Gameplay Engineer

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Designing Master Yi for Path of Champions: Adding Depth With Items

Twitter thread:

Adding items to cards accelerates the game plan and increases flexibility of card usages. Let's take a look at some of my favorite item/unit combinations and what we hoped to accomplish. 1/6

Vastayan Disciple with Pickaxe. Adding 2 damage to a 1 cost elusive unit made it flexible as an attacker, blocker, and utility. In most cases, it was a cheap, strong unit that could be burst summoned with card draw and be flow trigger. 2/6


Rivershaper with Speed Wraps. Rivershaper typically is only able to get one or two strikes before it’s gone from the board. Adding Quick Attack allows for it to gain more value as well as take out enemy units without being a negative trade when combined with Twin. 3/6


Swole Squirrel with Chain Vest. Having tough on Swole Squirrel gave it the power to scale easily. This made it a more consistent win condition allowing the Player to not focus on Yi so much. 4/6


Rush with Hextech Fabricator. Hextech Fabricator generates the best value on cheap, burst spells. It helps swing trades in favor of the Player while also being able to supercharge present win conditions. 5/6


Wuju Style and Hero’s Horn. Since the deck is spell heavy, not having a champion or unit made combat difficult. Adding Hero’s Horn to the champion spell solved this problem while also introducing a unique interaction. If Yi was in play, it’s possible to chain Wuju Styles. 6/6

Derek Nguyen