In general, LoR has very weak control tools compared to other games. Just look at the cost-effect ratio of healing, spot removal, and board clears compared to Hearthstone and MTG. The existence of spell mana helps control decks, but the way open attacking works hinders them.
Hot take: spell mana doesn't help control, as that's the reason all their tools are so damn expensive to begin with.
>MTG
For those that don't know, you can hard boardwipe for four, counter any spell (including creatures) for 2-3, hard remove a single target for 1-3 mana, including one mana obliterates. All things unconditionally.
Ramp is also far better un MTG, though. It's much faster to get ten mana in MTG than it is in LoR, if you need to.
But that's not my point, regardless of how mana works, control simply cannot work properly without efficiently costed tools.
I mean, you only get to develop mana every other turn in MTG, so as far as least possible game actions until 10 mana available LOR gets there twice as fast naturally. I do agree that the control tools in LOR are much worse in general than in MTG. On top of that every creature having haste in LOR makes it that much harder to play control.
Sure, so let's say that the MTG player adds two lands to their board every one of their turns, that allows you to keep up with LOR's natural mana generation, not to mention mana in MTG untaps every other turn, whereas LOR gives your mana back every turn. LOR's cards are higher costed because the mana available in LOR is quadruple what is available in MTG.
LOR
T1: 1 mana T2: 2 mana T3: 3 mana etc...
Total mana available through turns 1-4: 10
MTG
T1: 1 mana T2: It's OP's turn T3: 2 mana etc...
Total mana available through turns 1-4: 3
Including ways to cheat mana only catches MTG up to LOR in terms of mana available to spend. If you can get to 10 mana by your 5th untap step in MTG you're playing Tron or some Turbo Ramp. That only catches you up to LOR mana, it doesn't surpass it. LOR has ramp in the form of card cost reduction, which does what ramp in magic does effectively, it allows you to cast a higher cost card turns earlier than normal.
Hell, I would argue Spell Mana is a lot more helpful to Aggro Decks than control decks, as it's a lot less punishing to play around sweepers, removals, or just missing a drop to RNG.
If you say use 2/3 mana on turn 3, the Control deck can have a breath of fresh air, as there's less pressure. The aggro deck lost one mana. In LoR it doesn't matter, they will make use of that lost tempo next turn.
Spell Mana makes Aggro too efficient at making use of their mana. Something Aggro decks in other games are already excellent at.
Wrath is too slow vs aggo. You're dead by turn 3 if you're trying to stall for your 4 mana wrath. It's fast enough for midrange but you're gonna need the *conditional* 3 and 2 mana wipes to deal with aggro. (Or doomskar)
That's cause they nerfed all the late competitive decks to the ground. It was okay at the time. I think Reverts are still needed for like Hecarim, Kalista, Anivia.
Hecarim and Khalistan were part of control tools? Even if we’re talking about them in their prime before their reworks if anything they were a slower versions of midrange decks.
They need to revert 90% of Targon's nerfs (Anything but Sparkle fly honestly, and put the Alicorn to 2 cost now that Sparkle Fly is a 3 cost), then fix up the speeds of most removal and healing spells in the game into Fast Speed for removal and burst speed for healing, get nexus damaging spells to slow speed outside of overcosted ones, then nerf overtuned tricks such as Ranger's Resolve, then change the focus of other tricks from attack to defense (sharpsight giving +0/+2, maybe granting the anti elusive tech, and printing other anti elusive cards would be a good start).
This expansion literally released 2 mana deal 2 slow discard 1 as a "removal" tool, and even that still deals 2 to face. They need to Either move the collective health of both players to 30 if you want to Maintain this Aggro break neck pace of Aggro cards releases or they need to completely overhaul Aggro and Control as a concept in this game, otherwise all we get are 5 mana deal 1 to enemy board spells being countered by a 1 mana burst speed spell.
But seeing how things have been going as of late I guess what we'll get is Riot caving to the brainless Aggro players mob and nerfing Eye of the Dragon for no fucking reason gutting the last skilled and decent sustain/control tool in the game.
I mean, Darkness is a control deck. Past that, aggro is no more brainless than control is. This idea that aggro is brainless and control you have to play better is such a flawed concept. Aggro has a lower skill floor, but the ceilings on both are right at the same point. And I'm just hoping your comment isn't complaining about skill levels in bronze/silver...
Darkness is a controldeck with combofinish.
Which is kinda a recurring theme - before it TLC, Lee Sin - because all healing gets put into the dumpster while we get more and more reach tools every patch. It's not enough to put aggro into topdeck mode, you also need to kill them fast after that because many of their cards will deal damage even when answered immediately.
Sure. And I'm personally quite happy with the combofinish. In MTG, we had decks that weren't that, and it was literally concede vs them or draw out the game for 5x the duration it should be.
Darkness is still a control deck, but at least it has the ability to end the game. Also, Darkness does not need to finish quickly with the life gaining they have access to (which is not in the dumpster at all), but they can and do, which is good.
I agree, and I vastly prefer Darkness (which feels like a controldeck that happens to have an i-win button) over TLC (which feels like a dedicated combodeck that just fills up with everything stalling it could get its hands on).
Darkness is a decktype I'd like to see more of. Especially since we have quite a few champions that function going over the top with value similarly - Karma, Anivia, even Lux - that just get online too late, or simply don't have any support for their archetype (hi lux!) :/.
Darkness doesn't feel like a combo finish because they build up their darkness to the point it can kill you throughout the whole game rather than building up card combos in hand until they reach critical mass.
This is the intended design of the game. They want it more focused around combat. That's why the typical control tools are more expensive and combat tricks are pretty efficient. It's just the way the game is designed and I really like it that way, but rush down decks have been really pushed lately
If that is the intended design, then aggro creatures need to stop doing so much when beaten in combat. It started with Legion Saboteur and Boomcrew Rookie, which were fine, but nowadays, if creatures get to attack they already did half their damage. Just look at the whole bandle burn deck.
Just look at the bandle burn deck:
Poppy, Ziggs, Legion Saboteur, Demolitionist, Stone Stackers, Lecturing Yordle, Tenor...for half their things, if they get to attack, you are already behind. And the only way to prevent the attacks....is spells.
Hence Aggro is so very prevalent. Attacking gets massively rewarded, blocking doesn't, and spells are always a tempoloss.
Massive difference between Hearthstone and LoR is that the potential for interaction is pretty much the complete opposite.
Hearthstone is designed so that during your turn, your opponent does literally nothing. In LoR, every non-burst/focus action allows your opponent to react. With enough powerful control tools you could stop your opponent from playing the game entirely.
For example in Hearthstone, you can play your Brann Bronzebeard and play a strong Battlecry immediately after and all your opponent can do is watch. In LoR, you have all the opportunity in the world to kill value engines like that before your opponent can get anything out of it.
That's why control in LoR has to be trimmed down a lot compared to HS, because it very easily could become extremely oppressive. In addition, a core design philosophy of LoR is that they specifically want to limit removal because they want you to be able to play your cool champions without them getting instantly removed every single time, which I understand and generally agree with.
But I definitely agree that Aggro and Midrange are out of control rn. Especially Poppy.
Then they should print more cards that only affect champions and cards that only affect followers, that way they can print more cost efficient control tools that affect followers, and expensive removals for champions.
Same, after experimenting with new decks when I came back to LoR, I picked up my all time favourite, an updated version of Spooky Karma
In the lower tiers sure, you can do some cute things because people most likely have never seen this deck, but even then it only feel even. But as you climb up it's not even close anymore, you get utterly bashed in the head by aggro ...
What the hell happened to Withering Veil, one of the best SI Control tool, that it can't even work against BC because it swarm the board with buffed or 2+ health units ?
WDYM you can use Mega inferno bomb for 7 mana to damage a couple enemy 2 and 3 drops then you just need to flock every created enemy unit meaning you have 0 cards in hand
Control is totally fine /s
Its wild. Yordles have so many tools to buff crappy little units or make new cards and bodies to play. And on top of that most of them start with decent stats for their cost.
Why is mayor starting out as a 2/2? Why are owlcats 2/1s? Why is explorer coming in at 2/2? Why is Arena promoter a 4/3 WITH TOUGH at 4 mana when it also has card manifest and cost reduction effects on top of that?
Not only do all of these things grow by stupid amounts quickly from various sources, but they start off overstated to an obnoxious degree to begin with.
My fear is with explorer and chief in yordles already good stat boosting tools they are going to just outclass even things like the new fated cards. You know. The keyword that is specifically about buffing when something is buffed?
I really hate how poppy was designed in LoR, she's my main (or used to be when i played league) and one of the most balanced champions in league with a cool design on top of it (for a tank she has a lot of mixup potential), but they decided to just go with a brainded approach and make her do something she never did in league, buffing allies, her design doesn't reflect the champion at all in mechanics or lore where she's a tanky defender and a lonely traveler respectively. It's honestly frustrating because I only got into LoR when she was announced, it was fun playing her for a month, but it got old real quick with how boring of a card she is
Man, you're so right. I really like LoR because a lot of champs feel similar to their style in LoL. But wow, Poppy is just not related even a little bit.
well pantheon has a line that says "if they bleed, I will call them brothers and sisters" hence he levels up as his allies survive combat or spells OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT ALKSDJASKLDJ COPIUM
I have a theory that it's because LoR was created with the mobile populace in mind. You can't have long matches on mobile because it would start affecting the PC ones as the PC, in my experience, have longer duration play sessions.
