In this week's balance update we have spent a lot of time focusing on reducing the power level of Light with a reduction to the power of Serene Blade & Heaven’s Light. Similarly we have reduced the power level of Nature's ‘growing buffs’ strategy and of Magic’s Magebolt.
Relic hate cards & some Genesis cards have seen a slight increase in power level. This week and next week we will continue to focus on buffing Genesis cards. We are keeping a firm eye on a new Enduring Lemure Reanimation combo that has been created in the past few days but as it is relatively new we would like to see the metagame develop and to further investigate the play patterns it creates.
For specific changes to each God and more in depth discussion behind the changes please continue to read below.
Death
- Pyrrhic Incantation changed from Give a creature burn +30. Deal 3 damage to your god to Give a creature burn +14. Deal 3 damage to your god.
This change was made to future proof the card from breaking the game with OTK combos. For example if we print a creature that says ‘Whenever this creature takes damage, deal that much damage to your opponents' god’, you could abuse the large amount of damage to instantly kill them.
- Nethergram changed from “Summon three random 1 mana creatures from your void, give them +1/+1” to “Summon three random creatures that cost 3 mana or less from your void, give them +1/+1.”
Nethergram was simply too weak as the impact of three 1 mana creatures that late in the game was very low. As such we have greatly increased the power of this card by letting you resurrect 3 mana or less creatures.
Deception
- Trapdoor Assassin added Flank.
Trapdoor was slightly weak in comparison to some other aggressive options in Deception and we wanted to match it to be similar to Felid Assassin.
- Flip changed from “At the end of your turn, add a random card from your opponents god to your hand.” to “Add a random card from your opponents god to your hand.”
We’re interested in testing this slightly more powerful version of Flip as it is slightly under-performing at the moment.
- Apate Conscriptor changed from 1 attack to 2 attack.
- Lord of Whispers changed from 5 to 4 mana.
- All effects that previously drew/took a card from your opponents deck have been changed to copy the card.
Light
- Serene Blade changed from 1 attack “At the end of your turn, friendly creatures with 2 or less attack get +1/+1. Then lose 1 durability” to 0 attack “At the end of your turn, friendly creatures with 2 or less attack and health get +1/+1. Then lose 1 durability”.
Serene Blade has been performing far above an acceptable rate within Light decks and has been the most dominant card in our current meta.
We want strong cards in our game but Serene Blade was unfortunately too strong. On the surface it appears that we’ve just changed the blade to have 0 attack but we have also added a condition that the creature needs 2 or less attack and health to receive the buff.
This means lower mana cost Light cards like Acolyte will be largely unaffected, but the neutral cards like Skeleton Heavy will no longer receive buffs from Serene Blade.
- Lore & Order Inspector changed from Roar: Set a creature to its base attack and health to Roar: Set an enemy creature to its base attack and health.
This was previously used to heal your own creatures to full health which was not its intended design, we have made it only target enemies so that it stays great at countering buffs.
- Heaven’s Light changed from “Reduce an enemy creatures attack by 2, but not less than 1.” to “Reduce an enemy creature's attack by 2, but not below 2.”
Heaven’s Light has created some really detrimental play patterns in the early game. As such we’re interested in exploring the results of tweaking it to be slightly less powerful at 1 mana. We’re very much in the testing phase on Heaven’s Light and are keen to see the results of this.
- Tithe Collector changed from a 1 mana 1/1 to a 2 mana 1/3.
- Lightdaemon King changed from 4 mana to 5 mana.
- Sanctify changed from 1 mana to 2 mana.
Magic
- O Fortuna changed from Deal 4 damage to an enemy creature and its god. Give protected to a friendly creature and your god. Draw 4 cards to Deal 4 damage to an enemy creature and its god. Give protected and ward to your god. Draw 4 cards."
This is a subtle buff to O Fortuna that allows you to play it without needing a creature on your side of the board.
- Magebolt changed from ‘Deal 2 damage’ to ‘Deal 2 damage to an enemy creature.’
Magebolt is something we’re finding to be too good in every situation which discourages players from branching out their choices of God Powers and simply defaulting to Magebolt.
For instance in control vs control matchups we’d like people to consider options such as Clear Mind and Discovery but right now there is no risk to picking Magebolt because you can always target the opposing god.
- Chainflip redesigned to 4 mana Transform a creature into a copy of a creature delved from its owner's void to 3 mana “Deal 10 damage to an enemy creature. Then your opponent summons a random creature from their void.”
Chainflip has been causing some extremely pesky bugs and was also an extremely powerful version of Ratify. We’ve redesigned the card to fill an early game removal slot but with some potential to backfire. We’re very much testing this design and would love feedback on it.
- Circe, Vengeful Sorceress changed from an 8 mana 2/4 with “Roar: Deal 4 damage to all enemy characters, foresee 4.” to a 7 mana 3/3 with “Roar: Deal 3 damage to all enemy creatures, foresee 3.”
Nature
- Mark of the Warden changed from Give a creature: "At the end of your turn, gain +2, split randomly across health and attack. Afterlife: Add a random nature card to your hand to At the end of your turn, randomly gain attack or health +1. Afterlife: Add a random Nature card to your hand.
- Guerilla Training changed from Give a creature: "At the end of your turn, gain +3, split randomly across health and attack" to Give a creature: "At the end of your turn, gain attack +3."
The overall growing buff strategies lead to Nature having games often being decided on turn 2 as the play pattern was usually ‘kill this creature now or it will spiral totally out of control’.
Mark of the Warden is the least risky growing buff to apply as you get a card back and as such we have reduced the amount of power the buff has to compensate for the lack of risk.
Guerilla Training had issues whereby it snowballed out of control because the creature became effectively unkillable without removal if it landed on health. As such we’ve changed it to just giving attack so that it is still a massive threat that needs to be dealt with, but not one that can’t be dealt with.
- Bladefly no longer has confused.
Bladefly was previously increased from 3 to 4 mana and whilst it is still playable we want to give more power back to Nature’s ‘go-wide’ strategy as we are taking away power from their growing buff strategy.
War
- Mercenary Daemon changed from a 6/3 to a 6/4
Neutral
- Dart Maniac changed from “At the end of your turn, deal 1 damage to a random enemy creature.” to “At the end of your turn, deal 1 damage to a random enemy character.”
Dart Maniac was far too efficient at letting your creatures trade up or trade effectively in the early game so we have added a little more unpredictability to the maniac to reduce its effectiveness. The combo with Uncanny Rogue and Dart Maniac has also been weakened by this change.
- Svart Basilisk changed from 4/3 to 3/5.
- Bronze Servant changed from “Roar: Remove 1 durability from your opponent's relic.” to “Roar: Remove 2 durability from your opponent's relic.”
- Wiccan Trapper changed from 2 attack to 3 attack.
- Iron Tooth Goblin changed from a 2/3 with “Roar: Remove 1 durability from your opponent's relic.” to a 2/2 with “Roar: Remove 3 durability from your opponent's relic.”
We have increased the power of relic hate outside of Nature to provide all players with efficient answers to cards like Staff of Shards.
- Stun Gun Construct changed from 2/4 to 4/3.
Thank you for your continued feedback in our discord & on reddit. We read every comment so please reach out if you have any feedback.
Thanks,
Petrify.
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