Got a disgusting All for One deck w/3 Claws, 3 Go For the Eyes, and 1 Beam Cell. What was vile though was getting the Unceasing Top and Chemical X. Now I could start drawing forever with all those 0-cost cards. Chemical X was looking like a bust after I bought it, but then I got offered two copies of Reinforced Body. With the Oddly Smooth Stone, that meant that a Reinforced Body draw was at worst a 0-cost, 16 Block play.
On to A10!
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Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051 Steam ID Twitch Page
I beat my second run! This time with The Silent. Went for a shiv deck early on and thankfully got a shuriken. Later on when I saw a Kunai in the shop I basically threw a sack full of coins into the merchant's face and ran. Grabbed some of the cards that give you two shivs, grabbed three of the ones that give you a shiv per turn (and upgraded two to be inherent), grabbed that card that costs 0 and gives you a second copy anytime you draw it, and grabbed the Broken Crown for good measure once my deck was set. ...Then I fought the Time Eater! I did not understand his gimmick at first, but after wrapping my head around it I started to turn things around. Managed to beat him with 12 HP left.
Decided to do a run as The Defect which seems to be going well. Only my second time playing it, but I've got a pretty decent deck going on. I would of course not taken some cards if I knew how his stuff worked more, so my deck is a little bloated, but eh. Seems to be working out well at any rate, just defeated The Champion. Grabbed a bunch of the Consume cards and the one that gives you extra slots, plus Fission. Currently been winning some fights by turning myself into a brick house with consume-enhanced ice orbs while I build up some dark orbs and save Fission to play as a big nuke. No idea if it will last me through the third floor, but it worked against The Champion. Even when he tried to do his big attack for 66 damage he only managed to hit me for 2 HP. And that's all he did to me. Decided to leave off for now though, finish it up another time.
A14 down on all characters. Some highlights include carefully finagling my way through Wokebloke's first form, then nightmaring Catalyst, and holding posioned dagger via Well-laid plans - letting me take Wokebloke from 7ish poison to... 339 in a single turn. The ironclad deck meanwhile wasn't entirely sure what it was doing, right up until it got Dead Branch. After that, a corruption form a shop turned the run into a very easy win.
Course, my very first attempts at A15 on all characters lead to wipes mid way through act two, but hey!
And then after all my claims of being a terrible robot wizard, he was my first A15 clear. Followed by Silent, then Ironclad (after way too many wipes).
So, that's a pretty big milestone down!
One thing i'm wondering if it might be worth doing for the thread - listing some of the various notable syngergies between cards, relics etc. i.e - Cloak and Dagger+ & Kunai/Shuriken (To a lesser extent, Pen Nib & Nunchucks as well). Or Core Surge/Panacea/Clockwork Souvenir + Beserk/Flex/Hyberbeam/Wraith Form/Biased Cognition
Is this something that'd catch peoples interest to do, or ?
A14 down on all characters. Some highlights include carefully finagling my way through Wokebloke's first form, then nightmaring Catalyst, and holding posioned dagger via Well-laid plans - letting me take Wokebloke from 7ish poison to... 339 in a single turn. The ironclad deck meanwhile wasn't entirely sure what it was doing, right up until it got Dead Branch. After that, a corruption form a shop turned the run into a very easy win.
Course, my very first attempts at A15 on all characters lead to wipes mid way through act two, but hey!
And then after all my claims of being a terrible robot wizard, he was my first A15 clear. Followed by Silent, then Ironclad (after way too many wipes).
So, that's a pretty big milestone down!
One thing i'm wondering if it might be worth doing for the thread - listing some of the various notable syngergies between cards, relics etc. i.e - Cloak and Dagger+ & Kunai/Shuriken (To a lesser extent, Pen Nib & Nunchucks as well). Or Core Surge/Panacea/Clockwork Souvenir + Beserk/Flex/Hyberbeam/Wraith Form/Biased Cognition
Is this something that'd catch peoples interest to do, or ?
I'd be interested, for sure. Especially for the Silent. I've been stuck on A10 with Silent forever. I feel like I can only get a win if I happen to grab some ridiculous Shiv+Exhaust relics combo. Pretty sure I'm just not building a solid foundation with my early picks.
