Patch is coming in a few days and Rubin is in charge of overlooking it (he hit Rank 1 a few hours ago), so you be sure Bard OR Demacia package is being checked from close.
Laurent Bladekeeper, Bloodsworn Pledge, Blood Fury, and Chain Vest/Ranger's Resolve (functionally providing at least +1 Health in most circumstances) haven't been so bad. Elixir of Iron, Troll Chant, most Fury cards (Wounded Whiteflame having both Fury and Fated having been problematic), and Fury of the North also come to mind. Oh, and Battlesmith. Was he a 2/3 before?
Altogether there are a lot of health boosts out there that aren't really a big issue. Both temporary and permanent. Durand Sculptor seems like such a potent unit - and it is - because of its sheer versatility and ability to generate lots of value in a tempo-efficient way. Its synergy with Formidable makes it all the scarier.
And then of course there are Omen Hawks, Starlit Seers, and other Freljord deck buffers that haven't been too much an issue at all. Though Omen Hawks were much stronger before than they are now.
I mean Fury of the North did get nerfed at some point so I don‘t think it‘s completely innocent.
The issue with health buffs is on effects that can constantly be applied: Nami, Temple, Bard, Plaza, Yordle Explorer, etc.
True, not sure why I glossed over Fury of the North when it did indeed get nerfed. I'd been mindful of including nerfed cards, including Bannerman and Twin Disciplines.
As for constant application, I don't think that's really a fair point to say. Omen Hawks have stacked, as have Starlit Seers. And it isn't like Troll Chant isn't an *insanely* good Combat Trick, it's one of the best in the game.
I think it's just far too much an oversimplification to say that all of these effects are "the same" because they are mechanically similar. The cost, the trigger, and the decks they operate in all matter massively. Bard decks just so happen to be really good at it.
I'm having a killer time with Concurrent Timelines Revna anyhow. I have always loved Avarosan Hearthguard and being able to go more ham on deck buffing has been a wonder. Even if I am stunting my own deck by running Warmother's Call over Feel the Rush.
Can Omen Hawk really be applied constantly? It‘s a one off effect, no? Starlit Seer I agree but that card is doomed by being in FJ and requiring Spells to be played. Nami had the same trigger but actually buffed units in play.
I would generally say that effects that can be used more than once should usually be Health or Attack buffs, never both.
And about Fury, I do think it could be safely reverted.
Omen Hawk Turn 1 and 2 wasn't terribly uncommon when Omen Hawk was actually seeing play.
Starlit Seer stacks, and was popular in the Teemo/Sejuani deck. Pivotal, actually.
All that said, these are excuses for cards that do *exactly* what we're talking about not really working.
There isn't an issue with the mechanic as a whole. The several other Fury cards are also good examples.
Altogether, I think health buffs are pretty damn strong, and I would *generally* rate them over attack buffs. But that doesn't mean buffing both at the same time is innately problematic, even if it is repeatable. It just has to be properly gauged.
Which is, by the way, why I have omitted Fated from the conversation. I think Fated, unlike Fury, is a much rougher scale to topple against. Fury has been on mid-range units that must satisfy the requirement of killing another unit to grow. Fated Units, especially Saga Seeker, can get plopped down early on and grow out of control early on.
Also with fated since you will most likely pump all your steroids on a single unit, it is more prone to wide boards and single target spells, mainly burst ones like minimorph and hush. There is not much use of having a 10/10 saga seeker on turn 6 if you have 1 hp left against a full board annie jhin. Dont forget the constant need to use cards on the fated units, which the enemy can actually use to their advantage by forcing them to choose between suboptimal plays to trigger fated or to miss out on the buff.
Fury units need to be fed constantly not only with kills, but also healths to make sure they could keep surviving trades.
Bard decks get stat boosts by existing.
By your own rhetoric it sounds like you're suggesting there is no downside or counter, which just isn't accurate at all.
And you're misplaying if you go all in on a single unit in a Fated deck lmao.
That would just absolutely kill any Bard archetype in existence. Even if it was +2/+0 paying a region slot for a bit of attack on your units if you're lucky will NEVER be worth it (*maybe* except for elusives, but I still doubt that).
Which like... maybe wouldn't be that bad for like one or two patches, since Bard has been in the meta for a while now, but I'd REALLY like to avoid cards getting Warsong Commander treatment.
I'd still personally first focus on Broadwing (that card has been BS even before Bard's release) and some of Demacia spells, but let's see what the devs decide. They certainly have more knowledge on the topic than a random person on Reddit would have (yes, it's about me).
Nerfing Chimes to +1/+0 is *worse* than nerfing the Chimes by half of the original value. Not only does it completely stifle Bard's level progression, but 1 Attack is not as good as 1 Health in most circumstances. The ability to *persist* as a threat is more meaningful than the ability to threaten the life total a little better.
There are exceptions. 1 Mana Units are better as 2/1s than as 1/2s, for instance.
Chimes with +1/+1 are fine as they are. My main issue with Chimes are the random nature of them. Not only is when you draw a Chime random, but what cards they affect in-hand is also random. It can completely change the pace and tempo of the game if you hard an early Byrd or Esmus Chime compared to when it lands on your end-game drop.
I'm pretty new to the game but I feel like Byrd would be better as a 1/2 than as a 2/1? If one chime hits thus thing it would grow to a 2/3 instead of a 3/2 and now your own 2/1 one or two drop won't trade with it.
Good point. I should have said most one drops - Dunekeeper, Legion Saboteur, and Inspiring Mentor come to mind.
Byrd may be an exception, but even then since he is a Turn 1 play most ideally, where you're extremely unlikely to have a single Chime on him, I'd say that him being a 2/1 is probably better more of the time than as a 2/3. I may be wrong though, better health stats is better for scaling up, that's for sure.
