I feel that mana cheating can only be fine on those big champions that basically say "if you level me win the game". Aurelian Sol is a perfect example in my opinion. He makes big cards from a limited pool FREE! But, at that stage in the game it's not broken and there is still a chance to play against it.
The best "win the game" card to me is level 3 azir. There isn't even a discount, his deck is just so obscenely high value its an unstoppable force by nature.
@@justascarecrow6988 nab is cool and all but when they play that card it wont have the same effect since it wont draw from the emperors deck for more value. 3 mana 5/4 fearsome? cool. i have two more.
@@onlinepanic2036 Ascended's call, the 10 mana spell that summons Nasus and Renekton at max level (AND rallies) is always on the bottom of the Emperor's Deck, so if your opponent nabs it its quite likely you lose the game, (at least that's what I would assume).
@@kayaek2558 emporors deck has 2 rallies. ascendeds call, and the landmark. and they really dont need rallies to win. most games where azir levels up xerath is carpet bombing people and sandstorms are wiping value off the board left and right.
Honestly I think bar, songspinner and old ionian telsones were more degenerate than Seraphine, but yes, she is problematic. Spell champion for spell region is like putting a rabbit into australia - complete disaster. Also it's quite fun that after the nerf she became even more degenerate with Bandlephine and Seryzephine decks.
@@deshelo4343 it would be a dead card than. Imagine spending 10 mana for 3 not-so-good spells? Moreover, there were always have been spell champs in spell regions as it should be - Ezreal, Karma, Lee Sin?
@@sailorjojo7771 I don't really think spell champs being part of spell regions are the big problem. The problem is the randomness of those *new* 2 cost spells. Ok, maybe slow spell AND set their costs to 1 is a bit overkill, but the fact that they are almost totally random freaks me out, you just can't play around them (specially if you don't have the mana to do so). Besides, 2 cost spells are usually pretty decent and versatile, unlike higher cost spells which are usually good in a very specific context. In the end, you chose to play around the randomness, and therefore you must accept the risks.
@@sailorjojo7771 Yeah, I've said it wrong. I mean, Karma as double cast champion is fine because she is basically a 10 mana champion and she's from Ionia, where are no spells worth being doubled. Like, you'll get even more protection, but it won't help you to actually win the game, so you'll have to pair her with something good. Seraphine on the other hand is in the region, which benefits highly from spells (2 mana fast decimate), so she with ezreal can choose any secondary region, that's why ezrephine-noxus was so cringe.
Seraphine and her support cards should at least be region locked so there rng isn't complete bs. Also seraphine should be a 1/2 since she can lvl in deck, cause as of now she's too hard to remove for a cheap unit that can come down and allow you to vomit out vaule.
@@Cheasle2 People had several reasons to hate her and most of them are justified. The one i like the most is that Riot keeps nerfing Sona and could easily used Seraphine's kit do be Sona's rework making it easier to balance.
@@euqinemor Seraphine is very far from being a problematic champ compared to other recent ones when it comes to this anyway. Also while they are quite similar, Sona is more of an Enchanter, Seraphine is more of a control mage. The issue of Sona not receiving buffs is more noticed because they look similar, but go check how many 6300 shards champs are costantly picked vs older ones. Some stood the test of time (Yi for example), but how often do you see Soraka? Garen? Ashe as an actual ADC? They aren't necessarly bad, just like Sona, but their pick rates are tanked by having similar but superior choices. I really like Soraka modern kit, but I still play Nami over her because... Why wouldn't I? Nami is strong no matter what. Soraka heals way too little compared to the average DPS these days
As a League player I think its kinda funny how I thought that this was about the League Seraphine incident when she was released. Another thing that is funny is Ezreal constantly coming back into meta because of random cards, just like how he comes into meta in LoL randomly whenever new items are introduced.