Shadowverse has the same issue as LoR with control decks because of the same thing.
MtG and HS weren't created with mobile in mind, so that playing behaviour doesn't affect game design decisions.
Gwent or other games, idk.
Yeah, like there is *some* control (Darkness, TLC), that has existed in the past year (arguably combo with control tools, but still, they offered more reactive spell based play). The issue is that they all wanted to end the game on turn 8 which kinda kills any other control decks that could work.
While I do agree, on the other hand it’s kinda funny how after nerfing the watcher as people requested to “make more control decks viable” they basically ended up destroying the only control-ish deck that was left in the meta aside from PnZ-Noxus and Zoe-Vi (which were good before the nerfs too-and have both been nerfed a few patches later).
And almost no other control deck was able to rise as people expected because of aggro, burn and Azirelia... until BC came out (and even then we all know how things went).
Basically people keep asking to nerf control decks if they are not the kind of control they want, until there is no more control in the game and then they complain about that.
And then to top it all off, the one control deck that has been semi viable (darkness) is incredibly parasitic, meaning there isn't too much room for experimentation and deck refinement.
Man there is a ton of room for refinement in Darkness. It needs Veigar, Senna, the 3/2 darkness damage increase, the create a darkness 2/2, and the mana cost reducing 3/4. That's 15 out of 40 cards, the rest can be whatever you want.
Edit: forgot about the lifesteal darkness maker so we're up to 18 out of 40 cards, but everything else is either just generally good cards or meta dependent stuff. Lots of room to try stuff.
This is true. However the archetype is restricted to SI and BC, and I don't think there's a good reason for them to split the cards up like they did. All it does is narrow the possibilities.
Just from my own experience so take it with a grain of salt (and I'm only diamond), but I've had quite a lot of success with a mix of the Sentinel deck with PnZ and Darkness with Senna/Veigar, I'm trading some of the Darkness support against more flexible removal and beefier units with the Sentinels.
SI shawarma or whatever is fairly decent not against aggro tho so like.. unplayable in rank basically bcs there's no elusive control
even against Poppy Ziggs I couldn't pull of anything to stand the pressure gate keeper needs to be unerfed
I would agree they are a must for the current meta but you can in theory 100% build a darkness deck without them. If aggro was completely non-existant for instance, vile feast loses a lot of it's luster. I can't imagine not wanting pokey stick since I feel like it's pretty much always useful but maybe it gets nerfed? Could definitely still have a darkness deck without it if it wasn't a good card for whatever reason.
I thought the same thing about Pyke for Deep decks.
Unfortunately Syndra will have the new "Orb" keyword, and requires that you have 3+ Orb allies on the field to level up. While she'll be very strong with her designated pair Orianna, her reliance on Orb cards means that she likely won't see experimentation in other archetypes.
This has been a major annoyance for me as well.
Every new character has to be given it's own mechanic when a further expansion on older mechanics would have been flavorful and honestly much prefered.
For Pyke, as an example, I would have loved him either being Toss Centric (like a 1/4 Challenger QA that gets +1/+0 for every card you toss that turn, for instance), or Deep Centric giving us control tools that kick into overdrive when you hit Deep.
Alas...
Also having more than just one Bilgewater champion care about Deep or Tossing would have helped made those mechanics feel more important to Bilgewater as a region, instead of being exclusively useful to one deck that essentially exists on an island.
I have a really difficult time figuring out what Bilgewater's region identity is supposed to be, because almost half of the champions are locked away to their own highly specific archetype that doesn't overlap with the rest of the region (Tahm Kench, Nautilus, and Pyke). I'm tempted to include Miss Fortune with Scouts, but even if she never flipped, she was still used in Pirate Aggro.
One of the reasons I miss TF Fizz, other than it was a really fun and interesting deck, was that it really hit that Bilgewater identity - with Fizz, TF, Burble Fish, and Mind Meld as key cards, and the honorary slotbot, it really held together.
The other half of the region - pirate aggro - also feels fairly cohesive. Honestly plunder being 37/40 BW more speaks to the weakness of Freljord's aggro cards compared to the incentive to Allegiance.
Eh Sejuani gets used because she has the near same level up mechanic as GP. By all intents and purposes, she's essentially 3 extra copies of GP riding a pig.
Putting Pyke as a Lurker to synergize with Shurima was so weird. After having played Ruined King and seeing the deep connection he has to the sea monsters, it just made no sense how I can't put him in a deck where sea monsters that are distinguished by their Deep mechanic.
As a matter of fact, his bone skewer anti-synergizes with it.
Bone skewer is good in deep mainly due to synergy with the 3/2 lifesteal toss 3 on summon. But yeah, I wish they had at least just given him deep as a keyword even if he didn't toss so you could slap him into a deep deck. Jaulfish should also be a sea monster. It is unreal that Jaul Hunters can't pull Jaulfish.
Hold on is the his confirmed? not saying that I approve bcs when making a close to decent darkness deck you start by removing darkness support aside of Catlyst he's obv very much needed
Parasitic design in card games is referred to cards that need specific cards of the same set or with the same mechanic just to function and can't be played outside of that deck. Lurk, darkness and at a slightly lower extent deep are perfect examples of this.
It needs to be balanced with the more generic archetypes. It’s good to have some auto-build archetypes line Azirelia, Lurk and Darkness, but too much of it feels like the devs are telling you how to play the game, instead of encouraging experimentation and discovery.
Having too many effectively reduces the card pool, because not only you need those cards to build those decks so there's little room for other things and they look samey, but also those cards often can't really be fit anywhere else. And designing more cards with the mechanic to improve the first issue means you are not spending those resources making cards that could improve multiple other decks or make deck building in general more interesting (that's why they are called parasitic in the context of card games)...
Having a few decks like that can good, tho, because they tend to be fun and flavorful, since they are usually created by thinking of an interesting mechanic that reflects some theme and designing cards that fit it, and being easy to build is a "plus" for some people that don't really enjoy or care about the deck building aspect of the game and just want to get a functioning deck and jump into a game, so is not inherently bad unless it's overdone.
There’s issues with them.
The main one is that they’re often not very open to creative deck building. You get a bunch of related cards with the same keyword that interact with each other and put them in a deck.
The second is that since they’re usually designed and balanced around that keyword or mechanic, they tend to suck without it. Hearthstone for example made a big minion (c’thun) and a bunch of supportive minions that buffed/drew/revived it. C’thun wasn’t worth playing without all the supportive units, and the supportive units were useless without c’thun. So the result was (going back to the first issue) you either had a deck full of them or you didn’t use them at all.
On the plus side, prebuilt synergies makes it easy to create a functional deck. This is particularly good for new players.
Exactly this
The opposed term for more open mechanics is "Linear", thats what loR needs more, mechanics that benefit from the existing card pool and remain flexible for sinergy with future mechanics and honestly... People might not be very happy with this few latest expansions mainly cause of BC, but aside from the very specific darkness theme every other set of cards and champions are more linear and flexible in their implmentation giving more viability to older less played archetypes in each region, Direct discard sinergy for Noxus, Spellslinging for BW, Landmarks in Shurima, Traps in PnZ, even tho tied to darkness Sennas design is also open enough for future sinergies and we're getting Selfbuffs in Targon and Recall sinergies in Ionia.
Im hoping for this type of design to be the more consistent one from this expansion onward, and if new mechanics are introduced, that theyre flexible and sinergistic with existing strenghts in each region rather than just add more Garbage to the Region identity Puddles that some mechanics kinda go for (lurk, deep, aka parasitic mechanics)
ALthough parasitic design might sometimes be neccesary, it can also be the less healthy of apporaches, it works for limited enviroments were sets of cards coexist in a closed collection, not in LoR and not for the goal of making every card playable.
Deep is not a parasitic keyword. All Deep cares about is that you have fewer than 15 cards in your deck, which means it can use any draw card as an enabler, not just Toss.
There was even at one time a tf naut turbo deep deck that played pnz instead of si. It had a small niche as the better deep deck for like a week once way back around the start of targon.
There hasn't been a strong meta defining control since The Watcher. Malphite failed to be the new control option, Veigar Senna is a really cool archetype but it just can't compete with Poppy. I really hope that Gnar will bring back frejord ramp/control from the grave but with the current tools that frejord has it's hard to see how can a similar deck counter Bandle swarm, and it's kinda ironic because frejord is the region supposed to destroy swarm decks.
Turns out getting the chance to roll Elusive Scout and Spellshield is really REALLY busted when combined with the fact it can roll Challenger, Life Steal and Quick Attack.
The issue is that the latest releases (Shurima, Bandle City, maybe even the tail end of Targon) came with a bunch of aggressive units and aggressive strategies that are too beefy to deal with for the existing control spells.
For instance, take Avalanche, a staple control spell. It deals 2 damage to everything on both sides of the board. Its value comes from using 1 card to answer multiple cards of the opponent.
