Why Ephemeral Decks feel so Bad to play in Legends of Runeterra
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- čas přidán 21. 08. 2024
- An in-depth look at Ephemeral decks. Why do champions like Hecarim and Kalista never get played?
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I try to make educational and entertaining videos for Legends of Runeterra with new decks every video. I only include the most intense and interesting games against meta decks to help you learn how to use your cards against them. That, or hilarious meme matches.
Thank you so much for watching and supporting the channel 😊
League of Legends and Legends of Runeterra Hecarim, Kalista and Viego, an in-depth look at Ephemeral decks and why they are unplayable. Why are they so bad in the Riot Games cardgame? Runeterra analysis video.
MASSIVE CREDITS TO SollyzCrown for the Thumbnail and Sunny Papaya art.
Special thanks to: Lady Maniac, SollyzCrown, Cryo24, YURI,TheLegendXXVII, God, Shadoka and Saxgard.
#lor #LegendsofRuneterra #Snnuy - Hry
Snnuy to harrowing: your board only exists for one turn
Anivia decks with harrowing: 😏
Pyke
@@miljan775 Annoying moment
Sion decks with harrowing
Honestly I should have mentioned that in the video, it's not really an ephemeral deck but definitely works in unique ways with Anivia. Great call!
@@miljan775 im pretty sure u have to do 2 pykes 1 for the anivia 2 for the egg...
Love these types of videos man! LoR community needs them I feel :)
100% agree. Sunny is creating a new genre in lor-youtube, scriped "higher quality" videos instead of the countless deck introduction + gameplay videos
Thank you! Already working on another video ;)
Why do Detain, Entomb, Spirit Journey, Transmogulator and Possession still cost 5+ when the straight up "kill anything" Vengeance costs only 6 ?
At least the boring ephemerals are playable in the not so horrible Azir-Hecarim decks and Prankster burn decks, but these super interesting spells have just never been playable at all.
@Arthur C Those cards all serve different purposes and are more flexible than Vengeance. Vengeance removes a threat from the board, but can't be used to protect your units like Entomb, Detain, and Spirit Journey can. Nor can it be used to duplicate units like Transmogulator. Or to trigger Summon effects or Last Breath multiple times like Spirit Journey. You are also comparing cards between regions which works poorly in LoR where you can't run cards from every region. A better argument would be "why is minimorph still 6 mana when it is an infinitely better Vengeance?" Finally, if you look back you'll find that Entomb (through Three Sisters), Detain, and Transmogrify have all seen play at some point, whether in a ladder competitive deck or a tournament deck. Spirit Journey hasn't seen play despite its flexibility because in the end it doesn't really accomplish anything that another card doesn't do better (Vengeance, Chronicler, and Gluttony). I have nothing to say about Possession, however. That card is just bad.
Imagine a big overlord shade that had passive effect: your ephemeral units don't die at round end. I'm thinking like 6-8 drop with no real offensive threat like mirror mage. Could even make it cheaper and give it nightfall and make it darkness themed so it's like a true horror ephemeral nightfall archetype
I would LOVE a "your ephemerals don't die at round end" kind of effect, but it would be very very swingy to tie to a card, since it would make a massive difference in strategy if you draw it or not. Still, very cool idea
i would make a low drop that revives your dead ephemeral units that died last turn. (maybe not all of them)
All hail nocturn
20:24 You got me here. Ephemerals was one of my very first decks and I loved Hecarim ever since - until I realized the archetype is bs. So I totally adore the spotlight on in.
Even tho the edgy me doesn´t want it to be Tier 0, it definitly needs some love.
Before watching the video, I'd say it's because you have to commit way more mana than any other deck in the game to maintain a steady board presence, which leads to a lack of blockers in a lot of cases. A nice buff would be to remove "dies when striking" from ephemerals.
not bandle city
Yeah the "dies after striking" sucks, let us do some weird double attack ephemeral or something :)
The biggest eph prob is u loose all your reacouces to quickly, if they added a way to draw cards when a eph died the deck would do a lot better. The only eph that replaces itself is hadow seer
The tier list at the end is perfect!