I hope you guys enjoyed the video! I strongly disliked the Seraphine archetype but I really didn't want this video to sound negative, but more of a "hey this is what happened during this meta and here's what we had to deal with". This is a celebration of Runeterra and the passionate community we have. Speaking of the awesome community, here are some of the cameos, people that helped me with the script, or generally people that inspired me with their insight: TheLegendXVII: www.youtube.com/@TheLegendXXVII AlanzqTFT: www.twitch.tv/alanzqtft MajinBae: www.youtube.com/@MajiinBae PuffballPanda: www.youtube.com/@PuffballPanda Yangzera: twitter.com/Yangzera LadyPickl: twitter.com/LadyPickl Drisoth: twitter.com/Drisoth Footballhead: twitter.com/Football_Head2 YelloMagi THIS DOESN'T MEAN THEY AGREE WITH ME AND THE VIDEO, I JUST LOVE THEIR CONTENT AND WANTED TO INCLUDE THEM
Seraphine, Fanclub President and Songspinner, and maybe some others (essentially the piltover music package), should reveal the cards they create or draw. It would be pretty favourful for the "music cards" to show off to the opponent their creations. Back Alley bar should have "new and not reduced cards cost 1 less". That way you can have fun with the "new card" archetype, but can't stack discounts with viktor, drum solo, fanclub, etc. I really think discounts + random cards is the problem. If you want to nerf discounts, fine, but I believe that in order to not postpone the problem for a new card to break the game, just freaking reveal the created cards. That solves the "impossible to play around" problem for good, even if new cards are introduced to the pool, or that stack discounts.
Totally agree with the main point. Having a deck with this much RNG and mana cheating be competitively viable is no bueno. For exactly the reason you pointed out via Rubin Zoo's tweet. It removes skill based gameplay and replaces it with: praydge they don't have some bullchip. This is the kind of deck that belongs at like a 30-40% winrate. It can still be allowed to do bonkers things, just not with consistency to make it viable in competitive play.
I actually like the idea of Seraphine, I hate how it is achieved : Mana reduction to spam spells with an Ezreal abusing it. I think if bar and Ezreal would be removed she would be an ok champ
Before seraphine got added to the game there weren't any problematic bar decks and ezreal wasn't really meta. Seraphine and her support cards are what's enabling those 2.
@@dankmemes8254 Ok, I'm talking about now. There wasn't an OP deck using ezreal at the time of her release, last time was kennen but that was a while ago.
@@travisprescott9708 while that is indeed true, the fact that Ezreal has consistently been a problem champ and attempts to break every new spell-based champion with the same boring combo has ruined what little goodwill he has by not being primary issue. IMO, him rotating is potentially one of the best ways to open up game design in the future…
Ya, I stopped playing when Seraphine came out, started playing again when she got nerfed. Been playing since beta and that was single-handedly the worst experience for me.
I got into runeterra right during Searaphines release and there was nothing worse than dying from 15+ HP because of ezreal and burst spells. Super frustrating
the worst metas in runeterra imo were -azirelia -kaisa post launch -seraphine post launch people argue that vayne post launch and Aatrox rn are also bad metas but they have nothing on how cheated we felt from these 3 combos. Aatrox respects your mana and gives you time to react, that is something i cannot say for the others, especially seraphine and kaisa, that would essencially burst fuck you. Finally they took some good hits, it is still frustrating when they get lucky but at least we have more counterplay now.
Imagine a card that increases the mana cost of all cards on the stack by 1 fizzle cards that don't have enough mana. Ez when leveled makes all burst spells fast speed to force interaction. While I'd like to say rotation will solve this I would like the eternal to have solutions implemented.
YES! YES! THIS VIDEO IS PERFECTION! Mana cheating is one of the most annoying things you can have in a card game. As a player of magic the gathering i can say that when a card has zero cost or you can play another card for free it is a broken card. If your oponnent is out of mana, HE SHOULDN´T BE ABLE TO DO ANYTHING!
I think the worst part was indeed mana reduction, most of the times mana discounts would be a late game very specific poll kind of thing, like Aurelion Sol on Celestials, or Nautilus on Monsters.
