April 4th - Balance Updates

We've got a solid handful of high-impact changes to the metagame coming between this OTA and our next patch, pull out your cauldrons–it's time to brew! 

• Thanos
  • [Old] 6/10 - At the start of the game, shuffle the six Infinity Stones into your deck.
  • [New] 6/10 - Starts in your opening hand and shuffles the six Infinity Stones into your deck.

Given the consistent and dominant performance of Thanos, additional changes were inevitable. This is the first stage of a larger range of adjustments we're going to make to the Thanos and Infinity Stones package. Our goal is to focus more heavily on the Mad Titan, with the expectation that narrowing the overall flexibility of Thanos decks will reduce how often these decks take heavy advantage of powerful new cards aimed at other strategies. This may be a more damaging change than you expect to the current builds, as Thanos has almost always claimed the highest winrate in the game when not drawn. 

• Time Stone
  • [Old] 1/1 - On Reveal: Draw a card and give it -1 Cost.
  • [New] 1/1 - On Reveal: Give Thanos -1 Cost next turn. Draw a card.

We are pursuing changes to more than one of the Stones, but because we're not ready to execute on those just yet we're taking an even heavier hand with the Time Stone for now. Our last change also did very little to the actual winrate of the card, and we'd rather not miss again. It's possible we'll return some strength in the future as other Stones change, though we intend to keep the focus on Thanos as discussed above. 

• Miek
  • [Old] 1/1 - When you discard a card, this gains +1 Power and can move next turn.
  • [Change] 1/1 -> 1/0

We adjusted Apocalypse slightly in the last patch to tone down Discard decks a little, and it had the desired effect on Apocalypse. However, Miek has since surged out in front on the back of a previous adjustment, and has by far the best winrate in these decks now. That's especially concerning for a 1-Cost card, because we measure winrate when drawn and turn 1 is the least common turn on which to draw a card (ignoring Limbo). This kind of performance in spite of theoretically being much less effective to draw on turns 4, 5, and 6 is a strong indicator we should remove some Power or increase the Cost, and we prefer the former. 

• Crossbones
  • [Old] 4/8 - You can only play this at locations where you are winning
  • [Change] 4/8 -> 4/10

There's been a lot of debate around which downside is stronger or weaker between Crossbones and Cull Obsidian–we've decided to let you all settle it in the streets. Either way this is probably Cull's game to lose, just because there are multiple good decks where Cull already shines, but it'll be fun finding out. Plus, we'd like to add a little bit more support for Skaar. 

• Sabretooth
  • [Old] 3/4 - When this is destroyed, return it to your hand. It costs 0.
  • [Change] 3/4 -> 3/5

Many are saying "3/5 is the new 3/4," and they may be onto something. We've been fairly happy with how many of these 3/5s are working out, and we expect to make more changes over time to balance out the range of Power among our lower-Cost cards as the game grows deeper. Sabretooth is fairly analogous to Black Swan as a "vanilla" card with no effect unless you lean into it during deckbuilding, but Destroy-based decks are also very competitive when it comes to exactly which 12 cards make the cut. 

• Angela
  • [Old] 2/2 - After you play a card here, +1 Power.
  • [New] 2/0 - After you play a card here, +2 Power.

Angela's back! The metagame has shifted to create more space for the "small ball" decks that leaned heavily on Angela to scale for late Power, so we're adjusting in kind. Will this be enough to return decks like Silky Smoove to the metagame, or do they need more help? Time will tell. 

• Baxter Building
  • [Old] Whoever is winning this location gets +3 Power at the others.
  • [Change] +3 -> +4

Do you get it? Yeah, you get it. — That's all for this week. Until next time, happy snapping!