You could figure it out to be Lee, but Ionia in general being in D tier is the best part
The dream tier list
If Jhin is not a 4 mana, 4 power, 4 health champion, he is not Jhin....
He's already confirmed to be 4 mana so there's that
It would make more sense for his lvl 1 to be a 3/3 so his final form can be a 4/4.
FOUR
@@Snnuy I have always watched your content Mr. Snnuy, and I have always been interested in LoR, but your content made me install it! Now I am enjoying labs!
@@definitelynotvj Awesome! What's your favorite champion in labs?
Ephemerals is such a great concept but they never put it on the reflector, Shark charriot is one of the most fun cards and introduced the concept of a "sematary" and "spirit" from yugioh, I will always love the charriot even if it never gets better
I love this community. And it takes more balls than people realize to give your thoughts the important they deserve. So good on you for that youtube career man, seems bright.
Thank you so much! Honestly a big part of creating these videos is making sure I don't give wrong information because I know I will get called out for it (rightfully so, but not always in the nicest way)
@@Snnuy there's always gonna be a salty troll somewhere but your numbers are just going up hehehe
The Ephemeral archetype was one of my first and one of my favorites, despite the flaws it feels realyl good to build a board out of nothing every turn and combo the enemy down. I like the Hecarim buff you suggested, but I also think ephemerals should have more value in general. The 3/5/5 with lifesteal is a good standard for this, the Haunted Relic spooky bois could all have fearsome to flex them into both aggro and ephemeral decks, and I really like the focus speed suggestion for Onslaught of Shadows. I also think there needs to be more cards like Blighted Caretaker, bodies that generate ephemeral units so you're not left high and dry playing the archetype. Really hope we see buffs for this playstyle soon.
we might get more ephemeral units and cards when mordekaiser or yorick finally come to runeterra! i wonder what cards are going to be released for june and july!
Same here! Yorick is definitely one of my favorites
I did enjoy playing Hecarim in Lab of Legends, shame that they shoveled that mode into the trash for Path of Champions. Path is overall better but it just doesn't have the same freedom that Lab did with it's variety of champions and rerolled starting power.
I honestly loved how fast and easy everything was in Lab of Legends over Path of Champions
it's just there are not many starter champions yet in the mode. maybe throw it in the whole starter champion in the trash. pick a champ, and build a limited starter deck and just play. simple! you get rewards as you level up the same way as it is right now with path.
honestly i dont understand why they didnt introduce path as its own thing instead of cannibalizing lab
@@MiruninOath57 but it works. as they said, it is the most successful game mode they ever made.
Your discussion videos are soooooooo gooood please please continue. This is a niche we need
More is on the way! Thank you friend
Awesome video! I love your analysis vids. Shadow Isles was my first love when I started LoR the same month it launched, and I've always tried to get that ephemeral deck working "in house". And I totally agree: Hecarim level up and effects were and continue to be top notch! That said, I also love the "mist power up" sound and effect.
a bit late to the party but i got to diamond this season with a homebrew hecarim/viego deck and it wasn't half bad. hecarim has been my favorite champ partly because he's an underdog and partly because it feels great when these all-or-nothing turns of desperation actually win you the game in a spectacular way. sure some games were viego levels up -> opp surrenders, but some were the full might of the shadow isles attacking while a neverglade slurps in the backline and this just brings me joy. i haven't tried for masters but if one day heca receives a little love from rito, i'll be on my way
Hey Sunny, just wanted to say I really love these kind of videos. You're by far my favorite Runeterra content creator.
Also, petition to rename Zed to 'the Sunny Papaya'
I'm fine with ephemeral having a downside and I'm fine with them being great on offence but bad on defence, with that being said I think the ephemeral cards needs some buffs. Shark Chariot should defenitly have its "cannot block" removed because the game is in a much different state right now, not to mention with BC being on top of the meta it can be removed with the likes of Pokey Stick and Group Shot. I could see some other cards being buffed like Hecarim as well, because I think Kalista isn't as bad as people make her out to be but the fact that ephemerals have little to no support really hurts her from being viable.
Great video Sunny and I do hope that in April these cards will get some much deserved love, and some damn win quotes!