I think the best way to manage this kind of archetype….well, not to have it in the first place. but since that’s never happening, make it so that every manifested card is revealed to your opponent. This will not only ease the burden of tracking information, but provide meaningful counter play windows. It will also make a lot of the more powerful cards (atrocity, vengeance, deny, stuff like that) a lot less valuable, as you would have clear notice of its existence.
I remember lor in 2020 being a completely different game. The limited card pool actually made it possible to play around SI removing your key cards, because you knew they had 3 copies of *kill one thing* and 3 copies of *kill all things* at most. Nowadays there are so many options of doing one thing, it feels almost pointless to play around your opponent doing a certain thing. Ionia encorporates this pretty hard with 3 seperate deny effects, but even the Tellstone set allows for so mch overload of specific mechanics, it feels uncontrollable in a way.
I feel this especially in SI/Freljord decks. They can run nothing but Kill Things Somehow and a bit of ramp/heal, then instantly win the game by dropping some high mana card. I get punished for going wide and going tall and have a very limited timeframe to win.
@@CalpolMeister just that Riot is too much of a coward to actually rotate a meaningful share of the cardpool sadly. Rotating 3 out of like 60 champions doesn't solve anything even of 2 of these champions are from problematic broken archetypes (TF and Irelia). The game needs a real rotation and it needs it badly
@@tobias97erdt its a problem of critical mass. When theres too many cards that do one thing, the deck that wants to do that thing becomes too consistant. Thats one of the issues with red gwen, theres no real bad draws in that deck
In the bandle expansions i used to play a catastrophe heimerdinger deck and i spent months refining and retooling it to the maximum possible efficiency, where the cards generated would be generally useful and ensuring i could keep copies of particularly important cards in order to play a consistent deck, and while i dont usually look up winrates, im pretty certain i had around 60% while climbing platinum, that deck was one of my most beloved, because it was always a close match, won by knowing how to play around the enemy and then finshing it all off with the big cat, that all ended the day sera came out, the deck i had spent months crafting was rendered obsolete and worthless and the archetype i loved, (playing around weak cards and using generation to play around my oponent) had been rendered into a braindead 3 card combo. I have not played a single game with a seraphine deck, because any version just makes me feel awful while playing it, why should i be playing runeterra when the play pattern is basically solitaire.
Well edited, well researched, and well narrated. This video had me both nodding in agreement and laughing at the dumb jokes. Super entertaining to watch, and good on you for crediting the cameos. Looking forward to more of these types of videos from you !
I think this mentality from the devs of making something that might be really fun to play but is always frustrating to play against started back in rising tides with the nab mechanic. Although it hasn't really been meta relevant, I've never played against a nab deck and thought "that was a fun game". In my opinion, losing to your own win condition (that has been discounted by merchant) is a worse feeling than getting blown out by reggie.
I think the only problem with RNG is the mana discount. It doesn't matter if you get bad luck with draw or card generation if it's free and you can just try it again. You shouldn't be able to play 20 cards on one turn in a game with max 13 mana.
I might be totally wrong here but I honestly think that all card generation should be from a limited pool. Either a specific pool like Invoke or from your regions.
As a competitive player, I agree with what you said. Seraphine almost made me quit the game. When you play against her or other powerful rng cards (peak, timelines), it feels like you decisions over the game just don't matter anymore, what matters is how good your opponent can roll.
Seraphine+Ezreal was so close to modern yugioh, it scared me so death... At some point you just play 15 cards at burst, and end turn if your opp isn't already dead.
My favourite LoR moments are the ones where I felt like playing chess against the enemy, planing my moves, anticipating and reacting to enemy's moves while the match slowly build up to that critical moment when it all come downs to that one round to determine the winner. Too bad I think only the early patches gave me that thrill, or maybe just the novelty wears off Idk.
Love these types of videos. This gives me a better understanding why Seraphine was problematic gameplay wise. But it still feels that Ezreal is the bigger problem though.
