Community Happenings - Weekends full of competition

Minion Masters!

It's Friday already. The Dwarves are working hard to get everything set up and done for the next week. It's not as hot as it was a month earlier in Europe when the heatwave passed by. Nevertheless, some Dwarves are already sweating at 25° Celsius. Some players split across different countries and continents are getting ready for something else: competitive Minion Masters! The King Puff Cup staff is about to kick off King Puff Cup 22 tomorrow. And the next week...

What's coming up next week?

...brings no new update. We're going back to a bi-weekly patch schedule. Update 71 is scheduled for July 11th and we're working hard on getting that Demon Warrior rework ready. We know that quite a few players can't wait any longer, but we want to take our time. Sure, we could simply nerf the unit to the ground. But just swinging the nerf hammer really hard is not a long-term solution. That's why we're opting for a rework, which is more complex to do and thus takes a bit more time.

More information on that subject, as well as Update 71, in general, will follow with the next couple of blog posts and - of course - live on our weekly Dwarf stream every Tuesday at 18:00 UTC!

Super Mega Dwarf Pack at King Puff Cup 22!

There's a lot of tournaments going on these days. Fun tournaments with huge in-game prizes and even an exclusive skin! Some players, however, take it more seriously and are looking for a more competitive experience. That's where the King Puff Cup tournament circuit comes into play. That's not to say new players shouldn't participate! Gathering that early tournament experience is a very important step when aiming to find an entrance into the digital, competitive scene. And matches against the best players will result in the best practice there is!

King Puff Cup 22 is announced and scheduled on Saturday, June 30th at 13:00 UTC. The deadline for sign-ups and deck submissions is today at 13:00 UTC, so you still have ~5 hours time to read the official announcement and do the steps necessary to grab your spot for the oldest and most popular tournament series in Minion Masters! $350 prize pool, circuit points needed for the King Puff Invitational, in-game prizes at the end of the King Puff Cup season & a Super Mega Dwarf Pack containing 60 Tokens, 1,000 Rubies, and 10,000 Gold to one random participant are waiting for you.

Good luck everyone!

Betrayal will happen!

StevenEven and Edelweiss are going to present the first S.E.T. (Steven's Even Tournament) on Friday, July 6th at 17:00 UTC! The chosen format is truly unique and fits the fun tournament section nicely.

The tournament will be run with a custom format called "Betrayal", divided into 3 stages single elimination stage:

• Stage one: 2vs2, Best-Of-3

Get a teammate and fight against another team. The winning team advances to the next stage.

• Stage two (Betrayal): 1vs1, Best-Of-3

Advancing teams are split and players are forced to play against their teammate from the previous stage.

• Stage three: 1vs1, Best-Of-3, Best-Of-5 in the finals

Goes on as a normal bracket with single elimination format.

The prizes you can win in this tournament will be granted by the respective stage you'll reach:

• First stage - 2vs2 stage - Dwarf pack (3 Power Tokens + 1.500 Gold)
• Second stage - Betrayal stage - Big Dwarf pack (15 Power Tokens + 300 Rubies)
• Third stage - Final stage - Big Dwarf Pack + Sunken Temple Arena (in case you already own the arena, you will get a random legendary card instead)
• Winner - Mega Dwarf Pack (25 Tokens + 500 Rubies + 5000 Gold) + Dynasty Milloween Skin

There's still enough time to grab your friend and sign-up for S.E.T. #1 and here's the link to the official announcement.

Let's fight with Swongolian standards!

SwongoTV was the most watched Minion Masters streamer on Twitch for three weeks in a row. He has built an amazing community and while he feels like he is still too inexperienced to participate in tournaments, hosting a tournament is another story. And thus we will see SwongoTV's Classic tournament on Saturday, July 7th at 15:00 UTC.

What's coming up is a single elimination bracket with the Last Master Standing format. Legendary cards will be banned. Demon Warrior will be banned. The new Season cards will be banned. But fun is going to be guaranteed! SwongoTV wants kind of a basic tournament and the setting is perfectly suited for new players. The prize pool contains loads of Power Tokens, Gold and Rubies - and the exclusive Dynasty Milloween skin for the winner.

What you need to do to participate? Follow this link, read the short description carefully and sign-up!

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That's all for today, Masters! Good luck to everyone participating tomorrow in King Puff Cup 22 and we'll see you on the flying arenas or live on Twitch.

Cheers from BetaDwarf

Minion Master's Monday - Faster hits, faster ticks

Minion Masters!

The weekend is gone and with the new week, we're looking forward to another update this week, currently scheduled for Wednesday, June 27th. We had some rapid balance changes last week, but there were more changes planned that didn't make it into Update 69. So let's have a look what Update 70 will bring to Minion Masters!