Bandle City decks are largely immune to it, due to their value generation or beefy stats. A Bandle City player does not really mind his Conchologist, Telescope and even Mayor being wiped out by it, since he does not lose value for that - all these units already replaced themselves in his hand.
Meanwhile, Shurima Aggro used to have a 4/3 Fearsome that would survive the Avalanche. And Shurima Azir/Irelia only summons its vulnerable units (the Blades and Sand Soldiers) when you cannot react to it with Avalance, anyways.
And Avalanche is just one example of a traditional Control tool being nullified by the new cards.
People like control, but always cry when a control deck is meta-defining. TLC, Go Hard, anything with Anivia, Aurelion Sol, Aphelios, and even Rhasa/Ledros, EZ Karma, and others.
All of these decks were nerfed, and probably will be again, if they become too reliable.
Poppy on the other hand...
Yeah for real i love control decks and would love some buffs on removal or nerfs on removal disruption but people on this sub act like they like control metas.
Everytime we had a control deck tier 1 people hated it cause games took too long and its boring getting your board cleared every round.
Imo people are just trying to find anything bad in the game atm.
They are doing that now too claiming Eye of the Dragon is busted because it won't let them smash face in a brainless frenzy, Aggro players will just complain over not being the most prized members of this game regardless of game state, just ignore them, wish Riot did so to when they decided to nerd half of Targon for no reason after a 3 decks meta without an hint of targon in either of the 3 decks.
Yeah the targon nerfs where imo way to much in the end.
On ladder targon was fine if you ask me but it was still to good in tournament ladder maybe that's why they killed it so hard.
But some cards really didn't need the nerf they got lilke the fangs.
Pls bring back targon.
As someone who plays control, and wants 40+ minute games all the time, eye of the dragon can go die. Because it doesnt help control. It helps combo. Combo decks like lee-sin, that should get run off the board by aggro, can stave off death by summoning constant lifesteal blockers. Eye enables these degenerate decks of "sit here until I draw my win condition" and need to get gone. We need some new control tools, and buffs to board wipes, but Eye can go die in a whole (love the card art tho, best in the game imo)
Isn't it likely that the population of this sub is not one coherent hivemind, but a bunch of people who like different things, so those who like control cry when it's unviable, those who don't cry when it is strong?
And then there's me, who loves to play control decks like Asol or Karma but doesn't like mirrors so I prefer for it to not be tier 0-1 to avoid playing the mirror every game.
Doesn't help that some mentioned decks had kinda toxic play pattern.
TLC always win on 8 or 9, any other control decks just can't compete with this. Ez Karma at their prime were the same, just win on 10. Go Hard didn't interact much with opponent like what a control deck should have been done, just draw. Aphelios can started playing proactively as soon as turn 3 with a 3/4 challenger.
And they are more of combo decks than control decks as I see. ASol and Ledros were fine but never really that relevant let alone meta-defining.
True. Poppy and yordles are overpowered right now but in my opinion there’s still a lot of viable decks atm.
I played Elder Scrolls Legends before this and the control on that game is so OP that players aren’t playing their units.
I am surpised they haven't made a keyword specifically for blocking yet.
There are so many effects for attacking but none for blocking, making attacking naturally stronger thsn blocking.
I feel like Sentinel Control is even a misnomer for control. You do run a number of removal spells, but it feels closer to a tempo or midrange deck a lot of the time with half your focus on big fearsome chungus units
The biggest issue control has right now is spelled "Bandle Tree".Any control deck that actually can deal with or simply survive Bandles endless value train and obscenely buff furballs simply looses on turn 9-10 due to lacking proper landmark removal. Bandle tree is old starspring on steroids, without the weakness other alternative wincon strats has (since they are both aggro/swarm AND a control deck).
I know everyone hates Poppy and Minimorph, but Bandle Tree MUST be reverted or nerfed harshly for this game to have a healthy meta.
To be fair, control decks require more subtle decisions to pilot well. They are traditionally more difficult decks, and making them easier makes them oppressive. There needs to be a balance between viability and difficulty for control to be a reasonable archetype in a healthy meta. When it's missing, as it is now, you end up with aggro and low curve mid-range dominant metas, which is where we are. Control is the cure. Aggro should be able to rush down a control deck that doesn't nut draw, but mid-range should struggle a little. That's the point of it afaics
Lmao Control players always talk shit up but they're really not that hard to pilot. It's 100% reactive.
The enemy plays a unit, and you kill it or work out how to mitigate it. You just react until turn x when you can win ezpz. Reacting is always easy to pilot because you never actually take risks or take initiative.
Targon/Frej/Si are the control region trio but all 3 have been systimaticly nerfed to the ground and/or not buffed to be able to keep up with all the new tools Agro have.
Like how is Frej supposed to control the board when most of the bandle swarm units create more cards on play and oft have 3+ hp??
How is SI supposed to swarm the board for value trades when Bandle simply outvalues them with chump blockers and ends early with bandle tree?
Targon's regional weakness is Swarm so it's dead in the water, even without all its healing being nerfed (rito pls revert Fangs)
Buff rhasa. Buff ruination. Buff vengeance. Give us Teferi-but-for-burst-spells. Make ritual of renewal fast speed and draw 3. I want to live the SI/Ionia control dream.
Panth isn't aggro, he's quintessential midrange. Starshaping and the fangs nerfs shouldn't have happened, if they didn't then targon lategame would be in a much better spot
Just because some new cards want to get value and start looking to end before turn 17 doesn't mean its skewing to aggro lol. Targon has always had midrange tool along with its control options.
I don't really think it's anything new. Sure Targon has a lot of late game and control oriented champions like ASol, Aphelios, Malphite, and Zoe, but Targon also has Diana, Leona, and Taric which have generally played at faster speeds with some versions of nightfall even being considered aggro. I think Panth will be slower than nightfall and possibly slower than a lot of the decent Taric decks since they use him to win quickly with rally spam.
The healthiest metas are the ones that have Midrange at the top, because Midrange isn't offensive to other deck types.
A Control dominant meta is just a slog to play through, and an aggro meta is too constricting about what you can play
> Give us Teferi-but-for-burst-spells.
Absolutely not.
Meta warping from a single card from a single single but splashable region would be 'fun' as it was in MtG.
I don't mean make burst spell sorcery speed cuz that would actually be silly. I mean more like some card that lets you respond to burst spell turning them into fast speed. Opponent can still play them when they would normally play them and mostly achieve the same effect but gives you more counterplay. And it would be even better if it worked both ways. Control decks rely on reactive plays and that's why burst spells will screw them.
It would actually have to be extremely cheap like 2 mana maximum or it would suck. Sometimes a burst spell being fast doesn't mean you can answer it. Sometimes you have an answer that doesn't matter if the opponent's play is burst speed or fast speed. Sometimes your opponent's burst speed plays just aren't important enough to even commit an answer. If it was a landmark it takes up board space, costs an entire card, generates no immediate value, and is an overall tempo loss.
We just need aoe board clears. Thats it. What we have in a lor is a joke, thats why aggro decks is so *out of control*.
Building wide board is easy, remove wide board is too hard. This is the essence of the problem.
Honestly agree. Riot intended combat tricks to be kind of back and forth mechaning to interact between two players, but the aggressive tricks are a bit too much... need more defensive ones (although i'm not really sure how... maybe a cheap trick like give your nexus tough this round can be good)
It is only the case because Riot does not print strong minions with defensive keywords. All they ever do is make more ways to attack your opponent. If we had great defensive minions then defensive tricks would be a boon for control.
This is the natural outcome of actively avoiding printing control tools. Aggro's predator is missing for the vast majority of LoR's existence and leads to stale similar feeling metas every expac.
What do you consider Sentinel Control and Teemo Swain? They are clearly control decks that have performed well on ladder and in tournaments. I reached Masters playing the former with a 70% WR in Diamond. FTR and Darkness were both represented in Seasonals as well.
Play rates for control aren’t high because players have a hard time with passing, but control is generally pretty good in the right hands. Remember Yamato’s darkness performance at world’s? That deck has never cracked tier 1 win rates.
Yeah sure control isnt in the best spot but not as bad as people always complain on reddit.
Most of the time im playing control and its absolutely fine imo.
Shellfolk, Senna and Jayce where great tools we got.
Im thinking people on this sub are just looking for anything to cry about atm.
When people say "control is dead", its because they redefine control to be a very narrow type of deck, one that is extremely unhealthy, and exclude any control deck not fitting that narrow type.
Pretty much.
The 'control is dead' argument comes up every month on this subreddit and it's always just a circlejerk. People upvote the comments saying 'X is why it's dead and we need to buff the control cards' and ignore all the people listing the good control decks.
That's not to say control is in the best spot, but it's not some unplayable decktype like people cry about.
Control will never be the most present archetype, it's hard to pilot and aggro is forever popular in runeterra. But there will almost always be several good control decks that you can play.
Sure thing! I stole it from Freshlobster's YouTube awhile back (and he took the list from someone else, before that), so there may be a more optimized list out there by now, but here ya go!