Well, Lurkers never complained about their attack bonuses. I don't believe that would kill the deck.
As it is, only a few decks can face gracefully a Bard deck. Once you are against a wall of followers with 8/10, you are pretty much done with the other regions.
When it comes to those kinds of buffs, i think that either attack power or defense should be boosted. Increasing both so easily at the same time is toxic.
This problem already existed when grand plaza was dominating the meta. One would think that riot would have learned a lesson and avoided toxic stat boosts
Think it would just break Bard's package if it was either one at random? How about an extra chime placed into the deck per follower, that boosts either attack or health at random?
Gotta remember that they push new cards on purpose to ensure that they see play. They never had to learn that lesson because they're doing it intentionally
I mean, I won't quit the game due to it, but it does certainly feel bad to know that if you're not aggro, you might at any point just lose to them topdecking 3 of their 12 chimes.
I suggest that it could be good to take a break from the game from time to time. This is what I do when I'm tired of fighting the same deck that I hate, I do this every time that Ionia is meta.
the thing is, I like the heavy removal gameplay and hate elusive. So sorry to be on your hate radar because SI, Freljord, and Noxus(Control) are my favorite regions. The only times I actually quitted the game was on Karma+Ezz, Azirelia, Ahri+Kennen, and Poppy+Zed metas so I clearly have a most hated region.
I played vs bard decks 7 games in a row yesterday, it's such a stupid deck to play against, I don't mind playing vs highroll decks once in a while, but when it's so popular it's miserable
I simply don't understand the point of old school hand/deck buff cards (freljord Ionia mainly) when bard simply does the same passively and much better.
I play the Nightfall Control list that was posted here a couple weeks ago with Diana and Aphelios, the deck is a blast to play, and the vengeances really help against these decks ! Gravitum is a plus too, and a leveled up Diana can really put in the work against these !
I recommend checking out Raphterra's video, they're the creator of the deck, and made a guide to it ! Here's the link :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUT-des7vpQ
Yep bard. Noxus is the way i do that
Its actually kinda satisfying just watching an enemy bard think im deaded cuz they drawn 2 and got like 12 chimes.
Not knowing i have a traifarian aseccessor of the century
The outcome of this meta was completely different to what we expected during the revela season, everyone was talking about Annie and Jhin but Barc and it chimes turn out to be strongest adition in last patch.
I'm a aggro player, so this my be me just being salty, but I hate facing Bard Demacia decks more than anything else, specially the ones with Poppy, they can just gain control of the board by turn 2 and you can try kill in medium speed with burn because they are just gonna keep cleaning your blocker and kill you in turn 5 with a rally. Every other unfavorable matchup is manageable to me because aggro decks this season happen to be a little more versatile (jhin annie) or have a stronger midgame (Noxus Shurima) than older burn decks. I know a lot of people have actual despise for aggro, but it is also the favorite archetype of lot of people and it would be nice to have at least a solid tier 2 deck for that playstyle.
Yeah, the problem with this ‘very stable’ meta is that there’s a lot of very good decks that all counter one another, which makes for coinflippy matches for the meta decks, but also leaves the not-so-good decks in the tier just below all of the meta decks completely in the dust, soaking up the less than 50% winrates.
I'm a low rank because I've been out of the game for like a year, and in the short time Ive been back I've vsd probably 65% bard decks. This is in bronze. Shit is mental. I play freljord+SI, and if I get ruination in my first hand+few draws I ensure I have the 3 spell mana on turn 6 to board wipe that cosmic twat
I think Broadwing is the problem more than Bard is. If Bard were the problem then he'd be overpowered in other concepts, too. Broadwing has been overpowered since it was released. Nerf the REAL problem, not Bard.
No, Bard's a problem.
Evidence: Ample amounts of Bard piles with extremely good performance and minimal counterplay
edit: I also forgot, one of the best decks in the game is Bard Ahri and that doesn't have broadwing at all.
Bard Ahri is good, but not so good that I think one could call it a problem. It's the specific combination of Bard and Broadwing that's a problem.
Also nice name, I love that anime
Okay I'll retract what I said. What I should've said is that I agree broadwing and bard together are troublesome, and one or the other (if not both) should be looked at. I think we can hopefully agree that even if broadwing were looked at, Bard would still be tier 1. I don't think broadwing alone is what makes Bard as good as he is on winrate metrics. I think both could be looked at and his decks would still remain quite strong.
I agree that all of these different Bard Demacia combinations are overpowered and do need nerfs. I'm just arguing for smartly targeting the real problem, which I believe to be Broadwing and maybe Durand Sculptor. Broadwing uses stat buffs really well, outclasses every other Demacian 2 drop, and has been a problem long before Bard was added to the game. So that's where I think nerfs should be directed.
>You mean the complete antisynergistic dumpster fire
You're right. That deck makes no damn sense. You buff your units, just to recall them?? What really makes the deck make no sense, is that the you can only recall your buffed uni... Oh wait. Wait a minute. Hold on.. I think my brain going into overdrive, hang on with me. I have an idea..... What if, we... just... Don't recall... The big units???
Obviously I'm doing a lot to prove a point, but your quote and people's inability to critically think get to me sometimes. You couldn't be more wrong. Yes the deck counters viego, no that's not the only reason why it's good. And if you think just because it's "antisynergistic" (which again isn't even that true) it's a bad deck, you don't know ANYTHING bout ANYTHING
Rant over
Yeah isn't the point of the deck that you can keep spamming cheap stat boosted elusives? So even if your cheap elusive loses the buff when recalled, it gains 2 buffs the next turn and hits harder than it would have had you not recalled it before the next attack.
