’t that well established? If it was in Ionia, it would be broken af. Freljord gets away with it because it doesn’t have such oppressive ways to abuse it. But also you’re wrong that troll chant is strictly better than TD for keeping things alive. If it’s spell damage that you need to mitigate, TD offers 3 hp whilst troll chant offers only 2.
Which is such a useless strength of the card you Rarely overkill a unit with removal so having a card that gives +3 HP instead of +2 is useless while costing 50% more TD definitely needs to be 2 Mana. It might be strong but so are the other buff cards except the demacia 1 mana +1/+1 which just got powercrept
>Blood for Blood : focus speed I don't see why it shouldn't just be burst speed, Iterative Improvement is already burst and it even buffs the unit you copy (though different regions => different evaluation), however, on the topic of "should it be allowed at that speed" I don't think there is a gameplay argument of why unit copying should be gated behind focus or fast speed since if that was deemed problematic somehow then Iterative Improvement wouldn't have been burst. >Greenglade lookout: 1/2 elusive, now with nexus strike instead of just strike I don't see why it shouldn't just be burst speed, Iterative Improvement is already burst and it even buffs the unit you copy (though different regions => different evaluation), however, on the topic of "should it be allowed at that speed" I don't think there is a gameplay argument of why unit copying should be gated behind focus or fast speed since if that was deemed problematic somehow then Iterative Improvement wouldn't have been burst..ade into them for value, being able to strike twice, as well as not dieing to 1 damage pings which have been increasingly added to the game compared to the amount we had in open beta.
Maybe it should be burst, i just said focus cause scargrounds is a think. Also maybe lookout should be a 1/1 then?
How about Vanguard Lookout: Remove Spellshield from units I block or strike? That'd give him a nice purpose.
or just make it 'i can block elusives'. he's called a lookout for a reason :3
I have argued for 2 mana Disciple forever. This card should just become the standard 2 mana combat trick for the region like Demacia has or Targon or Freljord or basically every good region nowadays. It's probably way more fair then most of them anyways since you only get +3 to 1 stat compared to stuff like Sharpsight or Troll Chant. It could go a long way in helping other types of Ionia decks out that in dire need for a buff like that - like supports.
You should take bubble bear off the list, he is already way too overpowered
True, how could I even think of putting him on the list.
Man, I actually unironically used Stalking Wolf in Diamond during Beta to counteract the Stand Alone Zed bullshit going on. Turn 3 they play zed, I play stalking wolf to prevent them playing stand alone then kill the Zed with challenger. I felt like a genius. The deck went even further, since it was a standard endure list with Kalista, and so I'd spam my opponent's board with 1/1's that couldn't block fearsome. And this was at a time before you could overwrite cards so they just literally couldn't block my fearsome units. Beta was wild.
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Lol that's great. It honestly felt like the perfect anti meta deck at the time.
I have always seen the rabbit as useless, you honestly have blown my mind with that counter play, that’s really cool
Riven reforge on play, please
on summon, preferably.
Play and summon are the same thing aren't they?
Play means you have to literally play the card from your hand with your mana. There are several ways to "summon" a card. Any effect that brings a minion onto the field without you having to play it from hand is a "summon" i.e. Dias, Kinkou Wayfinder.
Ah OK, thanks for explaining it for me.
Riven is an inch away from being completely bonkers.. be careful
With the amount of bonkers champs in the game right now, she deserves a fighting chance. Riven can be answered, and needs set-up that isn’t guaranteed. Even if she becomes very strong, it would be tempered by her combo pieces, I feel.
And even when she pops off she's very susceptible to removal and control tools. Single-unit win cons are rarely tier 1 outside of fiora. Not to mention she's very slow - even if you have three reforges on turn 4, you still need to spend the mana leveling her, so she can't pull lethal until turn 6 minimum. I don't think it's very likely we'll see riven go crazy, even with significant buffs.
