Balance changes and bug fixes for you!
Hello friends!
Before we kick off Stage 2 of the World Championship on October 5, we'll iron out some bugs and improve the card balance. This will be done in a patch on October 3.
Once again, we want to say a huge thank you to all of you for the continuous excellent feedback you give us, it helps us immensely in discovering bugs and balance issues. Plus, all the positive words work wonders for the self esteem.
Here the most important changes.
Let’s take a look at the cards that are changing in more detail!
The current ability of 42nd Rifles lends itself well to both offensive and defensive operations, making it great in almost all situations and a tough cookie to deal with. We like strong cards to have some weaknesses and with this change you now have a tough choice - if you use it to attack it means it will be weaker during the enemy turn, so the days of freely attacking with the 42nd Rifles without a worry in the world are over.
What you’re seeing here is mostly just a bit cleaner templating of the wording of the ability, which is staying the same. What is changing, as is more strongly implied with the new wording, is that the ability now only applies when you have 35th Rifle Regiment in hand and ready to be deployed. What this means is that while it is on the battlefield, the unit will always have a cost of 3. So there is no longer the uncertainty we currently have of what you’ll get out of cards like Ural Factories, or whether Sudden Strike can target it or not. So this change is mostly for clarification and ease of play.
We’re seeing Sendai Regiment being played a bit more today than previously, which we can understand as it is quite good. But what is lacking a bit is stronger tension to shed the Smokescreen and go on the march. We want that dilemma to come up more often, so we are giving the unit a bit more incentive to attack.
We want there to be a 0-cost buff card in the game - it gives a great baseline to compare other buffer cards against and it fits the inherent risky nature of buff cards of leading to card disadvantage if they can trade with the buffed unit with a single card. USACE has been on our radar for quite awhile and we now feel confident in making this change. There are two main reasons, one is that it can make it a bit too hard for aggressive decks to deal with a cheap unit buffed with USACE in the early stages of the game, which can lead to quick snowballing that is difficult to deal with. The second reason is that we have been taking a general look at buff cards in the game and the current stats on USACE create a bit too much inflation for other buff cards higher in the food chain.
As mentioned above, we are doing a pass on buff cards in the game and Unity Is Strength was another one that came up as requiring our attention. We want to keep the potentiality for a super-buff because we want infantry-centric decks to be a thing in the game. But at a cost of 1 it was a bit too easy to get a strong unit going very early in the game, so we are increasing the cost slightly.
Land of the Free is a different type of buff card that can be very strong in the right deck. Unfortunately, that deck hasn’t really materialized in the metagame despite several valiant efforts, so we feel it is fine to reduce the cost slightly to broaden the appeal of the card.
Again, this change is part of our overhaul of buff cards. +3 for long range units is very strong, especially when you have many small, cheap planes on the battlefield. We are fine with those kinds of decks, looking to deploy small air units early and then finish in one big turn, but want to reduce the speed of them slightly, hence this change.
When we changed Tactical Strike a couple of months back we were on a warpath to reduce the effectiveness of removal over the board. At the time we debated this change, but decided to wait on it as we wanted to get a better sense of the overall impact our removal card adjustments would have. Now that we have a clearer picture we are confident that this is a fine change to make.
That’s it for now, keep the good feedback coming, please, we really appreciate it. For those of you participating in the Stage 2 qualifiers, good luck. For the rest, slightly above average luck.
Over and out.
Before we kick off Stage 2 of the World Championship on October 5, we'll iron out some bugs and improve the card balance. This will be done in a patch on October 3.
Once again, we want to say a huge thank you to all of you for the continuous excellent feedback you give us, it helps us immensely in discovering bugs and balance issues. Plus, all the positive words work wonders for the self esteem.
Overview
Here the most important changes.
- 42nd Rifles - Full repair at the start of your turn (was: at the end of each turn)
- USACE - Buff change to +1 attack, and+1 defense (was +1 attack and +2 defense)
- Sendai Regiment - Damage increase to 2 (was 1)
- Unity is Strength - Cost increase to 2 (was 1)
- Land of the Free - Cost decrease to 1 (was 2)
- Burning Sun - Cost increase to 3 (was 2)
- Tactical Strike - Cost decrease to 3 (was 4)
Details
Let’s take a look at the cards that are changing in more detail!
The current ability of 42nd Rifles lends itself well to both offensive and defensive operations, making it great in almost all situations and a tough cookie to deal with. We like strong cards to have some weaknesses and with this change you now have a tough choice - if you use it to attack it means it will be weaker during the enemy turn, so the days of freely attacking with the 42nd Rifles without a worry in the world are over.
What you’re seeing here is mostly just a bit cleaner templating of the wording of the ability, which is staying the same. What is changing, as is more strongly implied with the new wording, is that the ability now only applies when you have 35th Rifle Regiment in hand and ready to be deployed. What this means is that while it is on the battlefield, the unit will always have a cost of 3. So there is no longer the uncertainty we currently have of what you’ll get out of cards like Ural Factories, or whether Sudden Strike can target it or not. So this change is mostly for clarification and ease of play.
We’re seeing Sendai Regiment being played a bit more today than previously, which we can understand as it is quite good. But what is lacking a bit is stronger tension to shed the Smokescreen and go on the march. We want that dilemma to come up more often, so we are giving the unit a bit more incentive to attack.
We want there to be a 0-cost buff card in the game - it gives a great baseline to compare other buffer cards against and it fits the inherent risky nature of buff cards of leading to card disadvantage if they can trade with the buffed unit with a single card. USACE has been on our radar for quite awhile and we now feel confident in making this change. There are two main reasons, one is that it can make it a bit too hard for aggressive decks to deal with a cheap unit buffed with USACE in the early stages of the game, which can lead to quick snowballing that is difficult to deal with. The second reason is that we have been taking a general look at buff cards in the game and the current stats on USACE create a bit too much inflation for other buff cards higher in the food chain.
As mentioned above, we are doing a pass on buff cards in the game and Unity Is Strength was another one that came up as requiring our attention. We want to keep the potentiality for a super-buff because we want infantry-centric decks to be a thing in the game. But at a cost of 1 it was a bit too easy to get a strong unit going very early in the game, so we are increasing the cost slightly.
Land of the Free is a different type of buff card that can be very strong in the right deck. Unfortunately, that deck hasn’t really materialized in the metagame despite several valiant efforts, so we feel it is fine to reduce the cost slightly to broaden the appeal of the card.
Again, this change is part of our overhaul of buff cards. +3 for long range units is very strong, especially when you have many small, cheap planes on the battlefield. We are fine with those kinds of decks, looking to deploy small air units early and then finish in one big turn, but want to reduce the speed of them slightly, hence this change.
When we changed Tactical Strike a couple of months back we were on a warpath to reduce the effectiveness of removal over the board. At the time we debated this change, but decided to wait on it as we wanted to get a better sense of the overall impact our removal card adjustments would have. Now that we have a clearer picture we are confident that this is a fine change to make.
That’s it for now, keep the good feedback coming, please, we really appreciate it. For those of you participating in the Stage 2 qualifiers, good luck. For the rest, slightly above average luck.
Over and out.