Legends of Runeterra - Card game by Riot Games

Ravishing · Feb 3, 2020

Valderen said:
I got my vault to 10 which I believe is the sweet spot, at 10 you get the expedition token, and I think the xp from 10 to 13 is the same as 1-10 so not really worth the extra work.

The meta or lack off one in expedition is so much fun, you see so many different things. Also, you're forced to change decks every time a trial ends, so you're not playing the same thing over and over.

I'll need to look into Steamlink since I really want this on mobile.

I never used Steamlink before but it basically just broadcasts your PC screen to your phone/tablet. I would think that means my phone is doing a lot less processing power than a native app... Another thing that's nice is it allows me to run the Mobalytics decktracker. It might be hard for me to DL the native app after using Steamlink for these reasons.

However, you need to be on the same wifi network as your PC, so obviously the app is better for playing outside the house.

My only tip:
The "touchscreen" option doesn't seem to work, but by setting the cursor setting to "direct cursor" or whatever it's called, it makes it function exactly like a touchscreen.

Mahes · Feb 3, 2020

Well, I feel I have a descent handle on Expedition. I used to draft all the time in Magic Arena and I rarely got 7 wins. All 3 of my Expeditions were 7 wins on the first attempt. Skill indeed plays a larger part in this game than in Magic. It is so nice not having to worry about mana. I have only built my one deck. At this rate, I will just eventually get the cards without using most of my Wilds.

This game is just so much better.

Valderen · Feb 3, 2020

Damn steamlink works nicely with this. i can’t imagine the native mobile client will be any better.

Valderen · Feb 4, 2020

I guess I was really lucky with the first vault getting 3 Champions, didn't get any this time around.

New Patch today, nothing really special other than 3 new Guardians to buy.

They posted a little note about the way they'll do patches. Plan is every 2 weeks alternating between a small(this one) and a large(the next one) where the large patch will contain balance and card changes.

I'm curious to see how aggressive they'll be with their balance patches.

Ravishing · Feb 4, 2020

Level 13 vault and all I got was 1x heimer. That's 1 champ in 2 vaults lol. My last vault was level 11

zzeris · Feb 4, 2020

This was my first weekly and I got to 12. Two champs(3rd Braun and 2nd Garen) so I feel like I won the weekly random.

I'm also interested in how strongly they adjust champions moving forward since they butchered Anivia. I don't think either Braun or Zed will be nerfed soon so I feel good but I'd like to know before wasting shards on new champs. I have zero Ashe, Heimers, Yasuos, Ezreal, Fiora, or Hecarim so it's not like I'd be affected too much.

Ravishing · Feb 4, 2020

Acquiring cards is definitely a pain point in this game so far, but im hooked.

I just changed regions again to milk up the early rewards, I think the beginner strat is to get them all to about level 10-12 or so then switch.

There are a lot of decks I want to try but just missing so much. Ugh. I also purchased all the wildcards for the 3rd week in a row

Valderen · Feb 4, 2020

Well I did end up with 2 champion tonight, got Azreal from doing expedition(guaranteed) and was very lucky and the level 15? Freljord Epic Capsule upgraded to a Champion Capsule and got my 3rd Ashe from it. The next level in the Freljord path is a Champion Capsule too, so another coming soon.

Valderen · Feb 4, 2020

Ravishing said:
Acquiring cards is definitely a pain point in this game so far, but im hooked.

I just changed regions again to milk up the early rewards, I think the beginner strat is to get them all to about level 10-12 or so then switch.

There are a lot of decks I want to try but just missing so much. Ugh. I also purchased all the wildcards for the 3rd week in a row

I'm hooked also, and I should done that do switch faction around 10, but now that I'm 15 in Freljord and got 3 Ashe , so fuck it, going all the way.

Voldeth · Feb 4, 2020

Managed to get my vault to 13 before the reset and ended up unlocking 2 champs in my boxes + the token for an additional one. Decent rewards all around. I've managed to get to 7 wins in each expeditions, although this week I lost several versus the previous weeks where I would steamroll through. Definitely love the way it's set up (requiring back to back losses + having two tries). This game cannot come out on for mobile soon enough.

Valderen · Feb 5, 2020

I'm beginning to think that the way and limit on how you can acquire cards is going to hurt the game, and possibly quite a lot.

