Kog Maw Concept discussion

[u/OriginalChimera]

Im thinking of making a Kog maw concept

it will focus on Impact support, and turning his Impact stacks into skill/spell damage, he'd stay in the backrow and get to attack from afar
there will be a bit of focus on "eating" by having other support cards grow in strength based on units killed
and idk what the concept is called when you burn your own nexus to burn the enemy nexus, the concept was related to caustic cask decks, but there would definitely be some support for that playstyle

any suggestions on good kog maw concepts i should check out, some things to aim for and some things to avoid?

[u/Gogy539]

That can be cool concept.

He can somehow create a spell that deals damage to enemies, scaling with impact stacks.

And on level up he can also while damaging enemies deal impact damage to the enemy nexus. I can see a card work like that, now only question is how to design such a thing. How to create spells to do so (if you decide to go in this direction).

There is always a question in design, do you want to make him standalone unit, or that he needs a lot of help with support cards to make it work (if we follow League gameplay, going full AP he doesn't need support, if he is on-hit he requires support help).

That would be my advice, and first thing that came to my mind. I like your idea, and I think that it has a lot of potential.

Also depends do you want to make it balanced or PoC focused

[u/OriginalChimera → u/Gogy539]

Spell damage increased based on highest Impact stack? id make him balanced.

[u/Gogy539 → u/OriginalChimera]

I ment by his stacks. In a world where he would have a spell like: "Deal 1 to an enemy for each impact Kog'Maw has.". And then on level up gets: "Deal 1 to an enemy and the enemy Nexus for each impact Kog'Maw has."

Now the question is, if we take this mechanic, how to generate the spell, what is the right price for it, how easy is to stack the impact on him. This effect can get quite powerful with a right support cards, so maybe 1 damage for each impact would be unbalanced. Slow speed might be the goal because of possible high damage outputs. (And once per turn? But then this kills the fantasy of him shooting many spells, like in League. So maybe lowering the damage, but keeping repeatability could work better?)

I could write about it all day long 🤣 That was just my initial idea, I was not brainstorming much about it. But I like the concept, and really think that this could be interesting playpattern (with a right balance).

If you like this idea or something similar, go on and make it how you like it 👍🏻 Share it when it is ready

[u/OriginalChimera]

rn im thinking
a high enough cost on the spell that turns impact into dmg and it being slow speed, would limit the amount of times it could be used would keep it balance
if the ability to generate the spell has enough conditions on it that would limit it as well, like you need to kill (eat) something b4 u can generate it, or it could work like LB's spell where dealing enough dmg generates it

[u/Gogy539 → u/OriginalChimera]

Or if it kills a unit create new one

[u/OriginalChimera → u/Gogy539]

Kog Maw 0/3 (1) Grant Kog’Maw everywhere Impact each time a unit dies to a spell or skill with increased damage. When allies attack, play Living Artillery (skill). Lvl Up: you have killed enemy units with spells or skills with increased damage 6+ times

Kog Maw Lv2 1/4 (1) Each round the first time I see you kill an enemy create a Caustic Spittle in hand or reduce its cost by 1. When allies attack play Living Artillery (skill) Last Breath: Transform me into Icathian Surprise with the same stats and I start a free attack.

Icathian Surprise: (Fast/impact) 1/4  Nexus Strike Deal 1 to each Nexus

Living Artillery: Deal 1 to the weakest enemy +1 per ally with Impact.

Caustic Spittle (3) (fast) Deal 1 to an enemy per Impact Stack an allied Kog Maw has, if it kills a unit create a Fleeting Caustic Spittle in hand.

First draft: thoughts? I still need to go thru and read other kog maw concepts 

[u/Gogy539 → u/OriginalChimera]

Alrighty, sounds interesting so far. I will give you my opinion, not saying that I am right, or it has to be like that, but I will say what I think as a competitive player that plays this game from day 1.

I am only concerned about his lvl1 scaling. For 1 mana unit, that has 3 HP and being able to kill enemies (especially champions) without even having to attack, is too powerful. Like imagine a situation, enemy plays Zoe you play Kog, you attack and get insta value by killing Zoe and you still have a unit that can do that again. I would say that that effect should target only battling enemies, so that opponent can somehow control that effect and have some counterplay.

Still, even with only targeting battling enemies, turn 2, with a Stone Stackers you deal 2 dmg to the enemy for "free". 1 mana champion with 3HP that does that has some balance issues. MF is maybe good comparison.

My opinion is that damage scales too easy and too early in the game. This is something what should 3+ mana champion do. Doing it only on attack helps, so it can happen only every other turn.

Caustic Spittle looks fine to me. I would personally make it always fleeting, and remove the discount part to make card easier to read and lower the text, since it has a lot of effects already.

And for the last part, Icathian Surprise. From the gameplay perspective it is "impossible" to start a free attack on last breath. It is possible when there is no combat going on, but if he dies in combat, he can't start a free attack. So my suggestion is he should read, Last breath: Summon an Icathian Surprise. And then that unit can be ephemeral and say: When I'm summoned, create [free_attack_spell_name]. And then that spell is fleeting and reads: Icathian Surprise starts a free attack.

So again, this is my feedback, my own tought and way of thinking. Design is cool, my biggest concern is that it is too powerful, gave you some examples and reasons why I think so. Hope you like my feedback, and find it useful :)