I'd be interested, for sure. Especially for the Silent. I've been stuck on A10 with Silent forever. I feel like I can only get a win if I happen to grab some ridiculous Shiv+Exhaust relics combo. Pretty sure I'm just not building a solid foundation with my early picks.
Silent - honestly, a lot of silent is just "Block like crazy, and whittle your foes down". I actually find there's less crazy relic synergies with Silent than there are with Defect/Ironclad. (Or at least, there aren't standouts like "Source of artifact + Hyper Beam/Biased Cognition or Corruption + Dead Branch that just win you the run right there)
That said:
Cloak and Dagger is great. C&D+ is even better. Infinite Blades, likewise. Gets stupid the moment you have any kind of Pen Nib/Shuriken/Kunai. Varja is another big one. (Obviously, Accuracy is a big upgrade once you have a couple of C&Ds/an infinite blade). Glass Knife & Dagger Spray also scale well with anything that does nice things to shivs. Finisher is also a really good pay-off to Shivs.
Envenom & Thousand Cuts are great pay-offs to Shivs/multi-hits as well.
Silent's poison cards are strong just due to the way Poison scales. (3 poison on a target - 6 damage. 4? 10 damage. 5 is 15, 6 is 21... You get the idea) Poisoned Stab really needs an upgrade, but is very strong when upgraded - 12 damage straight away for 1 energy is real nice (and by itself it's a total of 22) Noxious Fumes is completely broken once upgraded, like "This wins boss fights on it's own" broken. Crippling Fumes is great. Poison Flask is really strong, if you can spare the energy for it.
Snecko Skull makes all of this that much stronger, and is a big boost to Envenom
Sadistic Nature can also do degenerate things - Neutralise/+ is already a strong card. Adding 4 damage to it, every other source of weak you have, every source of poison application you have can result in a huge damage ramp.
Catalyst can be iffy, but has its uses (Mainly, bursting poison damage before a Cleanse form Champ or Time Eater as an example). Probably best picked once you've got something like a Well Laid Plans+ to let you hold onto it.
Anything that helps you get sustain from Relics can really help out Silent. Eggs, or an early Apotheosis can act as Pseudo-sustain - upgraded cards help you live, and not needing to upgrade cards lets you rest at campfires more often. (...Which is still kinda crap without Pillow, but hey). Toxic Egg is particularity notable given how many good skills Silent has.
Alchemize+ is very powerful, just due to how strong potions generally are. Is vastly improved by having Potion Belt.
Chemical X is a worthy pickup if you have Doppelganger or Skewer, and a windmill slam if you have Malaise.
Discard synergies seem generally somewhat weak - Backflip is just a much nicer card than Acrobatics is.
Thanks for the tips. I definitely find sustain to be my issue with Silent. Of course, after I posted about not being able to beat A10, I just breezed through it. Got runic pyramid from the whale, snecko skull from the first merchant, and a paper crane from the first chest, and that was basically the game. Never got catalyst, noxious fumes, or crippling fumes, but envenom and one poison flask was enough to carry it. A lot of my Silent losses come when I just don't draw block on a crucial turn and take more damage than I can recover from, whether I die that fight or a few fights later. But runic pyramid really alleviates a lot of that.
A10 complete with The Defect! Another lucky All for One deck, only this time featuring x2 Streamlines to go with the x3 Claws. Deck is pretty busted. Lucky I didn't get the Time Eater though.
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Runic Pyramid is soooo good. I don't think I really valued it much until I got it randomly by trading in my starting Relic a few days ago. Grabbed it a couple more times in subsequent runs, it always pulls its weight.
Runic Pyramid is soooo good. I don't think I really valued it much until I got it randomly by trading in my starting Relic a few days ago. Grabbed it a couple more times in subsequent runs, it always pulls its weight.
Yeah, my runic pyramid winrate is so high compared to base rate. Especially getting it early. It's probably my favorite all-purpose relic.
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Yeah Runic Pyramid is amazing. You need to build around it a little to avoid hand bloat, but it's so good if you can manage.
