Followers & Spells
Tianna Crownguard
The combo of sizable stats and such a potent effect in a single package warrants a slightly higher cost.
Detain
We'd like Demacia decks to have more access to interactive spells, and a cheaper Detain should be an appealing option for a wider variety of decks.
Mageseeker Investigator
The old design wasn't particularly usable in any deck. Now, the Investigator should have a more meaningful, straightforward role--especially in decks built around the new Lux--while remaining delightfully thematic.
Mobilize
By effectively turning spell mana into regular mana, Mobilize offers a rather unique effect that we think provides too much potential acceleration at its old cost.
Basilisk Rider
This bad boy simply offered too robust a statline for its cost. We want Noxus aggro decks to succeed because they hit hard, not because they're also very resilient to removal, so we're lowering its survivability while preserving its offensive potential.
Intimidating Roar
For a card intended to support Noxus' aggressive gameplan, Intimidating Roar's Fast speed also made it an extremely powerful defensive trick. Slow speed focuses the card on its intended use case while making it less potent as a catch-all tool.
Precious Pet
Precious Pet's effect was unique and interesting to play with, but unfortunately far too powerful at such a cheap cost, rendering it a near auto-include in Noxus decks. For now, we're valuing its role in the card set as a cheap, aggressive spider, so we're doubling down on that while tossing its old effect back into our design bank for now.
Reckoning
For a sweeper with such high potential to be one-sided, Reckoning was just too easy to slot into decks at its old cost.
She Who Wanders & Balesight
We knew going into the first preview patch that this one was a TAD overtuned, and you all sure recognized it as well. "She Who Wins" proved devastatingly powerful, with only the narrowest options for counterplay--we particularly didn't like that she Obliterated champions along with the rank and file. She Who Wanders is definitely still intended as a top-rate finisher, but the several changes we've made should give opponents more of a fighting chance (both to win and, ya know, have fun).
Avalanche
Avalanche had some nasty edge cases in the form of draws and "guess I'll die" situations for control decks. We fixed that.
Heart of the Fluft
Heart of the Fluft's effect is a big, dangerous one to take place at Burst speed, so we'd like players to have more of a window to interact with their opponent's efforts to set up an overpowering Fluft.
Wyrding Stones
Wyrding Stones was a little too explosive at its old price, so we're ticking its cost up by one and giving it more health to compensate its secondary role as a blocker.
Scarmaiden Reaver
This change is mostly Expeditions-inspired--we found that the card was a bit too beefy at its rarity and was crowding out other choices.
Navori Bladescout
Navori Bladescout was a little too all-or-nothing--outstanding in the right situation, much less so in the wrong ones. We're toning down its extremes so it's a little less explosive but more consistently useful.
Sown Seeds
Its old cost made Sown Seeds more narrow in usage than we'd like, and its potent effect enabled a particularly linear, all-in Elusive deck that made for pretty non-interactive games against unprepared players. With that in mind, we're nerfing its power to rein in the potential for abuse, while lowering its cost to fit the new power level and improve flexibility.
Corina Veraza
We want to be cautious with big stats attached to sweeper effects, and Corina's top-end potential was devastating in the right deck. We love the interesting deckbuilding choices presented by her effect, so we decided to keep it intact while increasing cost and reducing stats to rein her in.
Assembly Bot
This is another change driven by Expeditions, where Assembly Bot was the core of a hilarious (the first time at least) but extremely degenerate deck. While making changes, we're also taking the opportunity to simplify the card's play patterns.
Augmented Experimenter
Potential Nexus damage was a bit too much on top of everything else this card offers, so we're removing that capability while retaining its core strengths.
Chempunk Shredder
As you can see from some other changes, there was a lot of incidental damage to the enemy Nexus in Piltover & Zaun, all with the potential to be buffed by Funsmith. Chempunk Shredder's intended role is unit control, so we removed the splash damage to the Nexus to allow us more space to make exciting direct damage cards in the future.
Eager Apprentice
Eager Apprentice is an appealing follower for Piltover decks built around spells, but we felt it was coming down a bit too late to suit its secondary role as a speed bump blocker, and was a little awkward when trying to get maximum spell mana out of it. We think its new design will be a better overall tool for spell decks, including Lux's new-and-improved deck.
Flame Chompers
Chompers may seem a relatively innocent part of the discard deck, but it was an amazingly flexible tool for pushing through damage, locking up multiple potential blockers, and ambushing at Burst discard speed. Thematically and mechanically, we want Chompers to generally tie up a unit for one combat, not many, so we're reducing its health.
Flash of Brilliance
Flash of Brilliance was a fun tool for the "six-cost spells matter" deck, but the Lux changes gave us the flexibility to streamline this card and make it a better fit for the new Lux / Heimerdinger deck.
Rising Spell Force
Buffing-only spells are intended to be used only on your own units, so we're updating this one for better clarity.
Absorb Soul
We don't think it's healthy for players to be able to kill their own units at Burst speed without interaction — especially things like Cursed Keeper! In general, we want units entering and exiting the board to occur at Fast speed or slower to allow interaction, so this change is designed to line Absorb Soul up with that philosophy.
Glimpse Beyond
See Absorb Soul above.
Grasp of the Undying
This is complementary to the Rising Spell Force tweak--we want "destructive" spells to be able to target any unit to provide synergy opportunities with "damage me" units (like Braum) and "kill me" units (like Cursed Keeper).
The Box
See Thresh on page 1.
Warden's Prey
The old design was nifty, but not quite powerful enough to make it a meaningful option for the decks that want this kind of effect. The new version continues to play to the Shadow Isles' strengths, but should be more usable.
Withering Wail
This change is targeted at the extremes, in the form of massive heals against wide boards or with a damage boost from Funsmith, which could be frustrating to play against and offered an often overpowering tool for control decks. As consolation, you've now got a guaranteed minimum heal to plan around.
Brood Awakening
We love Brood Awakening's flexibility for a "swarm the board" card, but it makes for an extremely powerful effect that we'd like to slightly delay hitting the board.
