Why are followers not allowed to be interesting if they are grouped with Runeterran champs whose Origins are only "Play me with my package"

Discussion

For clarification, the two Runeterran champions who fit the "bill" for the title are Evelynn and Jax. Both of which whose only effect is "you can put x in your deck." I'm also not gonna talk about Jax himself being boring cause that's a different issue.


This is something I've noticed before with Evelynn's followers, and is a thought that has been subsequently reignited by the reveal of Jax and his followers.

Their followers are fuckin BORING.

Each of their followers follow the same bland shit of "When I'm summoned, I do x" where x is their packaged mechanic.

Evelynn has 5 followers, and three of them have the exact same text, of "when I am summoned, summon a husk."

I will admit, the last 2 followers left, Domination and Solitude, they do at least try to interact with their mechanic with their 1 drop buffs, along with their I summon husks of course. Alright fine then, lets move to Jax.

Jax now released, he has 4 followers, and guess what?

There is only a single follower that doesn't simply say "when I'm summon, Improvise", and it's Wandering Shepard, and the ONLY DIFFERENCE he has is that he gets to choose ANOTHER ally to improvise when he is summoned, rather than himself.

.

The worst part is about it all, is that it's clearly not a creativity issue, this issue doesn't happen to their spells, it isn't even shared among other Runeterran champs.

  • Bard, despite having only 3 units, still has more to his followers, while Byrd is just "summon me do mechanic", Esmus has a function outside of I PERFORM MECHANIC with his support ability and Maduli allows chimes to explode in potential by doubling them

  • Kayn's Cultist units all interact with equipment in unique ways, with a predict effect that reacts to equipment, a power share effect, and a token generator

Jhin is a little unfair to count since his followers by nature couldn't have been "I DO MECHANIC" since he is based around play effects, but they are still varied in what they did with stuns, recalls, deal damage and kill effects.

You'd think that if these Runeterran champs main restriction is being locked out of one other region and forced to use a certain group of cards instead, their units would at least be designed in a cool way.

I get that maybe the thought process is that if they are gonna introduce a new mechanic they need a baseline that just simply does it, but when these champions have only 4 to 5 followers, they really really can't be having more than half the followers be that baseline.

Posted Aug 26, 2022, 5:43 PM UTC

6510
Ghost_Doctah•

I think the creativity and variety here comes from the improvised weapons.

A 1/3 and a random husk feels pretty similar every time you play it but these weapons make for very different minions.

Plus the weapons go back to hand and form a toolkit as the game goes on

34
RealPeaSample•

I think that a big part of this is that not only you get a choice, you have to choose from depleting options, while husks are different keywords but random

2
DasVerschwenden:JarvanIV: Jarvan IV•

Yes. The depleting options thing allows for so so much skill expression from both sides.

1
HailfireSpawn•

I think your incredibly underestimating how interesting allowing other regions to have access to improvising. It’s not just one mechanic but a pool of 7 equipment that you can use. Your also not mentioning their spells which have unique equipment related stuff that you seem to want the units to do.

15
MatDestruction:Teemo2: Teemo•

I disagree this time.

I do think Evellyn followers are really boring. All of them are understated and mostly don't want to battle

But Jax's followers seems more interesting for the fact that

A. They can adapt to your gameplay and

B. All of them have different stats and keywords, providin different combat, since all of them wanna be battling.

Bonus: the spells are really fun for the package and have different and creative uses

7
Powder_Keg•

Yeah I agree. I made a custom Ryze with followers that also just create "champ's special cards" but are more complex if you want examples

4
Saltiest_Grapefruit:Chip: Chip•

I think jax's follower does it well.

They are purely support units and they WILL have many many homes.

Eves follower tho... yeah, those are atrocious.

4
VicMan_LoR•

I like Jax and Evelynn

3†
johnhang123:KDAAllOut3: KDA All Out•

meh

1
xaph1youcrazy:Zoe: Zoe•

Not true. Byrd so broken he gets included in all the decks.

1