On September 21st, LSS announced their first balance-based card bans. I’m sure everyone has read and said a lot about this already, so I am making this article mainly an analysis of the wording in the ban announcement with some limited thoughts on gameplay. The LSS article is available here.

There are quite a few things worth discussing in this ban announcement. Firstly, it is over 1000 words long. The logic behind these decisions is explained, and there was a very interesting peek behind the curtains about the design and testing processes. There is an entire paragraph dedicated to explaining the timing of the ban, and how they don’t want to interfere with Nationals season. Their admission that Chane was predominantly balanced for limited play, due to a planned season of summer Callings is enlightening, but unsurprising. I think the fact that they are balancing sets based on upcoming events is telling of the size of the development and testing team. My theory on this is that commons and rares are generally tested for balance in limited, with majestics and legendaries receiving a significant portion of testing for Classic Constructed. It wasn’t any particular majestic that made Chane very strong, it was access to a free enabling card that lets his deck do everything it is designed to do. Ira (generally considered the best hero in Blitz), does much the same. She is not strong because of combos featuring majestics, but is strong because of her consistency, utilizing commons, and rares. This premise is also in line with Levia’s cards. Her commons and rares are solid in both constructed and in limited formats. However, her majestics don’t really help her do anything other than provide utility, not provide any form of combo potential in what should be an explosive deck. I am going to continue speculating here and say that there were some eleventh-hour design changes to Levia to allow her to turn off blood debt for the turn, and her majestics facilitate that and little else.

            Another element that caught my eye was the statement that Chane was designed to be a “top performing deck in constructed formats.” I have seen no such comment regarding any other hero, and it is interesting to speculate on how favourites are played. Living Legend being more of a Hall of Fame and less of a balance feature is nice to hear, because Chane was dominant during one of the busiest competitive seasons of the year and didn’t even make it halfway to Living Legend status. The considerations of limiting his power during the design process were interesting. Despite that, the costs of Seeds of Agony and Rift Bind were reduced, for draft balance. The sequence of these events is, I believe, important. It highlights that LSS is still very much a small operation, which is something I forget often enough because of the general quality of the game.

            Where my big reservations come from is the entire section about the Duskblade ban. It’s nice to see such a direct admission of “We made a mistake.” But it is concerning to hear about how a flavour card got added late into development with so little testing. Surely the important flavour card should get added in the supplemental set, with other Shadow/Light themed cards and an additional few months for testing. As is so rarely the case, the internet mob was right on this one from the get go. That card is crazy. It is very easy for Chane to stack counters on it, and it is decently easy for Briar to do so as well with their frequent go agains. I’m shocked that there was no additional condition for counters (dealing arcane damage on the turn, having the sword hit, etc.). It is nice to see that they’re getting ahead of the problem and not letting it warp the Nationals season though.

Moving on to the gameplay impacts, I am excited that the meta is once again very open. It is no longer the “Chane plus maybe some of the new heroes who can keep him check” meta that many were expecting. Every hero may be viable now, and it’s exciting to see how testing and the meta shape up for the upcoming big events. Chane still has options, but will have to run either more non-Blood Debt non-attack action cards or more blues to consistently pay for Seeping Shadows and Howl from Beyond. Hopefully Chane players don’t abuse Howl from Beyond too much, since it’s tacitly on LSS’ Classic Constructed watchlist via Unhallowed Rites. It is a nice thing to know a watchlist exists, and I wish that LSS provided us the entire watchlist, but I’m aware that’s asking a bit much.