Champions Cards Balance Changes
Lux & Final Spark
"I guess you could call this LoR's very first rework. Lux is an iconic character who was falling short of our champion bar in a few ways: tough to build around, didn't have a great deck to call home, and her dream--blasting your hapless foes with multiple Final Sparks--was too difficult to realize (a real shame given the visual payoff).
Now, Lux drops later in the game with more defensive stats, but is much less clunky to level up and threatens to take over the game once she does. At the cost of slightly reduced power, Final Spark now casts for the excellent price of FREE, and you even get one immediately upon leveling up to get the light show started.
To top it all off, you can now conjure two Sparks in a single turn; heck, THREE is technically possible, and we can't wait to see the clips. Overall, Lux should now be much easier to build around and level up, with satisfyingly spectacular results once you do."
Garen
"Garen was a bit too narrow in usage at his old price point, and often had better options in his "best fit" deck--Elites, so we’ve dropped his cost and stats by one each to make him a more flexible inclusion in a wider variety of decks."
Draven
"We want champions to be cards you can build a deck around, not just automatically included for a given archetype. Draven was pretty much universally optimal in any Noxus aggro deck, so we're reducing his raw stat power to make sure you have to put in more dedicated effort to unlock his power."
Shen
"Shen decks are often overloaded with tools to keep him and his followers alive, but he had so much health that it was tough to take him out even when opponents get past the wall of tricks. We want opposing players to have a more realistic shot at taking Shen down once they manage to land a blow."
Thresh & The Box
"We've removed Thresh's old healing effect and bumped his health to compensate. It had some cool play patterns, but also some extremely complex implications that often just frustrated both players.
We also want both players to have more room to play around Thresh's level-up quest, so we've upped the threshold while extending the counter to units on both sides of the board. Now, Thresh players can fully embrace the Shadow Isles' "kill my units for fun and profit" toolkit, while opponents have a bit more opportunity to bring Thresh down before he levels up. Plus, Thresh definitely doesn't seem like one to care WHO'S dying, only that there's dying going on.
Finally, we've overhauled The Box. We've junked its formerly narrow design, and replaced it with a new effect that works great with Thresh's quest and adds another option to the Shadow Isles' best-in-class removal suite."
Kalista
"Similar motivation to that behind the Thresh changes--Kalista's old mechanic entailed a ton of complexity for both players, so we looked for a clearer way to achieve similar results. Kalista now features some evasion to help her still deal damage on her own, plus an ally buff that'll present opponents with a familiar quandary--take free damage, or kill the ally and contribute to Kalista's quest."
Elise
"This is mostly a thematic-driven change, but also gives players running spider synergies more flexibility in turning them on."
