Riot is keeping an eye on card stealing, nexus damage, and Unyielding Spirit in Legends of Runeterra
If you’re tired of invincible units, direct face damage, and having your own cards used against you in Legends of Runeterra, help may be on the way. Because in addition to an extensive list of nerfs, buffs, and bug fixes, Riot Games added a few things to their “watchlist,” as a part of their patch notes for the game’s 1.2 update.
Unyielding Spirit, the eight mana Demacian Burst spell that makes the unit it’s cast on indestructible, is on Riot’s radar for a potential nerf. The card is particularly devastating because its Burst speed doesn’t let opposing players react to it. Riot says that they haven’t adjusted it yet because “a quick numbers change is more likely to just push the card out of playability rather than addressing any core issues.” So for now we’ll just have to be content with the fact that they’re aware of its overwhelming effect, and hope that the next balance patch will include a sensible change.
Some players, especially Freljord fans, have been frustrated with new card stealing mechanics that yoink cards from the top of opponent’s decks, and Riot has now stated that cards like Pilfered Goods and Black Market Merchant are under investigation. A lot of Freljord decks rely on buffs that provide stat increases to cards atop player’s decks, so this new mechanic has been a big reason for Freljord’s sparse representation in the current meta.
Riot states that “losing against your own cards when an opponent draws from your deck can be a frustrating experience, especially if you’re playing with deck-buffing Freljord effects. Pilfered Goods is a particular culprit as its power level is rather high, and drawing multiple cards is more likely to create “stole the perfect card” situations.”
Finally, while Riot will nerf Boomcrew Rookie with the upcoming patch, it doesn’t seem like that’ll be the stopping point of their quest to quell direct face damage cards in Legends of Runeterra. They specifically mention “pirates, Plunder, and Noxian siege weapons” as culprits, and say that “the scope of this issue is rather large, so we’ll continue to monitor it (and the effect of the changes in this patch) over time.”
Anything that Riot adds to their watchlist usually does end up getting changed at some point, so it’s a pretty safe bet that changes will be made to these cards in the near future. Read the full patch notes here.