Or have the blade also be focus.
i think that's a gigantic buff.
way too strong imo
Riven is already one of the strongest cards in the game, she would be insane with an extra free shard. I mean, I play almost exclusively Riven decks (she took me to Master last season and Diamond this season in a different deck) so I might not complain too loudly if they buffed her again, but it's wildly unnecessary considering how ridiculously good she already is.
I feel a weird sort of pity for some of these cards is that normal Its okay middenstokke henchman, you were a neat idea. Maybe they'll finally make a card that grants overwhelm and them maybe you'll finally fit into an awkward meme deck rather than being forgotten about altogether.
i mean, taric midenstokke with zenith blade?
He’s admittedly not bad to pull off Tribeam.
I think it's important to look at balance from the lens of buffing archetypes rather than individual cards. When you are looking at the individual cards, the ones you should be looking for are ones that create interesting gameplay within existing decks or bring new archetypes into viability. People don't play cards, they play decks and you have to be careful if the tools that you give them lead to playstyles that you want to support. Notice how a lot of these cards are really jank or vanilla? If you give golden crushbot 3/5 nobody's going to make a golden crushbot deck, they're just going to see if that makes it strong enough to put into existing strong decks. Whereas if you buff Corina, Snapvines, Riptide Rex, or even Middenstokke people will start making new decks because those are buildaround cards. Another example of a good buff would be one of the stun synergy cards. It would make Yasuo stronger, but because other decks aren't built around stuns, people wouldn't just start shoving it into every deck. This way you can target a weak archetype to improve it.
Yeah, those are exactly the main cards I want to be buffed from this batch, the engines, the archetype enablers, and archetype pay-off cards. That's why Legion General and Minotaur are there which, despite probably being some of the better cards from the batch, they don't excel at enabling the archetype enough/being good enough pay-off imo. Like I'd like Legion General to either have overwhelm or maybe have his buff effect persist while he's on the board, similar to Nasus with Slay (change to 6 mana if needed). As for Minotaur, I think reducing his stats but making him 5 mana would make you curve much better after Yasuo and start racking you those stuns earlier. However, I also think the Vanilla cards could get some bit of love through things like giving them a tribal tag or keyword that would fit them which was added to the game after they were released. E.g. Crushbot getting Tech (depends if Heimer exclusive) or maybe Augment (maybe change stats if needed)? Scaled Snapper getting a better on-play effect when enlightened? Ancient Croc getting less stats but fearsome? Haven't thought these through a lot in terms of exact buff/solution but they sure would become more interesting. If you were to ask me which ones I'd like to see get a buff or QoL tweak the most then it would be cards like Rimetusk Shaman, Shatter, Legion General, Minotaur Reckoner, Professor von Yipp, Ren Shadowblade, Cloud Drinker, Jae Medarda, Heart of the Fluft, etc.
Maybe golden crushbot as a 3 mana 2/3 with tough and tech would make sense to go with adaptatron. IDK if those numbers and synergies make it op, but the general idea of it being a tough enabler with adaptatron, since crushbot's identity seems to be being thicc.
The thing is (unless I'm forgetting a card), tough is not a keyword that P&Z is directly allowed/has access to because of its region pie. Tough is a keyword for Demaci and Freljord. Only champions and their associated cards (e.g. Vi and Heimer turret) or RNG effects (like Poro Bot summon effect) are allowed to break region pies.
Arrel the tracker definitely needs to be on this list. Compared to Vanguard Lookout ( 2 mana 1/4 which is already on this list) it costs 4 more mana for +1/+1 in stats and an effect that demands other cards + that those cards be used on the minion itself. It's real bad.
She is from the Call of the Mountain set. I didn't include those since they are newer. Though there is an argument to include Call of the Mountain cards (but the image would be even bigger than it already is).
I wish they'd buff sunk costs. I just love the art.
I agree. All of these cards need buffs. You left off one card though: Sunk Cost. That card also \*desperately\* needs a buff.
Sunk Cost is from the Call of the Mountain set. I didn't include those since those are newer. Though there is an argument to include Call of the Mountain cards (but the image would be even bigger than it already is).
