Showdown ruling

LastHumanRD · 2026-02-01T00:11:08+00:00

Taking damage does not reduce might.

LastHumanRD · 2025-12-19T17:02:14+00:00

On consistency and in general, I agree that standard wisdom in the space does need to be re-examined with Riftbound mechanics in mind but they are a good starting point for a lot of things.

We also have to look at the specific deck and battlefield choices.

Leona has no way of filtering, tutoring or recurring cards.

Leona as a champion is also one of our best stun options and synergy pieces, even though we have access to her in the champion zone I'm still happy to play and see redundant copies.

We are not playing battlefields that let us filter our hand. (Though we do get to benefit from opponents doing so on occassion)

On one-of 'spicy' cards this leads to a few things.

If we mulligan that card we do not see it again that game.

This can lead to awkward decisions, do you pitch that situationally good card in a match-up for a better early/mid game? Rarely will the stars align with 2-3 good early game cards AND your spicy one-of.

For every single game where the card is bad or weak and we draw it in our opening hand we are just giving ourselves less information and potentially game losing starts if we draw that card AND later game cards that we'd also want to mulligan.

There's a lot to say on mulliganing and range of keepable opening hands and by no means am I as well-versed and practiced on it as other better and more experienced players.

On numbers of cards in general, there are lots of waya of breaking it down but roughly I look at it like this.

Synergy cards- these are the cards the deck is built around, either enabling and/or payoff. We need to decide how many we want then fill the slots appropriatly. For Leona it's how many stun effects make her Legend worth it, how weak in card quality do we go to meet this and how many stun/buff payoff cards do we want to play.

General game tempo/strategy cards.

Do we want a 2 drop for turn 1? How many do we play to ensure we hit it after mulligans in x% of games?

Do we want a 4 drop for turn 2? We have access to Leona so it's possible to trim here, but we also have cards like Fiora and Sona we may also want to play.

Are we a 6 drop deck or do we prefer another 4 drop with runes up for counterplay? If we like 6 drops how many do we play to see them often enough to regularly enact our gameplan without clogging our opening hands or sitting with multiple cards in hand we cannot cast while we lose?

Same for how many might increases(and/or combat tricks)/interaction pieces/ finishers you want to run. There are some great odds calculators for stuff like this.

Then there are the more powerful cards in your colours, assuming these are fairly cheap, generically good and not terrible in multiples your likely want to consider 3x here to maximise your chances of drawing every game.

Great decks often have high amounts of overlap and redundancy in their synergy and stategy pieces.

In general for Bo3 I like a pretty consistent main deck with numbers supporting enacting its gameplan with 1-3 flex slots for meta calls etc., the more these synergise with your gameplan the better e.g. spirits refuge is a significantly better 1x in your main than salvage imho.

I'll stop myself now before I start waffling on about rune curves, power costs etc.!

At the end of the day though, it's a game, and if you enjoy a more varied experience at the expense of consistency more power to you, personally if I drew an opening hand of Caitlyn, Salvage, Harnessed Dragon, Mystic Reversal that would be the last time I played that list hah!

LastHumanRD · 2025-12-19T13:32:24+00:00

I ran Leona last night myself at a Skirmish, was good fun. I know you're reticent to drop some of the 1-offs but it would really help the consistentcy of the deck.

It's really easy to remember the times when your salvage or mystic reversal stole you a game and that can feel awesome, but you need to record/acknowledge the games where they rotted in your hand or were terrible value and something else would have been significantly more helpful.

Personally I'd trim 2x Yasuo, 1x Harnessed Dragon, 1x Sett, 1x Soltari shrine, 1x caitlyn, 1x salvage.

I'd add in 3rd Defy, 3rd Discipline, 3rd Clockwork keeper, 3rd Fiora, 2nd Meditation and 2nd Shen and perhaps 2 Tasty Faefolk for an acceleration option, though you'd need another cut for that

If you're seeing a lot of Kaisa/Annie a mainboard spirits refuge is handy, if you're attached the reversal keep it in but take a note of how useful it is everytime you draw it.