I remember when back alley bar was announced and sunny gave it a 1/10 rating. and then it turn out to be an 11/10 card what an insane meta we had honestly.
This video hits the nail on the head. This deck made me stop playing and while aatrox/vayne might have been stronger, I could at least know what to play around. Power level was never the problem, frustrating play pattern is.
I think the mana discount to 0 + endless card draw mechanic due to doubling your card effects is what is most frustrating. Partly because suddenly opponent goes from 3 cards in hand to 9 cards in hand spending 2 mana. But also because it takes MINUTES for your opponent to do so. They keep manifesting and predicting and you get to sit there pass turn in between because you can only play 1-3 cards that turn. Even when they're absolutely 100% winning, they still take a minute for every decision and you get to play 5 secs per minute. Another nice way to nerf Seraphine would be to put a cap on duplicated spells each turn: "the first 3 spells you play that cost 2 or less mana each turn is duplicated". I'm happy with the bar nerf, it was long overdue. Perhaps adding a minimum of 1 mana would be a great way to balance, but then it has to be done on all cost reducing effects. Overall, I think seraphine and bar are in an acceptable state now. Ezreal should deal 1 dmg for any spell, he already needs to target opponents to lvl up, those spells shouldn't also deal more dmg. I think making ezreal effect burst speed is the most backward thing Riot ever did. It's a hearthstone card in Runeterra. I wish Ezreal would rely more on his nexus strike, make his lvl 2 mystic shot cost 0 mana for example to compensate for his face dmg nerf.
Meanwhile Hearthstone players watching their opponent spend 3 mana to play 28 cards that clear their board, draw half of the deck, summon huge minions with stealth and deal 15 damage to their face: "Yeah, those Runeterra problems are huge"
Funny story The game that made me stop using the deck i won because conchologist created a timelines and bar created a void abomination. So because bar made the abomination cost 1 less i was able to transform it into a shipwreck hoard, wich was deep. So in the deck with no big creatures as threats i won because i dropped a fuckin 10/8 with elusive and all the other keywords my viktor had.
Quality content as always very good video Snnuy !! creators like you are what still making me sticking around even when the meta is ridiculous sometimes.
Extremely well articulated retrospective, and turned around at the best time given rotations are on the horizon - useful for players and devs alike, great video
This is exactly why Im annoyed we got the pink haired banshee before we got Sona, Seraphine just always has a cloud of trouble following right after her no matter where she goes
maybe this would be a good ezreal rework: Changed Ezreal lvl 2 : Copy deal 2 to enemy Nexus when you play mystic shot. That would make Ezreal a pure combo champion, because u have to ensure in the deck, that you have access to mystic shot to deal the necessairy face dmg.
You can just say "RNG", Seraphine was just the poor champion to get to represent it. She deserved way better, it drive me insane how flow was MADE for her and how she could work along with it but they decided to make her a fucking random generator... It is like how Ahri paid for elusives crime + kennen being the only creature recall card properly giving some kind of tempo/combo capacity.
Out of all of the regions, pnz was by far the one I hated the most, probably the only one I could say I hated to begin with. Once Seraphine was released, it was just of a nail in the coffin for me 'cus they were just proving to me how awful pnz was to play against by adding more of what I hated to begin with.
i feel like legends of runeterra needs something like the death and taxes deck from MTG, or even something like the stax deck. for anyone who isn't familiar, these decks seek to win the game by hurting your opponent's mana/mana costs, making spells more expensive, destroying mana gems etc. something to not just let these kind of 100 spells per turn decks go buckwild.
Mana discount and randomly generated cards are fine until they are together, thus they shouldn't be in the same deck, so that human mind could keep track of what to play around. Unfortunetely, this is exactly the direction that riot went... Everytime Seraphine, BandleCity... Even Nab, it's random card pool with discounted card cost.