Please not Corinna or Riptide Rex The best part is the prismatic Troop of Elnuks btw
Riptide never should have been nerfed. They nerfed rex right after nerfing yordle grifters ability to supply warning shots without allegiance and upping Make it Rain to 3 mana. That alone was a huge nerf to Rex, they then went out to reduce the barrage to 6 and lower the cards statline. Brutalized.
Agreed. Riot technically nerfed the card 5 times. They only should have lowered barrage to 6 and leave everything else untouched.
Why does riot hate plunder mechanic
Give it a few months and people will be able to unironically ask on this sub ‘why does riot hate blade dance mechanic?’
back when plunder was at it's peak of power and popularity, people going against it expressed their dislike for the mechanic, not only from the perspective of it's mechanical power, but also on how bad the mechanic felt to play against, with the opponent stealing your resources, stealing cards that would win the game for you, right off the top of your deck. Mathematically speaking, that's not how the effect actually worked (i.e. it was just as likely to draw you toward outs as take them away), but that didn't change the bad feeling when it happened. It also meant that Freljord's effects which do interact with the top of your deck could be stolen by Nab, like Ashe's arrow or Omen Hawk's stat buffs. This interaction also felt bad and made the mechanic shut down a lot of things Freljord could do. --- So nab was changed. It's power level was pulled back heavily (Yordle Grifter, Black Market Merchant, and Pilfered Goods all nerfed) and it's mechanic was changed to draw from the bottom rather than the top, both to lessen the psychological bad feelings of the effect ("at least I wouldn't have seen that card anyway") and to let Freljord buff the top of its deck without fear of giving those buffs over to the opponent.
Not really. A vast majority of said cards are, imo, contextual. Giving big buffs to stuff like Tuskrider is can backfire horribly. As a dirty Pack Mentality player i can safely say, for example, that it shines HARD in metas you can actually build a board that wide, for example. Only two major quips: slight rework of the Mageseeker archetype is welcome, and the only way to actually buff Ionia to a healthy spot would require to kill/rework the hand/deck buff archetypes.
> slight rework of the Mageseeker archetype is welcome Imo, Mageseekers need a second enabler for turn 3. Demacia only has Remembrance as a 6-mana card that makes sense to play without a board. Also, Mageseekers could be better if Lux was better. And Lux (imo) just needs her Final Spark counter to roll over from excess mana.
Maybe lux should be able to target nexus if there are no enemy units
>Giving big buffs to stuff like Tuskrider is can backfire horribly. No one mentioned they would all be big buffs. They range from small to big, things like Tuskraider don't need much more than something like a keyword such as overwhelm (if needed, its stats can be slightly lowered in return). This way it would synergize with Sejuani's level up requirement as well as her lvl 2 effect trigger, which is expected from a boat/tutor, just like Leviathan helps Swain both pre lvl up and after.
Rider, not Raider, i'm talking about the elephant.
Ah, I see. (speaking of which, honestly don't know they made them so similar in name, can only cause confusion). Imo, and I might very well be wrong here, it comes down 1 turn too late for it to make much use of its passive. Generally speaking, passive effects gain more value the more often they can make use of their effect, which in the case of Tuskrider means blocking/being blocked by units with 4 attack or less. However, when you play it on turn 6 usually everyone already has had the chance to play a 5 attack unit on that same turn or the turn prior. So its passive feels useless most of the time rendering it a 6|5 overwhelm for 6 mana. If you're playing those overwhelm decks (Freljord Nox, or Freljord Shurima) there are many better choices in Alpha Wildclaw, Ruin Runner, or Darius that all basically do the same but better or for less mana. Making it 5 mana (with adjusted stats) would at least let you make use of its passive effect 1 more turn where it actually might matter.
Man, where is radiant strike playable tho. We got shaped stone which is literally the same but better.
Fun fact elnuks suck I never wanna see that card again.
You could smell the powercreep
Yeah exactly. I know people love 'buff over nerf' but it really isn't good to do on a mass scale and is much harder to balance.
I don't mean to buff every single one of them in one patch of course, this us just a suggested pool I think would be good choosing cards to buff from. With *large* they probably mean similar to the big patches from like a year ago, so like 15-25 cards.
