One thing about spoilers, which MTG learned, is that you don't spoil the low end/non-synergistic cards and somehow expect people to stay calm without shaping early opinions. If you control the spoilers (as opposed to leaks), you should make a narrative that flows and inspires confidence in the expansion.
Right now, I don't feel Lurk as a good mechanic. It is match champions and flavor very well... but it seems to be slow and doesn't generate enough value. It is also super-weak against removal, in case you get Beamed/Mystic'ed early, your deck just stalls instantly if the first time you Lurk is on turn-4.
I see Lurk joining the ranks of aggro Nightfall, where you have to pull these insane on-curve plays and hope that the opponent cannot disturb them to even have a chance of winning.
HOWEVER, I see the champions who can pull Lurkers from the top of the deck, to attack like Tresh-lite Ninjutsu. I can also see a champion revealing the top card of your library.
Hearthstone does that where they showcase all the busted/cool cards at the start to get people all hyped then dump all the shitty/pack filler cards in the last day (even though quite a few of those are also powerful just less exciting).
I don't know which method is better but I still get hyped from the final few reveals of LoR. I remember being omega hyped when they revealed Aurelion Sol as the final card of the first Targon expansion. Or when they revealed Azir with the whole Emperor Deck shenanigans.
Lurk being Nightfall tier would be pretty good since Nightfall has been consistently a tier 2 deck with high winrates throughout and has been brought in anti-aggro line ups. I think Riot said that at one point that Nightfall was the single highest win rate deck in the game.
In terms of speed I see Lurk decks to be around Overwhelm deck speed. Not aggro fast but not "slow" midrange either. Of course we still need to see the other cards but that's where my head space is at right now.
Playing out the Lurker archetype in my head, it's honestly not as bad as some people think it is.
Turn 1: You play the 1 mana 1/1 Fearsome. You pretty much always want to attack with it because its Fearsome and nothing can really stop it at 1 mana as a unit. This will very often trigger your first Lurk on the attack meaning the unit will be hitting as a 2/1 Fearsome which is already solid (Precious Pet is played in aggro decks).
Turn 2: Their turn to attack. You can play the 2 mana 0/2 that starts a free attack only now it's a 1/2. Attacking with it and having a Lurker on top will make it a 2/2. It will most probably die but it did its job and now your current 1 drop is a 3/1 Fearsome.
Turn 3: You play the Predict 3 mana card which is now a 4/3. It will guarantee a Lurker on top thanks to Predict built in. You can now attack on Turn 3 with a 5/3 and 4/1 Fearsome, that's pretty solid aggression (it's not broken SI or Azir Irelia aggression but its nice).
From this point on, every Lurker you play is going to have aggressive stats and will be putting in pressure. Every time you attack, it buffs all your board on attack. Even your 1 mana units are now scary as they are hitting for like 5 damage potentially.
Of course this is like best case scenario but it's not even that uncommon... it's a natural curve for the deck that they have already revealed. I think once you can set up Lurker on top of deck on turns 1/2 you would be in good position. Definitely needs additional 1 mana or 2 mana Lurker cards to really pop off.
I mean Lurk looks bad but we really need to see the big guns to make a call. Hard to say anything for certain.
I'm still not sure how Careful Prep works, Feral Pre-Science is a 0 cost spell (w/ burst no less) which makes it inherently okay even if you'd often play Scrying Sands instead.
The main thing I am liking from these Shurima Lurk cards is that it is feasible to run them on something other than Bilgewater. Like the video showcased Noxus + Shurima to raise the attack of Reksai and the new card to reach their thresholds. There are just enough good Lurk cards in Shurima to run this but you need extra Predicts.
Reksai champ spell being able to Lurk itself is also really good. It means there will be Lurk spells to further go into the synergy.
Reksai if she attacks or Lurks basically doubles the Lurk bonus. So these Lurk cards can get really high attack really quickly in the mid game provided you can Predict into Reksai.
Also BW has an additional 1 mana Lurker, 2 mana Lurker (aside from the one we have seen) and a 8 mana Lurker. We just don't know what they do because their texts were hidden in the video.
Shurima Freljord Lurker deck... Battle Fury to level Reksai and using FTR to pull her and level up on attack.
Having Reksai on board plus on top of deck gives you +3 to Lurkers everywhere...
It seems like Lurk decks are gonna be midrange decks so I'm curios to see if we will have enough space to slot in some anti-aggro cards.
I also hope that there will be more lurk support in the bilgewater package because I'm worried about consistency issues with the lurk keyword. Sure, you can run alot of predict cards but that'll hurt your deck in other ways.
