System Changes
There has been a lot of time since the last time we patched. We’ve been working hard with a group of playtesters on the card changes to try to create something that people will find fun. We also attempted to bring some more features to the game including seasonal leaderboards and earnable cardbacks.
As a secondary note: due to the nature of the card changes, any card which was removed in this patch has been fully refunded and it’s full crafting currency has been returned to you.
Seasonal Leaderboards
We’ve gone and set up a new Noble Season for people to go and have something to chase with all of the new changes. With this, we’ve reset ranked down to start off season 1. You can still view your Season 0 stats through your profile, as well as see the Season 0 noble leaderboard in all it’s glory on the leaderboard screens.
Based on your previous rank your new rank is as follows:
- Noble or Master: new start 1200 (gold)
- Diamond, Platinum, Gold and Silver: New start 900 (silver)
- Bronze: New start 600 (bronze)
- Wood or Stone: no MMR change from Season 0 to Season 1
We look forward to seeing who reaches Noble first in Season 1!
Unlockable Card Backs
We have also added the ability for players to select and unlock card backs based on feats reached. There are currently 4 unlockable card backs with likely more to come in the future.
This patch brings with it:
- A Noble cardback, unlocked for hitting the highest rank
- A Season 0 Noble cardback, for those who hit Noble in our first season
- A Kickstarter Reward card back, for those who backed the kickstarter and earned this reward
- The OG card back from the past life in Alpha, unlocked to anyone who played a game with it prior to this patch
- A brand new default card back emblazoned with the Shardbound logo
Card Balance Changes
There are a lot of issues with staleness in the game, and a neutral card set that outclasses a lot of the class cards. We’re addressing this by changing some of the core movement cards (Soul Shifter / Dancer), and buffing/creating some class identity functions to compensate for the lack of Shifter.
New Keywords
Unweaving: After a set number of rounds the unit with this keyword will Exile itself. Killing it or bouncing it will also cause the card to become Exiled.
Lifelink: Converted the life regen description from Raptor Class Mech back into a keyword
Purple
Purple largely stays the same, owing to its quality class diversity and strength in the class cards.
Removed Cards
Cytoplast: Removed for the time being. Need to figure out a good Purple Tile effect.
New Cards
Siren’s Disciple: New card, replaces Cytoplast. Bloodtoll: Self damage 3 for Line of Sight breaking Charm
Green
Green gets a new legendary card to pair with the Loyalty units, a change to blightspore, and slight nerfs to Vein Waker and Stonecall in world without shifter.
Changed Cards
Blightspore Seedling: Summons a 2 tile ring of blight tiles, instead of spreading each turn
Vein Waker: Ability changed to debuff the boulder the ability is used on. After a boulder has been “mined” 3 times, it will break.
Tunnel Hellion: Cost up to 3. Now stuns on entry.
StoneCall Seedling: Each stone generated costs the unit 1 HP.
Seedsinger: Now “Enhances” all seedlings on board
- Enhanced Blightspore - Deals 3 damage
- Enhanced Lifespring - Heals 4 HP
- Enhanced StoneCall - Summons an Enhanced Angry Stone that does not have uncontrollable.
Petrify: Cost reduced from 6 to 5.
Removed Cards
Earthen Rage: Underused and underpowered
The Lifespark: Currently a 2 for 1. Want to think of a better use for this guy
New Cards
Fissure Strike: Line spell that deals 2 damage and stuns minions if they are next to a boulder.
General Almast: New legendary. Units with Loyalty also proc next to the General, and additionally gain +1 Movement.
Yellow
Yellow received a lot of changes to bring spirit primals down a notch in terms of power level, but also regained some old tools that it had to push a different deckline with actual primal synergies
Changed Cards
Grand Wyrm Primal: Exile boy returns. 8 mana, eat a target. New ability (2) allows him to move 2 tiles since he can’t move normally
Primeval Exalt: Up to a 3/3 from a 2/2. Only gets +1/+1 from each ally
Viperfang Primal: Down to a 1/5 from 1/6, now has unconditional Poison. Cost up to 5. Gives a friendly primal Poison for a turn.
Spearmaiden: Up to a 3/3 from a 3/2
Gorilla Primal: Cost reduced to 3 mana
Growler Primal: Cost up to 5, stats up to 5/5 (from 4/5)
Removed Cards
Balos Ambusher: Giftable shroud hasn’t proven to be a useful tool in Juro’s kit
To Me!: Need to rework its ability into a Roar to synergize with the other changes
Raised By Primals: Currently has a very low winrate, and should be re-evaluated for a more interesting card advantage trick for yellow
Roar Burrow: The AoE make everything invulnerable card is gone, and I’m not sure in what form it would return.