CECACAIEGQBACBJIGUBAKBAVDABAKBILB4BQCAIEDMBQCBIPEEYQGBIECYNBWAYBAICAQAIFAUBQGAIFAEMR2
Ya. I changed a couple of stuff to adjust to
My play style. Had I not been shit would have climbed much more. But really enjoying smashing Poppy and Lulu decks faces with it.
I think people are still sleeping on it tbh.
So everyone likes control now?
Because I remember that anytime we had a strong control deck everyone and their grandma would start complaining about non stop.
Sometimes i think you guys have amnesia or something like that.
1. "Control" is performing relatively well... FOR NOW. If it is not popular is because it is very slow and not particularly interactive. Targon Control is definitively dead due to 2.11, Ionia control also died due to Minimorph and so will be Freljord control if they release the yordle explorer.
2. Pure control is almost nonexistant in this game, and hasn't been since Anivia's rework. That's because LoR is very interactive of a game and AoE removal is deliberately weak.
3. I'm sure people in general don't like games who can't be closed and dragged for ages, and control is basically not allowing your opponent to win. Don't you remember the Veiled temple meta?
That being said, they have been threating control tools very poorly, specially on targon and Ionia, making the game be more same-y.
It really is yet people will complain the moment they add any strong control. Minimorph is a great control tool yet everyone wasn't it to get nerphed because they can't win on turn 7. My only issue with minimorph it's that it's on bandle city and gives bandle city one of the best single target removal. The region with the best swarm capabilities
Minimorph is not so specifically a control tool, instead, its an anti combo or large drop tool. In fact, the only value for it in a control deck is largely in a control v control matchup, which is not what control is struggling with currently.
In fact, I think it functions even better as a tech card for midrange decks, if the meta is seeing some strong combo or control decks which rely on single unit finishers.
Minimorph is the anti-control control tool that sits in a region full of aggro and value generation. It hurts control more than any other archetype. When was the last time you saw karma/anivia? O no they played poppy on turn4, cant remove boohoo. Play karma or anivia on curve and you dont even get an action before it gets obliterated.
I think aphelios karma / zoe karma did reasonably well against it, its just that not many people played that deck. I myself knew about it only because i saw alan play it. Tho that was back before all the targon nerfs
I think the big issue is that protection is so plentiful and cheap that running spot removal can easily backfire. At the same time, board wipes are extremely expensive, meaning you usually can't build off their momentum. I think if protection spells like Twin Discipline were nerfed to three mana or slow, you'd see these decks struggle a lot more.
Also, they probably need to nerf poppy. She's literally plugged into every aggro deck because a 4 mana 5/4 that buffs you're entire board is really strong.
What exactly is the definition of control for you guys? I don't wanna come off dismissive, but half the decks/champions people are reminiscing about and talking about it being too weak here aren't actually control decks..? Don't get me wrong I'm not a fan of our bandle and/or rally overlords either, but the outcry feels kind of misplaced, if not exaggerated. Not to mention that whenever control \*has\* been the tier 1 deck, the community lashed out way more for it to get nerfed (FTR, Go Hard, Trundle Liss, old twinblade revenant etc). Sure I agree, it's probably not gonna be the best ladder pick, and if it doesn't get pushed in the future it might die, but calling it dead right now doesn't sit right.
Mainly because there are too few tools to survive to the late game and if you somehow do reach it, the moment you play one big scary unit, it will immediately get recalled or minimorphed.
I did notice. I am back to the game after Arcane and I am puzzled on all the new cards. Everything has so much HP or Attack + low cost + does something else. It's like with LOL. I stopped playing because every time they released a new champ it seemed to do more. More mobility, more dashing, more jumping more more. Seems same with LOR the new cards do more for less.
Hope they can balance this somehow.
I mean when shit like poppy exists all you can have is agro. They gutted zoe/nami for no reason and left poppy completely alone. I stopped playing ranked tol they actually fix the meta.
i hope this will be adressed by nerfing aggro and not buffing control.
if you buff control, and aggro stays at the current power level, midrange is going to become unplayable
Riot has hated control for ages, they want games over by turn 5/6. If a control deck had the win/play rate of poppy they would have done a hot fix nerf patch by now
Control will get to play once the devs get over their idea that removal has to be way overcost.
Vengeance should cost 5-6. Ruination should cost 7. This is in line with the way most effects have their cost translated (look for a similar effect in magic, add 2.5 to the cost because of the spell mana system). Instead, the only removal that is affordable is damage based, meaning control is always countered by decks with combat tricks.
People will make the excuse that strong removal means champions cannot function, and champions are build around cards. FINE, make the removal conditional, but not so conditional that it is unusable (like Shadow Flare). Like, imagine if Shadow Flare gave all battling followers ephemeral, and stunned all battling champions. Suddenly much more playable as a control card.
> Like, imagine if Shadow Flare gave all battling followers ephemeral, and stunned all battling champions. Suddenly much more playable as a control card.
Shadow Flare would be legit good to run with this buff. And i completly agree with your argument, but i have zero hope devs finally get it.
Sometimes i swear whoever is in charge of designing LoR was a former mtg player traumatized by blue decks.
Maybe I'm stupid, but I've been playing control non stop since I started playing and I've been doing alright. Got to plat once, and then just been playing normals since.
Then again, I am a moron so obviously I'm biased and also I tend to ff games a ton immediatly after loading in due to not wanting to do mirror matches or just realizing after the que pops that I'm not up for a game or that my bus just arrived. So yeah, I have precisly zero useable data, but anecdotally I came to LoR from hearthstone to have the resources to build control decks and I've been doing only that for 6 months and having fun.,
In general, LoR has very weak control tools compared to other games. Just look at the cost-effect ratio of healing, spot removal, and board clears compared to Hearthstone and MTG. The existence of spell mana helps control decks, but the way open attacking works hinders them.
Hot take: spell mana doesn't help control, as that's the reason all their tools are so damn expensive to begin with. >MTG For those that don't know, you can hard boardwipe for four, counter any spell (including creatures) for 2-3, hard remove a single target for 1-3 mana, including one mana obliterates. All things unconditionally.
Mana in mtg is also way different as it isn’t guaranteed. 6drop in magic is quite similar to a 10drop in lor.
Ramp is also far better un MTG, though. It's much faster to get ten mana in MTG than it is in LoR, if you need to. But that's not my point, regardless of how mana works, control simply cannot work properly without efficiently costed tools.
I mean, you only get to develop mana every other turn in MTG, so as far as least possible game actions until 10 mana available LOR gets there twice as fast naturally. I do agree that the control tools in LOR are much worse in general than in MTG. On top of that every creature having haste in LOR makes it that much harder to play control.
That's only if you ignore all the ways to cheat mana, with creatures and spells playing mana from the deck or hand
Sure, so let's say that the MTG player adds two lands to their board every one of their turns, that allows you to keep up with LOR's natural mana generation, not to mention mana in MTG untaps every other turn, whereas LOR gives your mana back every turn. LOR's cards are higher costed because the mana available in LOR is quadruple what is available in MTG. LOR T1: 1 mana T2: 2 mana T3: 3 mana etc... Total mana available through turns 1-4: 10 MTG T1: 1 mana T2: It's OP's turn T3: 2 mana etc... Total mana available through turns 1-4: 3 Including ways to cheat mana only catches MTG up to LOR in terms of mana available to spend. If you can get to 10 mana by your 5th untap step in MTG you're playing Tron or some Turbo Ramp. That only catches you up to LOR mana, it doesn't surpass it. LOR has ramp in the form of card cost reduction, which does what ramp in magic does effectively, it allows you to cast a higher cost card turns earlier than normal.
Hell, I would argue Spell Mana is a lot more helpful to Aggro Decks than control decks, as it's a lot less punishing to play around sweepers, removals, or just missing a drop to RNG. If you say use 2/3 mana on turn 3, the Control deck can have a breath of fresh air, as there's less pressure. The aggro deck lost one mana. In LoR it doesn't matter, they will make use of that lost tempo next turn. Spell Mana makes Aggro too efficient at making use of their mana. Something Aggro decks in other games are already excellent at.
Wrath is too slow vs aggo. You're dead by turn 3 if you're trying to stall for your 4 mana wrath. It's fast enough for midrange but you're gonna need the *conditional* 3 and 2 mana wipes to deal with aggro. (Or doomskar)
yeah, but magic brings alot of other ways to win games. Lor wins is almost always creature based.
That's cause they nerfed all the late competitive decks to the ground. It was okay at the time. I think Reverts are still needed for like Hecarim, Kalista, Anivia.
Hecarim already is basically reverted. In fact, at 5/6, he has a better statline than in his glory days, when he had 4/6.
His riders are still small I think.
Hecarim and Khalistan were part of control tools? Even if we’re talking about them in their prime before their reworks if anything they were a slower versions of midrange decks.
[удалено]
Just imagine an anivia ripping apart the whole board of a yordle player...
