Hey Infinity Warriors!
Version 1.5.0 is now LIVE! Thanks to everyone who jumped on the PBE and helped us test out the new desync trap, experiment with the cultivated draft changes, and provide us with feedback and discussion. We're very excited to take version 1.5.0 to the live servers for everyone to check out!
In addition to the changes outlined in the patch notes, we've also started our first Penta-Pack promotion! In the store you'll find a collector's edition of the standard Collection Pack, which has a high chance of dropping a new alternate art version of Wealthy Noble! We've also swapped out the Oppression Penta-Pack for the Ascension Penta-Pack - we'll be rotating in and out the different expansion sets on a semi-regular basis, so look forward to them! Lastly, Star Trek is back, BUT only for a very limited time! The Star Trek Pack, which contains 1 copy of every card in the Star Trek set, will be available on the store until April 9th 12 AM (GMT), after which they will NEVER be sold again, so get 'em before they're gone!
Again, thank you to everyone who helped us out! We're very excited to see this version go live and hear what everyone thinks of the new changes. As always, please share your feedback and suggestions with us after giving everything a try for yourself - we'd love to hear your thoughts! :)
Version 1.5.0 Update Notes
New Features:
Cultivated Draft and the Desync Trap have now been implemented!
- With cultivated draft, the drop rate for premiums and epic/legendary cards have been increased. As such, the cost to buy a deck in Draft has been moderately increased but will still reduce with each win, becoming free to purchase after 33+ wins, the same as before.
Cards NOT available as commanders:
- Bounty Hunter
- Demon Hunter
- Spec Op
- Defense Golem
- Field Engineer
- Martyr Golem
- Mortar Cannon
- Shikana, Who Demands Tribute
- Jubalia, the Messenger
- Tech Knight
- Rita, Mistress of Shadow
- Daode, Sage of Strength
- Yaunshi, Sage of Ferocity
- Emberstarter
- Aleta, Immortal Tinkerer
- Unstable Bomb Bot
- Logarithmatron
- Aleta, Immortal Caretaker
- Hunted Dragon
- Sydern
- Flame Dawn Fanatic
- Agent Coyle, Alpha One
- Cartographer
- Zuza, Angelic Siren
- Aleta, Immortal Sufferer
- Collector
Cards NOT available in deck, but available as commanders:
- Aleta, the Traveller
- Gao Han, the Stalwart
- Radariah, the Untouchable
Cards NOT available in draft at all:
- All swarmer cards
- Bounty Hunter
- Demon Hunter
- Spec Op
- Azael
- Gather Thoughts
- Solace's Gate
- Honor Hill
- Immolation Drone
- Orion, Master Engineer
- Shirazius the Cruel
- Ultra Unit
- Waste Chucker
- Brimstone
- Decrepit Crystal
- Defender of the Realm
- Enyah of the Endless Possibilities
- Tithe Collector
- Purify
- Scramble
- Temporary Mass Reality Shift
- Uncontrolled Rift
- Wheezer, Demon of Smog
- Bad Bot
- Conscripted Militia
- Explore
- Grave Rob
- Soldier of Fortune
- Mega Unit 01
- Rita's Thrall
- Shrine to the Heavens
- Varyus, Master of Choice
- Denial of Advancement
- Redirect
- Honorable Farewell
- Cowmmando
- Shattered Veil
- Die Another Day
- Ablaze
- Boyo, Who Everybody Likes
- Candit's Thrall
- Emp Grenade
- Single Combat
- Filing Cabinet
- Genesis Researcher
- Power of the Underdog
- Ruins of Veroria
- Silfurstar
- Deflect
- Jailan, Guardian of Life
- Misery Stone
- Recycle
- Shield Generator
- Unfazed
- Yobo, Who Nobody Likes
Card Balance Changes:
Rite of Rage (mostly when combo’ed with Fight) and Intimidating Rally (...when combo’ed with… the attack zone?) are both super strong cards. Both cards have been moved to double purity so that only decks that really are dedicated to that faction can use them, and their power is kept contained somewhat. We will continue to monitor these two cards closely and make further adjustments as necessary.
- Rite of Rage is now double purity.
- Intimidating Rally is now double purity.
Minor Changes:
- Fixed many bugs which would lead to desync situations.
- The code for loading card choices in draft mode has been rewritten to be more efficient and quicker.
- Fixed a bug which would cause two characters transforming into the same alternate art at once would cause the game to crash (for instance, two Agent Coyle Alpha One using the same ability at once).
- Fixed a bug which would cause the Global and Friend leaderboards to get mixed up if they were rapidly swapped between.
- Created a system so that players don’t have to be kicked off the game anymore when a hotfix is released. (The servers will still be shut down for an extended time when an entirely new patch is released however.)
- If Vasir, the Chained Prince ends up in the graveyard through an effect such as discarding, he will no longer be shuffled into the deck (previously he did despite what his text reads).
- Fixed an issue where come into play abilities would not trigger if they happened due to another card’s effect at the start of the turn (For example, a Nysrugh the Hungry returning a Lucca would not trigger Lucca’s effect.)
- The in-game options menu now says “Done” rather than “Cancel”, as that was confusing.
- There is now an option in-game to turn off full versions of a card appearing if hovered over.
- There is now an option in-game to move the camera to a card when clicking on it, rather than the default behaviour of the card moving to the camera.
- Fixed a bug where clicking on a card just as the game moved into the resolution phase would get a card “stuck” on the screen.
- Fixed a bug which caused Raa’s token generation to inconsistently trigger.
