Victor "den" Combret · @den_CCG
17th May 2021 from TwitLonger
LoR State of the game (Personnal view)
As Riot's dev team took the time to write us a lenghty review of their view about the current state of the game, I though it would be fair for us players to take the time to write something complete as an answer.
First, I'd like to point out that this view will be biased towards the high ladder ranks as this is where I play and where most players I talk with also play. I would also like to point out that I do agree Irelia as a card is not a problem and I believe there is a general hate towards her expressed on social media simply because she was in the latest cards release which lead to this metagame.
Let's start with the bad part : At these ranks, the general feeling is frustration, probably increased with the EUM qualification period we are in.
While the Riot team talked about winrate to explain the state of the game in their post, I'd like to talk about what it feels to play against Irelia / Azir and in a way against the other dominating decks.
52% winrate is indeed great, this is about what most decks should be at for a healthy metagame. And for the record, I believe Thresh / Nasus is way ahead of irelia / Azir if we are talking OP.
The problem is what happens inside the games that is creating the frustration.
Irelia Azir relies on a never ending assault that is reminiscent of the scouts deck from the past which have never made the community actively root against them even when they were a top archetype. But there are some crucial differences :
1- Azir only has 1 answer in the game to kill him at an even cost : Culling strike - While Lucian / Quinn / MF could be dealt with in various ways.
The fact that the main threat in the deck will net some positive mana difference to the aggressive deck is a main problem to start with. When Azir comes down on 3, you know you will not be able to answer the other things effectively unless you culling strike it. If you look at your games, you'll see that Irelia on 3 is rarely a problem, while Azir on 3 is the start of a huge snowball.
The same could be said about emperor days, which is only destroyed with scorched earth, once again forcing mana advantage for the Irelia / Azir deck.
The fact that the threats have been increasingly getting more support while the removal didn't get so much help is creating a huge gap between pressure and defensive decks where outside of Lissandra Trundle, no defense based deck has reached Tier 1 contention in a long time. And that's because the deck kills you, not being it is good at defending.
2- You never know when and how many attacks you have to deal with :
Card games are about information, predictability and the best players are capable of assessing situations and creating elaborated gameplan based on the information they posess. Most of the time against Irelia Azir, the plan falls down to "I need to draw this" or "Hope he doesn't have this"
Of course, guessing and being able to assess risks is important, but in this case, there are no stats involved most of the time : It's a "have it or not" kind of deal most of the time.
This is part of the blade dance mechanic, which I understand isn't something we can change, and I don't want it to be changed as a concept. Just acknowledging that we are slowly getting away from basic card game concepts is also important to understand why some players could be frustrated.
3- The deck doesn't even try to be flexible :
This is to me the main problem with the deck, and it would be the same at 40% or 80% winrate. The fact that it operates the exact same way, mulligans almost for the exact same cards and look for the same curve every single game shows that the deck forces the metagame around him instead of adapting to it (Which is to me, the definition of a toxic deck).
4- Most games are not played by one of the two players :
Because of reason #3, playing with or against Irelia Azir usually means you don't impact the game as a player as much as the draws do. Deckbuilding does and we're seeing more "Ice shard" or "death lotuses" played for example, which is great. But in a time where you just find the information online, once you put the card in your deck, you are back to the "have it or not" thing.
Ever tried playing the deck without Azir and Emperor days in the first 10 ?
Ever tried playing against the deck when they go Sparring on 1, Emperor on 2, Azir on 3 ?
Of course, every deck has good and bad draws, and the feeling with it won't be the same based on the cards you find. But the difference in the good draw which beating any other deck and the bad draw which gives you an unplayable deck shows that Irelia / Azir is unbalanced and create an uninteractive gameplay for both players.
Other very aggressive decks out there exist, like discard aggro, or Shurima burn, and they are very draw dependant. But the way to contain them isn't "I need to play this specific card and draw it" as you can fight them with different defensive mechanics like healing, board clears, or simply fighting the board.
Healing doesn't work against Irelia/ Azir, as the deck will easily be able to deal 20 damage in a turn by turn 5 if given the chance
Board clears are the best bet, but they don't remove emperor days and not Azir most of the time.
Fighting the board is hard to do, as you are fighting against units you don't care to kill 90% of the time except to save Nexus health
The only thing left then is outspeeding them to the finish line or playing the few cards that can interact efficiently with the deck.
Runeterra prides itself with being a game where most cards would be playable. Right now, this take couldn't be more wrong unfortunately.
This is what needs to be fixed, not the winrate, not the popularity as both can be described as fine, like the team said in their reddit post. It's about the feeling of having a chance to win for another reason than the draw you and your opponent were given . Because the deck is indeed fair in a grand scheme of things, but it is unfair at almost every smaller scale we can look at.
This feeling can be shared when it comes to Nasus / Thresh and Lissandra Trundle, where a lot of the games are decided with Atrocity or not, and combo on 8 or not.
Now that I've tried to explain why I think there is a problem in the current metagame, here are some changes I'd like to see in order to balance things out.
Irelia Azir :
-Sparring Student doesn't gain health anymore. It's a 1 drop, it's better than a 2 drop elusive, there is a problem here.
- Emperor days costs 3 mana. The curve of this into azir is just to much to handle and the effect is way to strong with the blade dance mechanic
Thresh Nasus :
-Baccai Reaper isn't fearsome anymore. Same as the Sparring in the Irelia Azir deck, A 1 drop shouldn't be able to win a game on its own.
- Rite of Calling costs 1 mana. Champions are the core of the game, and especially in a deck where they carry the deck to victory most of the time you draw them on curve, 0 mana is just too good.
- Probably lower stats for some units like the cursed keeper summoning a 3/3 or the butcher going to 3/1 or 2/2.
Lissandra Trundle :
I feel if we let the situation develop, Matron will get nerfect while it isn't the problem and that will affect other decks like the Cithria lady of clouds one.
Both lissandra and the Watcher become "you've played 2 / 4 allies that cost 8+" instead of summoned.
I hope this won't come out as pure complain from frustrated played, which I am let's not lie here. But as an honest answer to a dev team that has been transparent with us and who might not have that kind of feedback yet.
Good game everyone,
den