It seems to be the approximate speed of Freljord Overwhelm. I expect Lurk decks to crush Thralls and TLC/SI Freljord decks because of that.
So probably lose to aggro just like Frejlord Overwhelm but beat the control decks due to having beefy stats, overwhelm and occasional spell shield units. Reksai generating more overstatted minions late game also would give control trouble. Would beat Thresh Nasus too.
This region combination also allows you to run like Lurkers + Thralls or Lurkers + Overwhelm in a tournament line up to really bully those decks.
How many dogecoins are you guys betting on Sunday's games? EU West got rekt, rise of the East! Go all but Turkey!
• Spells having Lurk is a huge help preventing stalling.
• Expected a bit more complex Lurk mechanics and abilities, just growing might be easier to balance, but somehow muted in top-deck tricks you have in MTG
• Fully expecting Noxus to be just for the trailer, and having Pyke as another Lurker will be standard
I was actually scratching my head as to why a spell has the lurk keyword since there are zero main deckable cards with keywords. Being able to trigger a lurk off of a spell is pretty neat.
So Reksai is going to be the one-time gas that Lurkers will need. Question is if you ever play her on 3. I can see giving +1 on attack + free trade or face hit being worth 3m tbh. Giving a spell lurk is pretty cool design. I wouldn't say Call the Pack is great, but by virtue of being an enabler, it will be necessary.
So Reksai is going to be the one-time gas that Lurkers will need. Question is if you ever play her on 3. I can see giving +1 on attack + free trade or face hit being worth 3m tbh. Giving a spell lurk is pretty cool design. I wouldn't say Call the Pack is great, but by virtue of being an enabler, it will be necessary.
I can see you playing her on defense against aggro as like a Solari Shieldbearer. Or like playing her on Turn 3 then using Bone Skewer or something.
Generally you want to play her when she has met her attack threshhold. Stuff like Avarosan Sentry and Arachnoid Sentry will definitely ruin her day though.
There are like 6 cards of Lurk keyword just in Shurima, which are 18 triggers in your deck (roughly half of your deck). With some Predictions, that by itself is almost good enough especially if you are more reliably able to place Reksai on top of your deck more often. I still think BW is going to be the way to go with this deck as intended unless there are more Lurk Shurima cards printed. I would definitely want to run this Freljord or Noxus if possible as an alternate aggressive Overwhelm deck.
There are like 6 cards of Lurk keyword just in Shurima, which are 18 triggers in your deck (roughly half of your deck). With some Predictions, that by itself is almost good enough especially if you are more reliably able to place Reksai on top of your deck more often. I still think BW is going to be the way to go with this deck as intended unless there are more Lurk Shurima cards printed. I would definitely want to run this Freljord or Noxus if possible as an alternate aggressive Overwhelm deck.
It will still go with Bilge exclusively because even if your deck was 1/2 Lurkers, remember that you need Lurkers on board and in hand to play. So typically maybe only 1/3 of your deck are Lurkers with the current Shurima pool.
Yeah I guess you are right, you definitely need at least 75% of your deck to be Lurk keyword. We are almost there though if Pyke himself is a Lurk enabler.
Riven buffed in this new build they showcased. It's now "When summoning me, if you have the Attack token or gain the Attack token, Reforge"
Similar thing to how Irelia works.
Why does Rek'sai have 9 stats for 3 mana unlevelled lol. Did they reduce her cost from 4 to 3 last minute and forget to change her statline? She's effectively unkillable through removal outside of scaling stuff like Thermo Beam and guaranteed kills like Vengeance, which is insane given that she only costs 3 mana. I feel like if Lurk ends up being remotely good that's the first thing they're going to change because 6 health on a 3 mana unit is ridiculous.
Why does Rek'sai have 9 stats for 3 mana unlevelled lol. Did they reduce her cost from 4 to 3 last minute and forget to change her statline? She's effectively unkillable through removal outside of scaling stuff like Thermo Beam and guaranteed kills like Vengeance, which is insane given that she only costs 3 mana. I feel like if Lurk ends up being remotely good that's the first thing they're going to change because 6 health on a 3 mana unit is ridiculous.
Why does Rek'sai have 9 stats for 3 mana unlevelled lol. Did they reduce her cost from 4 to 3 last minute and forget to change her statline? She's effectively unkillable through removal outside of scaling stuff like Thermo Beam and guaranteed kills like Vengeance, which is insane given that she only costs 3 mana. I feel like if Lurk ends up being remotely good that's the first thing they're going to change because 6 health on a 3 mana unit is ridiculous.