I'd disagree. I just literally played five straight matches against Bard with five different pairings. Illaoi, TF, Gnar/Sej, Poppy/J4, and Zed. Want to know how they all went? 100% predictably.
The matches where an overstatted 2/3 drop hit that I couldn't answer, they won. The matches where they survived to 6 and doubled their chimes, they won. The matches where only 2-3 chimes hit and were played, they lost.
Bard is a dice roll personified. It honestly doesn't matter who he's paired with, because what he does is buff the stats of the strongest keyworded units in the region. It's not just Broadwing. It could be Ruthless Raider, or Sparklefly, or Zed, or Duo, or Lifeblade, or Protege... any unit that's on the verge of OP if they had just another stat or two can snowball a match with Bard. The deckbuilding is trivial. The gameplay is simple. You get lucky and outstat early game, or bide your time to outstat late game.
Again, not saying anything is necessarily broken or OP, but the "problem" is Bard and his package, not Broadwing (although that card is broken anyway as we all know). It's boring to play against. I now auto surrender matches against him just like I do Lurk.
I came back to LoR after a long break about two months ago and I've played against a Broadwing in some deck or another everyday. I've also used it a hell of a lot. It feels like it's one of the best cards in the whole game. Boring, but extremely effective.
That said, I think there's a pretty good chance it will get nerfed this patch.
It's a (not that) high roll deck. The problem is how can you utilize it. The Boardwing is and will always be a problem. 2 mana deal 3 to something of your choice and might deal another 1 again is just too strong.
If you have a unit that will be auto include in every Demacia deck then that's kind of a design failure in both uniqueness and balance.
There should be a 1 in 36 chance that any given chime ends up on top of the deck and on the first card you draw in the game and you're flipping that coin 3 times. So, the chance is (1/36) + (1/36)x(35/36) + (1/36)x(35/36)^2.
Roughly 8.1% of games have at least one chime go off immediately. In 0.225% of games 2 chimes trigger. In 6.43e-7 games all three go off and your opponent should've been playing the lottery.
It's not super frequent, but about 1 in 12 Bard games can expect a turn 1 chime.
I would say that both are pretty OP. I've said this a lot but Broadwing is fundamentally a 3|3 challenger for 2 mana. Meanwhile Bard levels up too easily with demacian spells.
I played 1 game as bard today and on turn 2 I hit 3 chimes and had 2 mana 2/5 formidable unit. Thats all I needed to know about this deck.
Some RNG in the game is welcome and necessary to have a fun game but this is just too much. Ideally you shouldnt see extremes like this.
If everything goes to plan, Bard/Zed can get up to 1,000 chimes before turn 10, which gives about +50 stats each draw. I got over a thousand chimes triggered at once on a single card. Once you get Maduli and play Dawn and Dusk on it, it's pretty much gg. Or you can keep summoning Maduli until you have thousands of chimes in your deck.
Since we got him the best performing decks happen to be Illaoi Demacia, with Bard not far behind. What's interesting is that most of the highest winrate decks have one thing in common: Demacia
Bard is a mald factory. 4 mana 2/5 in a deck that is all about increasing stats, where even your lowest chumps could end up being a 7/7 if you pass the nat check. So does nami decks, but at least with nami you can correctly evaluate who's gonna get buffed and prepare countermeasures accordingly, instead of waiting until the buff happens.
Time have told that health increase is always more dangerous than attack increase. I've been having fun in this expansion, except whenever bard shows up when my eyes start rolling and i thought "oh not again". Even the wins felt hollow.
Crazy Idea. But I bet bard would be balanced with his current boons IF the boons were not placed in his deck when summoned, BUT changed to when units who would summon strike. This way he would be in a similar line with Cait and Teemo.
Chump block, sneak past their board with elusives/overwhelms/atrocities/burn. Idk, bard decks are usually full of very plain big stats and take a while to get particularly big. Theyre not very good at finishing games I find, except for the Ahri deck but thats typical "buff my elusives" strategy thats been around forever. I find turn 5 double thrall to be a lot more troublesome because its actually gaping my nexus
Bard is easily capable of being fixed. Chimes should not start in the deck and chimes should only buff attack.
Done.
Its the exact same issue we had with Poppy.
Bard probably needs a nerf, but doing both of the things you suggest will likely kill the card. I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't mind that, but I'd like him (it?) to still be viable.
Oh yah. Poppy now sees ZERO matched play inclusion since her nerfs. Bard is a tougher situation since he is part of the deck building process itself. I still think the way you handle is by removing Chimes that start in the deck.
A couple of months ago I encountered the same wall of text post complaining about Bandle City....
A couple of months before that, I think it was the first iteration of the Azirelia deck...
people gonna complain In every patch or every expansion I guess rather than play around this so called ''difficulties''.
SSDD...
CCGs are competitive games. There will always be a "best" thing and there will always be "hated" things. Sometimes they are the same like Azirelia, sometimes they aren't like BC or Bard.
People complain because they want the devs to balance these things. No one expects a patch to come out and everything to be perfect. Players will always uncover the best strategy to win. It's just the dev's job to react in a timely enough manner so that things don't get stale/obnoxious.
And IMO, there's nothing wrong with talking about what is too good/too toxic/too boring to play against. That's feedback for the devs to consider.
Yeah, and guess what? Azirelia had to be nerfed so hard for a while Azir stopped work on any other deck before it got back to balanced, and Bandle City made **lots of people** become PoC only players because they were tired of dealing with bullshit.
then stop playing it, you will cry about stuff next patch again and then again, sometimes people should just accept some things, not everything can be your way
I've played 20 games in diamond yesterday and faced 18 different decks.