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GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
I was kind of wary about it when it reduced your draw but now there’s basically no downside if you don’t need / aren’t offered an energy relic.
I want to say thanks for everyone posting the A15 streamers and the success they have had working up to A15. I had previously talked myself out of trying to work through the ascension levels as it seemed to hard.
So here are my A1 successes:
Defect:
Silent:
Ironclad
I some how already have up to A3 without remembering when I did that.
BUt game, i say as it hands me Tough Bandages for my second relic. I dont like discard!
Too bad says game, you're playing discard. *Astrolabe proceeds to turn 3 strikes into a pair of Tacticians and a concentrate*.
Then it stuck me up against the time Eater, because of it did.
He went down pretty easy!
In reality though, this run was carried by an early Noxious Fumes (that then got bottled during the City), and picking up the Specimen right before Slimey boi on the first run. Discard synergies are just.. Awkward, i think unless you scuplt a "goes infinite" deck. (it's telling that later on feeding one of those Tacticians to the bonfire spirits dramatically improved how the deck was performing)
So, uh, the Specimen. Shit's pretty broken as it turns out! Yeah, it can be a Do Nothing on boss fights, but it obliterates any hallway fights, and Stuff like Gremlin Leader gets, well, hilarious. Minions come in, minions die to noxious fumes and some light Aoe, Gremlin Leader gets progressively more horribly ill
Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
A9 with Silent. The more I play at higher Ascensions the more convinced I am that Shiv is just not worth picking up unless you get at least 2xAccuracy. Time Lord in particular royally fucks you having to play so many excess cards per turn.
A9 with Silent. The more I play at higher Ascensions the more convinced I am that Shiv is just not worth picking up unless you get at least 2xAccuracy. Time Lord in particular royally fucks you having to play so many excess cards per turn.
Is Shiv infinite blades, or cloak and dagger, or blade dance, or storm of steel?
I don't think infinite blade is that good, but cloak and dagger+ isn't bad, same with blade dance. And storm of steel can be good with lots of draw in a non-shiv deck.
Burtletoy on
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Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
Yeah, Blade Dance in particular is really difficult to run into Time Lord even when upgraded. Without upgrades or buffs, it's a 3 card play to get 8 base damage. If you upgrade the card and get Accuracy, it's still 4 cards to get 21 damage. It's incredibly inefficient in terms of card play in a fight where card play hard gates you.
You might be able to get away with a deck that is basically just mitigation and Storm of Steel, but that presupposes you actually get the card.
Yeah, Blade Dance in particular is really difficult to run into Time Lord even when upgraded. Without upgrades or buffs, it's a 3 card play to get 8 base damage. If you upgrade the card and get Accuracy, it's still 4 cards to get 21 damage. It's incredibly inefficient in terms of card play in a fight where card play hard gates you.
You might be able to get away with a deck that is basically just mitigation and Storm of Steel, but that presupposes you actually get the card.
I don't disagree, more cards played to deal more damage are obviously a problem with the time Lord. But I think, assuming that decks that are shiv heavy at the final boss don't also have some relics that help is also wrong.
A shiv deck with a dead branch or a wrist blade or a boot or something else.
I like blade dance. It only costs one, and if it's a dead card because of the time Lord, I don't think it's a run killer to just...not play it when you draw it.
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Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
Eh, in terms of opportunity cost, Shiv-based decks feel like a lot more work for a lot less reward and a ton more risk in terms of final bosses, and lately that's been the biggest hurdle for me in clearing Ascensions. But maybe I'm doing it wrong, who knows.
Eh, in terms of opportunity cost, Shiv-based decks feel like a lot more work for a lot less reward and a ton more risk in terms of final bosses, and lately that's been the biggest hurdle for me in clearing Ascensions. But maybe I'm doing it wrong, who knows.
My advice is just.. dont focus on giving your deck a set theme. Because the game will screw you with drops if you do.