Mission: Rescaling fast-hitters

Now, the headline might sounds more complicated as it is. What we're basically aiming for is to rescale the attack speed for several Minions such as Fire Imp, Blastmancer, Spiritmancer, and so on. Why is that? Well, back when Inspire was still a thing, Minions such as Fire Imp would have become too strong with attack speeds faster than 0.8 - thus, we rescaled these Minions. Meant more impact damage with slower ticks of damage.

As we all know, Inspire is long gone and so the balance team finally find the time to look at this subject again. Before we go into detail, please remember that all we announce right now is still subject to change! Here's what we're planning for Wednesday:

Fire Imp

• Damage down from 50 to 20
• Ticks up from 4 to 10
• Tick rate speed up from 1 to 0.4

Increasing the tick rate for the Fire Imp makes the unit very powerful in many situations. To counter this buff, we lowered the total damage dealt per cast (220 damage compared to 250 damage before). Overall, the DPS won't change (50 DPS).

Blastmancer & Spiritmancer

• Damage down from 10 to 4
• Attack speed up from 0.8 to 0.3

Now, Blastmancer and Spiritmancer will see a slight increase in DPS (13.3 to the former 12.5). The damage also happens much faster, since the time between their "Ticks" is significantly lower.

We plan more balance changes, but we're not totally sold on the current numbers, yet. That's why we will just list the Minions/Skills below and hope that we can go into more detail tomorrow live on stream:

• Volco's Perk 2
• Scott, The Sensitive Savage

Update 70 will come with several improvements and bug fixes, of course, and we will happily inform you about the most important changes tomorrow at 18:00 UTC live on Twitch!

"Again no changes to the Demon Warrior announced? Are you Dwarves serious?"

Yes, we are! And we are working on it. The Demon Warrior changes are currently scheduled for Update 71. More information on that subject will follow soon.

Dwarf stream incoming!

Tengs & Erythais can't wait any longer and luckily for both of them, Tuesday is right tomorrow. As they announced last week on stream, the start time changed from 20:00 UTC to 18:00 UTC. This decision was mostly based on community feedback and some community members are already happy about the stream happening earlier than 4am local time for them (looking at you Sinilil).

Here's tomorrow's agenda:

• Update 70
• Balance changes
• Improvements
• Important bug fixes
• eSports
• The Burning Scrat Tournament recap
• King Puff Cup 22
• Competitive Minion Masters weekend from July 6th to July 8th
• Internal news
• Shoutouts

This list can get longer quite easily if some Dwarves in the office decide to put more into Update 70 as currently planned ;) Besides a lot of talking points, Erythais will have nice in-game codes for you and 2vs2 viewer games are also planned, again.

Make sure to tune in tomorrow at 18:00 UTC live on Twitch, Masters!

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That's all for today, Masters! Have a nice start to the new week and good luck on the flying arenas.

Cheers from BetaDwarf

Community Happenings - We need more competition? Alright!

Minion Masters!

This week's Dwarf stream was all about great competitive news, wasn't it? Our eSports Coordinator Tengs revealed all the currently planned tournaments until July 8th and there will be no less than 5 online tournaments (with two prize pools containing real money) and 1 offline event! Especially the weekend from July 6th to July 8th is really crowded.

Burning Scrats this Saturday!

But before we have a look of what's coming on said weekend, we will have a look on what's about to happen this Saturday. Tomorrow, June 23rd at 13:00 UTC, Zgriptor will kick off the Burning Scrat Tournament. Here's the link to the official announcement!

Zgriptor planned a 1vs1 tournament with the same format as the King Puff Cup tournaments use: Swiss format, Best-of-3 for the group stage and a Best-of-5 single elimination final stage. Decks can be banned also, but Zgriptor goes with no bans in the group stage and 1 ban in the final stage. The match format is Conquest, so if you win with one deck, you cannot use it again for the remaining match-up.

Now, deck submission is needed. But the rules for this deck submissions will be revealed just 2 hours prior to the tournament start! That's a twist Zgriptor wanted to bring with his tournament, in order to make it so that "participants aren't able to prepare as usual". Also, the deck submission "won't take longer than ~15 minutes", according to Zgriptor, so we assume the rules to be fairly easy to understand.

If you want to participate for the exclusive Dynasty Milloween skin and huge in-game prizes, better sign-up right now, because the deadline for sign-ups is today at 13:00 UTC.

By the way: did you already see Zgriptor's Burning Scrat Tournament trailer? No? Here you go! You can find all the important links in the description below the video.