Nature’s Herald: With the return of Roar: Strength, it makes less sense to have a body that is essentially the spell on a stick. This card was also strictly worse than High Shepherd Katell
Ancient Caller: Removing one of the spirit primal generators for now.
New Cards
Roar Strength: It’s back, but this time it only affects adjacent primal friends. +2 attack for all primals next to Juro for a full round
Roar Immobilize: Another old card makes a return. This one roots all units adjacent to Juro
Voice of the Pack: An old minion that functions as another trigger for Juro’s Roar spells
Pack Mentality: Replaces RBP. Choose a friendly primal on the board and add two copies of it to your hand.
Eisan Brigand: Replaces Nature’s Herald. Create a bond between itself and a friendly ally, giving both Lifelink.
Pack Supremacist: Pulled back from the graveyard, deals 1 damage to ALL non-primals. Creates an activator for injured triggers.
Blue
Blue lost its root abilities which will likely find their way into other colors. Mori being a natural counter to root makes her owning it not make a ton of sense, and Mori had too many soft removal options already. She now has the ability to force Unweaving onto an opponent’s win con, offering her the ability to combo it with a bounce to immediately exile the target.
Changed Cards
Baffling Presence: Health to 3 from 4
Brave Scryer: Changed to Warcry and Deathhowl, put a Precog in your hand (instead of 2 on death).
Distorter: Up to 3 mana from 2. Health from 3 to 4. Debuff changed from Root to reduce movement to 1 for a full round.
Flux: Now sets movement to 1 instead of permanently rooting
Prism Dancer: Now also creates untraversable tiles on Warcry. Damage down from 4 to 3
Rift Trickster: Attack from 4 to 3.
Temporal Drifter: Passive changed to “Costs 1 less per minion that you bounced this game”. Cost from 5 to 7.
Time Smith: Passive changed to grant +1/+1 each time a card is drawn. Starting stats to 1/2. Cost from 1 to 3.
Warp Specialist: Health to 3 from 4.
Super Time Skip: Mini-anomalies are now 2/2’s with Unweaving (2)
Slow Reflexes: No longer draws a card. Cost reduced to 2 from 3
Removed Cards
Spatial Fetters: We’re removing Mori’s access to the Root keyword in favor of giving her movement debuffs.
Chrono Slap: No real reason for Mori to own Force Blast in blue.
New Cards
Sever Fate: Using the new Unweaving keyword, one that Mori should have affinity with, Mori can now give a unit a 2 round countdown until it removes itself from the board.
Fate Reader: New 2 drop. Warcry: Both players draw a card. Melee 5/3 stats.
Orange
Wynn and his clan picked up a few new toys to work with. He now has a conditional removal spell and some new supremacy minions to try out. Wynn did lose his original token generation in Holy Armory, but the blades of the first have been moved into a smaller token spell that will help Wynn drive more spell synergy lines. We also readded a way for Wynn to affect the field of battle, forcing a tile to become high ground for a full round, opening new lines of play.
Changed Cards
Venerator Wynn: Hero power now raises a tile to highground for a turn. If a friendly unit, including Wynn was on the tile, give it +1 attack for the turn.
Radiant Scion: Now a 5/6 melee unit for 5 mana. Supremacy effect changed to: At the end of your turn give a random adjacent ally and itself a damage shield
Harbinger: down to 1 damage AoE, stat line up to 3/4 from 2/3
Radiant Lance: now can target heroes as well, deals only 2 damage to heroes
High Luminator Cerys: After playing a spell, gives you a copy of Radiant Lance in your hand
Starfall Templar: Health up to 5 from 3.
Removed Cards
Illumination: No longer deckable, replaced by Extinguish the Unworthy
Holy Armory: No longer deckable. Removing this form of token gen from Orange
Summon Blades: No longer deckable, now a token spell that Orange will generate from elsewhere
Lucent Lance: No longer deckable, was unused really prior to, and the negative effect was too costly.
New Cards
Extinguish the Unworthy: 4 mana hard removal, destroy an enemy minion on the high ground
Faith Healer: New supremacy unit. Heals all allies on the high ground for 2 at the end of your turn. 4 mana, 3/6
Keeper of the Blades: Warcry/Death howl put a Summon Blade in your hand. 2 mana 2/4. Summon Blade: Summons a single Winged Blade (1 mana 2/1) next to your hero
Force Blast: Replaces Lucent Lance, returns from the past. Now a 2 mana deal 2 to a minion. If Wynn is on the high ground, it also stuns.