Shivs can be incredibly potent when you get the support for them (Shuriken, Kunai, Finisher, Wrist Blade...), but like Cloak and Dagger/Infinite Blades are great cards by themselves. (ifnitne blades+ lets you commit 1 energy ofr a constant source of free attacks/damage for the rest of the fight - the moment you have Finisher/Kunai/Shuriken/Pen Nib/Accuracy, this is ridiculously good). Thousand Blades or Envenom are not that uncommon and add huge payoffs to Stuff like Cloak and Dagger
Storm of Steel needs an upgrade, but you can have it as your sole Shiv card and it's still a great "Hi. You. Get fucked" card. (With zero other support, it sitll lets you convert a hand full of cards into free strikes. Which is nothing to sneeze at at all)
Blade Dance i'm less fond of, but again - if you've already got a lot of Shiv support, it goes from being a crappy card to a very solid one. (Thousand Blades+ gives it +6 Aoe Damage, or +8 upgraded. For 1 energy! Nuts!)
But it's still best to let this stuff grow organically - I've just finished act 1 in my current game, i had enough shiv stuff alrady that i went "Why not" at wrist blade (my other options were Lizard Tail and Orrery - it hurt to skip Orrery, but wrist blade is a huge upgrade). But I've still got two whole acts to go - i could easily pivot into more poison if i get a Snecko Skull or Speciem, or even just a blend of the two - It's not like free damage combos badly with poison at all.
Hell, i've reapteadly stomped Time Lord when using Shivs. You dont HAVE to play them. They'll infect your draws for lack of a better word, but it's really not a huge issue - and one of the better ways to deal with TL if you scale fast enough is to simply play 12 cards every turn. Shivs help with this goal immensely.
Finisher + upgraded cloak and dagger is so damn good, you really don't need anything else. Can't complain about 20dmg and 6block for 2 energy.
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Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
I think my main issue is with Blade Dance in particular. My last Shiv run I only saw multiple Blade Dances with no Infinite Blades or Storms. I also tend to go after things like After Burn when I am going with Shiv, so if I have a ton of draw and no-cost cards it works great but if I'm forced to actually play a 10 cards per turn to get the value then it isn't worth it if I run into Time Lord. Or even if I run into Awakened I can't play powers that my deck relies upon for synergy.
High Ascension feels really restrictive in this way - you basically can't take advantage of obvious synergies for fear of the RNG hard-countering you. Which makes deck building more a matter of getting safe value rather than trying to find something hilariously broken.
It is a tough line to balance so I'm not sure there's an easy answer from a game design perspective.
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GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
I’m still of the opinion that the base energy for all classes should be 4, and the frequency of energy relics should be rarer.
This has two effects. First, if you are trying to build a deck around a 3-cost card, you can still play that card in the early game without completely screwing any one turn. So this punishes expensive decks less, and you can actually build with expensive cards in mine from the beginning.
Second, it decreases the overall focus on energy. Almost any deck in any class needs at least 4 energy to function at full capacity. Not all, but most. And that % gets larger as you climb ascension ranks and the list of viable decks gets shorter. Base 4 energy opens options at all levels of play.
I think this would have the effect of making the first zone a bit easier, but likely the second and third zones about the same, or even harder depending on the rarity balance of energy relics.
The overall idea is to decrease the focus on energy at the early stages of the game and limit the ability in the late game to trivialize card costs.
I certainly avoid a lot of 2/3 cost cards because of only having 3 energy to start. They should make it a Daily Climb or Mutation option to see how it would play out.
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I’m still of the opinion that the base energy for all classes should be 4, and the frequency of energy relics should be rarer.
This has two effects. First, if you are trying to build a deck around a 3-cost card, you can still play that card in the early game without completely screwing any one turn. So this punishes expensive decks less, and you can actually build with expensive cards in mine from the beginning.
Second, it decreases the overall focus on energy. Almost any deck in any class needs at least 4 energy to function at full capacity. Not all, but most. And that % gets larger as you climb ascension ranks and the list of viable decks gets shorter. Base 4 energy opens options at all levels of play.
I think this would have the effect of making the first zone a bit easier, but likely the second and third zones about the same, or even harder depending on the rarity balance of energy relics.
The overall idea is to decrease the focus on energy at the early stages of the game and limit the ability in the late game to trivialize card costs.