I think there's still a lot of design space to explore with ephemeral units:
-2 mana burst spell (Remove Ephemeral from a Unit) (Maybe make a 1 drop that creates this in hand)
-2 Mana 4 / 3 ephemeral (Nexus Strike, remove Ephemeral from this unit)
-2 mana fast spell (An Ephemeral unit strikes an enemy, add a fleeting copy of this card to your hand)
-6-ish mana Landmark or unit (Round start: Grant Ephemeral to the strongest follower)
They may not be balanced well, but these are just a few ideas I came up with off the top of my head.
These discussion/rework concept videos are by far my favorite Legends of Runeterra content to consume. Take my Twitch sub forever Mr. Snnuy
I love when you were saying about those epic sounds some archetypes have and you said about the Pyke last just to say "THE LIST goes on" *chef's kiss* 💚
I love these longer and produced videos! Great job
I really enjoy neverglade collector and the powder monkeys... but it suffers from the same issues, no protection in the native regions so your value engines are easily removed, and you get swarmed or beaten down.
Also RIP overgrown snapvine, I wish you were good T-T
It feels like Riot is watching these old videos and finding ways to make the cards broken.
Oh my , I liked the videos before, because love people doing things they like
But this, this interests me, love SI
I love hearing the P4 music, I always feel like it gets forgotten, especially with P5 being so polished in comparison, so it's lovely to hear it.
19:04 funny how this is exactly what Hecarim does now
What if Ephemerals just go away when it strikes not on round end
Or instead every round just dying after they strike and if you have attacked with them dying only after attacking could make them much more viable being able to develop before attacking
That would be cool as a level up for a champ!
I love veigo as a champion in LOL when he came to LOR he's concept and sound of his mist. Plus him stealing units or Champs. Sadly he's only playable around ionia and recalled mists to make a chunky and fast lvled champ
You weren't kidding when you said you got a good video coming up. Love the vid !
I think with Viego’s release, Kalista and Hecarim should have had their group of supports/followers.
Maybe they could have been wraiths of soldiers, nightmarish chimeras of riders, ghastly apparitions of nobles, and possessed armors.
And they could have aura effects that delay Ephemerals’ death until those Ephemeral units enter combat or extend their lifespan for a turn or two… besides, buffing them or adding temporary keywords like Elusive and Lifesteal.
Or they could have conditional graveyard recursion like with Shark Chariot or similar conditions.
Or they could fetch graveyard stuff or spawn additional copies of themselves on Round Start when certain conditions are met.
Or even conditional Kill, Obliterate or Bounce effects when Ephemeral units die - either as an Aura or even a support Landmark that hopefully spawns a unit on play.
Idk…
I think it comes down to the fact they are foundation champs too, those champions dind't really get a "follower package"
@@Snnuy Was Vladimir not part of the starting set? And even if he was and the Crimson Circle card didn’t count as proper support groups, he had the Crimson beast thing added to his group a few expansions later…?
Would be nice if the LoR team added a mini-expansion update for the initial set of Champions with maybe some tweak/rework and a bit of a support package for the never used ones.
I like Kalista with the kraken card. Every Attack you get the 5 hp livesteal. And also usually it doesnt die because of the big hp so it hits anyways
I missed somehow this video. Saw it in your new Bandle City video. Glad im here another great video
Great video! Hecarim is my fav champ when it works but most of the time the board is empty.
Let's fucking go those vids are always great
I am a really Ephemeral fan, but the only way i found it worth playing was with Monkey + Shark and Prak child burn by dealing direct nexus dmg even when they die
Sadly, it's the only way to see epheemeral value
hello I'm starting a channel to play legends of runeterra please come if you have time :)
I think that what ephemeral needs is 2 things, 1 a champion like kharthas that at the beginning of the turn he could resummon all ephemeral units, this allows for a better defensive games where you don't just loose your board but its still fragile as one piece can make it fall. 2 some ephemeral exclusive defense. like putting the kalisa level up effect of redirecting dmg to a unit with ephemeral. this let's you keep the champions alive to capitalize on the tempo you get from the keyword while not having to try for some OTK
i started playing runterra around a year ago and hecarim zed was the first deck i made. followed by hecarim azir. I love ephemeral so much. when viego was released he quickly became my favorite champ to play. hope shadow isle champs and base set champs get some love and quality changes :)
hello I'm starting a channel to play legends of runeterra please come if you have time :D
Zedcarim burn has become my favorite deck when I just want to not think about how I play. You just swing and your 0/3 or 2/4 does all the work from the backline.