- A copied Verorian Hydra will now have the proper stats.
- Dehumanize now once again properly creates tokens with 0 morale cost.
- Updated Klore’s text to clarify that his ability triggers upon directly attacking the enemy fortress, rather than when dealing damage. This is a text update only, the effect of the card remains unchanged.
- Cards which have continuous effects while in play, (such as Azael, Lilariah, Blazing Swarmer, etc) will now correctly stop applying those effects if they are transformed into a different card.
- Fixed a bug where a single Wheezer, Demon of Smog could only trigger once per game.
- Fixed a bug with Overcharged Bolt where it would cause desyncs.
- Fixed a bug where killing a Black Bind Witch with Mark of the Demon would cause a card execution error.
- Fixed a bug where Infest was not properly creating a token on resolution.
- Fixed an issue with Grave Rob making cards hidden when attempting to target cards beyond the first.
- The AI in the Initiative academy mission will now properly have enough resources to cast Mass Death and will stop cheating.
- Vasir, the Chained Prince’s popup text has been updated to be clearer to the opponent about the consequences of the choice they are making.
- Returned button hover and click sounds to the main menu.
- Fixed a longstanding bug which caused the frames of the drafted deck’s cards to be offset incorrectly.
Rarity Changes:
As part of our effort to cultivate draft into a better experience, we’ve been looking at certain cards and how often they appear in draft. As a result, some cards have adjusted rarity so they appear in draft at a more desirable rate.
Factionless
Factionless cards tend to show up very often due to how the behind-the-scenes algorithms of choosing cards work. As a result, some situational factionless Common cards showed up far too often and have been moved up to Uncommon.
- Contained Parallel Rift (Common -> Uncommon)
- Vandalize (Common -> Uncommon)
- Field Engineer (Common -> Uncommon)
Verore
Verore had several niche cards that, while we are happy to have in draft, we don’t want being offered over and over when a lot of decks don’t want them. Because so many cards were moved up to Uncommon, some cards were moved down to Common to compensate, otherwise we found the Common picks to be too repetitive.
- Void Split: (Common -> Uncommon)
- Demoralize (Common -> Uncommon)
- Devil’s Bargain (Common -> Uncommon)
- Rubble Golem (Common -> Uncommon)
- Verore Brute (Uncommon -> Common)
- Anger of Veroria (Uncommon -> Common)
Flame Dawn
Not a whole lot of changes here, but rather a single impactful one. Flame Dawn Commando is a super strong pick, and pretty much an auto-pick each time it comes up, especially when compared against other Commons. It’s been moved up to Uncommon so that nearly every Flame Dawn deck isn’t automatically running three, and so that players occasionally have the hard choice between it and another strong pick.
-
[li]Flame Dawn Commando (Common -> Uncommon)[/li]
Genesis Industries
Much like Verore, Genesis had some niche picks that we’ve moved up to Uncommon. Additionally, Give Him a Jetpack! and Laser Cannon were coming up a little too often for such powerful cards (in draft, at least), and were also moved to Uncommon. Also like Verore, some cards were moved down to Common to compensate. The outlier here is Mechanism, which was previously a Rare and has been demoted all the way down to Common. This was done to give Genesis a low-cost, Common Artifact card they could reliably get and build around which was previously not really an option in draft, but is now a viable strategy with Weaponize also at Common.
- Construct (Uncommon -> Common)
- Weaponize (Uncommon -> Common)
- Give Him a Jetpack! (Common -> Uncommon)
- Laser Cannon (Common -> Uncommon)
- Zom-B-Gone 4000 (Common -> Uncommon)
- Overload (Common -> Uncommon)
- Mechanism (Rare -> Uncommon)
Warpath
Once again, situational cards moved to Uncommon, while some Characters that can form the basis of a solid deck moved to Common. One card to note that has been left alone is Fight! which is being left at Common, which we decided we like at Common because it gives Warpath some form of removal… but we have our eye on it.
- Unstoppable (Common -> Uncommon)
- Taunt (Common -> Uncommon)
- Guard (Common -> Uncommon)
- Track (Common -> Uncommon)
- They Who Rampage (Uncommon -> Common)
Descendants of the Dragon
Not many rarity changes for this faction. The only odd card to see at Common was Resolve of the Dragon, which is a fairly high cost, situational card and really belongs at Uncommon.
- Resolve of the Dragon (Common -> Uncommon)
Sleepers of Avarrach
Feast on the Dead and Drag Down are pretty niche cards, and were cluttering up the Common picks (which should form the solid foundation of a deck), so both have been moved to Uncommon. The Common picks for Sleepers also needed a bit more variety, so Plaguebearer has been moved down to Common to promote Zombie tribal decks.
- Feast on the Dead (Common -> Uncommon)
- Drag Down (Common -> Uncommon)
- Plaguebearer (Uncommon -> Common)
The Exiles
For Exiles, two of their best removal cards were sitting at Common. Removal in general is being moved to Uncommon across the board (with the exception of Verore, who gets some limited removal at Common). To compensate, Alpha Demon has been moved to Common, which helps promote Demon tribal decks.
- Wholesale Slaughter (Common -> Uncommon)
- Spontaneous Combustion (Common -> Uncommon)
- Alpha Demon (Uncommon -> Common)
Overseers of Solace
Again, some cards which don’t belong are taken out of Common.
- Serennia, Champion of Life (Common -> Uncommon)
- Consecration (Common -> Uncommon)
- Intervention (Common -> Uncommon)