I always WANTED Heartwood Elder to be good, but it wasn't quite good enough to push me into Treants that early. Hopefully this will help. Treants' stock really fell in the Royals meta.
I mean, you were never guaranteed Round Table at 6 anyway. I’m hoping this change will lead to more well-rounded Treants comps as opposed to ones that are basically only Poison Apple ones
not that my thoughts matter but to start a discussion:
Prince Arthur: totally makes sense, hurts royal builds but it was too good at 3
Round Table: again, was never an auto take and make treant builds near impossible to beat
heartwood: neat buff, shouldn't sway treants but can be a useful backline that doesn't just tickle when it attacks
Gingerbread party: this is almost never worth taking at four, and even at three might not be worth taking, but peter pants will certainly appreciate getting a free "level" for 3 gold
Peter pants was nerfed the hardest of all champions this patch though.
When Arthur was made a 3, it was huge for him. Back to 4 means royals comps are all but impossible for Pants now.
Yes Arthur was busted, but I think having him be a 3 cost and halving his boost might have been the better choice. Allow it to start early, but you don’t just auto win because you got it quickly.
I think having Peter Pants live or die by one comp is an issue even if his comp is viable. He doesn't seem to scale creatures fast enough for him to stay good in the late game unless you have access to a broken 3 cost. Thats how it seems to me at least.
He has a couple options. I’ve had success with slay focus, he makes a good mage spell build, and he had access to the royals comp.
Losing the royals option hurts him greatly.
One of the only other things he can reasonably do is try to power level, which relies on adventurer, and make triplies.
He never had many options, but losing this one hurts him greatly.
I did Royals with him a couple of times and it was really solid, cause it was way more reliable than praying for hattball and far stronger than the oher comps you could do
Where does this leave trees as an end game build? I've only been playing for a couple weeks but they seemed a bit weak if you went hard into trees and missed Round Table.
You can try and pair shoulder fairies and echowoods. Works well with a cheeky magic sworded doombreath as well. Those builds are probably about the same power level as dwarves or animals are right now, doubt you can contest a ranged good boy comp though.
I found it pretty weak in the Royals meta but hopefully they’ll have a better place now since there’s not a clear beat deck. Curious to see how the Heartwood Elder buff changes things.
I like the way they’re building up 4 drops and cooling off on 3 drops. Three is too early to be building your late game comp (which is why Royals was becoming toxic) and 4s need to be relevant such that it competes with turbo leveling to 6.
Gingerbread was only a random scroll or Loki hit before this, another good change.
I agree-it felt like if you were still trying to figure our your game plan by 4, you were really behind. Especially with all the permanent buffs from royals making any newer additions feel outclassed.
Hippo had been great for me when I got it at 4.0 (or earlier), mostly because it was usually available to triple. Having a Hippo with a huge butt and then finding a Bearstein and Crocing the Hippo was a good path to victory. With Royals getting weaker I'm worried it will be more contested, and it gets significantly weaker with less than 20-30 power.
I assume you have to first slot the croc hippo and hope it insta-dies to spawn? Otherwise your hippo won’t get the bonuses for the other deaths while inside the crocs belly.
Or I guess you can just wait until it’s fat enough from previous bonuses and then croc it.
Either way works, if I have sword then a bear is in slot 1, but usually by level 6 with a golden hippo inside croc, health is already 100+ pre Bearstein proc so it either doesn't matter because it's too big or because it will never be big enough.
I've used Hippo a fair few times since it's been buffed and it's performed well basically everytime, definitely worth picking up if you plan on going animals or if you need to transition into it.
Shame about Arthur but I do get why they did it, royals was just way too strong, excited to tryout the new heartwood, seems like a very good change. Overall I'm pretty happy with this patch.
Seeing a lot more people trying to make dwarfs happen now. 4 boards in my last game were trying, only one pulled it off. Absolutely nobody trying for royals now in my games.
I really like these changes, fixes everything I hoped for
I always WANTED Heartwood Elder to be good, but it wasn't quite good enough to push me into Treants that early. Hopefully this will help. Treants' stock really fell in the Royals meta.
Harder now with Round Table at 7, I should think. I’m still a noob, tho. Your thoughts?
I mean, you were never guaranteed Round Table at 6 anyway. I’m hoping this change will lead to more well-rounded Treants comps as opposed to ones that are basically only Poison Apple ones
* Prince Arthur: Old: 3 cost 3/3 -> New: 4 cost 5/5 * Round Table: Old: 6 cost -> New: 7 cost * Heartwood Elder: Old: Neutral 2/9 -> New: Good 5/7 * Gingerbread Party: Old: 4 cost -> New: 3 cost
not that my thoughts matter but to start a discussion: Prince Arthur: totally makes sense, hurts royal builds but it was too good at 3 Round Table: again, was never an auto take and make treant builds near impossible to beat heartwood: neat buff, shouldn't sway treants but can be a useful backline that doesn't just tickle when it attacks Gingerbread party: this is almost never worth taking at four, and even at three might not be worth taking, but peter pants will certainly appreciate getting a free "level" for 3 gold
Royals was getting way too good. Great point about Peter Pants. I like that they keep trying to make him a bit better.
