I would argue that SW and BW defined the meta for AW (and most other content) prior to 12.0. Leadership synergy members were the meta prior to that.
Blade was definitely the biggest impact after diminishing returns were introduced though, and the impact was the most noticeable due to his high prestige on release.
You could make a good argument for Domino and Doom on release as well for the impact they had, but probably less than the others already mentioned.
Gotta be corvus. He is beyond any other champ in the game
He's definitely not. I've used blade more often during the past 2 new Cav difficulties than Corvus. I can't take CG into a fight on Cav difficulty unless I really want to try and go through like 2 cycles of glaive charges and refreshes. There haven't been enough charges on paths to make a huge difference.
In the history of the game I’m going sw as most impactful, for a little over 2 years she was the option for literally everything, blade had a shorter period of dominance
Corvus was definitely more impactful than Blade. Blade had his day. Sure.
But Corvus. Corvus redefined the game.
Redefined the game? Lol how?
Corvus' potential wasn't even realized for a while. In the meta Blade was in, he was definitely more impactful.
The minute I read his datamined abilities I was already talking with everybody in my alliance that he was going to be game breaking. So it didn’t take a while.
Seasons upon season, AW was “how to not give the opponent charges” Even today we still plan defense around Corvus.
What about AQ? He’s still the answer for so many paths, you can time out with him. Win fights at 1% and never die.
Champs introduced specifically to counter him like Mr. Sinister and Maw
Blade, Quake, Corvus and Ghost are the meta defining champs of this game. But Blade was by far the most impactful, since he was the first. He defined meta, and attack teams as is today.
I'm never going to forgive Blade for making the entire MCOC playerbase invent a completely different definition for the term "meta" than the rest of the gaming world uses.
Comments
Blade was definitely the biggest impact after diminishing returns were introduced though, and the impact was the most noticeable due to his high prestige on release.
You could make a good argument for Domino and Doom on release as well for the impact they had, but probably less than the others already mentioned.
Blade had his day. Sure.
But Corvus. Corvus redefined the game.
Corvus' potential wasn't even realized for a while. In the meta Blade was in, he was definitely more impactful.
Seasons upon season, AW was “how to not give the opponent charges”
Even today we still plan defense around Corvus.
What about AQ? He’s still the answer for so many paths, you can time out with him. Win fights at 1% and never die.
Champs introduced specifically to counter him like Mr. Sinister and Maw