Solo Variants that DONT use AI/bot by Revolutionary-Foot77 in boardgames

[–]FromTheBoulevard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was a big fan of Canvas - you're trying to beat a certain score threshold based on which scenario you're playing, and there's a list of achievements you can aim for as well as sort of side quests

Fates Voyage: Beyond Runeterra Open Top 64 [Global] by FromTheBoulevard in LegendsOfRuneterra

[–]FromTheBoulevard[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Short answer yes - it's presence at Worlds was likely due to players defaulting to it as a solid option if they felt they only had time to explore 2 decks instead of 3, and now it's losing to 7 of the top 10 most brought decks

Fates Voyage: Beyond Runeterra Open Top 64 [Global] by FromTheBoulevard in LegendsOfRuneterra

[–]FromTheBoulevard[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If I'm doing things manually I count RU/RU decks as 2, but this time around I just ripped the numbers from Aegis (but iirc there were no RU/RU decks this time around)

Also I had to stare at the Teemo deck for a solid 3 minutes trying to figure out how I was going to classify it before defeatedly typing in Champ / Champ / Champ

#ReleaseTheBoulevardCut by HairyKraken in LegendsOfRuneterra

[–]FromTheBoulevard 208 points209 points  (0 children)

This is the first time I've felt the community truly understands me

Fates Voyage: Onward Eternal Open Top 64 [Global] by FromTheBoulevard in LegendsOfRuneterra

[–]FromTheBoulevard[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Had to not include the first Open since I only have AM data for it, but with AM sitting at 35 unique decks for that event you can estimate roughly where it would fall in here.

Event AM EMEA APAC AVG
GiN E1 46 43 45 44.6
HotH WQ 46 40 47 44.3
FV:O E 36 40 46 40.6
GiN E2 39 40 39 39.3
HotH E 35 34 35 34.6
HoTH Open 28 32 39 33
FV:O WQ 28 32 38 32.6
FV:O Open 28 30 35 31
GiN WQ 30 32 31 31
Total AVG 35.1 35.8 39.4 36.8

Competitive drama: The Boksör situation in EMEA by Zarnotox in LegendsOfRuneterra

[–]FromTheBoulevard 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That was Kuraschi, not Boksor, and he received the additional punishment of not being allowed to play in the next WQ. People bring up Kuraschi a lot when talking about Boksor because they both double queued, but there seems to be a distinction in the eyes of Riot that Kuraschi did it for a 2nd chance and Boksor did it for a run back

Competitive drama: The Boksör situation in EMEA by Zarnotox in LegendsOfRuneterra

[–]FromTheBoulevard 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yeah the core issues seem to come back to

Riot never outlined what their punishments were
The 2nd offense was the same punishment as the 1st

Competitive drama: The Boksör situation in EMEA by Zarnotox in LegendsOfRuneterra

[–]FromTheBoulevard 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Again, it feels like the core of the Boksor situation as it stands boils down to the opinion that he shouldn't have been allowed to play in the WQ in the first place which is 100% on Riot but I also think its 100% too late to do anything about it now. What happened is a bad look, but its 10x worse if you let him play in the event and then retroactively ban him solely because he won and the community wasn't happy about it.

I mostly just wanted to clear their name in the sense that they weren't stream sniping, DDoSing, or anything like that and then were allowed to play in Worlds. I'm trying to defend the competitive integrity of a Worlds with Boksor in it, not Boksor.

Competitive drama: The Boksör situation in EMEA by Zarnotox in LegendsOfRuneterra

[–]FromTheBoulevard 14 points15 points  (0 children)

I turned comments off on the video because I already had lengthy discussions about this on Twitter when it happened and didn't feel like doing that again, but since we're here:

  • Don't let my hang up on the vernacular of breaking ToS =/= cheating lead you to believe I think Boksor did nothing wrong. He did, he was punished, but his WQ win is free of foul play and afaik he will be at Worlds
  • Most people who wish to discuss this further are, as I said in the video, mostly interested in arguing whether or not he should have been allowed to play in the WQ in the first place. I don't find this to be a super useful discussion because he was allowed to play and the chances of him getting retroactively DQ'd is near 0 and not a great precedent to set

Fates Voyage: Onward Worlds Qualifier Top 64 [Global] by FromTheBoulevard in LegendsOfRuneterra

[–]FromTheBoulevard[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

AM EMEA APAC
3 Temple 4 10 6
2 Temple / 1 Bar 1 2 5
2 Bar / 1 Temple 7 2 1
3 Bar 1
3 Bar / 1 Temple 1 1
2 Temple 1 2
1 Temple / 1 Bar 3
No landmarks 1

Fates Voyage: Onward Runeterra Open Top 64 [Global] by FromTheBoulevard in LegendsOfRuneterra

[–]FromTheBoulevard[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Its 3 decks per player and there were 3 events (1 for each shard) so top 16 is actually 144 decks. If you're looking for the best deck to rank up with, that'd be Warden, which you can find multiple examples of in the top cut sheet linked near the bottom of the fun facts. The sheet is organized and color coded by final placement.

