Duelyst II: The Board Game is part of the tabletop showcase at the BostonFIG game expo[www.bostonfig.com] on December 15! If you're in the area, come try it out and pick up a foil promo card (while supplies last)!

Also, until December 18 the game is on sale[www.thegamecrafter.com]! The more copies sold, the cheaper it becomes for everyone!

If this is the first time you're hearing about the board game, you can read more about it here[news.duelyst2.com].

It has been a while, but the patch is here! Patch notes below, and you can also read them on the Duelyst II website[news.duelyst2.com], it has pictures!

The Sisters are still cooking, don't worry...


In case you missed it, the Duelyst II physical board game is out now! You can read more about it here[news.duelyst2.com].



Unbounded Energy Amulet: Now costs 3 mana.

Assassination Protocol: Now costs 0 mana; the activated minion can now attack (but not damage) Generals.

There has been a large volume of community feedback voicing disappointment with the state of Songhai after all the nerfs. This partial unnerf should help a little. Being able to attack Generals for 0 damage gives some synergy with attack effects, like Frenzy. It also makes card’s effect consistent with Vindicator’s change.

Time Maelstrom: Now costs 4 mana. Effect changed to “Destroy minions that were summoned since your last turn. End your turn.”

Magmar’s Anachronize is moved to Vetruvian, replacing Time Maelstrom. Maelstrom is (was) the most powerful card in the game, only held down by the surrounding cards. But you could also say that Vetruvian as a faction is held down by the fact that they have access to Maelstrom. Removing the spell allows us to spread that power more evenly across the faction’s card pool with future updates. Additionally, it gives Vetruvian access to AoE removal – something the faction was lacking – while removing excessive AoE from Magmar.

Shadow Creep: Now deals 2 damage.

This is more of an experimental change. 3 damage Creep proved to be a strong archetype and a good reference point. Even though it is not overpowered, it still feels oppressive at times – in the early game and against certain other archetypes. Lowering the damage output whilst increasing the speed of the deck changes the dynamic, hopefully making it more entertaining for both players.

New Moon Hex: Now costs 1 mana.

Sphere of Darkness: Now costs 1 mana.

Darkspine Elemental: Now has 3 Health.

Nightsplitter: Now costs 4 mana. Attack reduced to 4.

Shadow Nova: Now costs 4 mana.

Horn of the Forsaken: Now costs 4 mana. Effect changed to “When this is equipped and destroyed, summon a Wraithling directly above, below, in front and behind your General.”

Vindicator: Now has 2 Attack; the minion that gains Rush cannot damage Generals the same turn.

This is yet another in a set of changes aimed at limiting out-of-hand face damage and OTKs. We may completely rework the card in the future, but currently decided to stick with a simpler solution. It keeps one half of the card – board-oriented one – intact, while removing unwanted interactions, both existing and theoretical ones that may come with new cards.

Anachronize: Replaced with 3 mana Blood Rage: Give an allied minion +1/+1 for each time damage was dealt this turn.

Anachronize is an AoE removal spell in a faction full of removal spells. Additionally, its effect doesn’t fit the faction thematically (time manipulation, all the weird effects and clever words go to Vetruvian). Blood Rage is a quick replacement so that Magmar doesn’t end up being a card down.

Consuming Rebirth: Changed back to 2 mana: “Destroy an allied minion. At the end of your turn, summon it on that space and give it +1/+1.”

While fun as a concept, Consuming Rebirth (and its combo with Synchronic Abomination, in particular) turned out to be very unfun on the receiving end. We believe that this card needs to be removed from competitive play, so we are reverting it to its previous version.

Predation: Effect changed back to “An allied unit fights a nearby enemy minion.”

Coldbiter: No longer deals damage to the enemy General.

Coldbiter and Predation were the “nudge” changes (you will be seeing more of those) – small tweaks to encourage players to take another look at certain cards and experiment a bit. Admittedly, these two particular changes didn’t work well, so we are reverting them.

• Fixed an issue where Reva Eventide – Dark was missing her run animation
  
• Fixed an issue where playing Penance on Sun Seer would cause it to heal your General.
  