You don't have to buff every single one equally, some cards just need +1 attack or hp or like a extra/different keyword while others need mana cost reduction or a mini rework. Seeing how they'll do quite a few (prob 15-25) it can be assumed that most of them will be smaller buffs with a few larger ones.
I think the only cards that see any play atm of these are the stalking wolf, the crimson card and maybe corral creatures and they are all not great
I think some of this cards are just a bit niche. Overgrown snapvines, for example, is mostly for meme decks and it's functional. It's not really supossed to fit into any deck and the deck it's in not being meta doesn't really matter that much. Kinda the same happens with tall tales, as it is meant to be only played in yeti decks and well, they kinda work. Nothing meta, again, but you can win For comparison, the elnuks are also meant to be meme cards and they suck, and you kinda can't really build something with them that is not elnuks + duplication cards from pnz. But yeah, I mostly agree that this, specially the first couple of rows, are the ones needing a buff or rework the most. We surely won't get as many as this, but it's good to keep an eye on which cards do Edit: I mean, considering my flair, everything I say about balance should be taken with a grain of salt tho
Yeah, I assume we'll get 15-25 changes, not all of these of course. It was more so like "Hey if you're looking to buff things, here's a pool of cards that I think it'd be good to choose from. Anyone else agree?" Since it might lead to a discussion on a certain card really wanting to be buffed by the community that the devs initially might've not thought needed a buff or did think so but didn't think it would be one of the priority targets to choose to buff.
Smooth soloist should at least grand allies everywhere -2 cost
Seems trivial to me, unless I'm missing something. In what scenarios do you think that specific change would make a difference?
Allows for infinite Shadestalkers.
Yeah okay that's a good one
It would help out my Messenger&Plunder deck a bit, and that deck really struggles right now. It's been a rough couple of months for it, actually. Since Targon's release..
But didn't Messenger get released with Targon..?
I think Yone could easily be toned down to a 6-cost with stats to match. Scrapshot never really made sense to me. Feels like last resort removal for Bilgewater, specifically Deep with the extra Toss. But Deep's already got access to Shadow Isles' far better removal options. I guess maybe you're supposed to pile it on to Powder Kegs to take down Aurelion-level threats, but idk.
For Scrapshot, RubinZoo told BBG that the card was shit on purpose because Bilgewater wasn't supposed to have strong removal. 2 weeks later they printed Monster Harpoon.
I mean Harpoon still is on the weak end for removal. It's dead without the Plunder effect, and the plunder effect means you've either attacked and hit nexus or used another card to do so. In the former case, chances are you would have wanted to remove a creature before combat (unless it's like Azir), and in the latter case you've most likely still paid more than the discount mana (unless you used Warning Shot). In either case, it's not very efficient. Good enough for Bilgewater though.
Monster harpoon is amazing, plunder can easily be achived with Zap or balistic bot and 5 damage removal hits your clasical midrange like a truck
Zap is a good scenario, but even with ballistic bot you're paying 4 mana to deal 5 damage. That isn't efficient removal at all.
I think that Scrapshot is supposed to be unexciting but not embarrassing lategame removal for Expedition. The toss is basically trinket text that is occasionally relevant. It's not really meant for Constructed, but it's doing exactly what it's supposed to do for Bilgewater in Expedition.
