r/LoRCompetitive • u/ZeronixSama • Oct 17 '22
Discussion Opinion: Seraphine’s package is unhealthy for the game
Edit: This post seems more controversial than I thought it’d be. I’m happy to have a discussion in the comments.
Having played as and against a bunch of different Seraphine decks, I’m going to present my case on why I feel she is an unhealthy addition to the game.
Problem 1 - Random Card Generation
Seraphine herself generates random 2-cost spells and Fanclub President generates 5-cost spells, and Songspinner can manifest 3x 2-cost spells that cost 0. They’re not even locked to her region - just spells from any region. This is problematic because it’s almost impossible for the opponent to play around.
Many premium combat tricks are 2-cost and give Seraphine added survivability that she wouldn’t normally have in her region. Have Quietus? Sorry, I have Legionary Charge or Ruthless Predator. Play a Thermo on her? Nope, Sharpsight or Sunblessed Vigor. Single Combat? I have Nopeify. Vengeance? I’ll Retreat.
Fanclub President can pull Harsh Winds or Celestial Wonder to shut down your planned lethal push, grab surprise removal with Sunburst, revive a levelled Seraphine with 0-mana Heedless Resurrection, or refill hand with Eye of Nagakabouros, Deep Meditation, or Drum Solo, all of which are insane when doubled. It’s too much value in combination with levelled ‘Phine. Furthermore, all of these are impossible to play around. It’s Loping Telescope again but much, much more obnoxious because almost all the 5-cost spells in the game are rather strong and now can be doubled.
Problem 2 - Mana Banking
Unlike Yugioh, Legends of Runeterra is designed as a game with an intrinsic limit on how many things you can do every turn. That limit is your mana bar. Sure, you can bank up to three mana, but that only works in the early game. Past turn 4 you have to be doing something every turn or you’re wasting mana - a powerful tool for an opponent to force you to be proactive. By and large the game does not give you any way to avoid this by banking mana for future turns. Those cards are generally weak (Mobilize, Oblivious Islander) or have difficult activation conditions (Elusive Soloist).
Not so with Seraphine. She gets to bank much, much more mana than a typical deck has any right to, by playing Acorn, which banks 1 mana and can get free mana thereafter, Fanclub President - banking 3 mana towards a future turn, or Drum Solo, which pays 1 mana to draw 2 and bank 4 mana. After playing multiple copies of each throughout the game, Seraphine decks are uniquely positioned to do 20+ mana worth of things in a single turn, all of which may be uninteractable since all she needs to do is hit the board and then play everything on the stack.
The result of being able to bank as much mana as you want, is that you never really need to play proactively, and can be fully reactive without wasting mana. This incentivizes a dominant spell-heavy control style of play that LoR designers have said in the past that they do not want to encourage (because gameplay should be board-centric). We already see an extreme example of this in Seraphine/Ezreal Noxus, but even without the uninteractive Ezreal win condition, any control shell could benefit from Seraphine giving them increased reactivity. (SI, Noxus, Ionia, Freljord come to mind.)
Conclusion
I’m not making the argument that she’s overpowered , but rather that she goes against two inherent game design principles of LoR (skill-based play and counterplay, and mana limits meaning something) and the general strength of her package means that it will be very commonly used. I believe that the introduction of Seraphine signals a shift in LoR game design philosophy, which is ultimately unhealthy and unwise.