• Fixed Storm Aratha’s hit/death animation.

It's been a while since the last patch. Unfortunately the second set of the Sister cards need more time in the oven, so in the meantime we're releasing a few simple balance changes that aims to shake up the meta slightly and keep things interesting.

You can also read the patch notes on the Duelyst II website[news.duelyst2.com], it has pictures!

The patch will go live October 12th at around 7pm EST.


Cards with Fading cannot be replaced and disappear at the end of your turn.

The following token cards now have Fading:
- Afterglow
- Blink
- Malice


Note that any given balance change falls under 1) a feel-good change that makes the card better to play with 2) a change to make the card less frustrating to play against or 3) a change to increase the card's play rate. As a result, there wont be explanations for each card as to why it was changed.


[Old] Lyonar | Spell | 3 | Give a minion +Attack equal to its Health.
[New] Lyonar | Spell | 1 | Set a minion's Attack equal to its Health.


[Old] Lyonar | Minion | 4 | 3 | 5 | When this attacks, add a True Strike to your action bar.
[New] Lyonar | Minion | 4 | 4 | 5 | When this attacks, add a Fading True Strike to your action bar. It costs one less.


[Old] Lyonar | Minion | 5 | 4 | 6 | Zeal: When you play a spell, put a 1 cost copy of that spell into your action bar until the end of your turn. (once per turn)
[New] Lyonar | Minion | 5 | 4 | 6 | Zeal: When you play a spell, put a 1 cost Fading copy of that spell into your action bar until the end of your turn. (once per turn)

[Old] Songhai | Minion | 3 | 3 | 3 | Backstab: 2 After this attacks, it gains +1/+1
[New] Songhai | Minion | 3 | 3 | 4 | Backstab: 2 After this attacks, it gains +1/+1


[Old] Vetruvian | Minion | 3 | 1 | 7 | Frenzy When you summon a minion, this gains +1/+0
[New] Vetruvian | Minion | 3 | 0 | 7 | Frenzy When you summon a minion, this gains +1/+0


[Old] Vetruvian | Structure | 6 | 0 | 6 | Gateway Opening Gambit: Destroy a minion. Dying Wish: Summon it on this space for its owner.
[New] Vetruvian | Structure | 6 | 0 | 6 | Gateway Opening Gambit: Remove a minion from the board. Dying Wish: Summon it on this space for its owner.


[Old] Abyssian | Minion | 2 | 3 | 2 | Dying Wish: If it's your turn, heal your General for 3. Otherwise deal 3 damage to the enemy General.
[New] Abyssian | Minion | 2 | 3 | 2 Dying Wish: If it's your turn, heal your General for 2. Otherwise deal 2 damage to the enemy General.


[Old] Abyssian | Minion | 2 | 3 | 1 | Opening Gambit: Summon a Wraithling directly behind this.
[New] Abyssian | Minion | 2 | 3 | 1 | Opening Gambit: Summon a Wraithling on a nearby space.


[Old] Magmar | Spell | 1 | An allied unit fights an enemy minion nearby it.
[New] Magmar | Spell | 1 | An allied unit fights a nearby enemy unit.


[Old] Vanar | Spell | 2 | Give an allied minion +2/+0. This turn, give it "This takes no damage".
[New] Vanar | Spell | 2 | This turn, give a unit +2/+0 and "This takes not damage".


[Old] Vanar | Artifact | 2 | At the end of your turn, your General deals 2 damage to nearby enemy minions.[New] Vanar | Artifact | 2 | At the end of your turn, your General deals 2 damage to nearby enemies.


[Old] Vanar | Minion | 5 | 10 | 3 | Airdrop Opening Gambit: Stun a nearby minion.
[New] Vanar | Minion | 4 | 4 | 6 | Airdrop Opening Gambit: Stun a nearby minion.


[Old] Neutral | Minion | 3 | 1 | 1 Dying Wish: Summon a copy of this on a random space.
[New] | Neutral | Minion | 2 | 1 | 1 | Dying Wish: Summon a copy of this behind your General.