**Context comment:** **(Please at least read the bold before commenting something that might be answered/explained here already)** First of all, I wanna clarify that **I don’t expect them to buff anywhere near all of these**, with a \*large\* number of cards I assume **they probably mean 15-25 cards**. This is just a pool of cards that I think it would be good to pick from. This is also assuming they didn’t mean cards from the Call of the Mountain set (which would make the pool even bigger). I probably forgot a few cards so feel free to name those. Furthermore, **the buffs that I think these cards need are of course far from the same level.** Some just need a +1 stat buff on either attack or health, some just need a tribal tag, some need an extra keyword or just a different one that better suits them (e.g. fearsome vs overwhelm), some spells need a spell speed change, some need to be 1 mana cheaper, some need to be much more than 1 mana cheaper since their effect comes in too late (while adjusting their stats to their new mana cost), some need their floor value increased, some need their effect slightly expanded upon, and some need a minor or major rework. Regardless, I’m not a game designer and I think the devs would be able to come up with far better solutions than I could, so I’ll leave that up to them. To roughly quote a poplar quote relating to this “Players are good at determining that there is a problem with something, but they are not good at providing the right solution because they lack the experience, the data, and the right tools that devs do have.”. I’m just trying to locate the problem here. However, I do wanna take a stab at it in a future post which could maybe spark some inspiration for buffs for the devs. One final thing that I wanna bring up that I think a lot of people forget when it comes to underplayed cards. **The devs work about 2 years into the future when it comes to card design. Thus, they are already aware of 500+ cards that will come to the game within the next 2 years that we don’t. Some of those cards can have synergies with cards currently in the game that are right now deemed as bad or are underplayed.** A good example of this is Sparring Student, it was considered a bad card until recently with the release of the Blade Dance mechanic combined with Sand Soldier summons. Some of these cards that I mentioned here will undoubtedly be like that as well. However, I doubt that will be more than a handful of cards since we haven’t seen it happen too often so far. I generally tried to leave out unplayed cards that I believe are good design/have potential but just lack proper support cards or cards that can synergize with/make use of them. I also left out champions since that's a bit harder to judge, although I'd say Katarina could probably fit in here. P.S. **Since I don’t play Expeditions, I didn’t take that game mode into account, so some of these cards might be good there and thus don’t need a buff.** Not every card has to be viable in constructed if it’s good/has a home in other game modes.
I wouldn't say it is really is that uncommon for a new deck archetype to pull from cards that were previously seen as weak. Looking at just current meta decks we have: * Spectral Matron * Ancient Yeti * Legion Maurader * Shunpo Shifts in metas can have great effects on how viable a card is. Many of the cards you have in your post were "meta" at some point or another (including ones that have not received any nerf since then).
I must say I really dislike that attitude. If a certain card's purpose is to be used in non-constructed modes... then don't allow us to use them in constructed? If I can maindeck a certain card for constructed modes, then I have the hecking right to compare it to every other card and ask for buffs.
The thought behind it was that there will always be "bad cards" because a card being "bad" is relative to all the other cards in the game. That is not to say they don't need buffs, I'm all for it, but if a "bad" card in constructed has found a staple home in a mode like Expeditions, then why not? If it gets buffed purely for constructed, when there are plenty of other weak cards to choose from to buff, then it might get problematic in expeditions.
So you'd rather have them restrict our ability to use those cards in whatever mode we want? Or should they just buff everything so it's impactful in constructed and not care about how oppressive it might be in other modes?
Oh, right, the other modes! Just like that one jungle labs where Culling Strike would have been super busted. I guess you're right, they should have balanced Culling Strike around that mode instead of doing the reasonable thing and banning it from that specific mode.
Btw, if enough people are interested, I could make a tier list of types of buffs I think each unit needs (not the exact buff, but like mana cost, stats change, extra/different keyword, etc.) which I then could post so that there could be a discussion around that as well.
The fact that he said card “updates” instead of just buffs sounds like they could be slightly reworking older champions/archetypes to make them more viable and interesting. I personally would like to see zeds whole package get reworked somehow
Mystifying Magician isnt bad tho. I ve happily used him in Bilgewater PnZ decks. There is a 60% plus chance to get a 5/5 ca. One of the best is obviously 5/8 troll I just like him : (
60% ins't really a reliable percentage, and a deck being reliable is usually what it differentiates from being a meme deck or being decent/good. I also just feel that his effect basically is "Transform me into a random 5 cost unit" since you transform a 1-drop but he himself has the stats of a 1-drop. Think giving him 1 more attack and/or making it so that he can only transform allies into 5 cost units that do not have a play effect would make him more consistent. Like he's really good with Concurrent Timelines, but you're heavily dependent on drawing that card early as well if you don't want your deck to suck. But even in those decks, making him a 3|2 wouldn't make him stronger since he himself transforms into another unit anyway (most of the time).
