Unlock & Balance | IWC 0.55 Alpha Patch Notes

Welcome to the newest patch for Infinity Wars Classic, Alpha version 0.55.

Our focus has still been on the UI Overhaul Improvements, but we've got a nice chunk of balance changes, bug fixes, and new cards to show off in the meantime. Not only that, but we'll be doing our first ever public previews of the new UI soon! So, definitely make sure you're a member of the Discord server so you'll get to see it when it goes out. We're so close to 2K members, so let's make it happen! discord.gg/y8KGxk4

[h3]Reminder: Intrigue Sign-up[/h3]



We're almost out of our closed alpha and into our free to play early access period. If you want to stay up to date on the moment our free to play and Intrigue content launches go live, head to the page and click Notify me on Launch.



[h2]Card Updates[/h2]

[h3]New Cards[/h3]


Seeker of the Unpurged
Cost:2 Morale:4 (FD+OoS)
Character - Human
Flame Strike 2
When CARDNAME dies, draw a Unique Character.
2/8
Raider's Opputunity
Cost:2 (FDx1)
Ability
Target Character gains +4/+0 and Plunder 1.
Azael, The Torn
Cost:5 Morale:5 (OoSx1)
Unique Character - Angel
When you deploy Azael, the Torn, target a deployed Character.
When Azael, the Torn attacks, remove the targeted Character from the game. At the end of the turn, that Character returns to play.
10/10

[h3]Card Redesigns[/h3]

Purge the Unworthy
Cost increased to 6, and effect redesigned to:
"Each time a card in play is removed from the game, Purge The Unworthy becomes %17 more complete.
Once Purge The Unworthy is 100%, for the rest of the game, when an enemy Character enters the deployed area, it becomes exhausted next turn."

The previous Purge the Unworthy design encouraged the use of Overseer's flicker and graveyard removal, but its reward was often too slow and didn't help the strategies it encouraged. This new design narrows the build-around potentioal to on-board remove effect, but greatly increases the reward. in addition, once completed, it synergizes with flickering enemy Characters much more directly.

Corrupted Forest
Increased cost to 8. Removed Warpath restriction and replaced it with caring about the Character's controller.

Corrupted Forest is an exciting 1P high cost location card that encouraged and countered token strategies. However due to caring about Warpath cards, it not only had unwanted gameplay in mirror matches, but also couldn't effectivly be used in the variety of decks its single purity implied. Now the card is much more rawly powerful for Timmy players who want to use warpath to go wide rather than tall. As a saftey measure the card has also recieved a small cost increase as we want to see this more as a niche playable rather than a core ramp target.

Vanguard Knight
Decreased stats from 7/5 -> 6/4. Added "When Vanguard Knight dies, create a Flame dawn Aspirant in your hand."

Vanguard Knight and Knight of the Flame Dawn consistently overlapped far too much. We want to give a greater variety to Flame Dawn's low curve Character slots as well as continue to support Aspirant based decks. We felt like this card was the perfect space to make this change, even fitting the name really well.

Legionnaire of Dawn
Stats changed from 9/5 -> 6/9. Added "At the end of turn, if Legionnaire of Dawn is deployed and you attacked this turn, your opponent is dealt 3 damage."

With Flame Dawn Footman and Knight of the Flame Dawn, we felt there was a sufficient saturation of "Vanilla" Characters in the faction for the current size of the card pool. So this card has been redesigned to allow for low but constant pressure if the opponent stabilizes, creating an often exciting tension about how to wieght up kill speed versus defense.

Masked Initiate
Decreased stats from 5/6 -> 4/6. Added "When you play your second ability card each turn, Masked Initiate gains +6/+0 this turn."

Similiar to Legionnaire, we felt this vanilla wasn't showcasing much about Verore as a faction, and thus have changed it to an "Ability Matters" style card that is more explosive but temporary. This will also help this type of strategy have more "as-fan" when drafting is introduced in the future.

Suppress
Changed to "Preemptive
Enemy Characters, Locations, and Artifacts can't use Abilities this turn."

The previous design was far too narrow and difficult to predict. While still niche, this new design gives a possible option against activation heavy decks like Omnimind, Sages, or Hermit. Notably being able to hit otherwise hard to interact with Locations and Artifacts

[h3]Balance Changes[/h3]

Gaohan, The Stalwart
Regains vigilance
With this card's rework, it lost vigilance, making the card far weaker when additional copies were added outside of the command zone. This has been reverted to grant a powerful defensive body if other copies die.

Dancer of Jinhai
Stats increased from 4/10 -> 4/14. Activated ability now grants flying for 1 turn and can only be activated once per turn.
Dancer of Jinhai is a card that really looked like it synegized with many of DoD's tools, but its low stats, expensive ability, and difficulty in swapping between attack and defense never let it reach its potential. Now we hope to see this card fulfill its role as it swaps between attack and defense.