4 Tournaments on 1 Weekend

Yes! You read that right. Beginning with Steven hosting his first tournament on Friday, July 6th at 19:00 UTC, there will be an online tournament every day until Sunday, July 8th! On Saturday, July 7th, SwongoTV invites everyone to participate and on Sunday, July 8th, Inception eSports will kick off a cash prize tournament. On top of that, Tengs will be personally at the House of Nerds LAN event in Stavanger, Norway, on Saturday, July 7th & Sunday, July 8th! Needless to mention that Minion Masters will have an own tournament at this event.

That's a lot, so let us give you a better overview:

• S.E.T. - Steven's Even Tournament - Friday, July 6th at 19:00 UTC
• SwongoTV's Classic Tournament - Saturday, July 7th at 15:00 UTC
• Inception eSports Cash Prize Tournament - Sunday, July 8th (official announcement with more information will follow on coming Sunday or Monday, according to Inception eSports)
• Offline LAN event in Norway, Stavanger at House of Nerds Gaming Café - Saturday, July 7th & Sunday, July 8th

We're pretty hyped in the office because this weekend will be absolutely crazy will all that competitive events, online & offline. And for you, it seems like you should plan nothing from July 6th until July 8th (but participating and/or watching the tournaments live on Twitch)!

Official announcements for the Inception eSports tournament and the LAN event will follow within the next few days.

King Puff Cup 22

You really thought that is all the tournaments coming for you to participate in? Fortunately enough, we have another event coming up! King Puff Cup 22 is scheduled for Saturday, June 30th at 13:00 UTC. The King Puff Cup staff decided to go with the usual Conquest format again, after last weeks Last Master Standing format, which inspired SwongoTV to use it in his Classic tournament.

We worked closely together with the King Puff Cup staff to determine how to reward participants that don't make it to the Top 8 and thus get their hands on the prize money. This is the result:

Now, Circuit Points will not only be the determining factor of who will make it to the King Puff Invitational on September 1st, 2018 but also what else you get! And as you can see by the provided graphic, everyone will be rewarded for participating in King Puff Cups!

Here's the official announcement for King Puff Cup 22 with important information, rules, and the sign-up link.

What's about to come next week?

Looking forward, we have Update 70 scheduled for Wednesday, June 27th. The update will contain more balance changes that didn't make it into Update 69 and of course more bug fixes and improvements. We will go into more detail about the upcoming balance changes in our Monday blog post, as well as the Dwarf stream next Tuesday, June 26th at 18:00 UTC.

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That's all for today, Masters! Enjoy the weekend, enjoy the Burning Scrat Tournament by Zgriptor, and we'll see you in the Twitch chat.

Cheers from BetaDwarf

Minion Master's Monday - Weekend Warriors & balance changes on the horizon

Minion Masters!

We sure hope you had an amazing weekend. A weekend full of progress with the new Battle Pass and also with entertaining hours on Twitch. Not only did our dedicated streamers the best, but we also had 2 tournaments in a row last Saturday, and last Sunday.

King Puff Cup 21

King Puff Cup 21 happened last Saturday and even if we all needed to wait 2 weeks longer due to a former delay, it was definitely worth it. We saw intense battles, gameplay on the highest level and even the new legendary skin Infested Settsu was being used. How Jamez28 managed to get that skin just 2 days after Update 68 hit is another story, though. Best to ask him yourself ;)

The group stage has been played with the Swiss format for 5 rounds, all matches were Best-of-3 with 2 bans on both sides. And it didn't take a long time until the first surprises happened: DovahNation was able to beat Zgriptor 2-0, while RushSecond lost his first match-up to TerraReveene. Do legendary skins affect winrates? Well, not in the case of Jamez28, who had no luck in his first round against Memfisto.

The rest of the group stage happened more or less as expected. After 5 rounds of intense battles and close wins, we had our Top 8 advancing to the single elimination final stage:

1. Memfisto
2. Videogamer77
3. TerraReveene
4. RushSecond
5. Zgriptor
6. GReYWolF93
7. DovahNation
8. Nuclear Goo

The final stage was played with Best-of-5 matches and one ban on both sides. Memfisto, who was advancing from the group stage as the only unbeaten player, and NuclearGoo had the first match-up. After 5 games, Memfisto managed to advance to the semi-finals, whereas the tournament ended for Nuclear Goo. RushSecond managed to beat Zgriptor in the second match-up of the semi-finals, Videogamer77 and TerraReveene were able to win their match-ups, also.

The semi-finals followed and brought really huge match-ups. The first semi-final was between Memfisto and RushSecond. After a close series (2-3 in favor of RushSecond), we're pretty sure Inception eSports was very happy to see one of their players advancing to the finals. In the second semi-finals between Videogamer77 and TerraReveene, we saw a 3-1 in Videogamer77's favor. To give you a perspective: the result was 3-1, but the final game took Videogamer77 over 10 minutes to close out. Would he be able to do it again? Winning his second King Puff Cup tournament this season? However the finals would have ended, Inception eSports would have been the winner as both finalists are playing under their banner.