[Old] Neutral | Minion | 7 | 3 | 13 | Veil
[New] Neutral | Minion | 7 | 5 | 10 | Veil, Provoke


Dragonbone Golem - Titan has been added to the shop. It can be purchased for 200 Shards. Designed by StrawberryChewy and Pasty.

Songhai - Dark Skin Bundle has also been added to the shop. It can be purchased for 3000 Shards.

- Fixed a bug where Penance did not damage structures

Hello, Anjo here. Duelyst II: The Board Game is essentially done and I have ordered the first copy, so I should have more to share with you within a month. For now, if you want to check out the finalized decks/cards or play the game for free before it's cool, head over to the game page[news.duelyst2.com].

We’re continuing trying out doing a mid month balance patch this month. The initial goal of these was to do them 2 weeks after the monthly patch, which I’m sure many will notice was more than 2 weeks ago at this point. The time it’s been taking to let things settle a bit, then collect data, then talk about and implement changes has been pushing it back a bit the past couple months, so we haven’t quite been hitting that mark. We expect this will continue, so we’re tentatively going to keep doing these about 2.5 weeks out from the monthly patch.

The patch will go live August 23rd at around 8:30pm EST.

You can also read the patch notes on our website[news.duelyst2.com] (it has pictures!).




[[b]Old[/b]] Lyonar | Spell | 3 | Deal damage to all minions equal to an allied minion’s Health.
[[b]New[/b]] Lyonar | Spell | 3 | Deal damage to all minions equal to an allied non-Structure minion’s Health.

Penance started strong, and has only been looking stronger recently, currently being a key piece of the best deck in the game where it’s being used with Isbee’s Monument as effectively a hard board wipe for 6 mana and 2 cards. While there were some options for how to go about weakening the card, we decided to just go ahead and specifically target the most problematic interaction. This may seem a bit too specific at first glance, but it really points to an underlying design issue with Structures; they just don’t work enough like minions to be treated the same in all cases. The combination of disproportionately high Health to cost ratio, fixed 0 Attack, and inability to move just make them not interact well with many cards that affect minions. Until now, these interactions have largely been negative, so there hasn’t been an urgent need to make the distinction (though Obelysk lovers may disagree). We expect that this line will continue to be drawn in the future, especially if (when) we add more Structures to the game, we are just starting with this change for now as we continue to evaluate other ones. Also, thematically, Structures don’t have the awareness to repent, so we aren’t going to let them.

We’re going to continue to keep a close eye on this one after this change to see where it lands.


[[b]Old[/b]] Songhai | Spell | 0 | Activate an allied minion with 3 or less Attack.
[[b]New[/b]] Songhai | Spell | 1 | Activate an allied minion. It cannot damage or attack Generals this turn.

Inner Focus is a card that has been a combination of one of the less liked cards in the game, not a particularly strong card, and problematic for design, all while being core to Songhai’s identity. We wanted to both get rid of the ability for it to just act as out of hand burst (particularly in the context of combos), and get rid of the 3 Attack breakpoint in Songhai, which lead us to just swapping it with Assassination Protocol. This was actually decided on a little bit back, there was just some work to do to fix up the new player experience to work with it that was queued up behind work on the Sisters Mini-Expansion which delayed this change until now. We are hopeful that this will keep help Songhai better leverage large minions to control the board, while still filling a similar role in triggering movement and attack effects, as well as cut down on some of the frustration of low mana, high face damage plays from hand.

This will replace the copies currently in your collection and decks.


[[b]Old[/b]] Songhai | Minion | 3 | 3 / 4 | After this moves or teleports, it gains “this cannot be attacked” until it attacks or the start of your turn.
[[b]New[/b]] Songhai | Minion | 4 | 4 / 6 | After this moves or teleports, it gains “this cannot be attacked” until it attacks or the start of your turn.

Speaking of cards that were affected by the 3 Attack breakpoint in Songhai, Umbral Stalker has been lackluster to put it kindly. It was intended to serve as a card that had some ability to stick on board and be a presence in combat, but ended up with its stats being limited by not wanting to be unable to be triggered by one of the core Songhai cards. With freeing up that extra option for putting it back in the shadows, we’re bumping it up to have a more respectable body.