Three energy is fine. There are multiple cards per character that shift energy or gain energy for a turn. With Ironclad, I have Berserk, Dropkick, Seeing Red, Bloodletting, Offering if I need energy. Sentinel too if I play exhaust. There are ways to generate. It's not as consistent, sure. But they give you options to work around having just three energy.
I’m still of the opinion that the base energy for all classes should be 4, and the frequency of energy relics should be rarer.
This has two effects. First, if you are trying to build a deck around a 3-cost card, you can still play that card in the early game without completely screwing any one turn. So this punishes expensive decks less, and you can actually build with expensive cards in mine from the beginning.
Second, it decreases the overall focus on energy. Almost any deck in any class needs at least 4 energy to function at full capacity. Not all, but most. And that % gets larger as you climb ascension ranks and the list of viable decks gets shorter. Base 4 energy opens options at all levels of play.
I think this would have the effect of making the first zone a bit easier, but likely the second and third zones about the same, or even harder depending on the rarity balance of energy relics.
The overall idea is to decrease the focus on energy at the early stages of the game and limit the ability in the late game to trivialize card costs.
Three energy is fine. There are multiple cards per character that shift energy or gain energy for a turn. With Ironclad, I have Berserk, Dropkick, Seeing Red, Bloodletting, Offering if I need energy. Sentinel too if I play exhaust. There are ways to generate. It's not as consistent, sure. But they give you options to work around having just three energy.
I think that part of the problem is that 2 and 3 cost cards are often only barely worth it unless you have 4+ energy or a relic synergy. If I were to buff them I'd go after their anti-synergy with powerful relics like Kunai and (less so) pen nib.
I’m still of the opinion that the base energy for all classes should be 4, and the frequency of energy relics should be rarer.
This has two effects. First, if you are trying to build a deck around a 3-cost card, you can still play that card in the early game without completely screwing any one turn. So this punishes expensive decks less, and you can actually build with expensive cards in mine from the beginning.
Second, it decreases the overall focus on energy. Almost any deck in any class needs at least 4 energy to function at full capacity. Not all, but most. And that % gets larger as you climb ascension ranks and the list of viable decks gets shorter. Base 4 energy opens options at all levels of play.
I think this would have the effect of making the first zone a bit easier, but likely the second and third zones about the same, or even harder depending on the rarity balance of energy relics.
The overall idea is to decrease the focus on energy at the early stages of the game and limit the ability in the late game to trivialize card costs.
Three energy is fine. There are multiple cards per character that shift energy or gain energy for a turn. With Ironclad, I have Berserk, Dropkick, Seeing Red, Bloodletting, Offering if I need energy. Sentinel too if I play exhaust. There are ways to generate. It's not as consistent, sure. But they give you options to work around having just three energy.
I think that part of the problem is that 2 and 3 cost cards are often only barely worth it unless you have 4+ energy or a relic synergy. If I were to buff them I'd go after their anti-synergy with powerful relics like Kunai and (less so) pen nib.
2 and 3 cost cards are pretty universally amazing. Sure, you can't always play them, but the number of cards that you can always play is incredibly short. Their value is in providing you with more "effective" card draw in the sense that with those 5 cards in hand you're more likely to be able to reach for the damage you want with a Bludgeon or the block you need with a Leg Sweep, as opposed to hoping that you draw three 1-cost cards. With more value consolidated in a single card, you can run a thinner deck, improving consistency, and improving the value you get from upgrades.
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GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
I’m still of the opinion that the base energy for all classes should be 4, and the frequency of energy relics should be rarer.
This has two effects. First, if you are trying to build a deck around a 3-cost card, you can still play that card in the early game without completely screwing any one turn. So this punishes expensive decks less, and you can actually build with expensive cards in mine from the beginning.
Second, it decreases the overall focus on energy. Almost any deck in any class needs at least 4 energy to function at full capacity. Not all, but most. And that % gets larger as you climb ascension ranks and the list of viable decks gets shorter. Base 4 energy opens options at all levels of play.
I think this would have the effect of making the first zone a bit easier, but likely the second and third zones about the same, or even harder depending on the rarity balance of energy relics.