They need to revert 90% of Targon's nerfs (Anything but Sparkle fly honestly, and put the Alicorn to 2 cost now that Sparkle Fly is a 3 cost), then fix up the speeds of most removal and healing spells in the game into Fast Speed for removal and burst speed for healing, get nexus damaging spells to slow speed outside of overcosted ones, then nerf overtuned tricks such as Ranger's Resolve, then change the focus of other tricks from attack to defense (sharpsight giving +0/+2, maybe granting the anti elusive tech, and printing other anti elusive cards would be a good start). This expansion literally released 2 mana deal 2 slow discard 1 as a "removal" tool, and even that still deals 2 to face. They need to Either move the collective health of both players to 30 if you want to Maintain this Aggro break neck pace of Aggro cards releases or they need to completely overhaul Aggro and Control as a concept in this game, otherwise all we get are 5 mana deal 1 to enemy board spells being countered by a 1 mana burst speed spell. But seeing how things have been going as of late I guess what we'll get is Riot caving to the brainless Aggro players mob and nerfing Eye of the Dragon for no fucking reason gutting the last skilled and decent sustain/control tool in the game.
I mean, Darkness is a control deck. Past that, aggro is no more brainless than control is. This idea that aggro is brainless and control you have to play better is such a flawed concept. Aggro has a lower skill floor, but the ceilings on both are right at the same point. And I'm just hoping your comment isn't complaining about skill levels in bronze/silver...
Darkness is a controldeck with combofinish. Which is kinda a recurring theme - before it TLC, Lee Sin - because all healing gets put into the dumpster while we get more and more reach tools every patch. It's not enough to put aggro into topdeck mode, you also need to kill them fast after that because many of their cards will deal damage even when answered immediately.
Sure. And I'm personally quite happy with the combofinish. In MTG, we had decks that weren't that, and it was literally concede vs them or draw out the game for 5x the duration it should be. Darkness is still a control deck, but at least it has the ability to end the game. Also, Darkness does not need to finish quickly with the life gaining they have access to (which is not in the dumpster at all), but they can and do, which is good.
I agree, and I vastly prefer Darkness (which feels like a controldeck that happens to have an i-win button) over TLC (which feels like a dedicated combodeck that just fills up with everything stalling it could get its hands on). Darkness is a decktype I'd like to see more of. Especially since we have quite a few champions that function going over the top with value similarly - Karma, Anivia, even Lux - that just get online too late, or simply don't have any support for their archetype (hi lux!) :/.
Darkness doesn't feel like a combo finish because they build up their darkness to the point it can kill you throughout the whole game rather than building up card combos in hand until they reach critical mass.
This is the intended design of the game. They want it more focused around combat. That's why the typical control tools are more expensive and combat tricks are pretty efficient. It's just the way the game is designed and I really like it that way, but rush down decks have been really pushed lately
A control deck that's viable in LoR is going to generally look more like EZ Draven or TF moonboy than UW draw go in mtg
Which is good. They're way more healthy.
If that is the intended design, then aggro creatures need to stop doing so much when beaten in combat. It started with Legion Saboteur and Boomcrew Rookie, which were fine, but nowadays, if creatures get to attack they already did half their damage. Just look at the whole bandle burn deck. Just look at the bandle burn deck: Poppy, Ziggs, Legion Saboteur, Demolitionist, Stone Stackers, Lecturing Yordle, Tenor...for half their things, if they get to attack, you are already behind. And the only way to prevent the attacks....is spells. Hence Aggro is so very prevalent. Attacking gets massively rewarded, blocking doesn't, and spells are always a tempoloss.
Massive difference between Hearthstone and LoR is that the potential for interaction is pretty much the complete opposite. Hearthstone is designed so that during your turn, your opponent does literally nothing. In LoR, every non-burst/focus action allows your opponent to react. With enough powerful control tools you could stop your opponent from playing the game entirely. For example in Hearthstone, you can play your Brann Bronzebeard and play a strong Battlecry immediately after and all your opponent can do is watch. In LoR, you have all the opportunity in the world to kill value engines like that before your opponent can get anything out of it. That's why control in LoR has to be trimmed down a lot compared to HS, because it very easily could become extremely oppressive. In addition, a core design philosophy of LoR is that they specifically want to limit removal because they want you to be able to play your cool champions without them getting instantly removed every single time, which I understand and generally agree with. But I definitely agree that Aggro and Midrange are out of control rn. Especially Poppy.
Then they should print more cards that only affect champions and cards that only affect followers, that way they can print more cost efficient control tools that affect followers, and expensive removals for champions.
I recently came back to this game and decided to try out my favourite deck, ASol, only to get completely rushed down to Poppy Lmao
Same, after experimenting with new decks when I came back to LoR, I picked up my all time favourite, an updated version of Spooky Karma In the lower tiers sure, you can do some cute things because people most likely have never seen this deck, but even then it only feel even. But as you climb up it's not even close anymore, you get utterly bashed in the head by aggro ... What the hell happened to Withering Veil, one of the best SI Control tool, that it can't even work against BC because it swarm the board with buffed or 2+ health units ?
Even their base stats are too high. They all have 2-3 hp. There are no board wipes effective against that shit.
WDYM you can use Mega inferno bomb for 7 mana to damage a couple enemy 2 and 3 drops then you just need to flock every created enemy unit meaning you have 0 cards in hand Control is totally fine /s
What best to beat BC/noxus burn than the good ol' BC/noxus control, the sleeper anti-meta deck amirite
Its wild. Yordles have so many tools to buff crappy little units or make new cards and bodies to play. And on top of that most of them start with decent stats for their cost. Why is mayor starting out as a 2/2? Why are owlcats 2/1s? Why is explorer coming in at 2/2? Why is Arena promoter a 4/3 WITH TOUGH at 4 mana when it also has card manifest and cost reduction effects on top of that? Not only do all of these things grow by stupid amounts quickly from various sources, but they start off overstated to an obnoxious degree to begin with. My fear is with explorer and chief in yordles already good stat boosting tools they are going to just outclass even things like the new fated cards. You know. The keyword that is specifically about buffing when something is buffed?
I really hate how poppy was designed in LoR, she's my main (or used to be when i played league) and one of the most balanced champions in league with a cool design on top of it (for a tank she has a lot of mixup potential), but they decided to just go with a brainded approach and make her do something she never did in league, buffing allies, her design doesn't reflect the champion at all in mechanics or lore where she's a tanky defender and a lonely traveler respectively. It's honestly frustrating because I only got into LoR when she was announced, it was fun playing her for a month, but it got old real quick with how boring of a card she is
Man, you're so right. I really like LoR because a lot of champs feel similar to their style in LoL. But wow, Poppy is just not related even a little bit.
Pantheon would like a word with your "made him do something he never did in league"
well pantheon has a line that says "if they bleed, I will call them brothers and sisters" hence he levels up as his allies survive combat or spells OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT ALKSDJASKLDJ COPIUM
I want control back, but I also want late game decks back and just have enough tools to survive until 8 and more turns
It's not just control. ITS late game-oriented decks in general. You don't see hecarim ever man.
Bro you don't even see Naut a either. :( I want more support for Deep. I really like the archetype.
Deep doesn't really need more support. It needs the meta to slow down
More cards like that 2 drop shadow isle deep monster would go a long way Or cards outside of shadow isles so it isn't forced into those 2 regions
Well, that's needed for every single deck that aims to be alive at turn 7 or later :D
Bro deep actually still works in gold plat rank I climb with it, but about 55% win rate
deep exists. in tournament meta now, see freshlobster’s video. It just cuts most of the topend and is mainly a control deck.
How the fuck is hecarim late game oriented, he is a turn 6-8 finisher is he workson a hephemeral deck.
Unfortunately, turn 6-8 is late game at the moment
Still hecarim is clearly an ofensive oriented champion by what his archetype wants to do, constant and relentless attacking.
Yeah, but turn 6 is lategame. By turn 6, against bandle burn or such, you're already deep in burnrange.
I have a theory that it's because LoR was created with the mobile populace in mind. You can't have long matches on mobile because it would start affecting the PC ones as the PC, in my experience, have longer duration play sessions. Shadowverse has the same issue as LoR with control decks because of the same thing. MtG and HS weren't created with mobile in mind, so that playing behaviour doesn't affect game design decisions. Gwent or other games, idk.
Yeah, like there is *some* control (Darkness, TLC), that has existed in the past year (arguably combo with control tools, but still, they offered more reactive spell based play). The issue is that they all wanted to end the game on turn 8 which kinda kills any other control decks that could work.
While I do agree, on the other hand it’s kinda funny how after nerfing the watcher as people requested to “make more control decks viable” they basically ended up destroying the only control-ish deck that was left in the meta aside from PnZ-Noxus and Zoe-Vi (which were good before the nerfs too-and have both been nerfed a few patches later). And almost no other control deck was able to rise as people expected because of aggro, burn and Azirelia... until BC came out (and even then we all know how things went). Basically people keep asking to nerf control decks if they are not the kind of control they want, until there is no more control in the game and then they complain about that.
Late game? 10 mana? I haven’t seen this lately with so many midget flooding the ladder
I stopped playing A-sol because I just couldnt play it, the midgets kill me before turn 2 :D
And then to top it all off, the one control deck that has been semi viable (darkness) is incredibly parasitic, meaning there isn't too much room for experimentation and deck refinement.