[[b]Old[/b]] Abyssian | Minion | 5 | 5 / 5 | This can move onto allied minions to destroy them. When it does, draw a card and heal your General for 2.
[[b]New[/b]] Abyssian | Minion | 5 | 4 / 8 | This can move onto allied minions to destroy them. When it does, draw a card and heal your General for 2.

This card was part of an effort to find more space for larger minions that don’t immediately produce some sort of value when played. We’ve been talking a bit internally, and decided to allow some more defensive stats on Abyssian minions, and decided to shift this to being a bit harder to clear.


[[b]Old[/b]] Magmar | Spell | 1 | Destroy a minion with the lowest Attack.
[[b]New[/b]] Magmar | Spell | 2 | Destroy a minion with the lowest Attack.

Generally speaking, we don’t want removal to cost 1 mana unless it scales against minion cost in some way (e.g. damage based removal), or has some additional exchange of resources (e.g. Aspect of the Wolf giving your opponent a Wolf). The restriction on it generally makes it act as scaling removal when there are several minions on board, but in situations where the board is clear, it is just ends up being hard removal for 1 mana, so we’re bumping it back up to 2 mana.


[[b]Old[/b]] Magmar | Minion | 3 | 2 / 4 | Grow: +1/+1.
[[b]New[/b]] Magmar | Minion | 2 | 2 / 2 | Grow: +1/+1.

With Oropsisaur outclassing Earth Walker as a 3 drop, we’re wanted to give it a chance at a new life as a 2 drop. Go get em little buddy!



Shout out to Navy for running the card design contests in the Duelyst Official Discord server[discord.gg], and to all the folks who participated in making and voting on cards in them. We decided to add in the final winner of the bracket of all the contests to the game as a free special card for a while to celebrate all the hard work.


Songhai | Artifact | 4 | After your General moves or teleports, summon an Afterimage in the space they left.


Songhai | Minion | 1 | 2 / 1 | Rush



All of these changes are non-functional changes to clear up what cards do.

Added reminder text for fight:

• Fight – Both deal damage to the other equal to their Attack.

Fixed some cases where the word directly was missing

• Dynasty Standard
  
• Equinox Hourglass
  
• Mask of Dominion

[[b]Old[/b]] Neutral | Minion | 6 | 8 / 6 | When this attacks or counterattacks enemy minion, deal excess damage dealt to the enemy General.
[[b]New[/b]] Neutral | Minion | 6 | 8 / 6 | When this deals damage while attacking or counterattacking an enemy minion, excess damage is dealt to the enemy General.

• Fix Solidify affecting enemies
  
• Fix Soul Arbiter not preventing minions from dying during modifier application
  
• Fix Marrowgrinder being able to grind itself (the double click UX here was the issue)
  
• Fix snags caused by Khymera
  
• Fix missing Gauntlet cards (yet again)
  
• Fix Bubblesmith damage not being accurately reduced for the non-Bubblesmith player.
  
• Potentially fix game state desynchronization that sometimes occurs with Borean Bear and Abyssal Juggernaut – Please let us know if you experience any changes with this, because we are having a real hard time actually getting this to happen when looking for it.

Please take a moment to share your thoughts on the latest update (0.2.31).

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfwAVaM25H481vZz_T3FxkgMVxEDia265DBMFPw0Byx3hGACQ/viewform

Patch 0.2.31 will be live August 3rd 2024 at around noon EST.


We have been working hard on making the next Mini-Expansion built around the Seven Sisters. It will be releasing over the next 3 monthly patches, starting with this one. The full set has 6 cards per faction (3 minions, 2 spells, 1 artifact), plus 6 neutral minions, 2 common, 2 rare, 1 epic, and 1 legendary.

You can obtain all of these cards by purchasing the Seven Sisters Set One bundle for 750 shards in the shop.

You can also read the patch notes on our website[news.duelyst2.com] (it has pictures!).