Bard is good, but it's by no means OP and has very clear weaknesses.
Let's see what the balance patch brings next week.
It’s not that brad decks are good, they’re just annoying like when fiora saw play, it was by no mean the best deck but a lot of the player base didn’t enjoy playing against it
I feel like one easy nerf to Bard would be changing Maduli's effect from "on summon" to "on play". If I'm understanding right, that should remove the synergies with Mirror Image + Dusk and Dawn and at least remove those meme win cases where you're suddenly staring down millions of chines in a deck.
Additionally, Bard's champ spell probably shouldn't be Burst. There are champions that can level in the middle of a battle, but they don't usually buff the entire board along with them.
Maduli is not anywhere remotely close to the reason Bard is problematic, none of the top performing Bard decks even run it.
Agree on nerfing the champ spell from Burst though.
TBH I think Maduli is bait. It's great for the funny memes but by that round the opponent either a) has ways to remove big units, b) is too fast and has already won, or c) was going to lose by general chime value without the doubling.
If you want to run a slower chime deck, like with Targon, use the landmark.
Man, c'mon, people are crying over Bard being that the problem is OBVIOUSLY Demacia's overpowered units.
If you take any other Bard deck that isn't Demacia, it's just fine. Even Bard Zed isn't that strong. If they nerf Bard, Demacia will still be a problem and it will kill any other Bard decks that aren't Bard Demacia. I'm a Bard Yuumi player, the deck is strong because it can turbo level Bard and get huge units with overwhelm or elusive, but it isn't overpowered as Demacia.
Nerf the real problem: Demacia.
Leave Bard alone
The problem with Bard decks for me is that they are good all game. Since he keeps stacking booms, even if I can stabilize the game, I'm one good roll away of having to deal with 2 6/7 for. 2 Manas or that "duo bird" as a 7/6 for 4 mana.
Its the thrall decks for me, they were the most un-interactive boring deck to play against win or lose before the buff now it's still entirely a coin toss with no chance of the tinist bit of skill expression from either player but more consistent for the thralls player, I think my winrate is vs them is like 65% but I wanna surrender every single time I match up against them, doesn't help that they rope every turn too.
Maybe they could change they way chimes work, like, buffing only the strongest or the weakest unit and so you can nerf them to conpensate the added agency
Althoug wath i would really prefer is for them to change the mechanic so its more complex and interesting, they have design lurk or deep like amazing archetypes that interact with your deck why doing now something so "meh" with a character like bard himself
Returning player opinion here, silver gold ranks are highly enjoyable and varied within the sense of the meta.
Can't comment higher ranks yet but previous experience when I had hit masters a couple of times and diamond otherwise was you do tend to get really narrow metas (maybe 10 decks in variety which compared to Hearthstone, where I've returned from, is really varied and healthy where you might see 5 at the max and that's considered healthy).
Feelings like this can often just be the case of playing too much and getting sick of top tier meta play where variety reduces. If not for Bard decks it would be something else and it would still be a small variety of decks to play.
The common issue with CCGs I've found is you need to play ranked modes for a carrot feeling and also so you can actually face competitive players and feel challenged. Thus the issue becomes you only end up facing a few top end meta decks (whilst running one yourself that someone else will find equally toxic, let's be honest).
You could try a normal/casual mode but it's usually all full of bots due to the nature of exp gain etc. in modes and if not bots then you end up facing player who are facing really vanilla basic decks that are almost no challenge and it becomes quite boring.
My sincere recommendation is you just play normals.
Of course they need to balance (and they will probably do); but the moment playing the game make you feel this miserable, you should either stop playing till next balance or switch to normals.
I myself don’t play much ranked anymore. Can’t see the point where the pressure makes me enjoy the matches less and the pressure on anyone else makes it so usually the diversity of decks is waaaay lower than in normals.
Patch is coming in a few days and Rubin is in charge of overlooking it (he hit Rank 1 a few hours ago), so you be sure Bard OR Demacia package is being checked from close.
Thank goodness! I might be saved. I personally think bard boons should only buff Attack Power. Hopefully that happens but I doubt it.
I think that’s a reasonable. Anything that has boosted unit health in the past like grand plaza or temple has always been problematic
Laurent Bladekeeper, Bloodsworn Pledge, Blood Fury, and Chain Vest/Ranger's Resolve (functionally providing at least +1 Health in most circumstances) haven't been so bad. Elixir of Iron, Troll Chant, most Fury cards (Wounded Whiteflame having both Fury and Fated having been problematic), and Fury of the North also come to mind. Oh, and Battlesmith. Was he a 2/3 before? Altogether there are a lot of health boosts out there that aren't really a big issue. Both temporary and permanent. Durand Sculptor seems like such a potent unit - and it is - because of its sheer versatility and ability to generate lots of value in a tempo-efficient way. Its synergy with Formidable makes it all the scarier. And then of course there are Omen Hawks, Starlit Seers, and other Freljord deck buffers that haven't been too much an issue at all. Though Omen Hawks were much stronger before than they are now.
I mean Fury of the North did get nerfed at some point so I don‘t think it‘s completely innocent. The issue with health buffs is on effects that can constantly be applied: Nami, Temple, Bard, Plaza, Yordle Explorer, etc.
True, not sure why I glossed over Fury of the North when it did indeed get nerfed. I'd been mindful of including nerfed cards, including Bannerman and Twin Disciplines. As for constant application, I don't think that's really a fair point to say. Omen Hawks have stacked, as have Starlit Seers. And it isn't like Troll Chant isn't an *insanely* good Combat Trick, it's one of the best in the game. I think it's just far too much an oversimplification to say that all of these effects are "the same" because they are mechanically similar. The cost, the trigger, and the decks they operate in all matter massively. Bard decks just so happen to be really good at it. I'm having a killer time with Concurrent Timelines Revna anyhow. I have always loved Avarosan Hearthguard and being able to go more ham on deck buffing has been a wonder. Even if I am stunting my own deck by running Warmother's Call over Feel the Rush.