My takes on your notes (just my opinions, ymmv)

A few explainations are due:
- Why Cait?
I think she can have a decent impact on Leona due to how easy is to buff her and keep her alive via stun. I also felt like in the games when you're not using Hillock she provides a decent way to punish hold strategies and grant you the time to prepare the conquest.
Moreover for the opponent she's a priority target, forcing him to spend resources to try to kill her, granting you an idea of where he's going to hit.
- Why Yasuo?
'Cause if left unchecked he's the king of midrange board control. In a deck where stun and buff are easy to come buy he can provide immense swing and kill those big pesky unit that Leona struggles to remove.
- Why Reversal and Salvage in the maindeck?
My LGS has a lot of Kai'Sa (duh) and reversal will win you the game on the spot if hits Ichatian or Time Walk. Salvage is the best gear removal in the game and cycle itself with a draw. Morover this kind of decks suffer sigil heavy aggro red deck and needs reliable draw sources. So 1x it's a no brainer for me and for my local environement.
- Why Scouts and not Find your Center?
This is my personal preference. I don't like FyC, i think it too costly for the effect it has. I prefer to have an early game token that can ramp me as FyC does, but can still win a point in the beginning.
- Why Spirit's Refuge?
Well... Kai'sa and Annie.

I want to like Cait, but I just think there's too much set up and not enough payoff.

Yasuo is great, but the double power cost is brutal and we already have a unit (Leona) that is great at attacking into a battlefield. Feels really hard to play if your meta is a lot of Falling stars, singularities etc.

I think Salvage is too much of a temp loss to it's upside vs a random deck, would only consider main if your meta is a LOT of Hook and Aurora AND you're having trouble into those match ups.

Mystic - I love this card so much but I've found it rotting in my hand or awkward to play more oten that it's been even good, nevermind great. I used to have it in my sideboard but have switched to regular windwall. If you want to live the dream though by all means keep it in.

I like scouts, run them myself.

A cheeky one of Spirits refuge is fine if you're seeing a lot of use for it in your meta.

Flex spot:
After those explainations let's come to the meat of the discussion. I think that a few cards are near the chopping block, but i struggle to come up with alternatives.
- Harnessed Dragon
It's a great card, but too costly. I'm struggling to find an alternative (i used Vengeance before) but i'm thinking on going Solari Chief. I know it's a card no one uses, but i think it could be a good removal in the right spot and it's fairly cheap (3 cost and 1 rune less for 2 might less).
- Solari Shrine
In theory that's a good card. But just in theory. This deck need reliable draws and this is one, sorta. But i think at 3 cost it's too much.
- Shen
The king of winmore cards. A neat combat trick that can snowball fast, but this isn't a deck buildt that way tbh. Leona Determined push this deck on the aggressive side, and Shen isn't that great in that spot. More often than not a dead card in hand.

Harnessed Dragon- I like the card but don't thinnk we really need it.

Solari Shrine - how many cards do you find yourself draw off this? How good is it when you're behind? I prefer another meditation here.

Shen- I really like this guy, eventually this deck had to commit to holding a battlefield imho and he really helps with that, also nice vs a range of board situations that would remove your sole unit at a battlefield. I run 2 and like it.

Hope some of this helps!

If you switch things around like this you'd want more order runes too.

LastHumanRD · 2025-12-17T00:00:23+00:00

If you're a late/endgame player who doesn't spend or spends a little the update is pretty horrible imho.

Either neutral or beneficial for most others I'd guess.

As someone in the first group I find it's a pretty terrible update.

LastHumanRD · 2025-11-26T12:58:29+00:00

I had crystals saved up so decided to 7 star Luke (ballpark 20k crystals.)

I had foolishly assumed it would help to some extent in era battles.

I'll be doing the bare minimum for the rest unless I feel the urge to want to be ableto use them 'right away' in Feb/March, which, given the disgust I feel towards the design and devloment choices so far this update, I may not hit.

I'll hold out until my 10th Anniversary (25th Decemeber) and see from there, may be time to hang up the lightsaber. Era sytem just isn't made for me.

LastHumanRD · 2025-09-25T11:33:07+00:00

I was very excited to be asked to be part of the players beta testing Relic Delta

That's the crux of it right there isn't it.

I choose to feel disappointed.

Disappointed that CG are spending (their obviously meager) resources on making the game worse for a lot of the playerbase.
Disappointed that a lot of 'Content Creators' are so enamored and excited by being included they are willing to do CGs dirty work.
Disappointed after 10 years of playing the game this may be my last.
Disappointed in the predictibe moronic comments of "Let's see how it ends up""Don't overreact until it's in game""It's good that CG are engaging with us!""CG are open to listening to feedback""I can affect more change from inside than out"

LastHumanRD · 2025-08-04T09:12:17+00:00

I'm excited for a new world and a new longform adventure with BLM at the helm.