Spell | Epic | 3 | Deal damage to all minions equal to an allied minion's Health.

Minion | Common | 4 | 3 / 5 | When this attacks, add a True Strike to your action bar.

Minion | Spell | 1 | Deal 2 damage to a minion.


Artifact | Rare | 2 | Your General has +2/+0 while a unit is behind them. When your General moves, the unit behind them moves to the space they were in

Minion | Common | 3 | 3 / 4 | After this moves or teleports, it gains "this cannot be attacked" until it attacks or the start of your turn.


Spell | Common | 2 | Give a minion -2/+2. Give a minion +2/-2.

Minion | Epic | 4 | 4 / 4 | Your effects that add to the Attack or Health of enemies or subtract from the Attack or Health of allies do the opposite instead.


Artifact | Rare | 2 | When you equip this and at the start of your turn, put a Malice into your action bar.

Spell | Token | 0 | This card cannot be replaced and disappears at the end of your turn. Destroy an allied minion to summon a Husk nearby. Deal 2 damage to your General.

Minion | Token | 1 | 4 / 4

Minion | Rare | 5 | 5 / 5 | This can move onto allied minions to destroy them. When it does, draw a card and heal your General for 2.


Spell | Common | 1 | An allied unit fights an enemy minion nearby it.

Minion | Rare | 4 | 4 / 5 | Opening Gambit: Deal 1 damage to nearby allies. They can move an additional space this turn.


Spell | Common | 1 | Give your transformed and token minions +1/+1 and Provoke until your next turn.

Minion | Rare | 6 | 3 / 8 | Allied Walls joined to this have +1/+1 for each allied Wall joined to this.


Minion | Common | 3 | 3 / 4 | Players have 1 less mana.

Minion | Common | 3 | 0 / 5 | When a minion damages this, destroy that minion.



As mentioned in the last patch notes, we are trying out shifting the balance changes to the middle of the month, so we aren't going to be making any adjustments to existing cards this time. We do already have a few changes we are planning on making then.


A new skin bundle for Vanar is releasing this month! You can purchase it in the shop for 3000 shards.

- Twin Strike and Juxtaposition no longer let you skip the second target, causing them to disappear (you can still cancel).
- Fixed some cases where effects that count things on the board wouldn't update correctly.

We have been working hard to iron out the process of developing Duelyst II, and now we are trying out a shift to our patch schedule, adding a mid-month patch aimed primarily at adjusting existing cards. Since we just did balancing at the end of last month, and since this is the first one, this one isn’t making particularly big changes. We’ll be looking at how people feel about this change to schedule, and how sustainable it is for us when evaluating continuing this in the future.

You can also read the patch notes on our website[news.duelyst2.com] (it has pictures!).


Looking at player feedback and gameplay data, thing are overall in a reasonable spot, so we’re just going to make a few adjustments to nudge things around a little bit for now. There are several more changes we have been discussing making to address long standing problems, we just need to figure out the right changes to make and find a good time to make them.


[Old] Minion | 3 | 3 / 1 | Opening Gambit: Destroy a nearby minion with 3 or less Attack.
[New] Minion | 3 | 3 / 1 | Opening Gambit: Destroy a nearby minion that costs 3 or less.

Aggressive Abyssian decks have been among the best decks of the month so far, but haven’t been that much above the next best decks. We’re taking the opportunity here to make a change to a problematic card that we hope also reigns in the deck a little bit.

Nightsorrow Assassin is a card that shapes what cards are playable in the metagame with its binary Opening Gambit, and pushes out expensive, low attack minions which tend to help slower decks stabilize the board. Effects like this also affect the designs of new cards, killing ideas before they can become cards. We want to keep the role of Nightsorrow Assassin as a strong tempo play, so we are just shifting it to handle low cost cards while developing board state, so it picks up the ability to handle other cost efficient threats in exchange for not invalidating some expensive ones.


[Old] Minion | 3 | 3 / 3 | After this moves, give nearby allied minions +1/+1.
[New] Minion | 3 | 3 / 3 | After this moves or teleports, give nearby allied minions +1/+1.