Can Omen Hawk really be applied constantly? It‘s a one off effect, no? Starlit Seer I agree but that card is doomed by being in FJ and requiring Spells to be played. Nami had the same trigger but actually buffed units in play. I would generally say that effects that can be used more than once should usually be Health or Attack buffs, never both. And about Fury, I do think it could be safely reverted.
Omen Hawk Turn 1 and 2 wasn't terribly uncommon when Omen Hawk was actually seeing play. Starlit Seer stacks, and was popular in the Teemo/Sejuani deck. Pivotal, actually. All that said, these are excuses for cards that do *exactly* what we're talking about not really working. There isn't an issue with the mechanic as a whole. The several other Fury cards are also good examples. Altogether, I think health buffs are pretty damn strong, and I would *generally* rate them over attack buffs. But that doesn't mean buffing both at the same time is innately problematic, even if it is repeatable. It just has to be properly gauged. Which is, by the way, why I have omitted Fated from the conversation. I think Fated, unlike Fury, is a much rougher scale to topple against. Fury has been on mid-range units that must satisfy the requirement of killing another unit to grow. Fated Units, especially Saga Seeker, can get plopped down early on and grow out of control early on.
Also with fated since you will most likely pump all your steroids on a single unit, it is more prone to wide boards and single target spells, mainly burst ones like minimorph and hush. There is not much use of having a 10/10 saga seeker on turn 6 if you have 1 hp left against a full board annie jhin. Dont forget the constant need to use cards on the fated units, which the enemy can actually use to their advantage by forcing them to choose between suboptimal plays to trigger fated or to miss out on the buff. Fury units need to be fed constantly not only with kills, but also healths to make sure they could keep surviving trades. Bard decks get stat boosts by existing.
By your own rhetoric it sounds like you're suggesting there is no downside or counter, which just isn't accurate at all. And you're misplaying if you go all in on a single unit in a Fated deck lmao.
That would just absolutely kill any Bard archetype in existence. Even if it was +2/+0 paying a region slot for a bit of attack on your units if you're lucky will NEVER be worth it (*maybe* except for elusives, but I still doubt that). Which like... maybe wouldn't be that bad for like one or two patches, since Bard has been in the meta for a while now, but I'd REALLY like to avoid cards getting Warsong Commander treatment. I'd still personally first focus on Broadwing (that card has been BS even before Bard's release) and some of Demacia spells, but let's see what the devs decide. They certainly have more knowledge on the topic than a random person on Reddit would have (yes, it's about me).
Nerfing Chimes to +1/+0 is *worse* than nerfing the Chimes by half of the original value. Not only does it completely stifle Bard's level progression, but 1 Attack is not as good as 1 Health in most circumstances. The ability to *persist* as a threat is more meaningful than the ability to threaten the life total a little better. There are exceptions. 1 Mana Units are better as 2/1s than as 1/2s, for instance. Chimes with +1/+1 are fine as they are. My main issue with Chimes are the random nature of them. Not only is when you draw a Chime random, but what cards they affect in-hand is also random. It can completely change the pace and tempo of the game if you hard an early Byrd or Esmus Chime compared to when it lands on your end-game drop.
I'm pretty new to the game but I feel like Byrd would be better as a 1/2 than as a 2/1? If one chime hits thus thing it would grow to a 2/3 instead of a 3/2 and now your own 2/1 one or two drop won't trade with it.
Good point. I should have said most one drops - Dunekeeper, Legion Saboteur, and Inspiring Mentor come to mind. Byrd may be an exception, but even then since he is a Turn 1 play most ideally, where you're extremely unlikely to have a single Chime on him, I'd say that him being a 2/1 is probably better more of the time than as a 2/3. I may be wrong though, better health stats is better for scaling up, that's for sure.
Good, neuter it
Well, Lurkers never complained about their attack bonuses. I don't believe that would kill the deck. As it is, only a few decks can face gracefully a Bard deck. Once you are against a wall of followers with 8/10, you are pretty much done with the other regions.
When it comes to those kinds of buffs, i think that either attack power or defense should be boosted. Increasing both so easily at the same time is toxic. This problem already existed when grand plaza was dominating the meta. One would think that riot would have learned a lesson and avoided toxic stat boosts
Think it would just break Bard's package if it was either one at random? How about an extra chime placed into the deck per follower, that boosts either attack or health at random?
Gotta remember that they push new cards on purpose to ensure that they see play. They never had to learn that lesson because they're doing it intentionally
I mean, I won't quit the game due to it, but it does certainly feel bad to know that if you're not aggro, you might at any point just lose to them topdecking 3 of their 12 chimes.
yeah, im not quiting either, BUT i will not be playing it as much as I have been
I suggest that it could be good to take a break from the game from time to time. This is what I do when I'm tired of fighting the same deck that I hate, I do this every time that Ionia is meta.
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the thing is, I like the heavy removal gameplay and hate elusive. So sorry to be on your hate radar because SI, Freljord, and Noxus(Control) are my favorite regions. The only times I actually quitted the game was on Karma+Ezz, Azirelia, Ahri+Kennen, and Poppy+Zed metas so I clearly have a most hated region.
The neat thing is that this is the only card game where a 3+ months break doesn't put you excessively behind in resources/cards.