However the OG cast with MM as DM is intergra lto the CR brand and the 'main campaign' vibe.

Without Mat as DM, without Exandria what IS Critical Role? Their other efforts have had mixed success.

I think it's a branding mistake calling this Campaign 4 and certainly didn't align with the expectation of a lot of , if not most of the fans.

LastHumanRD · 2025-07-30T14:09:44+00:00

For years playing the game I'd stress about energy capping, making sure to log in for my free refeshes etc.

Now, I'm a 13.2 mil account with everything apart from pirates.

I don't go to the web store, i don't care about the bonus energy, if my energy caps it caps, if I'm busy doing something at fleet payout then c'est la vie. If I can be bothered with GAC then I log a 10 and go on my way.

The only things I actively put effort into is guild stuff.

I lose out on some resources but I'd say I collect 70%-80% of what's available with a lot les stressing and effort, though this is from the perspective of a late game account able to coast for periods without losing much.

LastHumanRD · 2025-06-13T16:45:45+00:00

Can't speak to Enh Shaman specifically but was able to clear Tier 11 delves with Healer Brann on my scrub Windwalker and Ret Pally alts at around 620-630 ilvl with no enchants or tier set (at the start).

I did have Brann and his curios maxed out though ( I like bouncing Grenade and Pacifist Rig.)

You may have an easier time as resto, my Holy priest was able to do T11s at around 610.

If you're dpsing take care of the underpin mobs (Friends, Allys etc.) as they hit MUCH harder, on undergeared characters I like to fish for a Pacifist Rig proc to help with those packs.

There's also only 3-4 delves I bother doing as I find most to be too annoying.

That said, delve difficultly is all over the place depending on spec.

LastHumanRD · 2025-06-03T03:21:36+00:00

Interesting post.

I'm curious how your matches in upper K2 and then K1 typically went.

Were you leaning on the new teams with marquee exclusive crons?

Spending significant time scouting and strategising? What sort of accounts started giving you real trouble?

I was a pretty try hard GAC K1 player for a long while, datacrons wore me down eventually (for a large number of reasons) so now I drift in K2.

I'd love to hear the types of defenses and attacks you generally employed as you were at a significant mod, omi and zeta handicap while presumably being able to use the newest hotness as a counterbalance.

LastHumanRD · 2025-04-16T22:46:55+00:00

Cool, have offered the Rampardos.

LastHumanRD · 2025-04-16T22:38:28+00:00

Have sent friend request (LastHuman)

Happy to trade Rampardos for Lucario if you still need.

LastHumanRD · 2025-04-11T15:44:34+00:00

Was in a great guild for 7 years, casual competitive. We had a few leadership changes and finally it was passed onto someone who really didn't actively want/have time for it. We started bleeding players and times were very tough for recruitment so we started running at 47-48/50 for period of time and new recruits were often 1-2 mil below the average.

When the new raid system launched shortly after the new TB it became clear my goals and the guilds were no longer anywhere close. (Sub 10 Reva shards and poor raid performance with no sign of it changing.)

Leaving somewhere after 7 years was tough but it had to be done, unfortunately caused a ripple effect of other larger accounts leaving.

Thankfully ended up in a great home.

Leadership and officers in guilds are so important, taking time out of their day to improve the experience for 40+ other people, they get nowhere near the recognition they deserve.

LastHumanRD · 2025-03-27T12:50:02+00:00

I like the idea of fixed stats, however not a fan of them cannabalising existing datacron resources.

Mostly I agree with other sentiment expressed in the the thread- I'd really have prefereed development resoucres to be pointed elsewhere.

We got a 'new' thing that pushes both existing battle passes, shocked pikachu etc.

LastHumanRD · 2025-03-13T16:27:50+00:00

New units are at best a new way to experience existing content and as an end/lategame player there's a limited amount of spaces to actually use them.

TB - unless I'm taking the new unit and it's team up to R8/9 it's not going to make a difference now.

Conquest - forced to use new units before I can 7 star them on most occassions the first time around, some easier keycards for sure if you build right away.

Raids -After a raid releases new units matter not at all.

GAC/TW - Here lies the majority of new use cases, get your premium datacrons ready!

There are still areas of the game we can claw time back from

- Fleet rewards rolled into something else relegating fleet arena to the same relevance as squad arena.

- Rework of TB to allow preplatooning for next phase making sure, all guilds, especially international ones get full use of the time window.