I was watching Swim and another guy, forgot his name...and both were trying to build new decks but didn't have resources to get all the cards they wanted so the decks were not optimized and both were having a tough time.

At the same time both were commenting on basically seeing only the same thing over and over again, and that it wasn't so much that the decks were OP, but because they were the only optimized decks that people could make.

I'm curious to see how this will play out, I could sense a degree of frustration in both players from being so limited in what they could try to do.

I really love the game, and I want it to do it well so it's viable for a long time, it's worrisome to some extent that you can already start to see people being frustrated with the meta and the limited option they have to answer it because of the way cards are acquired.

I'm not so much concerned with the meta personally as I mainly just play expeditions, although seeing tons of Elusive decks there too now. There is still a fair amount of diversity.

Ravishing · Feb 5, 2020

It's definitely an issue that should diminish over time, but concerning for every new expansion or card release. I do think it won't be nearly as bad as long as you collect/buy the weekly wildcards. It is an issue for new players if there's no catch-up mechanic (even just opening your wallet)... but like Hearthstone, once meta decks can be fully realized, it's also not hard to focus on a couple decks and make them a reality...

One of the peak sources for Twitch viewership for HS was expansion release and just watching streamers open packs for hour(s).

I can respect them trying to level out the income stream and support more card acquisition through free to play, time will tell if this is healthier long-term or not... I am hopeful that once players have a decent cache of wildcards it's not going to feel very painful at all.

zzeris · Feb 5, 2020

I don't think the limitations on cards hurts very much at all. Having good design, solid balance, and fun gameplay is so much more important. I'm sure it's hurting streamers but most people don't ever get all the cards or even most of them. Anyone that has played a CCG knows most people will just copy the 'best' deck 90% of the time. I have two competitive decks and I've played a little over a week. I don't see both suddenly being at the bottom and one reason is because of the limitations.
Riot is incredibly generous with the rewards. Considering both MtG and Hearthstone are open cash grabs, I appreciate what Riot is doing.

velk · Feb 6, 2020

I am not sure that being unable to drop $500 on it so you can crush newbs is a downside at all, let alone a serious one.

Catchup mechanics is a reasonable concern, but there's nothing stopping them giving generous quest rewards from old sets that don't give shards. IIRC Eternal does something like that

Valderen · Feb 6, 2020

I was saved by mushrooms last night.

I was going to die for sure, guy had a solid board and I had nothing. End my turn, he draws..3 mushrooms and he's dead as he had 3 life left.

I am still mostly playing with Frostbite decks since I like the mechanics and I have 3 of Ashes. Now I got Ezreal, and I've been thinking of including him. It seems like he'll synergize really well in a Frostbite deck since he levels from Frostbite targeting enemies, so him and Ashe will basically level from the same spells. Once he's leveled he'll do 2 to nexus whenever I frostbite stuff. It sounds like it could be interesting.

So many things I'd like to try. I have a few Champion wildcards, but afraid to craft stuff in case it ends up not being good.

Ravishing · Feb 6, 2020

So.... very ironic/strange thing happened last night..

I blow my Champ shards basically at will because I know more will come and I feel like trying stuff.
I had a self-made deck idea that I wanted to try using Vlad.
At this point NOBODY uses Vlad... and he's considered "lower tier" from things I've read.

My deck: Decks of Runeterra
(Created 2 days ago)

So I crafted 2x Vlad making 3 total since I already had one..

I finish up the deck and I load into my first game... And I don't realize it was a Normal game but I ended up winning against an Elise/Shadow Isle meta deck. Felt pretty decent about it.
So now I do my FIRST RANKED game...

I'm facing a Vlad/Braum deck.

I about hit the floor and thought it was a joke.

I load up decksofruneterra and see this by StrifeCro:

Decks of Runeterra

decksofruneterra.com

(Created 19 hours ago)

It was a very close game but he won due to so many buff cards. Gives me ideas for changes, or maybe I'll just copy it since i have most of the pieces anyway lol.

So ridiculous, I figured I'd be going into games shock&awing people with a Vlad/Braum deck, oh well

I do love me some StrifeCro decks, glad to see he's into this

zzeris · Feb 6, 2020

Ravishing said:
So.... very ironic/strange thing happened last night..

I blow my Champ shards basically at will because I know more will come and I feel like trying stuff.
I had a self-made deck idea that I wanted to try using Vlad.
At this point NOBODY uses Vlad... and he's considered "lower tier" from things I've read.

