Damn this is exciting.
About the patch notes:
MOBILE at last, I can't wait. This will increase my playtime which has been very little recently as I hate playing on PC, CCG are a timewaster for me so if I have time to sit at the PC I will be playing a "real" game. I prefer iPad for CCG, while watching sports, at work during break or a few games in bed before going to sleep.
Playing units on full board, that's a pretty cool change. It's impact will be limited but significant at the same time. What I mean by that is that having a full board where you want to Obliterate a card isn't something that happens all that often. Usually you will want to make use of the cards on board rather than just get rid of them with little to no benefit except playing a more powerful card. It will be impactful though because when you do want to do that, it will probably be for a big move. Also prevent the strategy of a player not clearing a weak board to prevent other player from playing which happen sometimes. It's a cool idea, I like it.
Region road update is pretty cool, I was wondering how they would handle that for those that had completed them. I like it, it's a fun system to acquire cards.
New card backs is nice customization option, emotes leave me indifferent though. What I do like and been wanting since day 1 is for per deck loadout for board and guardians. Like when I play Freljord I like having the ice board, but it was annoying to switch them every time you switched deck, so glad to see them doing this finally and adding card back and emotes in the deck load out.
8 new archtypes in expeditions is very cool, can't wait to play some more as I love the mode.
All in all, some real nice features added and updated.
Now for the Miss Fortune Reveal:
Miss Fortune looks fucking cool. The biggest thing about her effect is that she doesn't need to attack, so she's going be a little easier to level, but seeing you attack 4 times on 3/3 might a bit tricky, will work well with Scouts though. I'm not sure if her effect will work with Powder Kegs if it does it could be quite powerful. I like her.
Double Up, expensive was my first thought and counterable my second, when the 4 damage to nexus is triggered it's a good card, but if it gets countered it's going to be pretty bad awful.
Crackshot Corsair, I think it might work in Plunder decks as a way to trigger the effect, but since it requires allies attacking that means that whatever you summon won't be able to attack this turn, again scouts might make this a good card. Attack with a scout, deal 1 damage to nexus, trigger Plunder, summon other cards, attack again with units who activated their plunder effect. Might see play, but otherwise weak.
Prowling Cutthroat, elusive and fearsome on a 1/1 unit? Again, this might work well as a Plunder trigger because how do you block it, you need elusive but a lot of elusive have low attack and won't be able to block it. I see this as very specialized, and not necessary very good overall.
The Syren, Scout makes it interesting as you can attack with it and your spell doe extra damage, than attack again with what might be a weaker board because of the extra reach that your damage spells had while it was attacking. I don't how good it will be but I think it might see some play.
Make it Rain, RNG but done as well as possible I guess since the 3 different enemies remove a lot of the RNG aspect, won't see 3 hits on same target, also will be wasted sometimes if you need to play it when opponent has less than 3 enemies. It will work well with Powder Kegs though. I think card like these are strengthening the Powder Keg and Gangplank a bit. We'll see.
Pretty good reveal.
New cards from the complete set reveal, not every card, just a few that caught my attention. These are not necessary the best, but seem interesting at first glance without a complete view of their place in the game.
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This looks like a pretty good card, it does 2 things...make a enemy Vulnerable which is a very strong effect on it's own, and then draw a card if the target dies. In my opinion this will trigger most of the time since it gives you the option of which of your attacker will Challenge the Vulnerable card giving you an advantage, opponent cannot kill it's own unit to prevent the effect. Even if the draw effect doesn't happen it will be good, as it will most likely force your opponent to respond, and most likely with a card that cost more than 1 mana which will likely end up in a favorable trade for you. I think even if it's slow, it's still good.
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This looks pretty good too, a 2/3 for 2 is a good card and once again Vulnerable is a very strong keyword. This should see play.
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We were wondering what kind of support Powder Kegs would get, it's might be decent depending on how good the Powder Kegs mechanics end up being.
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Ok, we're on the Mill train now, it's pretty good card. Draw 1 for 2 is ok, draw 2 is awesome. Now it denies cards to your opponent which can affect their strategy a lot, but gives you cards that might not work well for you.
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Damn, this is slow and requires Plunder but draw a card from enemy hand not sure how good this will be but it's going to be toxic.
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This is interesting. Stats are weak but you'll get a 1 mana scout from any faction so most likely going to be decent stats over 2 bodies...it says "create" though so you won't get the summoned effect on the other card. 2 scouts for 4 mana could be pretty strong.
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Bilgerwater allegiance, weak stats but potentially gives you 2 cards, 1 warning shot and 1 drawn from enemy. Synergize with Plunder with the Warning Shot, and with Twisted Fate with the draw mechanic. I think it will be played, love the art on it.
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Insane effect, but card is slow and statline isn't great but effect is so good.
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Ok very costly, and slow speed but pretty crazy. It won't see tons of play, and most likely only per deck. It's going to be played similar to ruination as a way to clear your opponent board since your units are likely to be much bigger than theirs at that point of the game, and they'll be force to block or they'll die. If you have a units with Overwhelm this might be a OTK.
Final early thoughts on the entire set.
Two things I dislike in this set, first it introduces a lot of RNG but for the most part it's very limited and focused RNG...but still RNG which is one thing I liked about LoR versus HS. It's still nowhere near as bad as HS though. The second thing is it introduce limited Mill mechanics which I totally despise, but it's fairly limited. It's not going to be game breaking by any means because overall there isn't a lot of both things, but it's a direction I'm not happy to see the game take.
As for the rest, I think it looks like a pretty exciting sets. When looking at the set overall, there are a lot of Slow spells in the set especially for Bilgewater region, also a lot of the new Heroes seem to be very late game oriented, and while there is support for aggro decks, it seem they've introduce a lot of counters against it. I feel they want to slow the game down a bit which isn't necessary a bad thing.
Bilgewater looks fun, it has a lot of totally weird card that I think will be fun to play even if not competitive. There's going to be months of meta shifting happening, I'm hoping that Riot continues to make balance adjustment to the game at the pace they've been doing if necessary even if the game is now officially going to be "Live". So far, I think this is the best CCG out there, good pacing, good interaction, tons of variety and Riot has been awesome at keeping things fresh. Things are looking good I think.