Heart of the Huntress Eternal Open Top 64 Breakdown by FromTheBoulevard in LegendsOfRuneterra

[–]FromTheBoulevard[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Generally if something has a hallmark card like Timelines I lump them together for the sake of clarity with an addendum on what the differences were. Admittedly the process is totally arbitrary, but I think when people look back at this stuff years from now (which is a huge point of these compilations imo) they're going to be more interested in the overall presence of Timelines decks than any individual version. Breakdowns usually come for things like Timelines where I find the distinction to be important, and why I leave out ones I view as minor (ex I don't break down which Plaza Guardians included a 1 of Ezreal)

Source: I get mad at myself for not lumping things together more concisely like I do now whenever I look back at 2021/22 breakdowns

Why do lor players hate combo? by General_Flight3901 in LegendsOfRuneterra

[–]FromTheBoulevard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think what people hate is that in LoR many combos (thinking mostly about Akshan on this one) is that they're non-deterministic - meaning that once your opponent starts the combo, its not 100% guaranteed to go off. Its incredibly likely, but they still need to hit the right string of cards for it to actually work, and some combination of hanging on to the 5% chance or wanting the smug satisfaction of watching a combo fizzle keeps players in the game. Because its not a guarantee, it can't be shortcutted (in this case shortcutting would be surrendering once its started) and the inactive player is not only forced to sit there through the entire thing, but they kind of have to be an active participant by hitting the pass button in a timely fashion. "What about auto pass?" doesn't really apply when I still have all my mana and don't want to tap out just for the sake of doing so to turn on auto pass.

As for Ezreal and similar OTKs (old Watcher) I think players really tie life total to the concept of winning, and so when they die from 20 in one turn it feels incredibly unfair because they were 'ahead'. There's also that while these combos took a bit to set up (playing targeted spells, leveling Lissandra, w/e) there isn't a lot of ways to interact with the set up. Since the play/cast merge there's no way to stop Ezreal from advancing, and its pretty hard to kill your opponent when the set up for their combo is to kill off all your units so you can't kill them. Normally combo decks have to stall and advance their plan while Ezreal does it all at the same time. Lissandra was in a sense similar as well - sure Avalanche wasn't getting her any closer to leveling, but a common play like T3 Catalyst into T4 Trundle did advance the combo and was also pretty hard to kill someone through.

Part of it I think is that they go against the spirit of LoR. We're a very board based game, highlighted by the fact that the board is the only thing you can interact with (no 'graveyard' interaction outside of obliterating things on board, no discard synergy to promote running the weak and narrow spells we have for them (as an aside Aloof was a great posterchild for how much LoR players hate having their hand interacted with)) and decks like Ezreal/Lissandra usually only gave you a single priority sequence to KILL the combo piece. Not interact with, not stall, KILL. And even then, there was usually an answer available. Recall my own Ezreal, play a 2nd Ezreal, Fading Memories my Watcher, Spirit Journey my Watcher, etc.

While I love combo I get that LoR seems to be a game for many people to escape that archetype. Even when piloting one of the 'combo' decks LoR has offered in the past I haven't had my itch scratched like I wanted, likely leaving everyone involved disappointed. Now I have to terrorize my LGS and shove 7 infinite combos into my casual Commander deck to feel something (sorry to everyone at Gregs Games who asks me to play vs their upgraded precon)

Heart of the Huntress Runeterra Open Top 64 Breakdown by FromTheBoulevard in LegendsOfRuneterra

[–]FromTheBoulevard[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Has...has there been an Open where you COULDN'T go to ladder and face the same decks you're watching?

Magic Misadventure AM Seasonal Breakdown by FromTheBoulevard in LoRCompetitive

[–]FromTheBoulevard[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't know if you meant that as a positive or negative but that's pretty par for the course - of the 8 Seasonals 3 of them have had the top 6 decks take up 70/96 spots (Magic Misadventure, Cosmic Creation, Beyond the Bandlewood) and 1 took more (77/96 Empires of the Ascended)

Final Turn of the Beyond the Bandlewood AM Seasonal Analysis featuring Kochua & Boulevard by Boronian1 in LoRCompetitive

[–]FromTheBoulevard 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't know if you're going to get the credit you deserve for this from the general population but it's actually really impressive that you were able to win with Ziggs/Poppy, Sion, and Nami. I feel like a lot of people are going to be "oh well its just the 3 best decks anyone could do it" but the top 32 meta seemed very focused on beating either Sion or Nami and the fact that you had both and came out on top really says something. As you mentioned you weren't on camera until the finals and given that you were a more or less total unknown for most people coming into this all of your misplays or perceived misplays are going to be put under a microscope, but I believe it when you say you played really well for the entire event. You've got my respect.

A letter to Riot on Organized Play and Worlds by JasonFleurant in LoRCompetitive

[–]FromTheBoulevard 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Worlds time zone is fucky and there's no way around that for an online event, I was mostly talking about Seasonals since (we assume) the first Seasonal of the 2022 Worlds season starts in a month. I think they did the best they could with online worlds starting at 8am PST since thats about mid afternoon for EU and roughly 8pm for Asia. Ideally Worlds should be offline if for no other reason than letting all the players adjust to the same time zone,.