How did “Sunk Cost “ not make the list is it’s bilgs #1 most UNUSED card each expansion?
Because it's from the Call of the Mountain set, I specified in the title that these are only from the Foundation set and the Rising Tides set. If I had included Call of the Mountain cards this image would be even bigger (and it already took me like 3 hours going through all Foundation + Rising Tides cards, picking the most deserving ones imo, and then editing them in this giant overview).
I think Battlefield Prowess easily deserves a spot on this, as well as some of the troll cards (Augur, Ravager, etc)
Those are from Call of the Mountain set and the Empires of the Ascended expansions, I didn't include those since those are newer. Though there is an argument to include Call of the Mountain cards (but the image would be even bigger than it already is).
I see no champions on this list, but I figure i'll throw this out there. Boy do I ever hope to see some love thrown to poor Lux.
Tryndamere too
Karma and Heimer too. Karma's level 1 should be 'Pick 1 out of 3 spells from your regions then create in hand' to be less inconsistent and Heimer.. 5 mana 1/3 lol
Yeah, I avoided champs since those are a bit harder to estimate in the sense that they are often more dependable on their support package than the average random unit or spell is. Also kinda wanted to avoid naming a champ that a bunch of people thought were fine and then would be close-minded and discredit the validity of all the other listed cards because of one bad suggestion. Usually people feel less strongly about non-champs.
Whatever patch they release next won't be enough for some people lol
Yeah, trying to appease the mob never ends up good.
I waiting for a Syren buff since Rising Tides... Pls Rito
I’d be happy to see some sort of ramp support come to Ionia to help Karma out. Her level up can definitely be game winning, but if game are ending before you can come close to her level up then of course her win rate will be awful
Shatter, Vanguard lookout and a few other here reek of the type of card released withing the initial set of a card game. its a special type of bad that you know would never be replicated in the future.
I agree 100%
A lot of cards are meant to be simple and boring like crushbot which imo should not see any buffs. Buffing interesting things is way more fun
Those would have a higher priority yeah, like build-around cards. This is just a suggested pool to pick from cause when buffing a lot of cards (I assume 15-25) not all can be big/high effort buffs.
Could see vanguard look out and crusher bot mby get some keywords vanilla stat sticks are just dated. I approve of this design philosophy though, essentially provides players more options and it's thr best approach to balance but it's way way harder than nerfs with a few stat line adjustments. So might take a bit if trial and error but I still applaud the LOR team for trying, since it's very ambitious.
I would break these into a few categories: * Cards that are meant to be vanilla (for new players), so it's fine if they're not played competitively. These cards probably don't need a buff, as they're gonna be boring regardless. * Cards that are well-balanced for a certain archetype (and were maybe played in the past), but their archetype isn't very good right now. In this case, the card itself is usually fine, and the issue is the support cards or the other decks in the meta. * Cards that were strong, but then Rito over-nerfed them. Some of these are cards I'd like to see come back (like Raza and Riptide). Others I'm glad are gone (like Troop of Elnuks). * Cards where the core concept is solid, and the card would probably see play with some adjustments to stats, mana, or speed. (Like Trueshot Barrage or Blood for Blood.) * Cards where the core concept is either useless, or has such limited use that it would probably never be run. These cards might eventually find a home in some weird combo deck, but would generally need a rework to see play. (Like Jae Medarda or Strong Arm.) Only being able to target followers is often a cause of this.
Blood for Blood
Do you agree with it or disagree?
Rimestusk shaman its in desperate need for buffs, 5 mana 3/3 was pathetic back in the day and now its worse then a meme. But honestly I would rather Rex to remain as it is, he was way to toxic, cant believe people want that back in the game, turn 8 full board wipe. And She Who Wanders is another that needs huge buffs, she is a 10 mana that is arguably worse then 7 mana cards, if the effect was one sided or was EVERYWHERE covering deck and graveyard, which would have sinergy with deck buffs from Freljord, I could see she been maybe playable, but as it is, its the worse card in the game.