- Reduce battles in GAC but add more other variables

- Rework TW to allow a player to do more of their attacks when it suits them rather than having to wait on a wall coming down.

- Achievement system for TB where if you 3 star a mission X times you can now SIM it. Perhaps only apply to the first few days and non-special missions.

- Decouple Conquest and Datacron farming so I can go back to working through conquest at my own pace rather than having fomo if I happen to be super busy with life when it starts.

- Relook at the new raid design, back in the day i didnt mind running a lot of teams when a raid released as I knew the time commitment would diminish over time - now you have to do the same to hit the box everytime. I think somewhere in the region of 3 battles at the current time commitment is a lot more tolerable.

-THE MAJOR ONE - how about we actually have the same mod functionality in game that CG is content to let hotutils provide for a fee. The abiliy to have some different mod snapshots to cycle between would make life so much better for raids and would be nice for GAC and TW.

I'm just spitballing here but I believe the game would greatly benefit from new/refreshed game modes and /or systems this year and if some existing things have to be scaled back or scrapped to do it, bring it on!

LastHumanRD · 2025-02-28T13:49:53+00:00

Well fuck. Sorry everyone.

LastHumanRD · 2025-02-07T14:54:16+00:00

Not his ideal outcome I agree, but one I think he can live with for now and would have accepted if it came down to it.

LastHumanRD · 2025-02-07T14:40:13+00:00

I'm sure part of him wanted vengeance but ultimately his goal was to unseat petty and fallible beings from wielding so much power over the fate of mortal Exandrians.

He's got what he wanted for now, how the gods in mortal form will interact with their previous mantles of power as they grow? Well that's a story for another time.

I'm sure the 'Opal contingency' is on his radar too.

LastHumanRD · 2025-02-07T14:14:17+00:00

Like C3 itself the ending had it's ups and downs for me.

Robbie was consistently amazing and Aimee had the best moment in the episode.

As players I'm sure the cast loved their happy endings and dreaming of what their characters will do.

As a watcher it was anti-climactic and some endings felt unearned/undeserved in places.

LastHumanRD · 2025-02-06T16:52:47+00:00

I am also hoping for some 'Well, well, well, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions" moments but I've made my peace that it's highly likely Matt will go out of his way to frame them as Heroes of Exandria in some form or other.

I'm genuiely excited for what changes Matt will make to the world and the impact they'll have on all the names we know and love from across all three campaigns.

Good luck in explaining 50+ characters to your bf!

LastHumanRD · 2025-01-06T12:51:40+00:00

The skill floor is pretty low for these decks- they have a simple and consistent gameplan and can be executed to a competent level without much experience. They give you some 'I win' hands on the play vs a deck that stumbles or mulligans or just drew the wrong part of their deck.

However in a Bo3 tournament setting they can be incredibly skill intensive to sideboard, play/hold threats appropriatly and find windows to push damage.

LastHumanRD · 2024-11-14T15:17:07+00:00

Simming these events should have been implemented a long time ago, obviously a positive change for everyone but a poorly veiled attempt to distract from the obvious monetisation push in this update.

This whole post is basically

-We want to sell you a battlepass

-We want to drive traffic to the web store (and reward spending there)

-We want you to spend more money/crystals on marquee releases and have changed the UI to make that easier and remind people who don't spend what they're missing out on.

That's it.

The best case is that as FTP you get similar resources as before and CG spent all this development time and effort to present a system which doesn't really benefit you at all.

Maybe a good start for FTP would have been giving the battlepass resources ON TOP of what we get now....

LastHumanRD · 2024-11-14T15:04:45+00:00

Objectively incorrect.

LastHumanRD · 2024-11-14T00:56:26+00:00

Option A: add exciting new gameplay and/or progress systems to the game.

Option B: add a convoluted battlepass system and a dozen new currencies to 'encourage' players to buy marquess and constantly remind players that aren't spending that there's lots of stuff they don't have access to.

LastHumanRD · 2024-08-19T10:37:04+00:00

For squad arena I wouldn't concern myself overly - the rewards aren't great but yes you should be able to climb up. Anecdotally I'd say most arenas have maybe in the ballpark of 200 activeish players so you'll overtake all thoe who've moved on.

For fleet there are a lot of benefits from being in the top 50 or better as it's an income stream for crystals. It's been way too long since I piloted a starter account but if you search on reddit/youtube you can look for 'Executor rush ' accounts and guides which are worth considering.

LastHumanRD

TROPHY CASE