We’re deep into work on the next Mini Expansion, but since we are working on that back to front, we don’t have anything ready to go from that for this month. We considered either doing a handful of cards unrelated to the Mini Expansion, or doing a set of reprints. We ultimately decided to keep the time spent developing new cards focused on the Mini Expansion, and tried to generally save some time for process and other work by going with a reprint set. Well, it turns out this was more work than expected with testing through a large set of cards, so we are coming in a bit close to the deadline this month, hence the relative quiet around this. The good news is that we ended up with a bunch of thoughts on other cards for the future.
We are still looking for more help, if you want to contribute, here’s a form to fill out.
Variety Set – Reprints
We are reprinting two cards from each faction as they were in Duelyst, just adjusting the wording, spell/artifact borders, and rarity as needed.
Lyonar
Sunbond Pavise
Artifact | Rare | 2 | Allied minions directly above and below your General have +2/+0 and Provoke.
Auroara
Minion | Epic | 3 | 1 / 5 | When you summon a minion with 2 or less Attack, this gains +2/+0.
Songhai
Pandamonium
Spell | Rare | 4 | Transform all minions into Panddo until the end of the turn.
Onyx Jaguar
Minion | Epic | 5 | 3 / 3 | After an allied minion moves or teleports, it gains +1/+1.
Vetruvian
Equality Constraint
Spell | Common | 1 | Set a minion’s Health equal to its Attack.
Synaptic Arbitrage
Spell | Epic | 4 | Your opponent takes control of an allied minion. You take control of enemy minions with less Attack nearby it.
Abyssian
Mindlathe
Artifact | Legendary | 3 | After your General damages a minion, activate and take control of it until the end of the turn.
Void Steal
Spell | Common | 3 | Give an enemy minion -3/-0. Give allied minions nearby it +3/+0.
Magmar
Rancour
Minion | Common | 2 | 1 / 3 | When your General takes damage, this gains that much attack.
Oropsisaur
Minion | Legendary | 3 | 2 / 5 | Grow: +1/+1. When another allied minion with Grow survives damage, that minion grows.
Vanar
Iceshatter Gauntlet
Artifact | Rare | 1 | When your General attacks a Stunned minion, destroy it. (it doesn’t counterattack)
Disciple of Yggdra
Minion | Legendary | 3 | 2 / 3 | When an enemy is Stunned, transform this into Yggdra’s Voracity.
Yggdra’s Voracity
Minion | Token | 3 | 5 / 5 | When an enemy is Stunned, fully heal this.
Balance Changes
We’ve learned a lot about and from the data this month, and have seen some clear winners and losers in the current metagame. We’re making more adjustments than last month to try to even things out a bit. As always, we are listening to feedback on this, so let us know your thoughts here, good or bad.
Spiral Technique
[Old] Spell | 7 | Deal 8 damage to a unit.
[New] Spell | 8 | Deal 8 damage to a unit.
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NEW
Dark Seed
[Old] Spell | 4 | Deal damage to the enemy General equal to the number of cards in the opponent’s action bar.
[New] Spell | 5 | Deal damage to the enemy General equal to the number of cards in the opponent’s action bar.
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Spirit of the Wild
[Old] Spell | 4 | Activate allied units on your opponent’s starting side of the battlefield.
[New] Spell | 5 | Activate allied units on your opponent’s starting side of the battlefield.
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Spiral Technique, Dark Seed, and Spirit of the Wild fall into the same category for adjustment; they are one of the most winning cards in their respective factions, and represent large amounts of out of hand burst damage. We are aiming to tone down this aspect of the metagame a bit for now by adding one to their costs to both generally slow them down a turn and make it a little harder to deploy lethal damage from hand on 9 mana. As with the Manaforger change aimed at limiting one turn kills (OTKs), we are hoping to introduce more options for counterplay in the future, and may revisit these then.
Juxtaposition
[Old] Spell | 0 | Switch the positions of two minions.
[New] Spell | 0 | Switch the positions of two minions with the same owner.
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Songhai has been the faction with the highest win rate this month, and Juxtaposition has been the most winning card of cards with a high play rate in the faction. It’s a card that can represent burst damage and invalidate a lot of defensive positioning considerations, while enabling many Songhai cards (and a certain Neutral), all for the low cost of free. We are trying to specifically to cut back on its use to break through defensive positioning and invalidate Provoke minions, while still leaving it as a general enabler for Songhai. We feel it will still keep some of its role as a mechanism for closing games, just with a little more effort to position your minions, and a little more counterplay in defensive positioning.
Soulshatter Pact
[Old] Spell | 2 | Give an enemy minion -2/-0. Give allied minions nearby it +2/+0.
[New] Spell | 2 | Give allied minions +2/+0 until your next turn.
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This is a bit of an odd one, we are actually trying to make this effect a little stronger, while also bringing back the old effect to help support swarm strategies. We’re opting here to move the current effect onto the Void Steal reprint while reverting this one to it’s previous state to avoid ending up flipping the sprites from their original effects. We’ve bumped Void Steal down to common so it’s free to swap between them should you want to.
Greater Fortitude
[Old] Spell | 1 | Give a minion +2/+1.