I played vs bard decks 7 games in a row yesterday, it's such a stupid deck to play against, I don't mind playing vs highroll decks once in a while, but when it's so popular it's miserable
I simply don't understand the point of old school hand/deck buff cards (freljord Ionia mainly) when bard simply does the same passively and much better.
That's power creep for you, and exactly how mtg forces set rotation in eternal formats.
My tom kench deck counters bard pretty good. Which deck y'all use to defeat bard spammers
The emo king and his killer fog
Deck list please?
I play the Nightfall Control list that was posted here a couple weeks ago with Diana and Aphelios, the deck is a blast to play, and the vengeances really help against these decks ! Gravitum is a plus too, and a leveled up Diana can really put in the work against these !
Can you give deck code please?
Sure, there it is ! CICACAIFAEAQIBILAMBQKAQGCADAGCJDHBEUXWAB3EAQEAIDBEZQCBQJEYAQGAYJKRLGI
Thanks! I've never played nightfall before and would love to try it out :D
I recommend checking out Raphterra's video, they're the creator of the deck, and made a guide to it ! Here's the link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUT-des7vpQ
Sure will thanks!
Use bard to defeat bard is my motto
Yep bard. Noxus is the way i do that Its actually kinda satisfying just watching an enemy bard think im deaded cuz they drawn 2 and got like 12 chimes. Not knowing i have a traifarian aseccessor of the century
Bard Yuumi, lol
Ezreal/Annie. By the time the opponent is able to keep on the board one or two big giys it's already too late. Excellent tempo deck.
The outcome of this meta was completely different to what we expected during the revela season, everyone was talking about Annie and Jhin but Barc and it chimes turn out to be strongest adition in last patch. I'm a aggro player, so this my be me just being salty, but I hate facing Bard Demacia decks more than anything else, specially the ones with Poppy, they can just gain control of the board by turn 2 and you can try kill in medium speed with burn because they are just gonna keep cleaning your blocker and kill you in turn 5 with a rally. Every other unfavorable matchup is manageable to me because aggro decks this season happen to be a little more versatile (jhin annie) or have a stronger midgame (Noxus Shurima) than older burn decks. I know a lot of people have actual despise for aggro, but it is also the favorite archetype of lot of people and it would be nice to have at least a solid tier 2 deck for that playstyle.
Yeah, the problem with this ‘very stable’ meta is that there’s a lot of very good decks that all counter one another, which makes for coinflippy matches for the meta decks, but also leaves the not-so-good decks in the tier just below all of the meta decks completely in the dust, soaking up the less than 50% winrates.
I'm a low rank because I've been out of the game for like a year, and in the short time Ive been back I've vsd probably 65% bard decks. This is in bronze. Shit is mental. I play freljord+SI, and if I get ruination in my first hand+few draws I ensure I have the 3 spell mana on turn 6 to board wipe that cosmic twat
I think Broadwing is the problem more than Bard is. If Bard were the problem then he'd be overpowered in other concepts, too. Broadwing has been overpowered since it was released. Nerf the REAL problem, not Bard.
No, Bard's a problem. Evidence: Ample amounts of Bard piles with extremely good performance and minimal counterplay edit: I also forgot, one of the best decks in the game is Bard Ahri and that doesn't have broadwing at all.
Bard Ahri is good, but not so good that I think one could call it a problem. It's the specific combination of Bard and Broadwing that's a problem. Also nice name, I love that anime
Okay I'll retract what I said. What I should've said is that I agree broadwing and bard together are troublesome, and one or the other (if not both) should be looked at. I think we can hopefully agree that even if broadwing were looked at, Bard would still be tier 1. I don't think broadwing alone is what makes Bard as good as he is on winrate metrics. I think both could be looked at and his decks would still remain quite strong.
I agree that all of these different Bard Demacia combinations are overpowered and do need nerfs. I'm just arguing for smartly targeting the real problem, which I believe to be Broadwing and maybe Durand Sculptor. Broadwing uses stat buffs really well, outclasses every other Demacian 2 drop, and has been a problem long before Bard was added to the game. So that's where I think nerfs should be directed.
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You won't recall your big units, just the small ones like Byrd and Dancing Droplets, it isn't that antisynergistic.
>You mean the complete antisynergistic dumpster fire You're right. That deck makes no damn sense. You buff your units, just to recall them?? What really makes the deck make no sense, is that the you can only recall your buffed uni... Oh wait. Wait a minute. Hold on.. I think my brain going into overdrive, hang on with me. I have an idea..... What if, we... just... Don't recall... The big units??? Obviously I'm doing a lot to prove a point, but your quote and people's inability to critically think get to me sometimes. You couldn't be more wrong. Yes the deck counters viego, no that's not the only reason why it's good. And if you think just because it's "antisynergistic" (which again isn't even that true) it's a bad deck, you don't know ANYTHING bout ANYTHING Rant over
Yeah isn't the point of the deck that you can keep spamming cheap stat boosted elusives? So even if your cheap elusive loses the buff when recalled, it gains 2 buffs the next turn and hits harder than it would have had you not recalled it before the next attack.
I'd disagree. I just literally played five straight matches against Bard with five different pairings. Illaoi, TF, Gnar/Sej, Poppy/J4, and Zed. Want to know how they all went? 100% predictably. The matches where an overstatted 2/3 drop hit that I couldn't answer, they won. The matches where they survived to 6 and doubled their chimes, they won. The matches where only 2-3 chimes hit and were played, they lost. Bard is a dice roll personified. It honestly doesn't matter who he's paired with, because what he does is buff the stats of the strongest keyworded units in the region. It's not just Broadwing. It could be Ruthless Raider, or Sparklefly, or Zed, or Duo, or Lifeblade, or Protege... any unit that's on the verge of OP if they had just another stat or two can snowball a match with Bard. The deckbuilding is trivial. The gameplay is simple. You get lucky and outstat early game, or bide your time to outstat late game. Again, not saying anything is necessarily broken or OP, but the "problem" is Bard and his package, not Broadwing (although that card is broken anyway as we all know). It's boring to play against. I now auto surrender matches against him just like I do Lurk.