Why does Rek'sai have 9 stats for 3 mana unlevelled lol. Did they reduce her cost from 4 to 3 last minute and forget to change her statline? She's effectively unkillable through removal outside of scaling stuff like Thermo Beam and guaranteed kills like Vengeance, which is insane given that she only costs 3 mana. I feel like if Lurk ends up being remotely good that's the first thing they're going to change because 6 health on a 3 mana unit is ridiculous.
Because she goes back to the deck if her attack fails and she doesn't level up. Going to be very easy for any decks with Stun and Freezes to shut her down. The stats are fair because of that fail state however if she levels that is nearly game winning swing (as it should be to be honest).
Okay yeah Lurk is looking a lot more like a proper package. Agreed that it's about the same speed as Overwhelm, that said I would be interested to see how consistent it is in comparison. I think it might be a little more uneven due to Lurk being kind of RNG (lowering the RNG coming at a deckbuilding cost) but with a more powerful top end that's less likely to run out of steam thanks to Call the Pack and Rek'sai's level up. Also Rek'sai is totally fine on defense even though it wouldn't get the Lurk trigger, that's a terrifying body to attack into, especially if you've lurked a few times.
Riven buff is good. Also it looks like there's at least 1 and 8 mana Bilgewater lurkers still to reveal.
Why does Rek'sai have 9 stats for 3 mana unlevelled lol. Did they reduce her cost from 4 to 3 last minute and forget to change her statline? She's effectively unkillable through removal outside of scaling stuff like Thermo Beam and guaranteed kills like Vengeance, which is insane given that she only costs 3 mana. I feel like if Lurk ends up being remotely good that's the first thing they're going to change because 6 health on a 3 mana unit is ridiculous.
Ok, so when I first read the card I had just woke up and didn't remember the cards well. Later when I looked at it I ignored the top part of the text because for whatever reason when I read level 1 champs I just skip the top part of the text above the level up conditions. That being said, 6 health for a 3 mana champ is still kinda silly considering she sticks around when she levels up and if the archetype ends up being OP they're totally going to nerf her health Kappa.
There was some data about the Seasonal Top 32 results that I found which I thought was interesting. Firstly, this is an archetype breakdown of the top 32 of NA:
Before going further, it's worth mentioning that these Seasonal tournaments have a much higher portion of players who otherwise don't play lots of competitive play and as such generally trend to bring popular ladder decks that they think are good/know how to play. This has a decently-sized impact on the meta as popular ladder decks (such as Thresh Nasus) end up being overrepresented. More on that in a bit.
Secondly, someone was able to aggregate data from several of the regions to find a better picture of the overall deck play rates as well as win rates from several of the regions. Here's a picture of the play rates of the various decks:
As you can see, while decks like Thresh Nasus and Dragons did have quite a few players representing them in top 32, they also were many of the most popular decks being brought by people and if anything are underrepresented in top 32. This brings me to win rates:
Win Rate Wins Games Play Rate
Renekton / Sejuani / Sivir
56.8%
1056
1858
6.2%
Lissandra / Taliyah
55.8%
355
636
2.1%
Draven / Jinx
55.4%
578
1043
3.5%
Ezreal / Teemo (FR/PZ)
54.5%
186
341
1.1%
Vi / Zoe
54.3%
651
1200
4.0%
Gangplank / Miss Fortune (BW/NX)
53.8%
98
182
0.6%
Fizz / Twisted Fate (BW/PZ)
53.4%
93
174
0.6%
Diana / Nocturne
52.8%
163
309
1.0%
Elise (NX/SI)
52.4%
343
655
2.2%
Ashe / LeBlanc
52.0%
486
935
3.1%
Vi / Viktor / Zoe
51.9%
54
104
0.3%
Draven / Ezreal
51.4%
1854
3606
12.1%
Jarvan IV / Shen
51.2%
125
244
0.8%
Azir / Irelia
51.2%
1351
2638
8.9%
Aurelion Sol / Jarvan IV / Shyvana
50.6%
134
265
0.9%
Azir / Darius
50.0%
276
552
1.9%
Maokai / Nautilus
49.8%
586
1177
4.0%
Aurelion Sol / Thresh
49.7%
77
155
0.5%
Lee Sin / Zoe
49.1%
133
271
0.9%
Lissandra / Trundle (FR/SI)
48.5%
914
1886
6.3%
Nasus / Thresh
47.8%
2537
5311
17.9%
Aurelion Sol / Shyvana / Zoe
46.5%
828
1781
6.0%
Aurelion Sol / Shyvana
46.4%
212
457
1.5%
Shyvana / Zoe
45.9%
100
218
0.7%
Braum / Vladimir
44.2%
50
113
0.4%
Soraka / Tahm Kench
43.7%
115
263
0.9%
Renekton / Sejuani
40.7%
50
123
0.4%
Mostly I don't think these numbers are too surprising given the trends that most tournaments have generally had the past couple months. Overwhelm is terrific against Watcher, Demacia+Targon, and Thresh Nasus while having roughly even matchups against Rubin and Draven Ez, and as such has been one of the best-performing decks in the meta. All the various aggro lists are dominating vs Azir Irelia and Overwhelm which makes them strong picks to snipe linups that bring them. And the 3 decks with the lowest win rate and above a 1% play rate are 3 of the 5 most popular decks in the format. Dragons frankly hasn't been all that good for a long time, so I think that says a lot about how many of the players just brought what they played on ladder. The meta also largely came prepared for Thresh Nasus and TLC, and while they're still strong decks that have good matchups against some of the decks that did well they underperformed.
