With the GO Clash tournament over, we're ready to roll up our sleeves and grease the great gears of game balance. We've been keeping a close eye on things, and have some targeted changes that we think will direct the meta-game to a healthier spot.
If you're looking for some insight into these changes, please read to the bottom of the post.
Humans
- Magda, Queen of Meroval has been banned from play until its new design is technically ready. We have a pretty cool idea planned for her, but need to finish the programming before it's complete.
Note: if you try to queue into matchmaking with Magda in your deck, you will be alerted the card is banned from play, and must remove the card from your deck before you may enter the queue.
Green
- Oakling 4f FF 1/4 (Was 1/5) Last Words - A random creature in your hand gets +4/+4 (Was +5/+5)
- Wild Growth Cost changed to 2f F (was 3f F)
Blue
- Unbound Evolution Cost changed to 2fLL (was 1f LLL) Now evolves the creature by 2, like Orosei.
- Snowstorm Lancer 5f LL Whenever you play an event, gain +2/+0 this turn (limit +6/+0). (No previous limit)
- Mirror Phantasm Cost changed to 7f LL (was 5f LLL)
- Ancient Herald 6f L (was 5f L) 5/5 (was 3/5) Gift: The next creature with 5 Life or more you draw costs 2 less. (was 3)
Yellow
- Windstorm Charger 4f DD (was 2f DD) 2/4 (was 1/3) Charge 3 Whenever you play an event, gain +2/+0 this turn (limit +6/+0). (No previous limit)
- Zealous Crusader 5f DD 5/5 (was 4/4) Now has Charge 2
Red
- Blood Obelisk 2f MM (was 3f MM) Ability changed to: Whenever an enemy creature dies in combat, gain 1f and deal 1 damage to your opponent.
- Salamander 5f MM (was 6f MM) 2/5 (was 3/6) Gift - Deal 2 damage to all adjacent enemy creatures. (was 3)
Okay! That's it for the patch notes. Keep reading if you'd like a little insight on some of these changes.
Developer insight
It's been a few weeks since the last balance patch. We've had plenty of time to gather data, watch streams, and listen to feedback from players on the state of the game. We purposely held back on touching anything until the GO Clash finals were over, so as not to disrupt the players' preparation for this event.
So, let's dig into it.
Reactive cards
This patch addresses a lot of our "reactive" cards. Ultimately, we have been observing a problem where players are hesitant to commit to the first move and push the game toward a conclusion. This is not what we want to see happening on a regular basis. Cards like Mirror Phantasm, Unbound Evolution, and Blazing Salamander are reactive cards. They are cards you tend to keep in hand until your opponent makes the first move, and then take advantage of it. It's important to have these types of interactions available in Faeria, but it's also important to make sure we don't put them in a place where they dictate the pace of the game so strongly. We've toned these cards down just a bit.
Magda, Queen of the Forest
A separate and completely different problem lied in Magda, Queen of Meroval. Simply put, using her in combination with Feed the Forest was just too powerful and punishing for the other player, often creating huge game swings in a not-so-interesting manner. When forced to choose between changing Magda or Feed the Forest, we think changing Magda is the smarter decision here. We generally like the sort of gameplay that Feed the Forest can create, and it feel's core to Green's philosophy in general. Another issue with the combination as a whole was how it tended to punish opponents for trying to exploit one of Green's natural weaknesses: The Apex Predator. Using Magda and Feed the Forest on an Apex Predator punished the other player so hard that it simply couldn't be played without risking instantly losing the game. The threat of the combo even existing also meant players would try avoiding a "clash of the titans" with giant creatures fighting on the field, and rather Feed away their biggest threats instead of risking exposing themselves to a Magda combo. It was a dance taking place that we believe wasn't very healthy for the game.
Magda's ability was very unique, there was no real way of adjusting her without a complete redesign. We have something special planned for her, but it's going to take more time until she's ready for the public. Until then, you'll be unable to play games using decks that include Magda.
Oakling
Speaking of Feed the Forest, we've bumped Oakling down just a bit. Oakling is one of the creatures that, at one point, was far too slow to see any reliable use in a game. This is no longer the case. The game environment has changed quite a bit since then, and keeping Oakling at these incredible levels of value is no longer acceptable. As a side effect, the new Oakling will lose some synergy with "5 life matters" cards such as Ancient Boar. We still expect it to be a great card even after these changes.