Red
Petra got a pretty big overhaul here. She was at the bottom of the pack in terms of win rate and was also suffering from her class cards not being very synergistic or strong in most deck plans (similarly to what Mori has issues with). Zieger is now an actual end game threat with the caveat being his two busted upgrades require you to discount him in order to unlock. The new Mech tribe should add a lot of interesting synergies in Petra’s toolkit and open the design space for more cool mech things. Petra also got a new exosuit built out of the shell of an old friend formerly known as the Hook Raider, this should help her in a shifter-less world since she was lacking in movement options prior.
New Tribe: Mech
Changed Cards
Petra: Her modular gizmos now pull affixes from a bag, meaning you’ll have to see each of them before you get a repeat. No more 3 ranged gizmos in a row. Gizmos now all carry the Mech tag.
Hound Class Mech: Now a mech. 2 mana 3/2 base up from 1 mana 3/1. Upgrades are now (1): +1 health, +1 movement, and (2): +2 health, +2 movement respectively. Still has Charge.
Outlaw Class Mech: Now a mech.
Valiant Class Mech: Now a mech.
Plating Specialist: Buff changed to: “Give a minion in your hand +2 Health, if it is a Mech give it +3 instead.
Zieger-1: Zieger now has the Mech tribe. Zieger also moved to the 9 mana slot and now is rocking a 10/12 stat line. Zieger also got two new Upgrade options, both costing 12 mana, which means you’ll have to discount Zieger if you want access to them.
- Zieger-1 Schloss: The Castle. 12 mana 10/12. Has Damage Shield, Shroud and Lifelink
- Zieger-1 Steinadler: The Golden Eagle. 12 mana 8/8. Flying Charge.
Both of these forms also still pop out a Vaast when they die, and Vaast will reform into the correct Zieger-1 mode.
Tune Up: This token spell now gives a unit +2/+2 if it is a Mech, otherwise stays the same.
Salvage Parts: Now grants you a Tune Up if you use it on your own artifacts.
Creation Specialist: Down to 5 health, from 6.
Efficiency Expert: Attack up to 3, from 2. Effect changed to: “Reduce the cost of a minion in your hand by 1, if it is a Mech, reduce it by 2”
Overdrive: Gives the unit +2 movement in addition to the attack bonus if that unit is a Mech
Scrap: Now puts a Tune-Up in your hand.
Static Discharge: Now only emits the AoE from Mechs and your Hero. Cost reduced from 5 to 4.
Summon Nanobots: Nanobots are now Mechs.
Reloading Exosuit: Now grants Mechs “can attack twice” rather than ranged units.
Removed Cards
Blockade Forger: This exosuit doesn’t see any use, and I can’t think of a good reason to keep it around.
Storm Class Mech: Now a mech, but removed for the moment to open up a card slot due to its underutilization.
Insured Class Mech: Now a mech, but also removed for the moment to reuse the idea at a later time.
New Cards
Cybernetics Researcher: New ranged unit. Makes a minion in your hand a Mech and gives it +2 attack. 3 mana 2/5.
Grappler Exosuit: Revisit of an old card formerly known as Hook Raider. 4 mana 3/6 melee unit. Ability (2): Choose a minion in Line of Sight. Pull that minion to an open tile next to this minion.
Matryoshka Mech: Replaces Insured Mech. 5 mana 3/4, Death howl: summon a 2/3 Smaller Mech with Death howl: summon a 1/2 Even Smaller Mech
The Neutrals
The neutrals here represent largely the crux of the thesis behind these changes. Soul Shifter, Shade and Dancer have largely reigned supreme since their discovery in the meta game. We want to support unique ways to still interact with movement in the game, and not have every deck want to include these power neutrals to prop up their own classes' lack of movement tricks. These cards are still viable, but they've been dropped from the power level they once had.
Changed Cards
Summoner’s Aide: Health up to 4 from 3. Previous nerf was too heavy handed.
Phalanx Leader: Attack from 4 to 3. Cost from 5 to 4. Previous nerf was too hard.
Cannoneer: Cost up to 6. Attack up to 3 from 2, Health to 6 from 5.
Dancer: Changed effect to require Line of Sight. Cost back to 2. Health to 2 from 4. Can now summon next to your hero.
Soul Shifter: Changed effect to require Line of Sight. Health from 4 to 5.
Shade: Health to 3 from 2.
Puppeteer: No longer exiles the card you duplicate. Puppet versions now have Unweaving (3).
Queensguard: Base attack lowered from 4 to 3.
Skywatch Dragoon: Health lowered to 6 from 7.
Shifting Nightmare: Health lowered from 10 to 9.
Osprey Deadeye: Stats to 2/5. Cost to 4.
Master of Faces: Cost from 6 to 5.
Evergreen: Effect changed to “end of your turn”, instead of “start of your turn”.
Known Bugs
Currently the seasonal leaderboard view can end up into a bugged state where Season 0 is show for both the Season 0 and Season 1 stats. We will look to fix this in an upcoming mini-patch.