Masked Warrior
Increased stats from 2/6 -> 5/6. Text changed to "When Masked Warrior enters the deployed area or attacks, your opponent loses 3 morale."
Part of our effort of giving DoD more playable options in the early game, adding the attack trigger allows for less Character focused decks that normally are favored against morale to not be able to nessesarily ignore this.

Vanguard of the Bond
Reduced purity to (FDx1)
Both this card and Duelist being at both the same cost and purity really overshadowed Vanguarge of the Bond. Multistrike however is a powerful effect and with the reduction of purity this opens up new possible deckbuilding options.

Kills by Leaping
Reduced Purity to (1xWP) and increased stats from 14/10 -> 16/10.
The ability of this card is really unique and makes positioning interesting, however its low attack and high purity requirements meant it wasn't able to find a home.

Augmented Ninja
Ability no longer works from the Command Zone
A minor oversight on this new card, keeping the ninja safe in the command zone for the first few turns was not the intended play pattern. While not nessesarily top tier, it created very consistent and repetative gameplay that didn't often have a ton of counterplay.

Flame Ram
Stats increased from 0/8 -> 0/15
Not only is this new statline aesthetically more pleasing, but it allows for Flame Ram to survive more often if the defense zone isn't cleared, giving it a 2nd change on an already risky play.

Flame Dawn Purifier
Cost reduced from 3 -> 2. Stats reduced from 8/8 -> 8/4.
Flame Dawn having reliable graveyard hate is a useful secondary niche in the faction, however this particular card was very heavily overshadowed by the popular Kali, the Purifier. This change should help spread out this type of effect along the curve and can tussle with many common sleeper threats early in the game such as Bloodthirsty Dead. Making sure they stay dead.

Warden of the Wall
Stats increased from 4/9 -> 5/12
When comparing to similiar cards like Invincible Defender, it is clear that Warden was heavy understatted, especially due to the lack of vigilance and higher cost. This buff will help raise the floor on DoD's early defensive options when deckbuilding.

Honorable Farewell
Added "Draw a Card"
Often cited as the weakest card in the game, or forgotten about entirely. This effect is very low impact and not at all worth the card disadvantage. While still likely to be weak, at least in might be considered if a deck plays a lot of high morale Characters.

Pain Stone
Reduced Purity to (CoVx1)
A dangerous card to potentially have at too low a cost due to CoV's mass damage effects. Damage however is a tool shared across many factions, so it was unfortunate that the purity previously prevented some fun crossfaction synergies.

Zealous Protector
Changed Ascend trigger from a kill trigger to a dealt damage trigger.
Zealous Protector is a design that we really like how it can flip from defense to offense, working well with a number of different strategies. Unfortunatly the kill trigger was very unreliable and has thus been changed to play a little better.

Timely Strike
Can now target up to two targets in the support zone
With this buff and the recent Battlefield Shade, we want to expand on Flame Dawn's stumble synergies and support zone hate. This card was both very conditional and overcosted, now with being able to hit two targets, passive support zone play can be punished and having the target move unexpectedly can be less punishing.

Brimestone
Reduced Purity to (FDx1)
Flame Strike is a potentially powerful mechanic but it inherently works better defensivly and in situations where the damage can increase over time. Neither of these are currently strengths of high purity flame dawn decks, and thus reducing the purity will allow for possible new deckbuilding combinations that can better make use of Brimstone's effect.

Guard
Reduced Purity to (WPx1)
Guard is a difficult card to use effectivly and didn't warrent the high purity cost. Now it can at least potentially be combined more easily with cards in other factions that care about being damaged.

Strength of Unity
Added Preemptive
As an expensive "combat trick" of sorts that doesn't add permanently to the board state, this card was difficult to use. Doubly so due to being multifaction. Now its most impactful uses of dampening board wipes or other surprises doesn't have to rely on having initiative, allowing it to be a little more consistent.

Brimestone Battle Tank
Stats increased from 12/12 -> 15/14
While Flame Dawn overall will continue to have slightly lower statted top end Characters, this buff is in line with a number of other recent changes to 6 and 7 drops. Brimestone Battle Tank especially has quite an expensive activated ability, so we wanted to make sure it wouldn't embarress itself when sent to the front lines.

Immolation Drone
Stats increased from 2/4 -> 4/10. Attack trigger increased from 1 -> 2 damage.
Immolation Drone was not only very understatted, its 1 damage attack trigger was too low impact for its role. Now with a defensive body it can not only take Genesis artificial buffs better, but also potentially survive against flying or reach blocker to maybe attack multiple times.

