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  1. #1
    Lead Developer / Designer Gondorian's Avatar
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    Lay Low Lance (Sosilo Edition) Balance Discussion

    Hi all!

    You might have noticed this deck has become very popular recently, especially at the top of the Best Score Leaderboard.

    Some people are saying it is broken/OP and therefore some cards need a change. This is mainly on Telegram.

    I figure we should try to hear more views in the official place (this forum).



    Key Cards in the Deck

    Lance - He can haste in a big ally like Knight of Unaxio and give it stealth and ambush, as well as have access to Lay Low and Smoke Screen (see below).

    Sosilo: Brothers' Landing - Huge draw potential, so long as you are discarding abilities or locations. It also lets you discard one to draw via its activated ability.

    Knight of Unaxio - He discards cards to grow by +2/+1 and cause card draw from Sosilo.

    Aetherborn Wisp - It grows from each discarded card by +1/+1

    Moment of Acquiescence - Discard cards to draw with Sosilo and disable allies (and do damage to them with Knight of Unaxio) out.

    Glimmer of Hope - Draw 3 cards then discard 2 to draw 2 more from Sosilo.

    Lay Low - It makes it impossible to target Lance or his allies or their attachments (unless you can play Groundshift or something).

    Shrine of Negatia - Bounce your own Lay Low then be able to attack with your huge allies.

    Smoke Screen - Disable all opposing allies and draw a card.


    DO YOU THINK SHADOW ERA WOULD BE BETTER OFF IF SOME OF THE ABOVE CARDS CHANGE?


    As it stands, there are balance changes (e.g. Sosilo moved up to T5) and new cards coming in v3.52 that will affect Lay Low Lance (Sosilo Edition).

    I'm OK to not make any further changes (i.e. not nerf it), if there is not enough evidence or support to target this deck or those cards. But there are people who are asking for some, so I'm opening this up to you!

    Do you think some nerfs are needed? Help me to see your point of view, so I can try to make an informed choice before 3.52 is sent off to Apple.

    Note: We are not changing Lance, Lay Low, Shrine of Negatia or Smoke Screen. They have been around more than four years and not been an issue.

  2. #2
    Senior Member maxi1230's Avatar
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    The Problem of the deck is only Sosilo and Glimmer combo. Drawing 1 out of your 8 allies and having Lay Low ready is a not consistent without it.

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  3. #3
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    actually, i dont think so. the sosilo/glimmer thing has been used in other decks for sometime. i use it. ive never used it in lance and lay low. the problem is the bouncing lay low with all that draw and discarding, buffing your 2 allies under the protection of lay low. so its several things coming together. its not just one thing, its several that are working well together.

    Moment of Acquiescence and Sosilo are the "newest" cards. but they have been out, what, 2 years? a year and a half? and this deck is only now making an appearance.

    i dont think we should mess with it. and really, the only thing you could do, is completely rework sosilo into something else or completely kill glimmer. but all that will do is put lay low lance back on the back burner again until something else comes along that has good synergy with it.

    and how do we classify this deck? FAST STALL? LOL

  4. #4
    Chat Mod Burnout1985's Avatar
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    Lay low lance is atm one of the strongest deck of SE, mainly because of his draw power, its fast, very fast! It has dominated the meta since a few seasons and today we have got the top 3 lay low lance players in the ladder.

    The deck itself has many draw engines like 4x Moment of Acquiescence, 4x bad sānta, 4x glimmer of hope and 4x sosilo. All of them has synergie with Aetherborn wisp and Knight of unexio. All cards are from T1-T4. If you trim your deck to 40-41 cards, it is consistent.

    I have played some matches with this deck today. By Turn 6, i had 2 big creatures wisp with 13attak/11hp and 11attak/13hp. I didn’t even need to use lay low and shrine of negatia combo for winning in some matches. Using moment of acquiescence and smoke screen to disable my opponent’s creatures while i can make my allies becoming big monsters. The worst of all, thats by Turn6, i only had 13 cards left in my deck, thats crazy! My opponent only had 26 cards.

    Lay low lance is too fast and his draw power is insane! Even if you try tech with groudshift, it could be too later when u drop it. You could try to use Crippling blow as warriors, lay low lance will have a legend rise in hand with his tempo. You could hide with moonstalker ability, but a smart LLL player has nowhere to hide...
    Last edited by Burnout1985; 11-12-2017 at 09:22 PM.
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  5. #5
    Lead Developer / Designer Gondorian's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Burnout1985 View Post
    Lay low lance is atm one of the strongest deck of SE, mainly because of his draw power, its fast, very fast! It has dominated the meta since a few seasons and today we have got the top 3 lay low lance players in the ladder.

    The deck itself have many draw engines like 4x Moment of Acquiescence, 4x bad sānta, 4x glimmer of hope and 4x sosilo. All of them has synergie with Aetherborn wisp and Knight of unexio. All cards are from T1-T4. If you trim your deck to 40-41 cards, it is consistent.

    I have played some matches with this deck today. By Turn 6, i had 2 big creatures wisp with 13attak/11hp and 11attak/13hp. I didn’t even need to use lay low and shrine of negatia combo for winning in some matches. Using moment of acquiescence and smoke screen to disable my opponent’s creatures while i can make my allies becoming big monsters. The worst of all, thats by Turn6, i only had 13 cards left in my deck, thats crazy! My opponent only had 26 cards.

