The Fall of Argenport has completely flipped both the ranked and draft formats on their heads. Overall, we've been very happy with the great diversity of cards and strategies getting played, as well as how new of a world FoA has lead to.
Although the metagame has been evolving a great deal from week to week, we have identified two specific areas we wanted to give a little nudge to, in order to better ensure a greater range of competitive strategies remain viable.
While many variations of aggressive "Spells Matter" decks have enjoyed success in the new format, there has been a growing trend towards TJP builds (ie Blitz, ie Miracle) that have been able to incorporate heavy Flying and Aegis themes, without sacrificing very much speed. While some strategies have been able to evolve to meet this new kind of threat, it has been pushing out a few entire classes of strategies, by being just a little too efficient at sidestepping interaction (spells, weapons, and units, thanks to Aegis, pump spells, and Flying). By contrast, the Time Midrange strategies that initially rose to prominence lead to an evolution of the format that continued to allow most strategies to be competitive, when properly tuned.
We discussed a lot of options, when considering what actions to take. Many of the units in the TJP decks are quite strong, but they actually offer a great range of gameplay, a lot of compelling deckbuilding decisions, and a great depth of strategy for maximizing use of them. We will be continuing to monitor them, but on the whole, we currently see no problem with the actual units available.
We also discussed the pump spells, especially Gift of Battle, which has generally been the most common theme when the deck has explosive turns attacking for huge amounts out of nowhere. What we eventually concluded was that the real problem was how frequently these big turns were so difficult to interact with, with two cards standing out as the biggest offenders of making it too easy to dodge unit combat.
- Accelerated Evolution - Now 3TP (was 2TP)
- Levitate - Now 2P (was 1P)
Accelerated Evolution has been a reasonable roleplayer since its inception, but has skyrocketed in power, thanks to it's synergy with the Spells Matter cards (counting as two spells, while also being able to enhance two threats) and its synergy with Merchants (giving you extra material to trade in or receive). Additionally, it has proven just a little too effective at reducing the amount of investment needed to go for a big turn (since its inherently spread out).
Levitate has always been an extremely efficient spell with low opportunity cost, thanks to it replacing itself, and has been watched closely for a very long time. While the card has arguably been too strong for a long time, it was never really particularly heavily played until recently (where it has been one of the biggest offenders of a reduction of diversity of types of spells used to fuel spells matter cards). Our intention is not to eliminate these strategies ability to take to the skies, we just want to make sure there is sufficient opportunity cost for it to be a meaningful investment.
Other changes:
- Sheriff's Hat - Now +3/+1 (was +3/+3)
- Herald of the Parliament - Now 1/1 that gets +2/+2 (was a 2/2 that gets +1/+1)
- Brand, Without Fear (created by Jawbone Greatsword) - Now 6FF (was 7FF)
- Ijin's Choice - Now fast (was slow)
- Shadowstalker - Now 3SS (was 4SS)
Sheriff's Hat, Herald of the Parliament - While the draft format has been relatively well balanced, Justice has been just a little stronger than we'd like. Both of these changes emphasize the unit's ability, making "completing the quest" a more meaningful part of the card's power.
While Jawbone Greatsword has already proven an effective card, we wanted to put a little more juice into its Tribute ability, to give more reward to players completing its quest.
Shadowstalker - We wanted to give a boost to Nightfall decks, while potentially also opening up chances of another ranked option for a few fringe decks.
Ijin's Choice - This is largely a quality of life improvement, making the card less stressful to use, while better balancing the two modes with each other. Additionally, this may get the card into more ranked decks, thanks to the added flexibility.
We're continuing to monitor ranked, but wanted to err on the side of being conservative with changes, as we're confident there is a lot more hidden in the format and would prefer to see where things go.