Patch 0.11.1

This patch marks the 2 week anniversary of our launch, and in those two weeks we've been taking in lots of feedback about the relative strength of each faction and strategies. Midrange Untamed / Coven decks have proven to be very strong, while Gremlin aggro decks have continued to struggle. Swamp Terror in particular has become an oft-discussed card, and is being tuned down this patch.

As games have been played and talented deckbuilders and players have joined the community, we as developers have been learning what makes a card strong or weak, and how sensitive some balance knobs can be. We certainly learned the difference in power between draining 2 and 3 a turn!

In these first two weeks, we recognize that there have been a lot of patches and balance changes. We expected this going into Early Access, with such a small team we knew there'd be bugs and balance issues we hadn't caught. Going forward, our intent is to do balance updates, if any, a maximum of every two weeks, on Tuesday.

Card Changes

• Swamp Terror now drains for 2, down from 3.

  The earlier change to Swamp Terror's drain amount catapulted it to being one of the defining cards of the meta. It wasn't our intention with the previous change to make Swamp Terror such a powerful card, at the time the change was viewed as a way to make it not have such a large delta between its power in Court and 1v1, but the ability to stabilize and close out a game from simply sitting in the Rest Zone has proven to be meta warping in all game types, so the problematic horror is getting double nerfed.

• Kale the Conquerer now costs 5, down from 6.

• Buff Broccoli's power is now 6, up from 5.

• Spore Scout now has 2 health, up from 1.

• Excitable Onion is now 1 devotion cost, down from 2.

• Carrot Cavalier is now 1 devotion cost, down from 2.

• Juiced Up is now 2 devotion cost, up from 1.

  Gremlins have been struggling to find wins, so we're buffing up a few cards. Kale's effect is powerful, but his winrate at 6 was terrible so it's being dropped a little. Spore Scout is an effect we want to push, as the positional requirements lead to interesting games and pay off the faction for going wide, but at one health often would just die to Mighty Roar and do nothing.

  We're also shuffling around some of the devotion requirements of the Gremlin cards. Devotion requirements are meant to "tempt" deckbuilders into committing to that faction to access powerful cards, but Excitable Onion and Carrot Cavalier don't do a good job of this, we think it's fine for more decks to have access to Charge. On the other hand, Juiced Up is a very strong effect, often representing a surprise 8 damage for just 3 resources, and is the kind of card that at 2 devotion encourages committing to Gremlins. Despite Gremlins being considered a weak faction, Juiced Up stood out as a card that should probably get nerfed sooner or later, so we're moving it to 2 devotion now.

• Inspiring Leader now buffs all allies, rather than just Human allies.

  While we like the idea of "typal" decks, the reality is that for now we don't have the card pool size to support them, and they end up restricting deckbuilding options, rather than expanding them. (Stay tuned for an announcement regarding new cards coming soon!) We also considered removing the typal limitation from Kale the Conqueror, but he'd probably have to move to 2 devotion with that change, and all the Starter champions are intentionally kept at a single devotion.

• Soulmates now costs 3, up from 2.

  Soulmates' ability to create 2 2/3 bodies is brutal for aggressive decks, easily trading 2 for 1 on the first turn and stopping aggression in its tracks.

• Stalks-the-Weak is now 2 devotion cost, up from 1.

  Stalks-the-Weak is a very strong card, but also a difficult one to balance. If its stats are lowered, or its cost increased, then it doesn't really "make sense" as a card compared to Tribal Warrior, the faction's baseline card. Of course, in reality the "downside" of the card is actually an upside in the decks that run him. We considered making the Doomed Traveler he summons into a 2/2, but don't think that'll really move the needle on the card's power level. In the end, we settled on increasing the card's devotion requirement. In general, we'd like to avoid increasing devotion requirements, as it makes previously legal decks illegal, but if there's any time to do it, it's now in Early Access, rather than letting a card oppress the game for ages to come.

• The Dusk Queen now costs 4, down from 6.

• The Dusk Queen can no longer trigger off her own ability.

  We recently changed The Dusk Queen's effect to be more universally useful to Faerie decks, but we missed the mark on her cost. Similar effects to her (such as Buffet Table) cost 4 while being in a healthy spot, and it's unclear if she's even better or worse than Buffet Table at the new cost: she can be killed easier and she's harder to trigger. Faeries were also suffering for not having a "generically useful" champion card, which is the role The Dusk Queen should be filling. However, we've removed The Dusk Queen's ability to be a one-girl draw engine: her design intent is to act as support for your other faerie allies, drawing you the cards to keep them alive, while having the body to take a hit and survive against aggressive decks if you need it.

• Maplehowl now has Reach.

  Maplehowl is meant to be the Arbura's version of a board wipe, but against decks that rely on flying he wasn't accomplishing that goal. Also, look how tall that guy is.

• Potion of Youth now leaves both players on at least 1 health after the swap.

  While not currently tearing up the meta, Youth Potion's ability to essentially kill yourself and then use that to immediately kill the opponent instead is a dangerous play pattern. With this change, you'll need at least something on board that seals the deal, which is a healthier spot for the card to be.

• Boundless Imagination now reveals the cards granted.

• Learning Time now reveals the cards granted.

• Keeper of the Flame now reveals the Ritual Candle granted.

• Wish now reveals the card granted.

  We're shifting our design philosophy towards cards that summon random cards in hand to reveal those cards. This is how it played in development for a long time, simply because the engine didn't have the ability to hide them yet. Now that we've had the chance to play with both versions, we found that revealing the cards creates less feel-bad situations where you get blown out by a card you could have never predicted they'd have. It also helps communicate what these cards are doing in the case of cards like Keeper of the Flame: previously the opponent would only see you drawing a card.

Community Requested Improvements

• Due to popular demand, you can now add more than 40 cards in the deck builder, allowing you to add all the cards you're considering, and then cull back down to 40. To clarify: the legal deck size isn't changing, but the deck builder UI no longer stops you from adding cards when you hit 40.

• Unowned cards in the Collection Page now show the devotion flags with more color, to make it easier to understand the faction of the card when it's colored sepia.

Fixes

• Fixed an issue where dialogue and a start of turn choice could appear at the same time and lock out input.

• Fixed a bug where Caustic Bite's effect wouldn't end and the end of the turn.

• Cashew will no longer let you give away cards that are going to be sacrificed to other effects, such as Choices Choices shuffling them away, or Lure of the Blue Roses.