Hey guys, Yangzera here to talk about the new expansion! It’s always a good time to cover new releases and this time is no different! We’ve got a new mechanic and a new card type in Elemental spells and Abilities. Without further ado, let’s talk about them, shall we?
Elemental Spells and Abilities
A batch of old cards got updated to include the “Elemental” tag! LoR’s twitter has an infographic about them and here you can see all Elemental spells and unit skills:
As you may have noticed, a few spells have the wrong icon on them and other ones we have never seen before! My recommendation is to guide yourself through the spells and abilities names and search any you don’t know on the in-game client.
All implications as to what it means to be an elemental spell remain to be discovered, but we’ve seen a fair bit of synergy points in today’s reveals! Let’s go over them one by one.
Deluge
This is an interesting spell with a lot of potential. Its true power remains to be seen as we discover what the other elemental spells and abilities to be revealed do. So far, this looks like a decent card but there’s very few actual synergy points in the current card pool. The most notable synergy points are with Ice Shard
and Avalanche
, aiming to try and regain a bit of the tempo you lose for casting a 5 mana do-nothing spell early on in the game. Tidal Invocation
so far is the main immediate payoff for Deluge, but I think we need to see a few more cards to truly understand Deluge’s powerlevel. So far, a 2/5 card with potential to be much, much more.
Wizened Helmsman
At first glance, it may look like a bad 7-drop, but I really like Helmsman and what he does. There’s a lot of value to manifesting cards you’ve already played, because it means you’re manifesting cards that are in your deck to begin with, which means you’re always manifesting good cards. With Disintegrate
becoming an Elemental card alongside Tidal Invocation, I can already see this card as spot-on removal at worst, but he can manifest into extra copies of Deluge if value is the goal of the match. I think Helmsman will definitely see play, especially in a much slower and lower powerlevel Stanadrd format. 4/5 card for me.
Vikrash the Exuberant
This card looks stupid busted. It already sees play in Bilgewater Noxus spellslinger archetypes like Samira
with Fizz
or Nami
, but definitely is just a good card overall. Slipstream really shows us what Riot was talking about when they said Twisted Fate
had to rotate so they could print better draw spells without breaking the game, and I absolutely dig it now. Vikrash will see play in a lot of decks, but at the end of the day it’s a pretty synergistic card, very strong effect and super fun card to see in the game. Solid 4/5.
Formless Blade
We finally broke fundamental rules of the game and printed burst speed damage to enemy units. I don’t know how to feel about this card yet because we’ll have to see how strong a Lord Broadmane
deck with Bilgewater is in standard, but this card is kind of scary with Lord Broadmane and Disintegrate specifically. In conjunction with one of these cards it is a burst speed unit kill effect and as much as I like it, I am slightly worried about its effect in the meta game. It comes as a nice side buff to units like Coral Creatures
and Wiggly Burblefish
too, which is very nice. So far, a 3/5 card for me.
Wildfire
Very interesting win condition for Noxus, and a card I’m interested to see how good it really is. Wildfire will kill the opponent from full HP on its 6th cast, but it will be lethal with only 5 casts if you deal some incidental damage. It really adds up pretty quickly but I personally don’t think that aggro decks will support this card very well. Maybe I’m crazy here, but it looks to me like some sort of Piltover deck with lots of draw and incidental removal are the right place to be at with this card. Maybe some Bandle City control, but it’s hard to say because Bandle has little access to card draw nowadays, but I think this is more of a control card then it is an aggro card, because your average Pirates list doesn’t have the luxury to be playing 1 mana pings and won’t have as much time to draw into multiple copies of Wildfire. 3/5 card with potential to be meta defining once the right build is found.
Overall Theme of the Expansion
I personally really like the direction of Bilgewater towards a more spell slinging region with a “high risk high reward” thematic.The recent Nami rework looks like it will fit the new expansion very nicely and I’m stoked to see how Nilah fairs in the meta game, but at the same time worried that Samira will simply take over the format once again. From the Elemental cards it looks like we’re getting Janna and Volibear as the expansion’s roster and I’m really happy with that as a Janna lover. I’m super excited to keep up with the reveals and hopefully this set will shake up the standard meta game.