The overall idea is to decrease the focus on energy at the early stages of the game and limit the ability in the late game to trivialize card costs.
Three energy is fine. There are multiple cards per character that shift energy or gain energy for a turn. With Ironclad, I have Berserk, Dropkick, Seeing Red, Bloodletting, Offering if I need energy. Sentinel too if I play exhaust. There are ways to generate. It's not as consistent, sure. But they give you options to work around having just three energy.
A two cost card has to be bonkers good to get run. A three cost card will never see play until there is some consistent spare energy.
If there’s almost no point in using expensive cards, that feels like a big hole in the design. I’m SURE Megacrit has considered this issue, and there is a reason they picked the 3-energy base. But I would love to hear about how and why they came to that conclusion, and look at whether or not that still works given the current state of the game.
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Finally got fed up with it and decided to just do a custom match; Draft + enemies drop Relics
It's always therapeutic feeling like Superman.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
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Shuriken + upgraded Thousand Cuts + all of the Shivs in the world is just the best.
Yay. So much relic value.
Got a disgusting All for One deck w/3 Claws, 3 Go For the Eyes, and 1 Beam Cell. What was vile though was getting the Unceasing Top and Chemical X. Now I could start drawing forever with all those 0-cost cards. Chemical X was looking like a bust after I bought it, but then I got offered two copies of Reinforced Body. With the Oddly Smooth Stone, that meant that a Reinforced Body draw was at worst a 0-cost, 16 Block play.
On to A10!
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Decided to do a run as The Defect which seems to be going well. Only my second time playing it, but I've got a pretty decent deck going on. I would of course not taken some cards if I knew how his stuff worked more, so my deck is a little bloated, but eh. Seems to be working out well at any rate, just defeated The Champion. Grabbed a bunch of the Consume cards and the one that gives you extra slots, plus Fission. Currently been winning some fights by turning myself into a brick house with consume-enhanced ice orbs while I build up some dark orbs and save Fission to play as a big nuke. No idea if it will last me through the third floor, but it worked against The Champion. Even when he tried to do his big attack for 66 damage he only managed to hit me for 2 HP. And that's all he did to me. Decided to leave off for now though, finish it up another time.
A14 down on all characters. Some highlights include carefully finagling my way through Wokebloke's first form, then nightmaring Catalyst, and holding posioned dagger via Well-laid plans - letting me take Wokebloke from 7ish poison to... 339 in a single turn. The ironclad deck meanwhile wasn't entirely sure what it was doing, right up until it got Dead Branch. After that, a corruption form a shop turned the run into a very easy win.
Course, my very first attempts at A15 on all characters lead to wipes mid way through act two, but hey!
And then after all my claims of being a terrible robot wizard, he was my first A15 clear. Followed by Silent, then Ironclad (after way too many wipes).
So, that's a pretty big milestone down!
One thing i'm wondering if it might be worth doing for the thread - listing some of the various notable syngergies between cards, relics etc. i.e - Cloak and Dagger+ & Kunai/Shuriken (To a lesser extent, Pen Nib & Nunchucks as well). Or Core Surge/Panacea/Clockwork Souvenir + Beserk/Flex/Hyberbeam/Wraith Form/Biased Cognition
Is this something that'd catch peoples interest to do, or ?
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I'd be interested, for sure. Especially for the Silent. I've been stuck on A10 with Silent forever. I feel like I can only get a win if I happen to grab some ridiculous Shiv+Exhaust relics combo. Pretty sure I'm just not building a solid foundation with my early picks.
Silent - honestly, a lot of silent is just "Block like crazy, and whittle your foes down". I actually find there's less crazy relic synergies with Silent than there are with Defect/Ironclad. (Or at least, there aren't standouts like "Source of artifact + Hyper Beam/Biased Cognition or Corruption + Dead Branch that just win you the run right there)
That said:
Cloak and Dagger is great. C&D+ is even better. Infinite Blades, likewise. Gets stupid the moment you have any kind of Pen Nib/Shuriken/Kunai. Varja is another big one. (Obviously, Accuracy is a big upgrade once you have a couple of C&Ds/an infinite blade). Glass Knife & Dagger Spray also scale well with anything that does nice things to shivs. Finisher is also a really good pay-off to Shivs.
