Legends of Runeterra

[Isis]

These are what I see as the most significant advantages Legends of Runeterra has over other CCGs:

1. Production value, easily the best UI of any game I've played and the voice actors are really trying. Playing with characters kind of adds a little emotion to a genre that doesn't always have it.

2. Increased decision tree diversity from the Spell Mana mechanic, which makes it unnecessary to "curve out"
In Legends of Runeterra you can bank up to three unused mana (indefinitely) but that mana can only be used for spells. That means if you fail to use all your mana in a turn, the penalty is reduced or even erased. This adds more flexibility.
Banking 3 mana without a restriction would be broken because you could save up for a powerful proactive play with few harsh counters, like Dr. Boom or Siege Gang Commander. Spells generally only draw you cards or kill your enemy's units with no potential to snowball like that. The spells that do have that potential have their cost increased to make sure the mechanic isn't abused.
You often get choices about playing a card that's not perfect for the situation, or saving mana. In other card games, it's a trivial choice to just play cards and use all your mana. It makes it more interesting and difficult to play a Legends of Runeterra deck perfectly.

3. Meaningful use of combat tricks. Combat tricks are spells you can play instantly to enhance a minion just before a fight and make sure it wins, or defend a minion from a removal. Hearthstone locks you out of the game when it's not your turn, and magic has some design reasons that it's necessary to always make these cards cost more mana they are worth. But in Legends of Runeterra they are pretty meaningful and it can be interesting to try to guess whether your opponent has one and use yours for maximum value. They are a pretty interesting class of cards.



Some thing people might think are advantages that I think aren't:

1. Deck diversity : The raw number of decks you could play at the top of the ladder is pretty decent, but I'm not sure they're meaningfully different in a way that makes this much better than other CCGs.

2. Limited : It's very affordable which is nice but without being able to identify the problems to you clearly this feels worse than most ccg limited environments I've played. There were some balance issues on release, but I don't think that's what's going on. The games themselves are interesting due to the benefits I mentioned earlier that also make constructed interesting, but as a drafting experience it's pretty meh.

3. Ability to Timmy around your favorite champion : The game is pretty punishing if you're not playing the cards that are actually optimal. Any game will find you other people who are being casual on the ladder if you're being casual but playing specific cards if you really want to win is going to happen in virtually every card game.
The game tends to not have deck matchups that are 90/10ish, though, so maybe that should count here.

[Albert B. Rampage]

Who wants to duel?

[xRECKONERx]

Man this thread is dead!

i've been playing the fuck out of the Shurima expansion. I love it so much. I haven't messed with Azir or Nasus decks yet but I'm having a ton of success with Lissandra/Trundle control shells. I think Renekton is probably good too, I just really hate the overwhelm midrange style of deck (red/green was my least fave deck to play in MTG too).

My dream is to figure out a mono-Shurima build that ramps for Azir but I don't have nearly enough cards yet. Waiting till I finish the event pass for that juicy shiny Azir

[Isis]

I can't remember why I stopped playing LoR is pretty solid