Loping Telescope Appreciation Post
I’ve had a good time playing Tristana Atrocity deck lately. Not thanks to Tristana, though, but mostly thanks to Bandle City card package in general, and one card in particular. And that card is Loping Telescope.
So basically, what is Loping Telescope? It’s a two mana 2/1 multi-regional unit that can create a random Celestial that costs 3 or less, a random epic card or a random multi-regional follower in your hand. But what’s so special about Loping Telescope? What made me devote a whole article to it? Well, the answer is simple. Sometimes it’s epic card generation is just insane.
One time I won a game in round 9 thanks to Feel the Rush gotten from Loping Telescope. When you already have Tristana on board and then 10/10 Teemo and 10/10 Poppy join the party, it kind of makes you feel bad for your opponent. And the other time I got Buried in Ice from Loping Telescope. Frozen Tombs have the countdown 2, and so it really helped me clear the board for my attack turn and prepare to push lethal. And the other time I got Dragon’s Rage from Loping Telescope. It was a nice substitute for Atrocity in a game where I hadn’t topdecked Atrocity.
Tristana Atrocity is a straightforward deck with a simple game plan, that’s why sometimes such spicy randomness can work well with it. At the very least, it can make games more unpredictable and fun, especially when you face meme decks or decks that also rely on RNG.
Blessing from Freljord
About half an hour ago I played against TF Ekko deck. That game was challenging for both me and my opponent. I’d been delightedly surprised when I got the Howling Abyss from Loping Telescope in the beginning of the game. “Hehehe, how could I possibly lose now?” I thought to myself. But I was being naive...
My enemy played two Fallen Felines and Predicted a bunch of times to find Hexite Crystals. Hopelessly. And there, I had six units on my side of the board, including Azir and Miss Fortune (both created by the Howling Abyss and, thus both level 2) and I was staring excitedly at the melting rope next to the Opponent’s Turn circle waiting for their turn to end to perform my attack and make some noise, but WHOA!
My opponent cast a Targon spell that deals 15 damage to all enemies!
At first I was bewildered. How? Such a strong spell from Targon in a Bilgewater/PnZ deck? But then I realised that it had been one of Marai Grandmother’s gifts. I had completely overlooked the fact that my opponent had played that card. It turned out my opponent’s Predicts hadn’t been as unfortunate as I’d thought. I should have been more attentive, because from that moment on the game had become tough for me.
TF Ekko appeared to be a deck that makes use of cards that create strong spells in the deck and the Predict keyword to try and find them. My enemy had already played multiple copies of Marai Grandmother and Fallen Feline and so I didn’t know what to expect. Worse than that they didn’t neglect the Howling Abyss. Somehow they’d managed to get rid of every champion created by it right after it had been summoned.
Then at some point they played Feel the Rush... Damn, I was so glad that deck didn’t run any champions with Overwhelm or Elusive, or else their next attack would have been lethal. However, Ekko had leveled up and created three copies of Chronobreak in the deck. That was scary... He could give free value from every strike, and considering that my opponent’s deck was somewhat a treasure chest possibly filled with devastating created spells, the longer the game was going, the less chances I had to win. To be honest, I didn’t know how I could possibly win that game. Their Nexus had 10 health. I had two Atrocities in my hand, but I hadn’t drawn Tristana once. So my last hope was a card generated by the Howling Abyss...
And thank God of RNG, the Howling Abyss gave me Vi!
Seems like that was a blessing from Freljord, because levelled Vi had just enough attack points to make OTK! My Aloof Travelers had discarded Vengeance in my opponent’s hand the round before, so I knew that unless they had answers like Minimorph, it would be lethal. I used Atrocity on Vi in response to the enemy’s Piercing Darkness, and to my relief my opponent didn’t have anything that could disrupt my Atrocity or reduce Vi’s damage. It was lethal.
*Shen emote*
I wrote the text above in my draft during the Beyond the Bandlewood season. Back then the meta was overtaken by Poppy Zed and Poppy Ziggs, and so playing a game against TF Ekko deck, for a change, was like breathing a fresh air to me. Not only did I come across an experimental off-meta deck that relied a lot on RNG, I myself owe the victory in that game to a stroke of lucky RNG. Just think about it: I won that game thanks to a card generated a card generated by Loping Telescope!
And that’s what Loping Telescope is all about. It’s a fascinating card that brings a bit more flexibility and fun to any deck featuring Bandle City, and sometimes its' crazy epic card generation can change your entire game plan. And in addition to being a decent multi-regional two-drop that offers you three randomly selected cards (each from a different category) to choose from, Loping Telescope has also some captivating voice lines. My favourite ones are "Eeeee, eee, eeee?", "Eeee ee eeee" and "Ee, eee eeeee, eee!".
Thank you for reading and GL HF in your games!