*aggro
anything is possible, if you cope hard enough. Sunny is living proof
Copium addict
Did you mean snnuy? Or actually Sunny? Cause it fits both ways
Sunny here with the hot take on ephemeral problems. I got my coffee, and I am here! Great vid!
Hey look, Hecarim now grants the +3/+0 permanently now. How does it feel calling it months ahead of time?
AH man, watching this vid after last patch feels so good! Nocturn found his place in the world now and it's just FANTASTIC
I love this type of videos, you're the greatest
No u
Your words at the end hit me hard. Bc, I am having so much fun with hecarim as a noob in gold. :(
DISCOURSE. HELL YEAH. I'm new to this game and I found out about you from your collab with a hearthstone youtuber, with is funny af because I don't even play HS.
The shadow isles ephemerals are supposed to be played early to finish games asap, but it's defining champion hecarim has the cost of a mid to late game card so yeah
Darkwater scourge is god
Tbh the best ephemeral unit probably
Is it tho? It never really saw play till masked mother wad added to the game.
@@travisprescott9708 it is, I had a Zed Hecarim deck and it was a staple. Against aggro decks is when it shines.(turn 3 with mark of death is a cool combo)
Yes, 5 mana with maskmother you have a 7|7 unit lifesteal and fearsome. With grand plaza you have challenger too.
@@travisprescott9708 I personally love it cause it heals a ton and forces some kinda block or spell on a follower thats already going to die.
i'm gonna ask grapp to view this amazing well edited video on his stream tomorrow. goodjob sunny 👏
hello I'm starting a channel to play legends of runeterra please come if you have time :D
"God I love greed in card games."
based sunny
That tierlist near the end cracked me up :d
A man can dream
Another one way i think to make Ephemeral something like "If when attacking im blocked, destroy me after i strike". So it opens up the choice to the blocker, do I allow the attack with my units alive, or block some attack to reduce board presence the attackers.
Excellent video sunny! Well presented and fun throughout! 😹
Need a unit/landmark with "when you summon a unit, give it overwhelm this round" that may help ephemerals be more viable especially in a hecarim deck
I think the first deck I built in Runeterra was some rather simple Elise-Hecarim aggro deck. It still works quite well today lol.
This community needs more discussion videos.
These videos are so much fun! I love your voice and commentary and it's super nice to just be able to listen and do something while not having to watch the video. I'd love to you make a video roasting Ionia for 30 minutes!
My favorite deck in lor to this date is still kalista tianna combo, there is just too satisfying getting to play something special when the concept works and show to to people. I do hope i can showcase it on one of your tourney one day
Wow, this video was actually super entertaining. The editing was top notch and your points were communicated well. I'm not really in the market for gameplay videos, because between Mogwai Lobster and the occasional Alan upload, I get enough of that. But these higher production value type videos certainly have a place in my LoR media diet. Hope to see more!
I still whip out Spooky OTK (Lucian/Hecarim) every now and then. Quite fun to play, but when I compare it to another really fast combo deck I greatly enjoy: Mono Shurima RekSai, it is clear which of the two is more powerful.
19:00 called it
When you thought Shadow Isles is the "villain" of runeterra world but instead it's Ionia with their skill to say "No" to everything.
love these types of videos mang!
I saw someone propose rend as a cheap damage spell that deals damage based on the amount of Ally’s that died the round or even as a token that kalista gets on level up for ally’s that died the whole game so she can deal with bigger units
ANOTHER BANGER! I absolutely love all the little jokes and remarks you make, and your points are... well, on point! 😄😄
"Its like expecting your jungler to gank. Its not going to happen" LMAO IM DYING
I remember Hecarim used to leave the buff on units after he died but since he was strongest card in the game they removed it.