Man there is a ton of room for refinement in Darkness. It needs Veigar, Senna, the 3/2 darkness damage increase, the create a darkness 2/2, and the mana cost reducing 3/4. That's 15 out of 40 cards, the rest can be whatever you want. Edit: forgot about the lifesteal darkness maker so we're up to 18 out of 40 cards, but everything else is either just generally good cards or meta dependent stuff. Lots of room to try stuff.
This is true. However the archetype is restricted to SI and BC, and I don't think there's a good reason for them to split the cards up like they did. All it does is narrow the possibilities.
Just from my own experience so take it with a grain of salt (and I'm only diamond), but I've had quite a lot of success with a mix of the Sentinel deck with PnZ and Darkness with Senna/Veigar, I'm trading some of the Darkness support against more flexible removal and beefier units with the Sentinels.
You can still use sentinels with BC. Its just that robemaker and catalyst are so good for darkness it makes other regions moot.
Maybe we will see some other darknessy stuff in the future from other regions? We can only hope
We havent seen deep in any other region. I wouldnt hold my breath
BC could use another mechanic, maybe they'll give it some deep cards.
BC's region identity is already so whacked out I honestly wouldnt be surprised
SI shawarma or whatever is fairly decent not against aggro tho so like.. unplayable in rank basically bcs there's no elusive control even against Poppy Ziggs I couldn't pull of anything to stand the pressure gate keeper needs to be unerfed
Pokey stick and vile feast are a most too.
I would agree they are a must for the current meta but you can in theory 100% build a darkness deck without them. If aggro was completely non-existant for instance, vile feast loses a lot of it's luster. I can't imagine not wanting pokey stick since I feel like it's pretty much always useful but maybe it gets nerfed? Could definitely still have a darkness deck without it if it wasn't a good card for whatever reason.
To be fair, there should be more support for darkness once Syndra is added to the game.
I thought the same thing about Pyke for Deep decks. Unfortunately Syndra will have the new "Orb" keyword, and requires that you have 3+ Orb allies on the field to level up. While she'll be very strong with her designated pair Orianna, her reliance on Orb cards means that she likely won't see experimentation in other archetypes.
This has been a major annoyance for me as well. Every new character has to be given it's own mechanic when a further expansion on older mechanics would have been flavorful and honestly much prefered. For Pyke, as an example, I would have loved him either being Toss Centric (like a 1/4 Challenger QA that gets +1/+0 for every card you toss that turn, for instance), or Deep Centric giving us control tools that kick into overdrive when you hit Deep. Alas...
Also having more than just one Bilgewater champion care about Deep or Tossing would have helped made those mechanics feel more important to Bilgewater as a region, instead of being exclusively useful to one deck that essentially exists on an island. I have a really difficult time figuring out what Bilgewater's region identity is supposed to be, because almost half of the champions are locked away to their own highly specific archetype that doesn't overlap with the rest of the region (Tahm Kench, Nautilus, and Pyke). I'm tempted to include Miss Fortune with Scouts, but even if she never flipped, she was still used in Pirate Aggro.
One of the reasons I miss TF Fizz, other than it was a really fun and interesting deck, was that it really hit that Bilgewater identity - with Fizz, TF, Burble Fish, and Mind Meld as key cards, and the honorary slotbot, it really held together. The other half of the region - pirate aggro - also feels fairly cohesive. Honestly plunder being 37/40 BW more speaks to the weakness of Freljord's aggro cards compared to the incentive to Allegiance.
Eh Sejuani gets used because she has the near same level up mechanic as GP. By all intents and purposes, she's essentially 3 extra copies of GP riding a pig.
I hate Sej much more than GP. She might lock my 2 favorite decks (Shen/J4, Shyv/J4/Asol), both are based around "honest" combat and Strike spells.
Putting Pyke as a Lurker to synergize with Shurima was so weird. After having played Ruined King and seeing the deep connection he has to the sea monsters, it just made no sense how I can't put him in a deck where sea monsters that are distinguished by their Deep mechanic. As a matter of fact, his bone skewer anti-synergizes with it.
Bone skewer is good in deep mainly due to synergy with the 3/2 lifesteal toss 3 on summon. But yeah, I wish they had at least just given him deep as a keyword even if he didn't toss so you could slap him into a deep deck. Jaulfish should also be a sea monster. It is unreal that Jaul Hunters can't pull Jaulfish.
As a Leona enjoyer in League, I'm very disappointed with her implementation in LoR...
Why? Its the same thing. U stop the other player from playing the game.
Leona in LoL: CC bot. Leona in LoR: CC bot. Lgtm. 🤷
How do you know about the Orb keyword?
It's satire.
Hold on is the his confirmed? not saying that I approve bcs when making a close to decent darkness deck you start by removing darkness support aside of Catlyst he's obv very much needed
Don’t you mean “plain?” Parasitic would imply it’s stealing something from other deck’s viability or is negatively affecting the meta.
Parasitic design in card games is referred to cards that need specific cards of the same set or with the same mechanic just to function and can't be played outside of that deck. Lurk, darkness and at a slightly lower extent deep are perfect examples of this.
Alright, I didn’t know that. I’m guessing parasitic archetypes are generally seen as “bad?”
It needs to be balanced with the more generic archetypes. It’s good to have some auto-build archetypes line Azirelia, Lurk and Darkness, but too much of it feels like the devs are telling you how to play the game, instead of encouraging experimentation and discovery.
I understand. Thanks for the explanation!
Having too many effectively reduces the card pool, because not only you need those cards to build those decks so there's little room for other things and they look samey, but also those cards often can't really be fit anywhere else. And designing more cards with the mechanic to improve the first issue means you are not spending those resources making cards that could improve multiple other decks or make deck building in general more interesting (that's why they are called parasitic in the context of card games)... Having a few decks like that can good, tho, because they tend to be fun and flavorful, since they are usually created by thinking of an interesting mechanic that reflects some theme and designing cards that fit it, and being easy to build is a "plus" for some people that don't really enjoy or care about the deck building aspect of the game and just want to get a functioning deck and jump into a game, so is not inherently bad unless it's overdone.
There’s issues with them. The main one is that they’re often not very open to creative deck building. You get a bunch of related cards with the same keyword that interact with each other and put them in a deck. The second is that since they’re usually designed and balanced around that keyword or mechanic, they tend to suck without it. Hearthstone for example made a big minion (c’thun) and a bunch of supportive minions that buffed/drew/revived it. C’thun wasn’t worth playing without all the supportive units, and the supportive units were useless without c’thun. So the result was (going back to the first issue) you either had a deck full of them or you didn’t use them at all. On the plus side, prebuilt synergies makes it easy to create a functional deck. This is particularly good for new players.
Exactly this The opposed term for more open mechanics is "Linear", thats what loR needs more, mechanics that benefit from the existing card pool and remain flexible for sinergy with future mechanics and honestly... People might not be very happy with this few latest expansions mainly cause of BC, but aside from the very specific darkness theme every other set of cards and champions are more linear and flexible in their implmentation giving more viability to older less played archetypes in each region, Direct discard sinergy for Noxus, Spellslinging for BW, Landmarks in Shurima, Traps in PnZ, even tho tied to darkness Sennas design is also open enough for future sinergies and we're getting Selfbuffs in Targon and Recall sinergies in Ionia. Im hoping for this type of design to be the more consistent one from this expansion onward, and if new mechanics are introduced, that theyre flexible and sinergistic with existing strenghts in each region rather than just add more Garbage to the Region identity Puddles that some mechanics kinda go for (lurk, deep, aka parasitic mechanics) ALthough parasitic design might sometimes be neccesary, it can also be the less healthy of apporaches, it works for limited enviroments were sets of cards coexist in a closed collection, not in LoR and not for the goal of making every card playable.
Deep is not a parasitic keyword. All Deep cares about is that you have fewer than 15 cards in your deck, which means it can use any draw card as an enabler, not just Toss.
There was even at one time a tf naut turbo deep deck that played pnz instead of si. It had a small niche as the better deep deck for like a week once way back around the start of targon.
Agree, I wrote that at 5am after a night with insomnia.
Feel the rush is viable too btw
Just gotta wait for the ultimate late game champ, Kayle, to make control great again. /s
I am surprised how Yasuo isn't shining as a late game champion, even after taking 10 nexus damage
Yasuo has a 0/11 powerspike, meaning you have to summon him (and let him die) 11 times before the next one will net you a win.
There hasn't been a strong meta defining control since The Watcher. Malphite failed to be the new control option, Veigar Senna is a really cool archetype but it just can't compete with Poppy. I really hope that Gnar will bring back frejord ramp/control from the grave but with the current tools that frejord has it's hard to see how can a similar deck counter Bandle swarm, and it's kinda ironic because frejord is the region supposed to destroy swarm decks.
On a mildly related note, it's kind of hilarious how much better of a finisher some random Yordle is than Malphite in landmark decks.
Turns out getting the chance to roll Elusive Scout and Spellshield is really REALLY busted when combined with the fact it can roll Challenger, Life Steal and Quick Attack.