Azir Irelia is notable, as it was by far the most represented deck in top cut (at least as far as NA was concerned) but it only had a 51.2% win rate. I think that this is in large part because I imagine many players either built their lineup with the assumption that they'd ban Azir Irelia, or with the strategy to beat it. Which means that many of the people who brought the deck likely brought it to draw out a ban vs players who brought TLC, Overwhelm, or Deep. Additionally I imagine many of the times it was fielded it was into less than favorable matchups because lineups that were poor vs it would just ban it instead.
For predictions, I think that Overwhelm is very likely to take one or two of the regions. It's a super good deck into the field assuming you have a strategy of banning Azir Irelia. Speaking of which, this deck is also a very potent anti-meta deck as it's very good against most the stuff that's good against TLC and Thresh Nasus while losing to decks that similarly lose to TLC and Thresh Nasus. With Azir Irelia being super popular I think that triple aggro (often Discard, Spiders, and Azir Noxus) is also poised very well to do some damage. Rubin Zoo's worst matchups (Targon Demacia and TLC) are both not doing super well so I think that deck has the potential to take a region as well. Deep and Thralls are also represented, although they might struggle with the massive amount of Azir Irelia running around. Lastly of course there's the most popular decks, Thresh Nasus, Draven Ez, TLC, and Azir Irelia. Of those I naturally think Azir Irelia has the best odds to win something, and I'd honestly be surprised if it didn't win at least one region because it's a fairly strong deck to stick in a 2 deck lineup you really want to play because it draws a ton of bans. Draven Ez has a bad matchup vs TLC, a good matchup vs Overwhelm, and largely even matchups vs everything else so it'll depend on if there's a good pilot on the deck. TLC is still a strong deck even in a meta hostile towards it and generally attracts a ton of great players to it. And there's Thresh Nasus, which TBH I've not been a fan of for a while competitively but a ton of people brought it so just based off that it has a good chance of winning.
Kuvira was saying that Overwhelm was a T0 tournament deck and after they nerf the top 3-4 decks, people will be complaining about Turbo Thralls afterwards.
Some exaggeration and hyperbole but not that far from the truth on both of them.
Also those Azir Irelia stats tell me that the deck was banned quite a bit. Mostly because it had less play rate than Thresh Nasus and Ez Draven but still has more representation in top 32 than any other deck.
I expect top 32 to be a lot of targeting Thresh Nasus which these stats also show that it's a very targetable deck (as I have been saying for quite a while now). Players are also less likely to bring TLC due to the amount of players and line ups that can easily target it. Top 32 players generally don't bring triple aggro either.
The line up is going to be like Freljord heavy to punish Thresh Nasus and Dragons which also happens to be good into TLC if people bring it, ban Azir Irelia or Ez Draven. Looking at some combination of Overwhelm, Ashe Leblanc, Thralls and Frosbite Foundry mixed with Deep. Basically line ups that fold to triple aggro because it's not open brackets anymore.
Overall a pretty good spread of decks and line ups to be seen here. A lot of people used Thresh Nasus, EZ Draven and Dragons because of comfort picks and loads of games under their belt... not because they were necessarily the best decks to bring. And also... some top players actually just really like these decks because they are fairly solid all around with a dash of unfairness sprinkled within them.
+ The yeti seems playable since the 1m 1/2 is a yeti. We'll hit the tipping point someday where Call of the Wild gets played.
+ Heaven's Aligned seems like it could be playable for Nightfall. The deck shouldn't mind more 1m activators.
+ Thorned Blade could see play as a riskier Decimate, but 1m cheaper for 1 more damage. But you would rarely give up tempo to play this early and by late, you're not hitting face so maybe not.