[New] Spell | 1 | Give a minion +2/+2.
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NEW
Primordial Gazer
[Old] Minion | 3 | 4 / 2 | Opening Gambit: Give a nearby minion +2/+1.
[New] Minion | 3 | 4 / 2 | Opening Gambit: Give a nearby minion +2/+2.
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These were both nerfed back a while back when Magmar was a top contender, and well, now they could use a bit of help. We’re bumping both of these back up to their previous values to give a bit more staying power to board-based Magmar strategies.
Fenrir Warmaster – Ghost Wolf Token
[Old] Minion | 2 | 3 / 3
[New] Minion | 2 | 3 / 2
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Fenrir Warmaster in its various incarnations has long been a staple inclusion in Vanar decks, and one of the faction’s best cards. We are taking off some of the health from the token here to make it a little easier to clear, and chip away at the some of the staying power of Vanar’s board states.
Temporal Sage, Lily
[Old] Minion | 4 | 4 / 5 | Opening Gambit: Teleport the minion directly in front of this backward 1 space. If a unit occupies that space, deal 2 damage to both instead.
[New] Minion | 4 | 4 / 5 | Opening Gambit: Teleport the unit directly in front of this backward 1 space. If a unit occupies that space, deal 2 damage to both instead.
OLD
NEW
This one has been on the list of cards to buff, and what better time to do that than with the official animations finished! Hopefully the ability to move generals will allow for some interesting new applications. Be sure to check out her updated animations in-game!
Consuming Rebirth Combo
As mentioned in the last update, we’ve been keeping an eye on this deck. With some more data to look at, it’s looking like it’s not particularly strong or prevalent. Given that and some potential future things incidentally affecting the deck anyway, we aren’t going to make any changes here unless something changes significantly.
Epic Series 4 Cards
When considering whether to keep these changes, we looked at where the cards ended up falling in the metagame, what play patterns the changes affected, and some of what we are considering for the future for these or other cards.
Astral Crusader
[Old] Minion | 10 | 5 / 5 | When you replace this card, this and other Astral Crusader cards in your action bar and deck cost 2 less and gain +2/+2.
[New] Minion | 7 | 6 / 12 | At the start of each turn, switch the positions of both Generals.
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Astral Crusader certainly found a place in the metagame, but produced some poor play patterns with Rush enablers. Given the lack of playability of the old version, we’ll certainly be revisiting this card again in the future, and will look at variations of the same idea.
Primus Shieldmaster
No change
The change here didn’t move the needle a whole lot on this card, and it’s a solid inclusion for new players, so we’re happy to leave it as is.
Paddo
[Old] Minion | 7 | 7 / 8 | Airdrop. Opening Gambit: Summon two Ruby, Emerald, and Sapphire auras on nearby spaces.
[New] Minion | 7 | 12 / 6 | Airdrop. Opening Gambit: Teleport nearby units to random spaces.
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Paddo ended up with a very low play rate, and we think both that there are reasons to want the old effect around, and that there should be one true Sloth.
Bloodrage Mask
No change
This version of Bloodrage Mask ended up being relatively weak, but given the current state of Songhai, we are fine with just leaving it as is for now. If it continues performing at the same levels as it is now, we’ll revisit it in the future.
Deathblighter
[Old] Minion | 5 | 4 / 6 | Opening Gambit: During your opponent’s next turn, after they play 3 cards, end the turn.
[New] Minion | 6 | 6 / 8 | Prevent all healing.
OLD
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Deathblighter also ended up with a very low play rate. It’s certainly is an interesting effect though, and we may look at something in a similar space in the future.
Spelljammer
No change
This one looks to have ended up in a reasonable spot. It’s not a standout card in the metagame, but how potentially oppressive the effect can be, we wouldn’t want it showing up all over the place. We’re going to leave this as is, and keep an eye on it.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed Divine Bond modifier wording to be accurate to the card.
- Fixed Bubblesmith bubble popping on 0 damage.
- Fixed Bubblesmith blocking damage twice when killing something with a Dying Wish that does damage.
- Fixed post-match report button.
Solo Challenges Adjustments
We’ve reviewed the challenges affected by current and previous changes, and adjusted some of them to try to keep them more in line with their intended difficulty and original structure.
- Gate 3 – Magmar: Close Formation
- Gate 4 – Songhai: Songhai Shuffle
- Gate 4 – Magmar: Overriding Order
- Gate 5 – Lyonar: Rightful Heir
- Gate 5 – Vanar: The Locked Library
- Gate 5 – Magmar: Mind Game
Known Issues
- Deja-Vu Engineer is affected by play/summon trigger of both the minion it destroys and the copy it makes. Deja-vu indeed.
- Ripper token is incorrectly named Young Silithar
- Bluster damage is counted as spell damage for Arcane Amplifier, but not for Prophet of the White Palm
- Oropsisaur does not give a bonus to a minion played with Flash Reincarnation while Godhammer is equipped.
- Cost setting effect of Echo Mage is not affected by further cost modifications.
- Deja-Vu Engineer is affected by play/summon trigger of both the minion it destroys and the copy it makes. Deja-vu indeed.