Blood Obelisk
Oh, Blood Obelisk. How many times must we be forced to touch you? Even the last change to limit the Faeria gain to creatures only was not enough to put Obelisk in the right spot. We feel we've finally narrowed down a space for this structure to occupy, while not making it such a powerful engine that supports passive, defensive play so strongly.
Windstorm Charger and Snowstorm Lancer
Another big issue to tackle has been the situation with Windstorm Charger and Snowstorm Lancer. While these cards have existed for quite some time, there were some additions and changes to the library (Windborne, for example) that allowed players to construct decks that could destroy the opponent's Orb in one turn very early into the game and with little opportunity for the opponent to react. While we applaud the players who refined this strategy and mastered it, we can't realistically allow these sort of unstoppable wins to remain in the game. We really do like the sort of decks these cards promote, but wanted to move them to a spot where it takes at least two turns to destroy the opponent's orb using these units. Therefore, we have implemented an upper limit to the amount their attack can increase, and increased the stats of the Charger slightly to make it a more reliable unit otherwise. This should let decks built around events still trade in often for great value.
Wild Growth
Wild Growth no longer needs to remain at such a high cost now that the Green Colossus has been changed, along with several other card designs that no longer exist. We are comfortable at this point with stepping it back down and seeing what happens.
Unbound Evolution
When Unbound Evolution was at a cost of 1 Faeria it was an absurdly strong removal tool. Many cards at 6 and 7 Faeria costs rely on Gift abilties to be strong, and therefore have reduced stats. As a result, playing Unbound Evolution on a 5 or 6 Faeria enemy creature could routinely net you significant value, much more than we're comfortable with seeing. If the creature you were targeting had been buffed, it was even bigger. If it had had its cost reduced, it was even bigger. The card's potential massive swings in value were simply too high.
Increasing the cost to 2 Faeria and Evolving by 2 forces the player to invest a bit more into the play and potentially evolve an opponent's creature into a stronger option that may not always be so easier to deal with. It brings it much closer into line with other removal options. On the other hand, being able to evolve your own creatures by 2 opens a world of more dynamic possibilities, which are now open to more decks since the card's Lake cost has been reduced. As a side effect, this also produces a pleasing pattern of paying 2 Faeria and 2 Lakes for a 2 cost evolution. Even better, everyone's favorite Ogre King is now likely to make an appearance on more battlefields, since using Unbound Evolution on any Dragon will now produce the mighty Krog.
Ancient Herald
Ancient Herald used to produce an absurd amount of value, and enabled very strong plays on turn one when using the Explore card. Before anything else, we decided we'd like to reduce the Gift's cost reduction to 2 Faeria. Additionally, there were a lot of situations developing in games where a Blue deck had already won the game, but was taking a very long time to actually end it. We wanted to push Blue's power into a place where it has more tools to push a game to its logical conclusion. The 5/5 stat block is basically a magic number that works toward this goal. Five attack means that it can kill you from 20 in 4 hits. Five life is when creatures stop being vulnerable to a single Bomb Slinger or Firebomb. The 1 Lake cost on this sizable body can allow new patterns of play to emerge where players rush to drop one of these ancient beasties next to their opponent's orb. This flexibility for control-oriented decks can reward great tactical play, and perhaps even spawn some more aggressive blue lists. That's a lot of interesting options in exchange for just changing a few numbers on a card.
Zealous Crusader
We love Zealous Crusader's gameplay. One thing we've noticed a lot in high level games is that the orbs are basically ignored for most of the game. Thanks to the raw economy gifted by controlling the Faeria wells, players often need to be rewarded with value to go aggressive. The Zealous Crusader is an excellent tool for encouraging this style of play, because it doesn't matter when you draw him. Draw him later in the game and you still get the benefits for attacking early. We wanted to push the crusader to "Tier 1" status.
Originally we considered just the slightest of buffs. Possibly +1 life or +1 attack, or maybe charge 2. Ultimately though, we decided that we really wanted to push the envelope on this card. Slight buffs sometimes might get a card to the right level, but might not draw the attention of deckbuilders that a card deserves. Buffing Zealous Crusader this much might absolutely be over-the-top. It's a wild and exciting change. Yellow aggression has taken a lot of hits over the past few months, and we'd like to give it a chance to shine again. One more design thought here: You learn a lot more from risking over-buffing a card as compared to risking under-buffing it. If you don't buff it quite enough, the card still doesn't get played and you don't learn anything. If you accept the risk of over-buffing it, you can usually get things right in the next iteration. Time will tell with this noble Crusader. Watch out for him on the battlefield.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to talk about it on our forums!
- The Faeria Team