Wind Runner is a cool card that has been among the worst performing. We’re opening it up to also trigger on teleport to give it some additional utility, and help it find a home now and in the future.

[Old] Minion | 7 | 5 / 7 | Opening Gambit: Equip the Eternity Core. Dying Wish: Destroy a random ally artifact to resummon this on the same space.
[New] Minion | 6 | 5 / 7 | Opening Gambit: Equip an Eternity Core. Dying Wish: Destroy a random allied artifact to summon this on this space.
(some minor cleanup to the wording here)

Eternity Sage has struggled to do much as a late game play, in part due to just having a poor cost to stats ratio. We are looking at diversifying late game play patterns, and feel a sticky threat like Eternity Sage can help do that at a better ratio. There was some consideration to also changing the stats, but we’re just going to start here for now.

Wording Changes
All of these changes are non-functional changes to clear up what cards do.

Fixed some cases where General wasn’t properly capitalized:

• Silverguard Squire
  
• Timecloak Coiler
  
• Progenitor

Changed “resummon” to “summon” to be consistent with other cards:

• Soulstone Obelysk
  
• Eternity Sage
  
• Deja-Vu Engineer

[Old] Minion | 4 | 4 / 5 | Opening Gambit: Teleport the unit directly in front of this backward 1 space. If another unit occupies that space, deal 2 damage to both instead.
[New] Minion | 4 | 4 / 5 | Opening Gambit: Teleport the unit directly in front of this 1 space in that direction. If a unit is on that space, deal 2 damage to both of them instead.

Mindlathe
[Old] Artifact | 3 | After your General damages a minion, reactivate and take control of it until the end of the turn.
[New] Artifact | 3| After your General damages a minion, reactivate and take control of it until the end of your turn.

Stunned
[Old] Stunned units lose their next action.
[New] Stunned units cannot move or attack until the end of their owner’s next turn.

Bug Fixes

• Fix Echo Mage to work like other cost setting effects
  
• Fix Embla, Forever not granting additional mana crystals outside of Sandbox.

Please take a moment to share your thoughts on the latest update and your experience with Duelyst II in general.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScceaanWZn37PqQhe75XrWZJ88ydUNLcWNrp2PZIkRwHgsDCg/viewform

We’re deep into work on the next Mini Expansion, but since we are working on that back to front, we don’t have anything ready to go from that for this month. We considered either doing a handful of cards unrelated to the Mini Expansion, or doing a set of reprints. We ultimately decided to keep the time spent developing new cards focused on the Mini Expansion, and tried to generally save some time for process and other work by going with a reprint set. Well, it turns out this was more work than expected with testing through a large set of cards, so we are coming in a bit close to the deadline this month, hence the relative quiet around this. The good news is that we ended up with a bunch of thoughts on other cards for the future.

We are still looking for more help, if you want to contribute, here’s a form to fill out[forms.gle].

You can also read the patch notes on our website[news.duelyst2.com] (it has pictures!).



We are reprinting two cards from each faction as they were in Duelyst, just adjusting the wording, spell/artifact borders, and rarity as needed.


Artifact | Rare | 2 | Allied minions directly above and below your General have +2/+0 and Provoke.

Minion | Epic | 3 | 1 / 5 | When you summon a minion with 2 or less Attack, this gains +2/+0.


Spell | Rare | 4 | Transform all minions into Panddo until the end of the turn.

Minion | Epic | 5 | 3 / 3 | After an allied minion moves or teleports, it gains +1/+1.


Spell | Common | 1 | Set a minion’s Health equal to its Attack.

Spell | Epic | 4 | Your opponent takes control of an allied minion. You take control of enemy minions with less Attack nearby it.


Artifact | Legendary | 3 | After your General damages a minion, activate and take control of it until the end of the turn.

Spell | Common | 3 | Give an enemy minion -3/-0. Give allied minions nearby it +3/+0.


Minion | Common | 2 | 1 / 3 | When your General takes damage, this gains that much attack.

Minion | Legendary | 3 | 2 / 5 | Grow: +1/+1. When another allied minion with Grow survives damage, that minion grows.