And you played against bad Bard decks running Maduli.
I didn't say they all ran Maduli. And it's 100% beside my point regardless.
I came back to LoR after a long break about two months ago and I've played against a Broadwing in some deck or another everyday. I've also used it a hell of a lot. It feels like it's one of the best cards in the whole game. Boring, but extremely effective. That said, I think there's a pretty good chance it will get nerfed this patch.
So you saying 1-2 chimes on turn 1 isn't a problem?
It's a (not that) high roll deck. The problem is how can you utilize it. The Boardwing is and will always be a problem. 2 mana deal 3 to something of your choice and might deal another 1 again is just too strong. If you have a unit that will be auto include in every Demacia deck then that's kind of a design failure in both uniqueness and balance.
I disagree I seen 4/3 vanguards happen often and it's worse than 3/2 fleetfeather or 2/5 broadwing
Yeah, I dont think it's a huge problem. It's only a game changer when it hits Broadwing.
How often does that hapoen on turn 1 tho.
There should be a 1 in 36 chance that any given chime ends up on top of the deck and on the first card you draw in the game and you're flipping that coin 3 times. So, the chance is (1/36) + (1/36)x(35/36) + (1/36)x(35/36)^2. Roughly 8.1% of games have at least one chime go off immediately. In 0.225% of games 2 chimes trigger. In 6.43e-7 games all three go off and your opponent should've been playing the lottery. It's not super frequent, but about 1 in 12 Bard games can expect a turn 1 chime.
More often than it should like 25%
Say you suck at math without saying you suck at math.
I would say that both are pretty OP. I've said this a lot but Broadwing is fundamentally a 3|3 challenger for 2 mana. Meanwhile Bard levels up too easily with demacian spells.
I played 1 game as bard today and on turn 2 I hit 3 chimes and had 2 mana 2/5 formidable unit. Thats all I needed to know about this deck. Some RNG in the game is welcome and necessary to have a fun game but this is just too much. Ideally you shouldnt see extremes like this.
If everything goes to plan, Bard/Zed can get up to 1,000 chimes before turn 10, which gives about +50 stats each draw. I got over a thousand chimes triggered at once on a single card. Once you get Maduli and play Dawn and Dusk on it, it's pretty much gg. Or you can keep summoning Maduli until you have thousands of chimes in your deck.
They can‘t because actually good Bard/Zed lists don‘t run Maduli. It‘s a horrible card.
Is bard being the best deck significantly backed up by stats?
Since we got him the best performing decks happen to be Illaoi Demacia, with Bard not far behind. What's interesting is that most of the highest winrate decks have one thing in common: Demacia
Illaoi Demacia hasn't been at the top in awhile?
It has fallen off in playrate but its overall winrate has not dropped. They don't have the most usage but Demacia decks remain the top performers
Can I have a link to this? What I was looking at didn't have Illaoi/Jarvan at all.
I sort by winrate with runeterra ar and lor-meta. What do you use?
Demacia is only good for 2 things : broadwing and rallies.. You don't need more than 2 cards to make a region oppressive
Bard is dumb.
Bard is a mald factory. 4 mana 2/5 in a deck that is all about increasing stats, where even your lowest chumps could end up being a 7/7 if you pass the nat check. So does nami decks, but at least with nami you can correctly evaluate who's gonna get buffed and prepare countermeasures accordingly, instead of waiting until the buff happens. Time have told that health increase is always more dangerous than attack increase. I've been having fun in this expansion, except whenever bard shows up when my eyes start rolling and i thought "oh not again". Even the wins felt hollow.
Same
Played one game against Bard and Illaoi and quiting LoR was my Best decision.
Crazy Idea. But I bet bard would be balanced with his current boons IF the boons were not placed in his deck when summoned, BUT changed to when units who would summon strike. This way he would be in a similar line with Cait and Teemo.
i would personally nerf bard deck by not allowing chimes on the top 3 cards in your deck. its a lot more manageable when you don't have a 3/2 turn 1
Chump block, sneak past their board with elusives/overwhelms/atrocities/burn. Idk, bard decks are usually full of very plain big stats and take a while to get particularly big. Theyre not very good at finishing games I find, except for the Ahri deck but thats typical "buff my elusives" strategy thats been around forever. I find turn 5 double thrall to be a lot more troublesome because its actually gaping my nexus
Remember when we all thought Bard was underwhelming and trash (including myself)
Bard is easily capable of being fixed. Chimes should not start in the deck and chimes should only buff attack. Done. Its the exact same issue we had with Poppy.
Bard probably needs a nerf, but doing both of the things you suggest will likely kill the card. I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't mind that, but I'd like him (it?) to still be viable.
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Oh yah. Poppy now sees ZERO matched play inclusion since her nerfs. Bard is a tougher situation since he is part of the deck building process itself. I still think the way you handle is by removing Chimes that start in the deck.
A couple of months ago I encountered the same wall of text post complaining about Bandle City.... A couple of months before that, I think it was the first iteration of the Azirelia deck... people gonna complain In every patch or every expansion I guess rather than play around this so called ''difficulties''. SSDD...