I started playing lore at launch because "it's not an rng game". Now I just don’t want to waste time on it and continue to wait until the developers wake up and remember about the aspects that were laid by the foundation of the game.
i vehemently hate seraphine due to the numerous controversies she stirred up with her launch in league, so frankly i'm not okay with her existence anywhere, everything you mentioned in this video was just more fuel for the fire
Let's be honest the biggest issue with the entirety of the Seraphine Deck. Is take it's all in one region. If some of the cards were spread out in the regions it would be much better, but for P&Z to be card generator, face pinger, card discounter, card copier, spell copier, atk buffer, spell mana generator and giving it access to other regions cards with it's own region's cards is just way, WAYYYYY to self-suffcient to even be considered fair. Like piltover might as well be locked out from being played with other regions, cause it will still see play and win games as it is currently.
I don't think its a big deal but when you mentioned tetris has random piece generation, that is technically not true. While Tetris (Nes) and before had fully randomized piece generation, Every modern Tetris has a guarantee of getting every single tetris piece within a group of 7. Which honestly helps defend your case of rng being bs when it is truly unlimited.
I always said when I used to play champions like Ezreal or Fiora will be either always a problem or to useless to be played properly Ezreal is in what his 5th or 6th nerf and still always find a way to apear (atleast when I used to play) 1 or 2 times for year in a toxic meta. And in the other hand you have champions like fiora that need to be useless because if she is in the meta and winning usually means something its wrong
I am kinda on a break form LoR right now, since right after this issue we immediately headed into the AAtrox decks just win meta and I needed to spend some time away.
i read the other day that the human mind can handle about six to seven potential outcomes in considering strategy, after which it starts to get bored and give up. sera decks quickly get past that which ironically makes the game just let me do my powerful thing and ignore you, not bc it's impossible to interact, but bc it's way too complex
I don't want to be sound selfish and self-centered, but I noticed that when a champion that I hate in league is added in runeterra, it olso creates the most busted and toxic metas. Ex: I hate irelia, azir/irelia meta, always thought Kai'Sa was an horrible addition to the void (one of my favorite regions), the Kai'Sa compo meta, and now Seraphine who was universally hated from day 0, together with her package, got us the rng meta. Sorry that I sound self-centered, I just couldn't ignore the cruel irony.
i had an idea for ezreal to make his lv less toxic "when you target only one enemy target or Nexus cast a (slow skill) mistyc shot targeting the same target, if there is no target damage the enemy nexus instead" it makes the busrt damage imposible cause the skill enters the spell stack, but also makes the 2 damage happens BEFORE the targeting effect so you need to think of how to use it, and it doesn't go for the nexus first but instead try to clean you out. gives him sinergy with jhin and/or annie, and makes his level up condition consistant with his level uo form
I see.. The most frustrating thing for me would be mana cheating part, because no one can guessing that specific card to play around with. 0 cost to remove Galio, a high-cost champion built in with spellshield, is such a pain in the Ashe and bullChip. You too, QUIETUS. How the Lux you casually deleted weak champion but no need to spend more mana to achieved that..
Riot games fanbase: why is it, that whenever something happens in your games, it's always you three? Ezreal *standing amoungst Seraphine and lux* : believe me guys, i've been wondering that for 13 years.
4:24 from the card in Legends of Runeterra I see her kit needs to be reworked into a new one thats more aggressive based, making her similar to Sona but different. Like for cc she has to dash into enemies to incentives her allies to follow up or she heals allies more depending on how much damage she dealt to enemies.(Supportive Battlemage fits this idea.)
This is an issue many games have. People enjoy the shenanigans from RNG and mana-cheat cards. So they print more! And people love those too. So they print even more! Rinse and repeat until eventually the pile hits critical mass and becomes a major issue.
I think that most mana cheating should be limited to "to a minimum of 1", and some very specific effects could reduce some cards to 0. I hated playing against Seraphine decks because, as you mentioned, there is no beating "I casted 15 mana worth of spells and paid 3 for it". EDIT: Fanclub president is just atrocious, imo. The "reduce a 5 cost spell to 2" was downright disgusting.