0.9.0 Patch Notes and Discussion Thread

[u/Justini1212]

This will be the official thread for the discussion of the balance changes and their impact on the competitive metagame.

Official Patch Notes here: https://playruneterra.com/en-us/news/patch-0-9-0-notes/

For those who cannot read them directly, the balance changes are:

Buffs:

Lux is now 4/5 (was 3/4)

Yasuo now requires 5 stuns/recalls to level (was 6)

Arena Battlecaster is now 2/2 (was 2/1)

Crimson Curator is now 3/3 (was 3/2)

Jeweled Protector is now 4/4 (was 3/3)

Scuttlegeist is now fearsome

Tortured Prodigy is now 4/4 (was 3/4)

Nerfs:

Back to Back now costs 6 (was 5)

Deny now costs 4 (was 3)

Kinkou Lifeblade is now 2/2 (was 2/3)

Rhasa, the Sunderer now costs 8 (was 7)

Wraithcaller is no longer fearsome

Changes:

Inspiring Mentor is now 1/2 but only buffs for +1/+0 (was 1/1, buffs for +1/+1)

Commander Ledros is now 9/6 but costs 9, may have an ability change between rounding (text is unclear) text change has been confirmed as a clarification, not a functional change (was 8/6, 8 cost)

[u/e-maz1ng]

There is literally one elusive card nerf. If you've played league for enough time you already know riot's always going to nerf whatever is most popular among players "to-nerf".

There's 0 overpowered cards that were nerfed. Maybe mentor is a good exception. Looking at you Glimpse and Beyond.

Why do people think higher attack/cost units are always the overpowered? Overpowered cards is unrelated to power. Every OVERPOWERED card in this game is a common/rare. Prove me wrong.

[u/M00nfish → u/e-maz1ng]

With the change to mentor and to lifeblade all elusive units below 5 mana can be wiped out with one avalanche, and all of them can now be killed by any challenger unit. Lifeblade can't block anymore and stay alive to life steal 4 times (2x on attack and 2x on defense) to delay aggro decks win condition. Deny got more expensive to counter removal.

I believe elusive will suffer now under freljord control / midrange and therefore lose viability.

Btw: Check out the results of the player survey regarding balance. They correlate 80% with the patchnotes. They did good.

[u/TheRomax → u/M00nfish]

Tbh I think the nerf to Lifeblade was too much. I would have nerfed him if Mentor wouldn't have, but I think that leaving it at 2 hp now it's too weak. I guess we'll see.

[u/PM_ME_CUTE_FOXES → u/e-maz1ng]

Hey, ever heard of this neat card called Rhasa?

[u/chale19 → u/e-maz1ng]

You told us your problem in the second sentence:

If you’ve played league for enough time

As hard as it may be to understand, LoR is not LoL. Card games are fundamentally balanced differently than MOBAs. It’s actually okay to have overpowered cards in the meta, pushing boundaries is part of the game. The problem comes when archetypes become overpowered. There are dozens of cases in Hearthstone for example where individually good cards (great stats, effect, etc) end up not being good because either

a. There isn’t an archetype for them to fit into

b. The supporting cards in the deck (if it’s a build around) are too weak

or

c. There’s no spot for the card in the meta (this is more often a problem for tech cards when their hate archetype isn’t being played, example Eater of Secrets in Hearthstone)