    Lay low lance is too fast and his draw power is insane! Even if you try tech with groudshift, it could be too later when u drop it. You could try to use Crippling blow as warriors, lay low lance will have a legend rise in hand with his tempo. You could hide with moonstalker ability, but a smart LLL player has nowhere to hide...
    THE CHAMP IS HERE!

    Thanks for the insights. Especially about how long this has been around, based on your experiences. You must have great visibility of meta-shifts with all the games you play!

    I guess we need to see if people can beat you at all while using this. If you get enough losses, as World Champion, then I don't think it so urgently needed to be changed.

  6. #6
    Chat Mod Burnout1985's Avatar
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    Ofc this deck has been around since a very long time. But we have had more powerful decks than LLL before; Badu wolf, Garina road Lance, twilight Aramia etc ... but today i believe that LLL is the one of the most powerful deck. Its annoying as hell. Even if you try to tech, you may not find the right cards in time coz he is faster than you.

    I think a good priest deck could beat LLL without any problem tho because they usually run 4x focused prayer and 4 tidal wave. For other classes, it is a very hard battle!
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  7. #7
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    What if the allies had factional reqs so they had to have a member of the same faction on board to use the buff? Something as simple as pulling steadfast from the knight atleast would make him easier to get off board, or a factional req before he is granted steadfast.

  8. #8
    Senior Member BP Holy Punisher's Avatar
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    Imo the problem are the cards that can't be changed now: Lay Low and Smoke Screen are by default control or in this case stall cards, so they don't fit the theme of discard. The rest are pretty normal interactions, combo-like, which although annoying they are nice to have if we want combo decks.
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  9. #9
    Senior Member Jao's Avatar
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    leave Lance alone guys. he's never been top of the ladder for as long as I can remember. let him win a world championship first before you go nerfing him.

    besides, i leave the game for a long time and come back to find out that it is when i leave that my favorite hero dominates? not fair. let me have a few run first with him. let's wait for the rest of the expansion cards to be released and find out if he does need nerfing. maybe there are a few counters out there from the coming cards.

    besides, my philosophy with balance changes has always been to wait until the entire expansion has been released, wait for 3 months for the meta to stabilize before making any drastic changes.
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  10. #10
    Community Manager SEF Mango's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jao View Post
    leave Lance alone guys. he's never been top of the ladder for as long as I can remember. let him win a world championship first before you go nerfing him.

    besides, i leave the game for a long time and come back to find out that it is when i leave that my favorite hero dominates? not fair. let me have a few run first with him. let's wait for the rest of the expansion cards to be released and find out if he does need nerfing. maybe there are a few counters out there from the coming cards.

    besides, my philosophy with balance changes has always been to wait until the entire expansion has been released, wait for 3 months for the meta to stabilize before making any drastic changes.
    Problem with your statement is that we have all the cards for this set at this point and this deck has been dominant for at least the last 3 months... so, yeah, your requirements have been met :P

    The biggest issue with this deck is that everything within it is tailored to win in a very certain way almost in line with a solo deck.

    Glimmer - A decent card that actually helps with what its name says, that last dig to find something to save your butt! It is meant to give you a chance but at a large cost of losing 2 of 3 cards. I better draw what I need or else... what a waste. However, Sosilo turns the terrible downside of this card into the best draw card in the game allowing you to sculpt your hand by possibly going through 5 cards for 2cc.

    Knight of Unaxio - A good card with strong base statistics. The card will become stronger for you but you have to lose a card! Ouch... however, Sosilo comes in and now that large downside of sacrificing a card to get that pump of +2/1 is a 0cc card draw and buff.

    Aetherborn Wisp - A card with average stats that has a mechanic allowing it to grow by sacrificing your hand. Again, another card with great growth compensated by you having to thin your options. However, Sosilo is dropped and now every option that you remove from your hand buffs this ally BUT!!! your hand is restored!!!

    Moment of Acquiescence - Honestly, I feel this card has always been a problem and this is not my first time saying so on the forums. 1cc and you are able to disable and possibly cause 2 damage for three turns AND you get draw from it? Besides the fact that disable is one of the strongest negative effects in the game, the extra draw makes this card absolutely ridiculous. Oh yeah, Sosilo arrives and booya! Disable and draw a card...

    The common issue here is Sosilo. Unfotunatley, Lance is able to utilize this better than most other Hero's due to his previous stock of abilities. So, while the location is not necessarily the problem, It is much better to reduce the effectiveness of the location and leave Lance alone. It is not the first time a hero ruined something for everyone. Baduruu did it with Wulven Tactician

    My feeling is that the Location should not provide more than 2 cards drawn per turn. It is a free draw engine that is easy to activate but only able to fully abuse by Lance. That makes the location the issue and where our focus should be. T5 is not enough imo and will do little to slow this deck. It is not when the location comes into play really but the positive effect you get once it is in play.

    I do not think either of the allies really need to have any changes. Knight and Wisp are decent allies that only seem too much in this particular deck. So my sole focus is really on the location and maybe Moment.

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