Envenom & Thousand Cuts are great pay-offs to Shivs/multi-hits as well.
Silent's poison cards are strong just due to the way Poison scales. (3 poison on a target - 6 damage. 4? 10 damage. 5 is 15, 6 is 21... You get the idea) Poisoned Stab really needs an upgrade, but is very strong when upgraded - 12 damage straight away for 1 energy is real nice (and by itself it's a total of 22) Noxious Fumes is completely broken once upgraded, like "This wins boss fights on it's own" broken. Crippling Fumes is great. Poison Flask is really strong, if you can spare the energy for it.
Snecko Skull makes all of this that much stronger, and is a big boost to Envenom
Sadistic Nature can also do degenerate things - Neutralise/+ is already a strong card. Adding 4 damage to it, every other source of weak you have, every source of poison application you have can result in a huge damage ramp.
Catalyst can be iffy, but has its uses (Mainly, bursting poison damage before a Cleanse form Champ or Time Eater as an example). Probably best picked once you've got something like a Well Laid Plans+ to let you hold onto it.
Anything that helps you get sustain from Relics can really help out Silent. Eggs, or an early Apotheosis can act as Pseudo-sustain - upgraded cards help you live, and not needing to upgrade cards lets you rest at campfires more often. (...Which is still kinda crap without Pillow, but hey). Toxic Egg is particularity notable given how many good skills Silent has.
Alchemize+ is very powerful, just due to how strong potions generally are. Is vastly improved by having Potion Belt.
Chemical X is a worthy pickup if you have Doppelganger or Skewer, and a windmill slam if you have Malaise.
Discard synergies seem generally somewhat weak - Backflip is just a much nicer card than Acrobatics is.
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...does Snecko give you scurvy?
Yep, also the tentacle from that one asshole mob, and the focus drops from biased cognition. So good
Yeah, my runic pyramid winrate is so high compared to base rate. Especially getting it early. It's probably my favorite all-purpose relic.
Ohhhh it changed, right. That explains why I didn't try it before
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Oh shiz, they buffed it? It was always good, you just raised the risk of getting a no-blockb opening hand and eating shit.
So here are my A1 successes:
Defect:
Silent:
Ironclad
BUt game, i say as it hands me Tough Bandages for my second relic. I dont like discard!
Too bad says game, you're playing discard. *Astrolabe proceeds to turn 3 strikes into a pair of Tacticians and a concentrate*.
Then it stuck me up against the time Eater, because of it did.
He went down pretty easy!
In reality though, this run was carried by an early Noxious Fumes (that then got bottled during the City), and picking up the Specimen right before Slimey boi on the first run. Discard synergies are just.. Awkward, i think unless you scuplt a "goes infinite" deck. (it's telling that later on feeding one of those Tacticians to the bonfire spirits dramatically improved how the deck was performing)
So, uh, the Specimen. Shit's pretty broken as it turns out! Yeah, it can be a Do Nothing on boss fights, but it obliterates any hallway fights, and Stuff like Gremlin Leader gets, well, hilarious. Minions come in, minions die to noxious fumes and some light Aoe, Gremlin Leader gets progressively more horribly ill
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Is Shiv infinite blades, or cloak and dagger, or blade dance, or storm of steel?
I don't think infinite blade is that good, but cloak and dagger+ isn't bad, same with blade dance. And storm of steel can be good with lots of draw in a non-shiv deck.
You might be able to get away with a deck that is basically just mitigation and Storm of Steel, but that presupposes you actually get the card.
I don't disagree, more cards played to deal more damage are obviously a problem with the time Lord. But I think, assuming that decks that are shiv heavy at the final boss don't also have some relics that help is also wrong.
A shiv deck with a dead branch or a wrist blade or a boot or something else.
I like blade dance. It only costs one, and if it's a dead card because of the time Lord, I don't think it's a run killer to just...not play it when you draw it.