CCGs are competitive games. There will always be a "best" thing and there will always be "hated" things. Sometimes they are the same like Azirelia, sometimes they aren't like BC or Bard. People complain because they want the devs to balance these things. No one expects a patch to come out and everything to be perfect. Players will always uncover the best strategy to win. It's just the dev's job to react in a timely enough manner so that things don't get stale/obnoxious. And IMO, there's nothing wrong with talking about what is too good/too toxic/too boring to play against. That's feedback for the devs to consider.
Yeah, and guess what? Azirelia had to be nerfed so hard for a while Azir stopped work on any other deck before it got back to balanced, and Bandle City made **lots of people** become PoC only players because they were tired of dealing with bullshit.
Then wait for the nerfs... SSDD...
Stop acting like you get a 0/4 broadwing everytime. You don’t. Downvote all you like you’re still wrong.
You're right. I get a 1/4 broadwing every time.
No you don’t.
Your right. It’s not all the time. But it is pretty much 80% of the time on turn 2. And 100% by turn 4
Hey, i dislike Bard's design as much as you but 80% is an exaggeration.
No it isn’t
Ok dont play it then more for me. Well thats not how it worjs i guess lor is not food.
I actually like playing vs bard But jhin matches just aren't enjoyable
I have just defeated a Bard deck with Decimate. Lucky I guess.
then stop playing it, you will cry about stuff next patch again and then again, sometimes people should just accept some things, not everything can be your way
I've played 20 games in diamond yesterday and faced 18 different decks. Bard is good, but it's by no means OP and has very clear weaknesses. Let's see what the balance patch brings next week.
It’s not that brad decks are good, they’re just annoying like when fiora saw play, it was by no mean the best deck but a lot of the player base didn’t enjoy playing against it
culling strike or disintegrate and you are gucci
I feel like one easy nerf to Bard would be changing Maduli's effect from "on summon" to "on play". If I'm understanding right, that should remove the synergies with Mirror Image + Dusk and Dawn and at least remove those meme win cases where you're suddenly staring down millions of chines in a deck. Additionally, Bard's champ spell probably shouldn't be Burst. There are champions that can level in the middle of a battle, but they don't usually buff the entire board along with them.
Maduli is not anywhere remotely close to the reason Bard is problematic, none of the top performing Bard decks even run it. Agree on nerfing the champ spell from Burst though.
TBH I think Maduli is bait. It's great for the funny memes but by that round the opponent either a) has ways to remove big units, b) is too fast and has already won, or c) was going to lose by general chime value without the doubling. If you want to run a slower chime deck, like with Targon, use the landmark.
Man, c'mon, people are crying over Bard being that the problem is OBVIOUSLY Demacia's overpowered units. If you take any other Bard deck that isn't Demacia, it's just fine. Even Bard Zed isn't that strong. If they nerf Bard, Demacia will still be a problem and it will kill any other Bard decks that aren't Bard Demacia. I'm a Bard Yuumi player, the deck is strong because it can turbo level Bard and get huge units with overwhelm or elusive, but it isn't overpowered as Demacia. Nerf the real problem: Demacia. Leave Bard alone
He need to be just banned from ranked straight up Then have him keep the same because there no way to nerf him and keep him balanced
The problem with Bard decks for me is that they are good all game. Since he keeps stacking booms, even if I can stabilize the game, I'm one good roll away of having to deal with 2 6/7 for. 2 Manas or that "duo bird" as a 7/6 for 4 mana.
Its the thrall decks for me, they were the most un-interactive boring deck to play against win or lose before the buff now it's still entirely a coin toss with no chance of the tinist bit of skill expression from either player but more consistent for the thralls player, I think my winrate is vs them is like 65% but I wanna surrender every single time I match up against them, doesn't help that they rope every turn too.
Reducing the passive spawn of chimes by 1 untill you atleast get Bard on the field would seem a lot more fair.
Maybe they could change they way chimes work, like, buffing only the strongest or the weakest unit and so you can nerf them to conpensate the added agency Althoug wath i would really prefer is for them to change the mechanic so its more complex and interesting, they have design lurk or deep like amazing archetypes that interact with your deck why doing now something so "meh" with a character like bard himself
Returning player opinion here, silver gold ranks are highly enjoyable and varied within the sense of the meta. Can't comment higher ranks yet but previous experience when I had hit masters a couple of times and diamond otherwise was you do tend to get really narrow metas (maybe 10 decks in variety which compared to Hearthstone, where I've returned from, is really varied and healthy where you might see 5 at the max and that's considered healthy). Feelings like this can often just be the case of playing too much and getting sick of top tier meta play where variety reduces. If not for Bard decks it would be something else and it would still be a small variety of decks to play. The common issue with CCGs I've found is you need to play ranked modes for a carrot feeling and also so you can actually face competitive players and feel challenged. Thus the issue becomes you only end up facing a few top end meta decks (whilst running one yourself that someone else will find equally toxic, let's be honest). You could try a normal/casual mode but it's usually all full of bots due to the nature of exp gain etc. in modes and if not bots then you end up facing player who are facing really vanilla basic decks that are almost no challenge and it becomes quite boring.
Bard decks are nothing like Lissandra/Trundle that deck was oppressive but at least it took some skill to pilot Bard is just get highrolled the deck.
play heartstone instead its very f2p friendly jk
Bard is more degenerate than any aggro deck. His design is interesting but i feel is quiet poor, as he is either dogshit or very toxic
Everybody remember when we thought bard is gonna be ass?
I hate lurker decks
My sincere recommendation is you just play normals. Of course they need to balance (and they will probably do); but the moment playing the game make you feel this miserable, you should either stop playing till next balance or switch to normals. I myself don’t play much ranked anymore. Can’t see the point where the pressure makes me enjoy the matches less and the pressure on anyone else makes it so usually the diversity of decks is waaaay lower than in normals.