Tithe Collector
Stats Increased from 2/4 -> 6/8
While arguable a powerful (and certainly annoying) effect, this card was horrendously understatted. While we don't expect this to be an all-star card, it can now potentially find a niche.

Lumbering Goliath
Stats reduced from 25/25 -> 22/24
We wish to maintain 7+ cost Characters having larger base stats than they previously had, especially in Warpath. However the Lumbering Goliath buff overshot a little bit, so we want to tone it down a smidge.

Demonize
Increased Purity to (EXx2)
Demonize was one of the cheapest and most reliable transforms in the game, giving a lot of utility to splashing Exiles. With the faction's reworks, we believe this should require additional commitment and give a chance for other cheap 1P Exile removal and disruption to be included instead.

Splitter-Lite
Increased Morale cost from 2 -> 5

Flame Dawn Commando
Increased Morale cost from 2 -> 5

Timmy Bot
Increased Morale cost from 1 -> 4

Morale cost is one of many "Development Knobs" that can be adjusted to create risk when playing specific cards. We wanted to adjust some of the most played 1 & 2 drops to allow future cards early game cards to be considered during deckbuilding, and to give a minor weakness to morale based strategies.

[h2]Contenst[/h2]

Not exactly content, but we do have a new contest for our Patreon members, and it's a fun one - A Deckbuilding competition! Submit your deck, and it could become an IWC default deck, featuring your name attached to it! You'll also receive an exclusive stamped card as a reward, so Patreon people should go and check out the post here; https://www.patreon.com/posts/69410558

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed issue with Self VFX nodes that could cause effects to loop far too many times. (Twins in Grey, Infest, etc)
  
• Fixed desyncs when using restricted list cards
  
• Fixed deserialization errors causing turn 1 desyncs
  
• Fixed an issue with Bloodthirst that could cause Desyncs
  
• Fixed Pit Brawler's Spritesheet
  
• Fixed Flame Ram causing an infinite Loop
  
• Fixed Enlightenator 2500XT's overcharge ability is not working
  
• Fixed Devils bargain making the game freeze when being used on hand filled with exile cards.
  
• Fixed Deadly not working correctly against characters with unstoppable
  
• Fixed Verore Kidnapper and other "leave play" effects sometimes causing infinite loops
  
• Fixed abilities that target Augmented ninja card getting removed from the game if you don't cast them
  
• Fixed Coyle Hellbringer's transform trigger'
  
• Fixed Abandon Symbiote ressurecting itself infinitly if discarded
  
• Fixed Deck Renaming bug
  
• Fixed Dojo not correctly multitargetting
  
• Fixed Consume on Reckless Abandon
  
• Fixed Zunshen, the Resolute General causing the game to freeze
  
• Fixed Zunshen, the Resolute General not working correctly with flicker effect
  
• Fixed Alpha Demon's wording
  
• Fixed Empath Battery not working with tokens
  
• Fixed Cards played from graveyard via Exile mechanic not getting buffed by decrepit crystal
  
• Fixed some Beasts being named "Beast Tokens"
  
• Fixed Protector of the Dead reducing its own morale
  
• Fixed Zombie abomination working when removed from any zone
  
• Fixed Lilariah, the Rebel being able to activate more than once per turn
  
• Fixed locations being able to activate abilities the turn they are played
  
• Fixed Screen Shake should not limiting itslef after 20 damage
  
• Fixed Mass Death and Winds of War not correctly working with exhausted Characters
  
• Fixed Wish Panels hiding cards when zoomed in
  
• Fixed Medi being able to be activated multiple times per turn
  
• Fixed Blood Crazed Initiate having the wrong amount of Bloodthirst
  
• Fixed lots of inconsistant text boxes
  

[h3]Hotfix bug fixes[/h3]

• Fixed damage prevention effects such as Noble Protector not correctly using RelativePlayer and thus causing desyncs.
  
• Fixed Missing Human tag on Seeker of the Unpurged
  
• Fixed Missing Unique tag on Azael
  
• Fixed Azael sometimes not returning the removed card at end of turn.
  
• Fixed Mariana, Spirit Dragon being available in the deckbuilder
  
• Fixed Empath Battery playing a VFX for every card deployed
  
• Fixed some location cards changing the battlefield dozens of times, causing lag spikes
  
• Fixed some effects looping due to incorrectly setup self VFX nodes (Confront the Aether, Titan of the New World, etc.)
  
• Fixed a bug with automatic desync reports sometimes not triggering correctly
  
• Fixed some minor spelling mistakes
  
• 
  

And remember, check out the INTRIGUE PRE-LAUNCH PAGE to register your email, and hear all about our Free to Play launch and Kickstarter launch.

Not long now!...

Discord: discord.gg/y8KGxk4
Patreon: patreon.com/lightmarestudios