BALANCE UPDATE: Isophyne and The Deathless
MCOC Team
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Hey all,
Balance Team here again with an update on the latest round of Champions up for review, Isophyne and the Deathless Champs.
“...Many Summoners may remember that these black-and-white versions of MCoC Champions appeared as Defenders a few years ago. These newly-released “Deathless” Champions are our opportunity to let you own a piece of that MCoC history for yourself, along with some interesting twists we think you’ll enjoy. For each Deathless, we’ll be taking the existing kit for each of these Champions, and “remixing” them. These are not reworks in any way, more so they’re us taking another spin on an older design. Most of the Champion’s abilities will be untouched, except in spots where the abilities were showing their age or didn’t align to how we do Champion Design on MCoC these days. But even though the kits will largely be the same, we’re still giving them a numbers tune-up where we feel appropriate, and we’ve got some powerful new synergies packed into the kit that don’t exist on the existing version of the Champ.”
The goal with the first 4 Deathless Champions was to keep the identity and archetype of their non-Deathless counterpart, paired with a combination of light tuning and ability changes to reinforce their uniqueness over time. For example, King Groot (Deathless) leans into Incinerate/Energy Damage + Regeneration as a remix of King Groot’s Poison + Regeneration abilities. We also wanted to showcase the Deathless Champions as a team, and knowing that a future “Challenge” would be a fun and flavorful way to wrap up the Deathless arc results in a powerful network of synergies, with all forms of team-based content considered. From a high-level perspective, we’re happy with how the Deathless team landed!
For the most part, we’re seeing healthy usage and performance across different game modes, and are largely pleased with how they’ve landed as individual Champions, and as a questing team. That being said, when reviewing Deathless Vision’s performance over the last 6 months, we’re seeing him fall short in his target matchups. While we do see a small set of players who use him very effectively, we also see an opportunity to empower his Phase + Heal Block abilities and bridge that gap via tuning changes. Deathless Vision will enter the Batch Update pool!
Deathless Thanos’s Defender kit was designed to disrupt and restrict incoming loops, and reward Attackers who can answer or play around his threats. In Alliance War, Deathless Thanos has found a handful of popular mini-boss placements, and is seeing consistent Defensive use in Battlegrounds. His matchup spread as a Defender in both game modes reflects his goals, with a variety of Mystic Buff control Champions being among his most popular and effective counters. We’re also seeing players creatively use Champions who counter Unstoppable, or benefit from Deathless Thanos’s Energize + higher Special Attack frequency, and are happy overall with his performance as a Defender. No changes incoming to Deathless Thanos!
You can expect communication on OKOYE and GENTLE toward the middle of JUNE!
Balance Team here again with an update on the latest round of Champions up for review, Isophyne and the Deathless Champs.
Isophyne
Isophyne uses the classic Mystic combo of Nullify and Power Gain to showcase the flexibility of the Fractured Power Bar mechanic. Their combo of Immunities and Mystic utility has proven to be effective in Buff Heavy and/or Power Gain based matchups (Serpent, Hulkling and Gorr being among her best) while also performing at a healthy rate in non-optimal matchups. We’re also happy to see how she’s landed as a Defender, with most Champions able to comfortably counter them as long as they’re mindful of their Power Gain and the Fractured Power Bar! Overall, we’re happy with how Isophyne is performing across the board and they will be staying as is!The Deathless Champions
Let’s talk about the Deathless Champions! Since our first 4 Deathless Champions took heavy inspiration from their “original” counterparts, we’ll talk about them separately from Deathless Thanos, who was built from the ground up.Deathless Guillotine, King Groot, Vision and She-Hulk
We’ll begin this section by calling back to Kabam Niv’s introduction to the Deathless Champions, which can be found at the top of Deathless Guillotine’s Champion Spotlight.“...Many Summoners may remember that these black-and-white versions of MCoC Champions appeared as Defenders a few years ago. These newly-released “Deathless” Champions are our opportunity to let you own a piece of that MCoC history for yourself, along with some interesting twists we think you’ll enjoy. For each Deathless, we’ll be taking the existing kit for each of these Champions, and “remixing” them. These are not reworks in any way, more so they’re us taking another spin on an older design. Most of the Champion’s abilities will be untouched, except in spots where the abilities were showing their age or didn’t align to how we do Champion Design on MCoC these days. But even though the kits will largely be the same, we’re still giving them a numbers tune-up where we feel appropriate, and we’ve got some powerful new synergies packed into the kit that don’t exist on the existing version of the Champ.”
The goal with the first 4 Deathless Champions was to keep the identity and archetype of their non-Deathless counterpart, paired with a combination of light tuning and ability changes to reinforce their uniqueness over time. For example, King Groot (Deathless) leans into Incinerate/Energy Damage + Regeneration as a remix of King Groot’s Poison + Regeneration abilities. We also wanted to showcase the Deathless Champions as a team, and knowing that a future “Challenge” would be a fun and flavorful way to wrap up the Deathless arc results in a powerful network of synergies, with all forms of team-based content considered. From a high-level perspective, we’re happy with how the Deathless team landed!
For the most part, we’re seeing healthy usage and performance across different game modes, and are largely pleased with how they’ve landed as individual Champions, and as a questing team. That being said, when reviewing Deathless Vision’s performance over the last 6 months, we’re seeing him fall short in his target matchups. While we do see a small set of players who use him very effectively, we also see an opportunity to empower his Phase + Heal Block abilities and bridge that gap via tuning changes. Deathless Vision will enter the Batch Update pool!
Deathless Thanos
As mentioned above, Deathless Thanos was not a “light remix” of his non-Deathless counterpart, and was built from the ground up to be a powerful Dual-threat Champion, designed to thrive in Armor Up heavy matchups, and longer fights where he has the runway to reach his damage and Regeneration ceiling. Deathless Thanos quickly made an impact as an Attacker, seeing plenty of use across the Alliance War map and in Battlegrounds matches with strong performances in his target matchups (Red Skull + Ant-Man (Future) being 2 of his best). We’re also seeing healthy levels of fluctuation with his effectiveness in non-target matchups, and are happy with how he’s landed as an Attacker.Deathless Thanos’s Defender kit was designed to disrupt and restrict incoming loops, and reward Attackers who can answer or play around his threats. In Alliance War, Deathless Thanos has found a handful of popular mini-boss placements, and is seeing consistent Defensive use in Battlegrounds. His matchup spread as a Defender in both game modes reflects his goals, with a variety of Mystic Buff control Champions being among his most popular and effective counters. We’re also seeing players creatively use Champions who counter Unstoppable, or benefit from Deathless Thanos’s Energize + higher Special Attack frequency, and are happy overall with his performance as a Defender. No changes incoming to Deathless Thanos!
What’s Next
Deathless Vision enters the Batch Update pool! And will release with Batch #2, target build to be determined. A reminder that updates to Patriot, MODOK, and Yondu are releasing as Batch #1 in our 52.0 (August) Build.You can expect communication on OKOYE and GENTLE toward the middle of JUNE!
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