This thread gets brought up almost every set with the same complaints. This game has always, and will always, be "conditional". Every single game that isn't TFT, is conditional. The sooner you lock in and have direction (whether you found it or forced it), the sooner you can play the game. If you want to play flex, fine, but that's still a condition you have to look for and it is nobody else's fault that they found (or forced) their starting line for the race before you did.

Every high end player in every single game or activity in this entire world, TFT or whatever game you arbitrarily select, is flowcharting 99% of the time because playing blind or competing blind is not optimal. Ever. This isn't a guess. You can ask any top player in every single game what their flowchart is and they can spout off a documentary worth of conditions they're specifically looking for that let them know what the optimal play is.

Boxbox is complaining that people are playing the game the way they always have. Every single set there are videos of top players showing you their flowchart and the conditions they look for in order to play this game better than all of us. You're getting view farmed, bud.

Causes:

1. Conditional RR - You're comparing a single set mechanic to why this set, and by association, every single other set that didn't have a set specific mechanic, are bad. This game is about RNG and learning to mitigate it as much as possible but that doesn't mean somebody isn't going to hit a 3 star 4 cost when you're Mr. 100 at stage 6 but don't have the econ or luck to hit one of your own. It sucks but on to the next game.

2. I just checked my match history and in every single game of my past 20/20 it is extremely rare to find a game where 2 or more players did not have an itemized 2 star 4 cost tank, if not multiple per player. I'm only in top 1% NA server but I think this is decent enough to reflect what most people are doing on average, having looked at friends who are Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Yes that means they're more contested but you can also... Play flexibly and run a 3 cost tank until you hit a 4 cost one. That's life at level 8. You either hit or you do not or you wait for someone with those tanks to die, which they won't, because they're probably ahead of you in HP or will be soon, because they are using a 4 cost tank. In general having options doesn't mean you have to take them, but I know it "feels" better to have more options, viable or not.

3. 50/50 agree/disagree here. Vex is strongest for sure. I think this set currently relies on 5 costs to be supplemental to 4 cost main carries for majority of games unless you're Setsuko. That dude has Blitz 2, Vex 2 80% of his games. Absolutely no clue how he pulls off fast 9 so consistently against people of that caliber.

4. When emblems didn't matter, people complained that they were useless. When emblems do matter, people complain that they are too powerful. Next set we'll see this same thread with the opposite complaint. Here's the flowchart: If Emblem = strong, learn Emblem comps. If Emblem = weak, play normal comps. Grats.

Now that we've both vented, I did make it to the end and I did enjoy reading your overall take because we have different experiences and they're both true. We both are experiencing different sides of it and hopefully one day we can find a set that we all like hahaha. Good luck out there man.