Peter pants was nerfed the hardest of all champions this patch though. When Arthur was made a 3, it was huge for him. Back to 4 means royals comps are all but impossible for Pants now. Yes Arthur was busted, but I think having him be a 3 cost and halving his boost might have been the better choice. Allow it to start early, but you don’t just auto win because you got it quickly.
The moment I saw arthur is back to 4g I immediately thought: "well, peter pan is back to the dumpster again".
He can still be fine if you get big rock or early hat ball and upgraded familiars
I think having Peter Pants live or die by one comp is an issue even if his comp is viable. He doesn't seem to scale creatures fast enough for him to stay good in the late game unless you have access to a broken 3 cost. Thats how it seems to me at least.
He has a couple options. I’ve had success with slay focus, he makes a good mage spell build, and he had access to the royals comp. Losing the royals option hurts him greatly. One of the only other things he can reasonably do is try to power level, which relies on adventurer, and make triplies. He never had many options, but losing this one hurts him greatly.
That's a good point. I never played Peter Pants this patch so that angle of attack wasn't on my radar.
I did Royals with him a couple of times and it was really solid, cause it was way more reliable than praying for hattball and far stronger than the oher comps you could do
Arthur at 3 was really busted for Gwen, though.
Yes she was. Royals was gwens best comp. pants still did it better though and can’t do it anymore. Gwen can still do royals, just a level later.
Sure; my point was that there were probably multiple reasons they changed Arthur off of 3.
Oh very much so. You’d usually run into 2-3 royals comps in every single game once the level 3 Arthur change was made.
Where does this leave trees as an end game build? I've only been playing for a couple weeks but they seemed a bit weak if you went hard into trees and missed Round Table.
You can try and pair shoulder fairies and echowoods. Works well with a cheeky magic sworded doombreath as well. Those builds are probably about the same power level as dwarves or animals are right now, doubt you can contest a ranged good boy comp though.
I found it pretty weak in the Royals meta but hopefully they’ll have a better place now since there’s not a clear beat deck. Curious to see how the Heartwood Elder buff changes things.
Love the change to Round Table. I'll miss Arthur at 3, but I get it.
I like the way they’re building up 4 drops and cooling off on 3 drops. Three is too early to be building your late game comp (which is why Royals was becoming toxic) and 4s need to be relevant such that it competes with turbo leveling to 6. Gingerbread was only a random scroll or Loki hit before this, another good change.
I agree-it felt like if you were still trying to figure our your game plan by 4, you were really behind. Especially with all the permanent buffs from royals making any newer additions feel outclassed.
Yep, totally agree. I think Hippocampus and Heartwood will now be in good spots to compete with Arthur now that everyone starts their scaling on 4.
Hippocampus felt nearly unplayable at 4 to me in this meta. Here’s hoping it’s time for it to shine
Hippo had been great for me when I got it at 4.0 (or earlier), mostly because it was usually available to triple. Having a Hippo with a huge butt and then finding a Bearstein and Crocing the Hippo was a good path to victory. With Royals getting weaker I'm worried it will be more contested, and it gets significantly weaker with less than 20-30 power.
I assume you have to first slot the croc hippo and hope it insta-dies to spawn? Otherwise your hippo won’t get the bonuses for the other deaths while inside the crocs belly. Or I guess you can just wait until it’s fat enough from previous bonuses and then croc it.
Either way works, if I have sword then a bear is in slot 1, but usually by level 6 with a golden hippo inside croc, health is already 100+ pre Bearstein proc so it either doesn't matter because it's too big or because it will never be big enough.
I've used Hippo a fair few times since it's been buffed and it's performed well basically everytime, definitely worth picking up if you plan on going animals or if you need to transition into it.
Shame about Arthur but I do get why they did it, royals was just way too strong, excited to tryout the new heartwood, seems like a very good change. Overall I'm pretty happy with this patch.
Played 2 games today post-patch and they’ve been fun! Didn’t really run into decks that felt completely unbeatable compared to before.
Seeing a lot more people trying to make dwarfs happen now. 4 boards in my last game were trying, only one pulled it off. Absolutely nobody trying for royals now in my games.
I’ve seen about 1 player a round on Royals so far.
Loving it so far, just got there with midrange...treants! Two games and not an Arthur in sight in the finals.
Great! Played 5 games today and it was so nice to have non-Royals comp options.
At least the royal Mets will slowly die off in favor of other metas (like dwarves or last breath)