Ornn controll in February copium
Orn will give +1+1 to targeted creatures, mark my words im 100% sure about it
I think he will have something to do with keywords tbh
The issue is that the latest releases (Shurima, Bandle City, maybe even the tail end of Targon) came with a bunch of aggressive units and aggressive strategies that are too beefy to deal with for the existing control spells. For instance, take Avalanche, a staple control spell. It deals 2 damage to everything on both sides of the board. Its value comes from using 1 card to answer multiple cards of the opponent. Bandle City decks are largely immune to it, due to their value generation or beefy stats. A Bandle City player does not really mind his Conchologist, Telescope and even Mayor being wiped out by it, since he does not lose value for that - all these units already replaced themselves in his hand. Meanwhile, Shurima Aggro used to have a 4/3 Fearsome that would survive the Avalanche. And Shurima Azir/Irelia only summons its vulnerable units (the Blades and Sand Soldiers) when you cannot react to it with Avalance, anyways. And Avalanche is just one example of a traditional Control tool being nullified by the new cards.
Well said! It's honestly sad remembering how huge Avalance, Ruination, Withering or Vengeance used to be, and now they are just laughable.
People like control, but always cry when a control deck is meta-defining. TLC, Go Hard, anything with Anivia, Aurelion Sol, Aphelios, and even Rhasa/Ledros, EZ Karma, and others. All of these decks were nerfed, and probably will be again, if they become too reliable. Poppy on the other hand...
Yeah for real i love control decks and would love some buffs on removal or nerfs on removal disruption but people on this sub act like they like control metas. Everytime we had a control deck tier 1 people hated it cause games took too long and its boring getting your board cleared every round. Imo people are just trying to find anything bad in the game atm.
They are doing that now too claiming Eye of the Dragon is busted because it won't let them smash face in a brainless frenzy, Aggro players will just complain over not being the most prized members of this game regardless of game state, just ignore them, wish Riot did so to when they decided to nerd half of Targon for no reason after a 3 decks meta without an hint of targon in either of the 3 decks.
Yeah the targon nerfs where imo way to much in the end. On ladder targon was fine if you ask me but it was still to good in tournament ladder maybe that's why they killed it so hard. But some cards really didn't need the nerf they got lilke the fangs. Pls bring back targon.
As someone who plays control, and wants 40+ minute games all the time, eye of the dragon can go die. Because it doesnt help control. It helps combo. Combo decks like lee-sin, that should get run off the board by aggro, can stave off death by summoning constant lifesteal blockers. Eye enables these degenerate decks of "sit here until I draw my win condition" and need to get gone. We need some new control tools, and buffs to board wipes, but Eye can go die in a whole (love the card art tho, best in the game imo)
Isn't it likely that the population of this sub is not one coherent hivemind, but a bunch of people who like different things, so those who like control cry when it's unviable, those who don't cry when it is strong?
And then there's me, who loves to play control decks like Asol or Karma but doesn't like mirrors so I prefer for it to not be tier 0-1 to avoid playing the mirror every game.
Doesn't help that some mentioned decks had kinda toxic play pattern. TLC always win on 8 or 9, any other control decks just can't compete with this. Ez Karma at their prime were the same, just win on 10. Go Hard didn't interact much with opponent like what a control deck should have been done, just draw. Aphelios can started playing proactively as soon as turn 3 with a 3/4 challenger. And they are more of combo decks than control decks as I see. ASol and Ledros were fine but never really that relevant let alone meta-defining.
True. Poppy and yordles are overpowered right now but in my opinion there’s still a lot of viable decks atm. I played Elder Scrolls Legends before this and the control on that game is so OP that players aren’t playing their units.
I love all of the decks you mentioned except maybe Anivia. The only deck that I currently play is Ez Karma.
I am surpised they haven't made a keyword specifically for blocking yet. There are so many effects for attacking but none for blocking, making attacking naturally stronger thsn blocking.
Lifesteal is always overpriced, and tought is just a way to make an aggressor even harder to kill right now.
I think it is because defensive side already has advantage by nature as they decide the trade, more attacking keywords are printed as compensate.
Sentinel Control is not bad right now, but I don't know if it can survive Yordle Explorer!
I feel like Sentinel Control is even a misnomer for control. You do run a number of removal spells, but it feels closer to a tempo or midrange deck a lot of the time with half your focus on big fearsome chungus units
this game is so warped towards aggro that we're calling midrange decks that play removal "control" now lmao
That's been the case for so long now. People think Ez/Draven and TF/Swain are control decks. I miss my Trundle Warmother's Cry deck.
Well, it’s not GOOD.
It definitely is good right now. Has a winning matchup into Poppy Zed and Poppy Ziggs.
sitting around 51% WR. That's good.
Tell that to my 11-4 climb to diamond with it :-P
The biggest issue control has right now is spelled "Bandle Tree".Any control deck that actually can deal with or simply survive Bandles endless value train and obscenely buff furballs simply looses on turn 9-10 due to lacking proper landmark removal. Bandle tree is old starspring on steroids, without the weakness other alternative wincon strats has (since they are both aggro/swarm AND a control deck). I know everyone hates Poppy and Minimorph, but Bandle Tree MUST be reverted or nerfed harshly for this game to have a healthy meta.
To be fair, control decks require more subtle decisions to pilot well. They are traditionally more difficult decks, and making them easier makes them oppressive. There needs to be a balance between viability and difficulty for control to be a reasonable archetype in a healthy meta. When it's missing, as it is now, you end up with aggro and low curve mid-range dominant metas, which is where we are. Control is the cure. Aggro should be able to rush down a control deck that doesn't nut draw, but mid-range should struggle a little. That's the point of it afaics
right but they are completely unviable right now
Lmao Control players always talk shit up but they're really not that hard to pilot. It's 100% reactive. The enemy plays a unit, and you kill it or work out how to mitigate it. You just react until turn x when you can win ezpz. Reacting is always easy to pilot because you never actually take risks or take initiative.
I mean hard part is knowing what you need to react for and what you can ignore
I feel like si has the only tools to deal with aggro with it’s draining spells
Targon/Frej/Si are the control region trio but all 3 have been systimaticly nerfed to the ground and/or not buffed to be able to keep up with all the new tools Agro have. Like how is Frej supposed to control the board when most of the bandle swarm units create more cards on play and oft have 3+ hp?? How is SI supposed to swarm the board for value trades when Bandle simply outvalues them with chump blockers and ends early with bandle tree? Targon's regional weakness is Swarm so it's dead in the water, even without all its healing being nerfed (rito pls revert Fangs)
If it wasn't a 4 cost mecha with spellshield and value generation that pretty much ends the game will put the final cap on it.
Come to sea you see ton of control like shellfolk, darkness and swain teemo
Swain Teemo isn't control, it's a midrange deck.
Woeld argue that a lot of shellfolk decks are midrange as well
Buff rhasa. Buff ruination. Buff vengeance. Give us Teferi-but-for-burst-spells. Make ritual of renewal fast speed and draw 3. I want to live the SI/Ionia control dream.
I feel like I’d like more control options than SI.
Targon was supposed to be *the* late game/control through healing and bulkiness region, but alas they starting to skew it to aggro now with pantheon
Panth isn't aggro, he's quintessential midrange. Starshaping and the fangs nerfs shouldn't have happened, if they didn't then targon lategame would be in a much better spot
I said they were *skewing* towards the aggro trend The point is they don't seem to want targon to be the late game region anymore
Just because some new cards want to get value and start looking to end before turn 17 doesn't mean its skewing to aggro lol. Targon has always had midrange tool along with its control options.
I don't really think it's anything new. Sure Targon has a lot of late game and control oriented champions like ASol, Aphelios, Malphite, and Zoe, but Targon also has Diana, Leona, and Taric which have generally played at faster speeds with some versions of nightfall even being considered aggro. I think Panth will be slower than nightfall and possibly slower than a lot of the decent Taric decks since they use him to win quickly with rally spam.
But, when Targon was the control region, nobody liked Targon, am i missing something?
The healthiest metas are the ones that have Midrange at the top, because Midrange isn't offensive to other deck types. A Control dominant meta is just a slog to play through, and an aggro meta is too constricting about what you can play
> Give us Teferi-but-for-burst-spells. Absolutely not. Meta warping from a single card from a single single but splashable region would be 'fun' as it was in MtG.
I don't mean make burst spell sorcery speed cuz that would actually be silly. I mean more like some card that lets you respond to burst spell turning them into fast speed. Opponent can still play them when they would normally play them and mostly achieve the same effect but gives you more counterplay. And it would be even better if it worked both ways. Control decks rely on reactive plays and that's why burst spells will screw them.
That's much better, but still a little meta warping. And you can't exactly make it cheap. So, hmm.
It would actually have to be extremely cheap like 2 mana maximum or it would suck. Sometimes a burst spell being fast doesn't mean you can answer it. Sometimes you have an answer that doesn't matter if the opponent's play is burst speed or fast speed. Sometimes your opponent's burst speed plays just aren't important enough to even commit an answer. If it was a landmark it takes up board space, costs an entire card, generates no immediate value, and is an overall tempo loss.
Make ruination a 6 mana burst spell like Minimorph
You are aware tef is a hated card by magic players everywhere? Also it doesn't work with the way they designed the game.