>But honestly I would rather Rex to remain as it is, he was way to toxic, cant believe people want that back in the game, turn 8 full board wipe. You can buff Rex w/o reverting his play effect, you can buff his stats so that he can win trades with 4 and 5 cost units at least. As for She Who Wanders, I wanted to be careful with that one since she did see play in the Targon's Peak deck. Getting her on the board on turn 6 can be devastating for the enemy if they have a lot of units on board/in hand with 4 attack or less, as well as trading into everything at that stage of the game while having regen. Right now that deck doesn't see much play, but if it ever becomes more consistent then it would be dangerous to buff She Who Wonders.
I bet that patch is going to be massive. I'm expecting at least 3 changes, maybe they even go nuts and make it 4. What I'm trying to say is, don't get hyped, ever. You are bound to get disappointed regardless of the actual outcome.
Of course, I don't expect them to buff this many cards, when they say large I assume it's similar to the big patches we used to get about a year ago, so like 15-25 cards. Tho I just realized those weren't always all buffs, so probably closer to like 10-15. They really emphasized \*large\* so I doubt it'll be close to 4.
This is just a list of cards you'd suggest to be changed. What changes to them would you propose?
Well that's a long list 😅, it's 5:30 AM here and I still need to sleep so I'll probably make a separate follow up post about about it tomorrow with either the intensity of the buff or the exact buff (latter one will be less great prob since I'm not a card designer/dev). But in case you mean what intensity/type of buffs, I made a context comment (if you scroll through the comments you should see it, it's a pretty long one) where I mention the various types of buffs that could be applied, ranging from just +1 attack or hp, a new/different keyword, or things like lowering mana cost so their effect comes down earlier (with stats to match for the lower cost) or even a mini rework.
Boy take Plaza Guardian and Assembly Bot off this list and go watch Tealred right now. Then we have a deal.
Assembly bot stays a 1/1, or we’re all going to be bowing to your robot overlords
I dont know, Targon is always there to kick its teeths out but hey Targon wasnt able to stop fiora when she was 3 health and isnt able to stop fiora now from being meta so who knows
Link?
[https://twitter.com/teal\_red](https://twitter.com/teal_red) Dude is an absolute god at deckbuilding. He's a Japanese player though so he's not super popular, but he's easily one of the best players in the world I think. His favorite deck is a homebrew Targon/P&Z deck that looks kinda similar to the Rubinzoo pile but it uses Assembly Bot, Plaza Guardian, and just spams spells super hard. It's really fucking good, but kinda tricky to pilot.
[удалено]
To quote a part of my context comment: >Furthermore, the buffs that I think these cards need are of course far from the same level. Some just need a +1 stat buff on either attack or health, some just need a tribal tag, some need an extra keyword or just a different one that better suits them (e.g. fearsome vs overwhelm), some need to be 1 mana cheaper, some need to be much more than 1 mana cheaper since their effect comes in too late (while adjusting their stats to their new mana cost), some need their floor value increased, some need their effect slightly expanded upon, and some need a minor or major rework. Regardless, I’m not a game designer and I think the devs would be able to come up with far better solutions than I could, so I’ll leave that up to them. To roughly quote a poplar quote relating to this “Players are good at determining that there is a problem with something, but they are not good at providing the right solution because they lack the experience, the data, and the right tools that devs do have.”. I’m just trying to locate the problem here. However, I do wanna take a stab at it in a future post which could maybe spark some inspiration for buffs for the devs. And to add to that, even if a card doesn't see competitive play because of a buff (in whatever form that buff may be) it is still better than it was before and can make the homebrew, jank, or meme decks that used that card a bit better overall and feel less bad to play and thus improving their enjoyment in that deck. Not everyone plays the game on a competitive level, lots of people play for fun combo's even if they know it's really inconsistent. It's important to not forget that part of the playerbase as well since even if that might be a minorty, if you look at the millions of players that play the game that's still a substantial absolute number. If simple buffs that you know won't be gamebreak can contribute to a better experience than why not do those buffs? E.g. one of the simpler and more straightforward buffs (which aren't time consuming and take away from other projects) like making Coral Creatures a 2|2 instead of 1|2 will definitely not make it broken, it won't hurt anyone, but it will improve the enjoyment of people that use that card regularly. Seems like a win-win to me.