My deck: Decks of Runeterra
(Created 2 days ago)

So I crafted 2x Vlad making 3 total since I already had one..

I finish up the deck and I load into my first game... And I don't realize it was a Normal game but I ended up winning against an Elise/Shadow Isle meta deck. Felt pretty decent about it.
So now I do my FIRST RANKED game...

I'm facing a Vlad/Braum deck.

I about hit the floor and thought it was a joke.

I load up decksofruneterra and see this by StrifeCro:

Decks of Runeterra

decksofruneterra.com

(Created 19 hours ago)

It was a very close game but he won due to so many buff cards. Gives me ideas for changes, or maybe I'll just copy it since i have most of the pieces anyway lol.

So ridiculous, I figured I'd be going into games shock&awing people with a Vlad/Braum deck, oh well
I do love me some StrifeCro decks, glad to see he's into this

That's a pretty damn nice deck. I was thinking of doing a poor man's version after my quick strike quest deck did pretty well (considering everything). I don't have the cards for it so may just wait a bit but multiple variations of aggro have done very well for me so far.

Ravishing · Feb 6, 2020

zzeris said:
That's a pretty damn nice deck. I was thinking of doing a poor man's version after my quick strike quest deck did pretty well (considering everything). I don't have the cards for it so may just wait a bit but multiple variations of aggro have done very well for me so far.

I assume you mean StrifeCro's? It's not in the "meta list" of decks so I'd still be wary trying it out. My Vlad deck wasn't very successful last night, and I didn't try Strife's version yet.
I think I'm missing a couple cards to make Strife's, namely Scarmother, which is Epic and I have 0 atm.
My goal was to load up on more weenies to use Vlad's effect better (nexus damage), but Strife uses more buffs to control the board, and also get Nexus damage with buffs on Crimson Disciple.
Strife's list lacks removal cards which is concerning vs Elusive decks. Of course you have Braum but he's not always enough.

Valderen · Feb 6, 2020

Mushrooms won me 7 games in expedition.

Here’s an example of why I suck at these game most of the times, I enjoy fun plays over intelligent ones even though it worked in this case. Basically had something like 45+ mushrooms on 18 or so of his cards. He had 2 life left, and I had a Mystic Shot i could have used to kill him, he had no cards in hand, nothing he could have done...but I had gone to so much trouble to give him all these mushrooms. So instead I used it to kill his Avarosan Sentry to make him draw and kill him with mushrooms instead. Now it wasn’t the riskiest of plays since the round would have ended and he would have drawn again...and with 45 mushrooms on 18 cards it’s doubtful he would not draw 2 in 2 draws. Still unless I had drawn something to stop him if he had survived he would have killed me.

It doesn’t work a lot of the times though and I lose, but sometimes how you win is more important than the victory itself.

Ravishing · Feb 7, 2020

2-8 with my Vlad deck in Ranked
4-8 with Ephemeral rush deck, which 2 days ago got me to Gold II

6-16 combined and I'm back to Gold IV.

Then started working on a new homebrew Control deck featuring Harrowing
3-4 with it so far but it feels good and isn't completely optimized yet, still missing some cards.

This is where I'm trying to get to:
CEBAEAIDAQTAGAIFFAYDCAQBAEBSICIBAUBQ6HJCEMUTKNRZAIBACBIBEEBQCAYLCY2Q

Decks of Runeterra

decksofruneterra.com

Plenty of removal. Some lifesteal. I actually used Harrowing to close out my last game last night.
Ancient Crocolith has performed so well that I went from testing 1 to adding a 2nd.
The Undying/Curse Keeper guys are good triggers for Croc / Glimpse, but since they can't Block they can be a weak spot, but with so much removal it doesn't matter that often. I did have a game where I drew like 5 of these, basically screwing me from big minions/removals... so I removed 1 Undying.
I also had a game where I had a 1/1 spider + 1/1 Cursekeeper, played Croc to go from 2 Power to 11 Power on board, my opponent then spent almost max time on a response lol.
I went against an Ezreal deck that spent about 4 spells removing 1 Minotaur.

And 1 thing I didn't realize with Harrowing is that it can summon Enemy minions for me if they were large in power. When I used it I ended up getting 2x Fiora on my side.
Just need to watch out for Deny, but with so much removal you probably baited out enough Deny ahead of time.

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