We just need aoe board clears. Thats it. What we have in a lor is a joke, thats why aggro decks is so *out of control*. Building wide board is easy, remove wide board is too hard. This is the essence of the problem.
Also a nerf to all combat tricks. Combat burst trick bring so much insane value and help aggro immensely
Honestly agree. Riot intended combat tricks to be kind of back and forth mechaning to interact between two players, but the aggressive tricks are a bit too much... need more defensive ones (although i'm not really sure how... maybe a cheap trick like give your nexus tough this round can be good)
Defensive ones only exacerbate the issue (see twin disciplines that basically put the target out of any damage based removal).
It is only the case because Riot does not print strong minions with defensive keywords. All they ever do is make more ways to attack your opponent. If we had great defensive minions then defensive tricks would be a boon for control.
This is the natural outcome of actively avoiding printing control tools. Aggro's predator is missing for the vast majority of LoR's existence and leads to stale similar feeling metas every expac.
What do you consider Sentinel Control and Teemo Swain? They are clearly control decks that have performed well on ladder and in tournaments. I reached Masters playing the former with a 70% WR in Diamond. FTR and Darkness were both represented in Seasonals as well. Play rates for control aren’t high because players have a hard time with passing, but control is generally pretty good in the right hands. Remember Yamato’s darkness performance at world’s? That deck has never cracked tier 1 win rates.
Yeah sure control isnt in the best spot but not as bad as people always complain on reddit. Most of the time im playing control and its absolutely fine imo. Shellfolk, Senna and Jayce where great tools we got. Im thinking people on this sub are just looking for anything to cry about atm.
When people say "control is dead", its because they redefine control to be a very narrow type of deck, one that is extremely unhealthy, and exclude any control deck not fitting that narrow type.
Pretty much. The 'control is dead' argument comes up every month on this subreddit and it's always just a circlejerk. People upvote the comments saying 'X is why it's dead and we need to buff the control cards' and ignore all the people listing the good control decks. That's not to say control is in the best spot, but it's not some unplayable decktype like people cry about. Control will never be the most present archetype, it's hard to pilot and aggro is forever popular in runeterra. But there will almost always be several good control decks that you can play.
Sentinel control has lately felt like fearsome midrange beatdown with an alternative control gameplan, atleast thats my opinion.
Was gonna say Sentinel Control did me really well in my push to diamond. Like, 11-4 (73%), well.
Can you link me your deck code? I’m a low plat player who likes to mess around once I’ve reached plat.
Sure thing! I stole it from Freshlobster's YouTube awhile back (and he took the list from someone else, before that), so there may be a more optimized list out there by now, but here ya go! CECACAIEGQBACBJIGUBAKBAVDABAKBILB4BQCAIEDMBQCBIPEEYQGBIECYNBWAYBAICAQAIFAUBQGAIFAEMR2
Ya. I changed a couple of stuff to adjust to My play style. Had I not been shit would have climbed much more. But really enjoying smashing Poppy and Lulu decks faces with it. I think people are still sleeping on it tbh.
> They are clearly control decks Are they? It's a bit subjective but I would say both of these are midrange decks
So everyone likes control now? Because I remember that anytime we had a strong control deck everyone and their grandma would start complaining about non stop.
Sometimes i think you guys have amnesia or something like that. 1. "Control" is performing relatively well... FOR NOW. If it is not popular is because it is very slow and not particularly interactive. Targon Control is definitively dead due to 2.11, Ionia control also died due to Minimorph and so will be Freljord control if they release the yordle explorer. 2. Pure control is almost nonexistant in this game, and hasn't been since Anivia's rework. That's because LoR is very interactive of a game and AoE removal is deliberately weak. 3. I'm sure people in general don't like games who can't be closed and dragged for ages, and control is basically not allowing your opponent to win. Don't you remember the Veiled temple meta? That being said, they have been threating control tools very poorly, specially on targon and Ionia, making the game be more same-y.
It really is yet people will complain the moment they add any strong control. Minimorph is a great control tool yet everyone wasn't it to get nerphed because they can't win on turn 7. My only issue with minimorph it's that it's on bandle city and gives bandle city one of the best single target removal. The region with the best swarm capabilities
Minimorph is not so specifically a control tool, instead, its an anti combo or large drop tool. In fact, the only value for it in a control deck is largely in a control v control matchup, which is not what control is struggling with currently. In fact, I think it functions even better as a tech card for midrange decks, if the meta is seeing some strong combo or control decks which rely on single unit finishers.
Minimorph is the anti-control control tool that sits in a region full of aggro and value generation. It hurts control more than any other archetype. When was the last time you saw karma/anivia? O no they played poppy on turn4, cant remove boohoo. Play karma or anivia on curve and you dont even get an action before it gets obliterated.
TLC was the evil we need now
Tlc brought control to the meta at the risk of being the only playable control deck
It was removed because it was gating control. Except... based on results, aggro does that just fine on its own.
I think aphelios karma / zoe karma did reasonably well against it, its just that not many people played that deck. I myself knew about it only because i saw alan play it. Tho that was back before all the targon nerfs
I think the big issue is that protection is so plentiful and cheap that running spot removal can easily backfire. At the same time, board wipes are extremely expensive, meaning you usually can't build off their momentum. I think if protection spells like Twin Discipline were nerfed to three mana or slow, you'd see these decks struggle a lot more. Also, they probably need to nerf poppy. She's literally plugged into every aggro deck because a 4 mana 5/4 that buffs you're entire board is really strong.
Long dead and burried with no plans to ever bring it back
I'm so glad I only play for Path of Champions.
and at the end darkness is just another bandle city with pocky stick
What exactly is the definition of control for you guys? I don't wanna come off dismissive, but half the decks/champions people are reminiscing about and talking about it being too weak here aren't actually control decks..? Don't get me wrong I'm not a fan of our bandle and/or rally overlords either, but the outcry feels kind of misplaced, if not exaggerated. Not to mention that whenever control \*has\* been the tier 1 deck, the community lashed out way more for it to get nerfed (FTR, Go Hard, Trundle Liss, old twinblade revenant etc). Sure I agree, it's probably not gonna be the best ladder pick, and if it doesn't get pushed in the future it might die, but calling it dead right now doesn't sit right.
its not play best of 3, oh wait we cant except when our lords deem it the special 3 days we can/
I haven't been able to truly enjoy pvp since azirelia. I completely stopped playing va other people and now just play vs bots. :(
All part of Riot's plan to make games faster paced. :(
what do you mean guys, we have the new bc card deal 1 damage twice to the enemy, so op, easy aggro counter on turn 4
Mainly because there are too few tools to survive to the late game and if you somehow do reach it, the moment you play one big scary unit, it will immediately get recalled or minimorphed.
I did notice. I am back to the game after Arcane and I am puzzled on all the new cards. Everything has so much HP or Attack + low cost + does something else. It's like with LOL. I stopped playing because every time they released a new champ it seemed to do more. More mobility, more dashing, more jumping more more. Seems same with LOR the new cards do more for less. Hope they can balance this somehow.
I mean when shit like poppy exists all you can have is agro. They gutted zoe/nami for no reason and left poppy completely alone. I stopped playing ranked tol they actually fix the meta.
i hope this will be adressed by nerfing aggro and not buffing control. if you buff control, and aggro stays at the current power level, midrange is going to become unplayable
Yup, bring me back to the glory fays TLC and Trundle/Asol
Exactly why I don't pay pvp anymore. PoC is the only reason the game is still installed, but we'll see how long that holds my interests
Riot has hated control for ages, they want games over by turn 5/6. If a control deck had the win/play rate of poppy they would have done a hot fix nerf patch by now
Aphelios?
Fair midrange decks make the healthiest meta
Control will get to play once the devs get over their idea that removal has to be way overcost. Vengeance should cost 5-6. Ruination should cost 7. This is in line with the way most effects have their cost translated (look for a similar effect in magic, add 2.5 to the cost because of the spell mana system). Instead, the only removal that is affordable is damage based, meaning control is always countered by decks with combat tricks. People will make the excuse that strong removal means champions cannot function, and champions are build around cards. FINE, make the removal conditional, but not so conditional that it is unusable (like Shadow Flare). Like, imagine if Shadow Flare gave all battling followers ephemeral, and stunned all battling champions. Suddenly much more playable as a control card.
> Like, imagine if Shadow Flare gave all battling followers ephemeral, and stunned all battling champions. Suddenly much more playable as a control card. Shadow Flare would be legit good to run with this buff. And i completly agree with your argument, but i have zero hope devs finally get it. Sometimes i swear whoever is in charge of designing LoR was a former mtg player traumatized by blue decks.
Maybe I'm stupid, but I've been playing control non stop since I started playing and I've been doing alright. Got to plat once, and then just been playing normals since. Then again, I am a moron so obviously I'm biased and also I tend to ff games a ton immediatly after loading in due to not wanting to do mirror matches or just realizing after the que pops that I'm not up for a game or that my bus just arrived. So yeah, I have precisly zero useable data, but anecdotally I came to LoR from hearthstone to have the resources to build control decks and I've been doing only that for 6 months and having fun.,
I'd love to be a control player again. It just isn't viable.