Artifact | Rare | 1 | When your General attacks a Stunned minion, destroy it. (it doesn’t counterattack)

Minion | Legendary | 3 | 2 / 3 | When an enemy is Stunned, transform this into Yggdra’s Voracity.

Minion | Token | 3 | 5 / 5 | When an enemy is Stunned, fully heal this.



We’ve learned a lot about and from the data this month, and have seen some clear winners and losers in the current metagame. We’re making more adjustments than last month to try to even things out a bit. As always, we are listening to feedback on this, so let us know your thoughts here, good or bad.


[[b]Old[/b]] Spell | 7 | Deal 8 damage to a unit.
[[b]New[/b]] Spell | 8 | Deal 8 damage to a unit.


[[b]Old[/b]] Spell | 4 | Deal damage to the enemy General equal to the number of cards in the opponent’s action bar.
[[b]New[/b]] Spell | 5 | Deal damage to the enemy General equal to the number of cards in the opponent’s action bar.


[[b]Old[/b]] Spell | 4 | Activate allied units on your opponent’s starting side of the battlefield.
[[b]New[/b]] Spell | 5 | Activate allied units on your opponent’s starting side of the battlefield.

Spiral Technique, Dark Seed, and Spirit of the Wild fall into the same category for adjustment; they are one of the most winning cards in their respective factions, and represent large amounts of out of hand burst damage. We are aiming to tone down this aspect of the metagame a bit for now by adding one to their costs to both generally slow them down a turn and make it a little harder to deploy lethal damage from hand on 9 mana. As with the Manaforger change aimed at limiting one turn kills (OTKs), we are hoping to introduce more options for counterplay in the future, and may revisit these then.


[[b]Old[/b]] Spell | 0 | Switch the positions of two minions.
[[b]New[/b]] Spell | 0 | Switch the positions of two minions with the same owner.

Songhai has been the faction with the highest win rate this month, and Juxtaposition has been the most winning card of cards with a high play rate in the faction. It’s a card that can represent burst damage and invalidate a lot of defensive positioning considerations, while enabling many Songhai cards (and a certain Neutral), all for the low cost of free. We are trying to specifically to cut back on its use to break through defensive positioning and invalidate Provoke minions, while still leaving it as a general enabler for Songhai. We feel it will still keep some of its role as a mechanism for closing games, just with a little more effort to position your minions, and a little more counterplay in defensive positioning.


[[b]Old[/b]] Spell | 2 | Give an enemy minion -2/-0. Give allied minions nearby it +2/+0.
[[b]New[/b]] Spell | 2 | Give allied minions +2/+0 until your next turn.

This is a bit of an odd one, we are actually trying to make this effect a little stronger, while also bringing back the old effect to help support swarm strategies. We’re opting here to move the current effect onto the Void Steal reprint while reverting this one to it’s previous state to avoid ending up flipping the sprites from their original effects. We’ve bumped Void Steal down to common so it’s free to swap between them should you want to.


[[b]Old[/b]] Spell | 1 | Give a minion +2/+1.
[[b]New[/b]] Spell | 1 | Give a minion +2/+2.


[[b]Old[/b]] Minion | 3 | 4 / 2 | Opening Gambit: Give a nearby minion +2/+1.
[[b]New[/b]] Minion | 3 | 4 / 2 | Opening Gambit: Give a nearby minion +2/+2.

These were both nerfed back a while back when Magmar was a top contender, and well, now they could use a bit of help. We’re bumping both of these back up to their previous values to give a bit more staying power to board-based Magmar strategies.


[[b]Old[/b]] Minion | 2 | 3 / 3
[[b]New[/b]] Minion | 2 | 3 / 2

Fenrir Warmaster in its various incarnations has long been a staple inclusion in Vanar decks, and one of the faction’s best cards. We are taking off some of the health from the token here to make it a little easier to clear, and chip away at the some of the staying power of Vanar’s board states.


