We’re continuing trying out doing a mid month balance patch this month. The initial goal of these was to do them 2 weeks after the monthly patch, which I’m sure many will notice was more than 2 weeks ago at this point. The time it’s been taking to let things settle a bit, then collect data, then talk about and implement changes has been pushing it back a bit the past couple months, so we haven’t quite been hitting that mark. We expect this will continue, so we’re tentatively going to keep doing these about 2.5 weeks out from the monthly patch.
The patch will go live August 23rd at around 8:30pm EST.
You can also read the patch notes on our website (it has pictures!).
Balance Changes
Penance
[Old] Lyonar | Spell | 3 | Deal damage to all minions equal to an allied minion’s Health.
[New] Lyonar | Spell | 3 | Deal damage to all minions equal to an allied non-Structure minion’s Health.
Penance started strong, and has only been looking stronger recently, currently being a key piece of the best deck in the game where it’s being used with Isbee’s Monument as effectively a hard board wipe for 6 mana and 2 cards. While there were some options for how to go about weakening the card, we decided to just go ahead and specifically target the most problematic interaction. This may seem a bit too specific at first glance, but it really points to an underlying design issue with Structures; they just don’t work enough like minions to be treated the same in all cases. The combination of disproportionately high Health to cost ratio, fixed 0 Attack, and inability to move just make them not interact well with many cards that affect minions. Until now, these interactions have largely been negative, so there hasn’t been an urgent need to make the distinction (though Obelysk lovers may disagree). We expect that this line will continue to be drawn in the future, especially if (when) we add more Structures to the game, we are just starting with this change for now as we continue to evaluate other ones. Also, thematically, Structures don’t have the awareness to repent, so we aren’t going to let them.
We’re going to continue to keep a close eye on this one after this change to see where it lands.
Inner Focus -> Assassination Protocol
[Old] Songhai | Spell | 0 | Activate an allied minion with 3 or less Attack.
[New] Songhai | Spell | 1 | Activate an allied minion. It cannot damage or attack Generals this turn.
Inner Focus is a card that has been a combination of one of the less liked cards in the game, not a particularly strong card, and problematic for design, all while being core to Songhai’s identity. We wanted to both get rid of the ability for it to just act as out of hand burst (particularly in the context of combos), and get rid of the 3 Attack breakpoint in Songhai, which lead us to just swapping it with Assassination Protocol. This was actually decided on a little bit back, there was just some work to do to fix up the new player experience to work with it that was queued up behind work on the Sisters Mini-Expansion which delayed this change until now. We are hopeful that this will keep help Songhai better leverage large minions to control the board, while still filling a similar role in triggering movement and attack effects, as well as cut down on some of the frustration of low mana, high face damage plays from hand.
This will replace the copies currently in your collection and decks.
Umbral Stalker
[Old] Songhai | Minion | 3 | 3 / 4 | After this moves or teleports, it gains “this cannot be attacked” until it attacks or the start of your turn.
[New] Songhai | Minion | 4 | 4 / 6 | After this moves or teleports, it gains “this cannot be attacked” until it attacks or the start of your turn.
Speaking of cards that were affected by the 3 Attack breakpoint in Songhai, Umbral Stalker has been lackluster to put it kindly. It was intended to serve as a card that had some ability to stick on board and be a presence in combat, but ended up with its stats being limited by not wanting to be unable to be triggered by one of the core Songhai cards. With freeing up that extra option for putting it back in the shadows, we’re bumping it up to have a more respectable body.
Marrowgrinder
[Old] Abyssian | Minion | 5 | 5 / 5 | This can move onto allied minions to destroy them. When it does, draw a card and heal your General for 2.
[New] Abyssian | Minion | 5 | 4 / 8 | This can move onto allied minions to destroy them. When it does, draw a card and heal your General for 2.
This card was part of an effort to find more space for larger minions that don’t immediately produce some sort of value when played. We’ve been talking a bit internally, and decided to allow some more defensive stats on Abyssian minions, and decided to shift this to being a bit harder to clear.
Natural Selection
[Old] Magmar | Spell | 1 | Destroy a minion with the lowest Attack.
[New] Magmar | Spell | 2 | Destroy a minion with the lowest Attack.
Generally speaking, we don’t want removal to cost 1 mana unless it scales against minion cost in some way (e.g. damage based removal), or has some additional exchange of resources (e.g. Aspect of the Wolf giving your opponent a Wolf). The restriction on it generally makes it act as scaling removal when there are several minions on board, but in situations where the board is clear, it is just ends up being hard removal for 1 mana, so we’re bumping it back up to 2 mana.
Earth Walker
[Old] Magmar | Minion | 3 | 2 / 4 | Grow: +1/+1.
[New] Magmar | Minion | 2 | 2 / 2 | Grow: +1/+1.
With Oropsisaur outclassing Earth Walker as a 3 drop, we’re wanted to give it a chance at a new life as a 2 drop. Go get em little buddy!
Special Card
Shout out to Navy for running the card design contests in the Duelyst Official Discord server, and to all the folks who participated in making and voting on cards in them. We decided to add in the final winner of the bracket of all the contests to the game as a free special card for a while to celebrate all the hard work.
Unbounded Energy Amulet
Songhai | Artifact | 4 | After your General moves or teleports, summon an Afterimage in the space they left.
Afterimage
Songhai | Minion | 1 | 2 / 1 | Rush
Wording Changes
All of these changes are non-functional changes to clear up what cards do.
Added reminder text for fight:
- Fight – Both deal damage to the other equal to their Attack.
Fixed some cases where the word directly was missing
- Dynasty Standard
- Equinox Hourglass
- Mask of Dominion
War Talon
[Old] Neutral | Minion | 6 | 8 / 6 | When this attacks or counterattacks enemy minion, deal excess damage dealt to the enemy General.
[New] Neutral | Minion | 6 | 8 / 6 | When this deals damage while attacking or counterattacking an enemy minion, excess damage is dealt to the enemy General.
Bug Fixes
- Fix Solidify affecting enemies
- Fix Soul Arbiter not preventing minions from dying during modifier application
- Fix Marrowgrinder being able to grind itself (the double click UX here was the issue)
- Fix snags caused by Khymera
- Fix missing Gauntlet cards (yet again)
- Fix Bubblesmith damage not being accurately reduced for the non-Bubblesmith player.
- Potentially fix game state desynchronization that sometimes occurs with Borean Bear and Abyssal Juggernaut – Please let us know if you experience any changes with this, because we are having a real hard time actually getting this to happen when looking for it.