June Patch Notes - 0.60

Guess who’s back… back again. We’re here with some bug fixes, some balance changes and some brand new updates to the game. Tell your friends. Read on to find out what is incoming...

New in this patch

The main thing we’re excited about is the next mission for the brand new tutorial mode! Over the next few months, this will grow into a multi-mission experience that teaches core game elements to new players, and Mission 2 is our next step down that path. We’ve also made a whole stack of improvements to the first mission, based on your feedback and the feedback of testers.

We’ve brought in a feature in the settings that allows you to permanently mute your opponents’ emotes, as well as adjust some of the network code to keep it running well. We’ve also made a change to how the game client handles purchases of cards from the Sanctum, which should make the process work more smoothly in the future.

Bug fixes

• Visible card shine/quality: now correctly shows up in the game. Shine on, you crazy diamonds.
• Mythic popup: we’ve fixed the popup that was missing when opponents had a mythic card in the deck.
• Bug report button: we’ve fixed the issue where the report button would prevent you from clicking on cards on the screen.
• False going second: we’ve dealt with the code that was lying to us all at the beginning of the game, and now during the mulligan phase it will correctly tell you if you are going first or second. Apologies for the Deception, insert Ludia joke here etc.
• Hooded Doppelganger: Now correctly receives damage if it’s summoned to the board and if the opponent has Exoscout.
• Dread Queen Persephone: No longer displays a placeholder card on the board if the creature summoned from the void is the same card from your hand.
• Warrior: Roar VFX fixed. Raaargh.
• Apocalypse Now: Correctly destroys creatures with applied afterlifes that pull itself back to the board from the void.
• Broken Harvester: The start of turn attack now correctly targets Frontline and Backline creatures.
• Summoning Sickness: creatures summoned at the end of the turn have been loaded up with ginger and fresh air, and are now losing summoning sickness when they should be.

Balance changes

The overall aim with this patch is more of the same, now we’ve settled into more of a rhythm with this stuff and you’ve all (hopefully) seen we are in a better position more broadly. We’re looking with this patch primarily to continue to tune down powerful singles and slow down the meta in a way that brings more variety back in. Early game interaction is still something we are focusing on as well. In this patch, you’ll see that the dominance of Deception has been gently (ever so gently!) addressed, and War has received that love that we’ve been promising for a little bit now. We’ve also tried to bring up some underutilized cards in a way that doesn’t create any dramatic shifts.

Buffs

• Cadence of the Infinite Sands - Mana cost reduced
• Reduce cost from 9 to 8.
• Balance team note - Cadence of the Infinite Sand was underperforming since release and the 9 mana slot has already a lot of competitive options. With the current change, the team expects to rise up the win-ratio of the card, increasing also the pool of 8 mana playable cards for control decks.
• Odessa, Knight Arbiter - Text changed
• Change stats from 2/5 to 3/5
• Balance team note - With the implementation of Balance Patch #5 the team has pushed some tool cards to deal with some of our combo decks in-game, giving the players the chance to hard counter/temporary slow down the combo process. Following down this road, we decided to increase the stats of Odessa, Knight Arbiter to have it as a possible playable option to interact with those archetypes.
• Shieldmaiden Scout - Text changed
• Change text from “Roar: Your opponent summons a random creature from their hand, then this creature attacks it.“
• To “Frontline. Roar: Your opponent summons a random creature from their hand, then this creature attacks it.”
• Balance team note - Like Odessa, this is another important answer to combo decks. With the addition of Frontline, we expect the card to be more relevant in aggro match-ups, making it a valid option for the 5 mana slot.
• Flame-Touched Paladin - Stats changed. Text changed
• Increase health from 4 to 5.
• Reduce strength from 4 to 3. 
• Change text from “Ability: Target a character. If it is an enemy, attack it. If it is friendly heal it for 3 health.”
• To “Ability: Target a character. If it is an enemy, attack it. If it is friendly, heal it for 4.”
• Balance team note - Flame-Touched Paladin has a very unique design. Most of the problems on the balance side according to the team analysis, come from the 4 health range removals. Moving the stats to 3/5 we expect the survivability of the card to rise, and upgrading the heal to 4 can help stabilize it making it a considerable option during the deckbuilding process.

Nerfs

• Thestor, Grieving General - Stat changed
• Change stats from 2/2 to 2/1
• [AG] -Balance Intent
• Balance team notes - Thestor, Grieving General is a very powerful card especially in the aggro mirrors in the early game. We definitely want to make it playable and be less dominant in those matchups. With one less health, the players will have to build the best scenario to play Thestor instead of playing it as a tempo card.
• Pack Stalk - Mana cost increased
• Increase mana cost from 0 to 1
• Balance team notes - Pack Stalk was an unhealthy card on the balance side, the win ratio of the single card was fine, but we want to reduce the potential for lucky mulligans to win within a couple turns.
• Beguiling Blade - Stats changed.
• Change stats from 1/2 to 1/1.
• Balance Team notes - To address the Deception strength and the snowball process against any aggro deck, we’ve taken this card down a notch.
• Unannounced Arrival - Text Changed
• Change text from “Delve a 4 mana creature, summon it, and deal 1 damage to each enemy creature.”
• To ”Delve a 4 mana creature, summon it, and deal 1 damage to each creature.”
• Balance team notes - Unannounced Arrival has been on our watchlist for the longest time. This single card win ratio was slightly over the line, and the nerf of Academy Apprentice only partially reduced the power level of this board clear. So, we decided to act, making Announced Arrival damage every creature instead of only enemy ones. This ultimately makes the combo with AA less appealing and reduces the value of some good rolls from the Delve ability (yeah I'm looking at you, Highborn Knight, no more protected!)
• Selfless Guildmate - Text changed.
• Change text from “Hidden for 1 turn.
• Roar: Give +3 strength to another friendly Guild creature.”
• to ”Hidden for 1 turn.
• Roar: Give +2 strength to another friendly Guild creature.”
• Balance team notes - The interaction with Switch Duelist is very strong nowadays and the comparison with Dark Knives was clearly in favour of the Selfless Guildmate inside the full-guild tribe deception deck. For both reasons, Selfless Guildmate will give +2 strengh from now on.

Changes

• Skollkin Valkyrie - Mana cost changed.
• Change mana from 2 to 1
• Change stats from 2/3 to 1/3
• Balance team notes - This is part of the ‘give War a chance’ bit of this patch - War needed some quality 1 drops to enable aggro war/enrage builds so this is hopefully going to help there.   
• Shadowstep Backstabber & Shadowstep Frontstabber - Text changed.
• Change stats from 0/1 to 1/1
• Change text from “Echo. Roar: This creature steals 1 strength from the strongest enemy creature.”
• To “Echo. After you summon a creature from another domain, this creature gains deadly for 1 turn.”
• Balance team notes - we’ve identified that this duo is causing problems in the meta, but tuning it down wasn’t an option - so we’ve chosen to redesign it slightly to shift things a little. 
• Undertow Rover - Text changed
• Change text from 'At the end of your turn, give protected to a random other Atlantean'.
• To 'At the end of your turn, give protected to a random other Atlantean without protected'
• Balance team note - Bless our Undertow Rover, he tries his best - but sometimes he was protecting creatures that were already protected. We’ve altered it slightly so he can do his job a little better.

That's all for this balance patch, mortals.

Note - We've taken out the player disconnections section as it is not yet ready for lift-off! It'll be implemented soon as we're working on it.