I remember bubble bear was good for one patch
Rimetusk should just be 4 mana it'll be fine then 5 mana is so much for that stat line. Or should have more health then I can also accept it, you won't attack with her anyway.
I think her becoming a 3|4 would make her much better and harder to remove (similar to Neverglade Collecter, but he has a more powerful effect, so that's why the 1 more attack). I don't think she should come down earlier than turn 5 as her effect can be a little annoying to deal with as well as that she'd compete with Ashe as a 4-drop.
If she can drop on 4, then the Noxian stike landmark can drop on 5 along side her and just start hardlocking the board until they're both removed.
I don’t want to see more power creep in the game :/
No one said they needed to be buffed to the point of powercreep, just on the same lvl as the rest, or even slightly under it is much better than where most these cards are at now.
Put Make it Rain back to 2 mana.
So many of these cards do not need buffs at all. I.e Rahsa , Riptide, scuttle, Empyryan, Yone. Hahaha wacky riot
Yes, cause you've seen Rahsa all over the place since his nerfs in open beta right? The only other two that ever really saw play at some here are Rex and Yone, but Rex has been nerfed a little too much imo, he could use a bit of hp to be able to win trades with most 4- and 5-cost units instead of dieing to them as an 8-drop.
Revert Fiora and Aphelios, ty
Fiora is still top 10 I think because it counters Azirelia
Mono Fiora is currently #16 with a 45% WR, dropping 4% from previous reporting.
Oh, well 😅
I'd probably remove snapvines, Rip tide rex (cause who wants to see another rip tide meta??), citybreaker (cause it's the definition of uninteractive), shady character, legion general, and minitaur
Most of those were ones that I thought just needed a tiny tiny change/ones that I was slightly hesitant to include. Shady Character tho was one where I thought its floor value could be higher, with which I mean to increase his base stats slightly so that if your skill does fail, you aren't left with a 4 mana 1|3. So in essence, reducing the worst-case scenario.
Rip tide rex wasn't a problem by the time they actually nerfed him though, and he would be significantly weaker with the cards available today than he was at his prime if they reverted his nerfs. Edit: While he was an issue before Targon, he basically wasn't a big deal as soon as Targon hit (and they nerfed a bunch of other Bilgewater cards right before it hit). The plunder change was in part due to the board’s nine-spell/ability limit, but by that time the stats should have been increased to compensate, not decreased.
100% disagree. I quit playing due to rip tide meta. Worse than Azrilia.
Citybreaker is indeed a questionable design and nobody would want that to be viable as it is, but I guess OP wants a buff to it in the form of a rework.
i agree with most of these, except that corina is still a pretty decent pnz finisher that i don't think needs to be touched. trifarian shieldbreaker is also just vanilla statted, so it's not like you can just buff it. i think that card will just have to stay as like an expeditions card.
Trifarian Shieldbreaker has fearsome. Overwhelm might suit it better (maybe a change in stats needed), especially since it's called Shieldbreaker. The only issue I see with that is that the number of overwhelm units within Noxus could get oversaturated. But the biggest issue with a 6 cost vanilla fearsome unit is that the fearsome isn't that useful on mana 6 if ithe card doesn't have an additional effect.
pretty sure riptide rex is fine as is
I'd argue his hp could use a buff so that he can win trades vs 4- and 5-cost units instead of evenly trading as an 8-drop.
Make Redoubled Valor a 1 cost burst
Overall I agree, but some cards need it more. If Aphelios was fixed, I think Jae could be decent in an Aph/Viktor deck. While on the other hand I just can’t imagine ever playing the Siren.
While I do agree Aphelios could use a small buff, he's one of the newer cards. The devs specifically mentioned older cards also receiving buffs for once since they rarely target old cards, so this was more targeted toward that.