My advice is just.. dont focus on giving your deck a set theme. Because the game will screw you with drops if you do.
Shivs can be incredibly potent when you get the support for them (Shuriken, Kunai, Finisher, Wrist Blade...), but like Cloak and Dagger/Infinite Blades are great cards by themselves. (ifnitne blades+ lets you commit 1 energy ofr a constant source of free attacks/damage for the rest of the fight - the moment you have Finisher/Kunai/Shuriken/Pen Nib/Accuracy, this is ridiculously good). Thousand Blades or Envenom are not that uncommon and add huge payoffs to Stuff like Cloak and Dagger
Storm of Steel needs an upgrade, but you can have it as your sole Shiv card and it's still a great "Hi. You. Get fucked" card. (With zero other support, it sitll lets you convert a hand full of cards into free strikes. Which is nothing to sneeze at at all)
Blade Dance i'm less fond of, but again - if you've already got a lot of Shiv support, it goes from being a crappy card to a very solid one. (Thousand Blades+ gives it +6 Aoe Damage, or +8 upgraded. For 1 energy! Nuts!)
But it's still best to let this stuff grow organically - I've just finished act 1 in my current game, i had enough shiv stuff alrady that i went "Why not" at wrist blade (my other options were Lizard Tail and Orrery - it hurt to skip Orrery, but wrist blade is a huge upgrade). But I've still got two whole acts to go - i could easily pivot into more poison if i get a Snecko Skull or Speciem, or even just a blend of the two - It's not like free damage combos badly with poison at all.
Hell, i've reapteadly stomped Time Lord when using Shivs. You dont HAVE to play them. They'll infect your draws for lack of a better word, but it's really not a huge issue - and one of the better ways to deal with TL if you scale fast enough is to simply play 12 cards every turn. Shivs help with this goal immensely.
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High Ascension feels really restrictive in this way - you basically can't take advantage of obvious synergies for fear of the RNG hard-countering you. Which makes deck building more a matter of getting safe value rather than trying to find something hilariously broken.
It is a tough line to balance so I'm not sure there's an easy answer from a game design perspective.
This has two effects. First, if you are trying to build a deck around a 3-cost card, you can still play that card in the early game without completely screwing any one turn. So this punishes expensive decks less, and you can actually build with expensive cards in mine from the beginning.
Second, it decreases the overall focus on energy. Almost any deck in any class needs at least 4 energy to function at full capacity. Not all, but most. And that % gets larger as you climb ascension ranks and the list of viable decks gets shorter. Base 4 energy opens options at all levels of play.
I think this would have the effect of making the first zone a bit easier, but likely the second and third zones about the same, or even harder depending on the rarity balance of energy relics.
The overall idea is to decrease the focus on energy at the early stages of the game and limit the ability in the late game to trivialize card costs.
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Three energy is fine. There are multiple cards per character that shift energy or gain energy for a turn. With Ironclad, I have Berserk, Dropkick, Seeing Red, Bloodletting, Offering if I need energy. Sentinel too if I play exhaust. There are ways to generate. It's not as consistent, sure. But they give you options to work around having just three energy.
I think that part of the problem is that 2 and 3 cost cards are often only barely worth it unless you have 4+ energy or a relic synergy. If I were to buff them I'd go after their anti-synergy with powerful relics like Kunai and (less so) pen nib.
2 and 3 cost cards are pretty universally amazing. Sure, you can't always play them, but the number of cards that you can always play is incredibly short. Their value is in providing you with more "effective" card draw in the sense that with those 5 cards in hand you're more likely to be able to reach for the damage you want with a Bludgeon or the block you need with a Leg Sweep, as opposed to hoping that you draw three 1-cost cards. With more value consolidated in a single card, you can run a thinner deck, improving consistency, and improving the value you get from upgrades.
A two cost card has to be bonkers good to get run. A three cost card will never see play until there is some consistent spare energy.
If there’s almost no point in using expensive cards, that feels like a big hole in the design. I’m SURE Megacrit has considered this issue, and there is a reason they picked the 3-energy base. But I would love to hear about how and why they came to that conclusion, and look at whether or not that still works given the current state of the game.