I dont even play lor anymore , but sunny still on my heart
The entire point of the archetype is it trades overtuned attacks for weak defense turns. Whether or not the numbers (or the can't block on shark chariot) need to be tuned on certain cards whose entire identity is ephemeral units is up for debate and probably true since the archetype isn't in a great position at the moment, but I don't agree with the argument that the archetype is fundamentally invalid. Kalista in her current design is not really an "ephemeral archetype" unit, the reason Kalista is unplayable has far more to do with her not providing the same level of threat capacity as Elise or Kindred, nor having a great deck concept or pairing at the moment (mist wraiths are simply too slow, for example, as well as the Demacia payoff you demonstrated in the video). I agree, Kalista should receive a buff, and maybe some of Hecarim's support could receive buffs. Making summon ephemerals spells focus speed, however, is not a direction I would like to see for the balance, given how quickly an ephemeral deck can set up threats (turn 1 pass, turn 2 soul shepherd, turn 3 onslaught of shadows + haunted relic for burst open attack of 12 damage is reminiscent of the Azirelia experience). I think ephemerals as an archetype could benefit greatly if Riot introduced guaranteed draws for "passive landmarks" like grand plaza, sort of like how sun disc works.
To be honest, I think almost every problem the game currently has can be tied back to how Riot introduced passive landmarks (ones without countdown effects, those are fine) and the ways you can interact with them (Bandle tree, Grand Plaza, Noxkraya Arena, Targon's Peak, etc). These landmarks have all either broken the game, have been extremely unfun to play against, or have been/are completely useless. Riot should seriously consider reworking these landmarks to make decks like ephemerals playable, potentially by making these landmarks game auras with specific deck building restrictions.
tq, hope riot can improve on this , emphemeral, or at least change/fix /improve champion
Well here we are when kalista and hecarim are now an actual deck with the hecarim buff you suggested 😁
I wonder if they made Ephemeral cards last for 2 rounds, and balance them around it, would make them more satisfying to use.
yeah... ephemeral cards should die on the NEXT turn end... that way they cant be bypassed by the opponent skipping their turn.. so they either attack into your ephemerals or you attack with them next turn... defense suffers heavily in ephemeral decks..
I think an easy fix for ephemeral... is for them to stick around for a turn if you dont attack with them... so instead of dying at the end of the turn.. die at the end of next turn(or when they strike)... that way you could still use them defensively without completely wasting them if your opponent passes...
I made myself dawn and dusk hecarim otk deck right after this video... it was one of the first decks I crafted when I started playing over a year ago. Its not competitive, but getting the combo off is always so satisfying
Oh my God i couldnt stop whatching this video! Amazing! That's quality content!
If this video was a word it would be ''perfection''.
Pretty sure we will see a cheap spell or landmark in the future that stops your ephemeral units from dying at the end of the turn, but still die after an attack
I have two ideas to make ephemeral more useful to play, while retaining the “die after attacking” :
One card would force players to attack if there’s an ephemeral on the ground, forcing your enemy to attack if you have lifesteal octopi or any other ephemeral
Another card would let them live one turn longer if they didn’t attack/defend, so you can prepare your next turn as if your card weren’t ehphemeral, for one turn.
I'm still utterly perplexed that despite all the attempts to push an Ephemeral archetype, there's no unit with "While I'm Attacking, my allies are not Ephemeral" or some spell or landmark effect like "Ephemeral units don't die at the end of the round." You'd need to do some work to make sure it can't synergize with Harrowing (5+ mana on a spell?) but there really needs to be a way to conditionally mitigate that keyword.
As a new subscriber that enjoys your deck videos, i love these analysis and hot take videos... Can i has more?🥺
Special thanks to you you beautiful streamer, i've been gone for a while due to life stuff but i can't wait to catch the stream again to thank you for such an amazing video ok my boi Hecarim :3
Hey you gave me the idea, this video wouldn't exist without you ;) hope life is going well for you bud!
After watching this video, I've got only one thing to say:
"Please nerf Snnuy's narrative skills... he's just too good!"
Damn this video is edited ridiculously well. The best content in the LOR community
Thank you for all the editing works! you amazing. +1 for Cyberworld ending too.
Such a great work man. I love your editing style and presentation♥. And also your hate for ionia🤭. This video made my day😍.