Honorable Mention: Starlit Epiphany is meme tech for Asol vs Watcher.
Defiant Dance is horrible. Why would you ever play this over Lead and Follow?
Defiant Dance can recall enemy units while also doing Blade Dance on the same turn. You can take out a key enemy blocker like a Lifesteal unit while triggering a free attack. The card is statted appropriately for that purpose.
*Field Promotion is insane. Already expecting some cheasy Zed Scout deck.
*Fabled Poro is a good card for Poro decks in general but Poro decks still need more.
*Abominable makes Yeti decks kinda scary. Definitely something here.
*Defiant Dance I have already talked about it and it's better than it looks. Do not underestimate the Blade Dance keyword. It might not see play right away but if they nerf certain cards in the deck it can be slotted in. The card is just not interesting because you only play it in that one deck lol.
*Starlit Epiphany is basically a super late game tech option that right now LoR does not support. We rarely if ever have games deck out in a control vs control mirror.
*Heavens Aligned is a 10/10 flavor card though is more limited in use due to getting random cards. It's essentially best case use is as a Nightfall enabler for cheap. I don't know why it's Focus speed either.
*Atakhan is a card you want to find a way to cheat out early. This with Matron is no joke, that's a lot of Overwhelm damage. If you can't cheat it out then it's just bad obviously.
*Thorned Blade.... wow, just wow.
*Astral Fox is pretty insane for aggressive burn SI decks. Please nerf Stalking Shadows already...
*Twisted Treeline seems bad to me. You can get this by turn 4 though which isn't bad but it's still not that great anyway.
I have a Demacia Shurima list that uses some aggressively statted units like Renekton, Ruin Runner and Sivir which would make perfect use of this buff. I probably wouldn't run 3 of this card though.
I like that there are more cards with off-field effects now.
I think this is the true power of a digital card game. The game can track and executive abilities that simply don't work, requires an observer, or very clunky with paper.
Guardian and and Heavens Aligned are both great design, I'm a fan even if they're not top tier. Starlit Epiphany too but I think it's more fun meme tier rather than any kind of serious tech.
Astral Fox is nuts, he's fizzleable and that's fine because otherwise it's out of this world level broken.
Wooow, some cool support here. Bloodbait is a 1m grow your deck by +1/+0. Ripper's Bay is a cool idea, but not sure if consistent enough. Discard synergy is memey, but I love leaving that kind of door open. Having another 1m lurker is GREAT for opening consistency.
Still not seeing that I'd want to run Bone Skewer, but maybe Pyke will give me a reason to.
Lurk is easily the most aggressively supported archetype in the game. That's going to be a lot of cards that never see play if Lurk isn't viable/good.
Looks like the BW side of Lurk is about triggering off attack token lurks and smaller units for early Lurk consistency while the Shurima package is a mid to late game package focused on finishing the game. There is some overlap of course but thats generally the idea here.
Even getting to 6 wins is around a neutral/net-loss average because I have all Epic cards. Yes, shards are useless for anyone playing from the start at this point, but I still don't like "losing" value.
Going to save the final expedition for the patch day.
Wooow, some cool support here. Bloodbait is a 1m grow your deck by +1/+0. Ripper's Bay is a cool idea, but not sure if consistent enough. Discard synergy is memey, but I love leaving that kind of door open. Having another 1m lurker is GREAT for opening consistency.
Still not seeing that I'd want to run Bone Skewer, but maybe Pyke will give me a reason to.
Feels like the entire tournament is just Draven at least on one side. Aggro/Burn is shutting down far too many things in the tournament, it is kind of not even fun to watch the same matchups.
At least the European Semi/Final tomorrow is going to be mixing things up with many decks.
Despite them showing the graph how diverse the champion pick rate on ladder was, the previous 1vs1 tournament was far more diverse in deck variety. I remember Kench-Soraka winning in finals, and now it is Draven 24/7, or Nasus, or Irelia. Yes there was one deep game, but it is not enough...
God there is a lot resting on the 30th to "fix" the game.
Pyke looking amazing, his leveled farm can clear the entire board! He transform into an overpowered spell if he Lurks when on top of your deck and you could easily get multiple Pykes out on the board potentially. Jaull Fish is a great finisher for Lurkers too. Bone Skewer as expected is the Pyke champion spell.
Swiftwing Flight is a great value card with a variety of uses in various decks like Shen Jarvan. The only thing is that the 4 slot is mega competitive in Demacia so it's hard to see if it slots in or not. Shen's boat is cute, better than most boats at least. Fine to use one of in a Shen deck.