[[b]Old[/b]] Minion | 4 | 4 / 5 | Opening Gambit: Teleport the minion directly in front of this backward 1 space. If a unit occupies that space, deal 2 damage to both instead.
[[b]New[/b]] Minion | 4 | 4 / 5 | Opening Gambit: Teleport the unit directly in front of this backward 1 space. If a unit occupies that space, deal 2 damage to both instead.

This one has been on the list of cards to buff, and what better time to do that than with the official animations finished! Hopefully the ability to move generals will allow for some interesting new applications. Be sure to check out her updated animations in-game!


As mentioned in the last update, we’ve been keeping an eye on this deck. With some more data to look at, it’s looking like it’s not particularly strong or prevalent. Given that and some potential future things incidentally affecting the deck anyway, we aren’t going to make any changes here unless something changes significantly.



When considering whether to keep these changes, we looked at where the cards ended up falling in the metagame, what play patterns the changes affected, and some of what we are considering for the future for these or other cards.


[[b]Old[/b]] Minion | 10 | 5 / 5 | When you replace this card, this and other Astral Crusader cards in your action bar and deck cost 2 less and gain +2/+2.
[[b]New[/b]] Minion | 7 | 6 / 12 | At the start of each turn, switch the positions of both Generals.

Astral Crusader certainly found a place in the metagame, but produced some poor play patterns with Rush enablers. Given the lack of playability of the old version, we’ll certainly be revisiting this card again in the future, and will look at variations of the same idea.


No change. The change here didn’t move the needle a whole lot on this card, and it’s a solid inclusion for new players, so we’re happy to leave it as is.


[[b]Old[/b]] Minion | 7 | 7 / 8 | Airdrop. Opening Gambit: Summon two Ruby, Emerald, and Sapphire auras on nearby spaces.
[[b]New[/b]] Minion | 7 | 12 / 6 | Airdrop. Opening Gambit: Teleport nearby units to random spaces.

Paddo ended up with a very low play rate, and we think both that there are reasons to want the old effect around, and that there should be one true Sloth.


No change. This version of Bloodrage Mask ended up being relatively weak, but given the current state of Songhai, we are fine with just leaving it as is for now. If it continues performing at the same levels as it is now, we’ll revisit it in the future.


[[b]Old[/b]] Minion | 5 | 4 / 6 | Opening Gambit: During your opponent’s next turn, after they play 3 cards, end the turn.
[[b]New[/b]] Minion | 6 | 6 / 8 | Prevent all healing.

Deathblighter also ended up with a very low play rate. It’s certainly is an interesting effect though, and we may look at something in a similar space in the future.


No change. This one looks to have ended up in a reasonable spot. It’s not a standout card in the metagame, but how potentially oppressive the effect can be, we wouldn’t want it showing up all over the place. We’re going to leave this as is, and keep an eye on it.

• Fixed Divine Bond modifier wording to be accurate to the card.
  
• Fixed Bubblesmith bubble popping on 0 damage.
  
• Fixed Bubblesmith blocking damage twice when killing something with a Dying Wish that does damage.
  
• Fixed post-match report button.

We’ve reviewed the challenges affected by current and previous changes, and adjusted some of them to try to keep them more in line with their intended difficulty and original structure.

• Gate 3 – Magmar: Close Formation
  
• Gate 4 – Songhai: Songhai Shuffle
  
• Gate 4 – Magmar: Overriding Order
  
• Gate 5 – Lyonar: Rightful Heir
  
• Gate 5 – Vanar: The Locked Library
  
• Gate 5 – Magmar: Mind Game

• Deja-Vu Engineer is affected by play/summon trigger of both the minion it destroys and the copy it makes. Deja-vu indeed.
  
• Ripper token is incorrectly named Young Silithar
  
• Bluster damage is counted as spell damage for Arcane Amplifier, but not for Prophet of the White Palm
  
• Oropsisaur does not give a bonus to a minion played with Flash Reincarnation while Godhammer is equipped.
  
• Cost setting effect of Echo Mage is not affected by further cost modifications.
  
• Deja-Vu Engineer is affected by play/summon trigger of both the minion it destroys and the copy it makes. Deja-vu indeed.