Now I'm more excited about this series than new expansion trailer
honestly i like gwen, i dont like how they changed her voicelines after the envent io think the older ones are better. but overall viego did way more damage to shadow isles lore and all of that as a whole than gwen could ever dream of
God Bless the Zoe/Viktor mention. Its been my fucking jam since I first tried it out. Highly recommend putting 3 vitkor, 2 zoe, and 1 aphelios in there because phel gives you a level of consistency in an otherwise extremely inconsistent RNG based deck. Sometimes you just have to do 3 damage to a unit and then stun another unit for two turns at the cost of... 2 spell mana, while you stack the board with celestials that have every possible positive keyword.
Setting my favorite deck aside, I tried really hard to like ephemeral, but no matter how much I try, I can't like it in the shadow isles. The units tend to play into self sacrifice too hard, meaning you HAVE to play around it. and when I mean around it, I don't mean synergize. You are basically trying to win a losing fight. Its straight up a handicap. Why would you play shadow isles when you could do irelia/azir (which is still probably better than shadow isles decks even post nerf), or my personal preference, LB/Zed? They just work better and have more consistent highs than shadow isles decks. Yeah, sure, if you manage to level hec and he doesnt immediately die, you do stupid damage. But its a easily negated win condition. This same issue applies to several other shadow isles champs. I guess you could claim that nuking a champ before it can level is something you can do against any deck, but most decks can recover from that. If your champ dies in shadow isles, its an ff.
I love this videos, keep the great work
I only play viego exclusively pair him with yuumi and I'm astonish at the monstrosities that I can do makes viego not be my only option, but if his out there is just a matter of time before I kill my beef up unit for his rise.
what if ephemeral decks had a spell that gets discounted or buffed for the amount of ephemeral units you’ve summoned in a game, so you don’t have board next turn but you can use control-y spells that benefit from your ephemeral play style
hello I'm starting a channel to play legends of runeterra please come if you have time :D
Every time I come back to this game I try to make a monkey deck work. SI + BW. It's tough and I very rarely get even close to a 50% win rate. But it is by and far my favorite archtype *all because* of having a monkey at the start of a turn (through whatever means, the idol, spell, or otherwise)... If they could somehow make ephemeral-generating spells focus speed that would be an absolute gamechanger... Oh, well! It's a cool keyword, but it feels not dissimilar to augment or lurk: relegated to a very specific deck and cannot really exist outside of that, as the cards themselves are too weak without proper support.
I literally starting playing runeterra with ephemerals and sharks. I stopped playing because I've been waiting for the SI ephemerals to get some needed buffs.
I think I've been waiting for over a year already...
But hey, at least I'm missing out on Bandle City =D
I think a good change for Ephemeral is to change when the unit dies to "I die when I attack/strike or the round end when you have the attack token".
This helps with developing/defending with ephemeral units when your opponent have the attack token or a good way to set up an open attack.
hello I'm starting a channel to play legends of runeterra please come if you have time :3
I'm only writing this comment to appreciate all the loving effort you put on your editing and research for this video. Amazing information there! This is top tier content creation for LoR. Congratulations!
Your content is such high quality, love the editing, keep it up!
Made a Hothead Kalista Deck with a bunch of owl cats and she didn't even get the buff at least once
I think it'd help his flavor if he also gave ephemeral units Overwhelm. It's solidify him as a finisher even more while also doubling down on how ephemerals want to play already. If they want them to attack so much then why does their finisher only allow himself to end the game? That or just some ephemerals with overwhelm that only get good with other ones on the field. That way it's not generically splashable, gives that sense of dread since the threat isn't gone by just blocking anymore, and gives them a gameplan that fits better with what they're already doing. Based on the costs you could easily push this towards aggro with cheap, smaller overwhelms, or put them at higher costs, so you need to figure out how to control the board without real creatures while building up the win condition slowly.
bro this was my very first favorite deck in the game, i reached gold 4 with hecarim OTK (using dawn and dusk) i trully wish they did something to the cards.
Love this type of meme video like for me it's the best type to watch, it's funny and doesnt make me bored.
I tried making an enroaching shadow's deck, and you would think Hecruim would be so good in it. Nope... He attacks first, so the buff disappears... It really should be applied to nexus or something.