In the end, the short answer is yes. Videogamer77 beat RushSecond 3-1 and left no doubt that he is one of the best players. To see how the finals played out, as well as the rest of the tournament, check out the VOD. For those who don't want to see the amazing group stage match-ups, the live broadcast of the final stage began at around 03:19:10 and the finals at around 06:36:00.

Congratulations to Videogamer77 and all the other winners! Special thanks to all participants and viewers, but also to the King Puff Cup crew for presenting yet another amazing tournament!

By the way, the next King Puff Cup has already been announced to happen on Saturday, June 30th at 13:00 UTC! You can find all the information, rules and the sign-up link right here!

Casual 2vs2 tournament presented by Cockeyed Gaming

Yesterday, Cockeyed Gaming gave their debut as tournament organizers in Minion Masters, as they hosted a casual 2vs2 tournament. Other than the King Puff Cup tournaments, which are coming with a $350 prize pool, this tournament granted participants in-game prizes only. Might sound less convincing than real money, but the prizes were totally worth it.

Let alone the Top 3 winning a total of 200 Power Tokens, 3.600 Rubies, and 30.000 Gold, plus the beautiful Dynasty Milloween skin for the winners. For the participation alone everyone was rewarded with 3 Power Tokens & 1.500 Gold. Viewers were able to win in giveaways throughout the stream and 3 streamers, who decided to stream the tournament also, were rewarded with the Sunken Temple Arena.

Cockeyed Gaming had a blast on Sunday, so had we! Congratulations to all the winners and a special thanks to Cockeyed Gaming for their effort and support, as well as to all the other streamers supporting that event. We hope to see a second tournament soon! For all of you that didn't make it to the live stream, here's your VOD!

Balance changes and improvements with Update 69

While we're coming to an end with today's blog post, we don't want to let you start the new week without talking briefly about Update 69, which is currently scheduled for Wednesday, June 20th. Please note that the following is subject to change at any point and we will go into more detail about the changes tomorrow at 20:00 UTC live on Twitch when Tengs & Erythais are streaming for you again!

We currently plan to at least change stats for the following units:

• Scott, the sensitive Savage
• Infiltration
• AtG Drone x8

Scotty will receive a buff to his health pool. Infiltration and the AtG Drone x8 will receive buffs. A higher unit count for Infiltration and more health for the AtG Drone are what the balance team plans at this moment.

We decided against a change to the Drone Walker due to internal testings.

We also hope that we can present a change to the Demon Warrior, already. However - and to manage expectations - we cannot by any means guarantee that balance changes to the Demon Warrior will make it into Update 69. Our CEO BaboonLord is personally involved in the balancing process, as he was also the one announcing a change for the Demon Warrior live on stream. We cannot give you any additional information on that subject just yet.

We also plan additional improvements to the new features introduced with Update 68 and of course bug fixes.

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That's all for today, Masters! Have a nice start to the week & we see you tomorrow on Twitch, as well as on the flying arenas throughout the week.

Cheers from BetaDwarf

Community Happenings - A busy weekend around the corner

Minion Masters! 

First things first: we investigated your reports about Glory calculations and indeed found a bug. This is, of course, a critical bug and we're currently working on a hotfix, which we are going to deploy today. Furthermore, we found issues with the changed "Damage projections", which we will hotfix as well. Login problems for some players and the localization issues (missing descriptions for the new cards in languages other than English) are currently investigated and/or worked on.

Thanks to all of you for reporting!

What to do on the weekend?

Besides enjoying all the new features that came with Update 68, such as the long-awaited, glorious Battle Pass, you're invited to watch competitive Minion Masters on Saturday and Sunday live on Twitch!

On Saturday, June 16th at 13:00 UTC, the King Puff Cup staff will start its stream and present you King Puff Cup 21, coming with a prize pool of $350 split amongst the Top 8 tournament participants. The KPC staff also announced that the match format will switch from Conquest to Last Master Standing, this time. For players who aren't familiar with Last Master Standing yet:

Other than with the Conquest match format, the winning player has to play the winning deck again. The loosing players has to choose a new deck from his remaining, pre-submitted decks. If you want it like that, Last Master Standing is kind of a reversed Conquest format and the second most known match format in other digital CCGs.

Make sure to read the rules in the official announcement for additional information and if YOU want to participate tomorrow, better be quick! There's still some time left until the sign-up phase closes, but you also need to build and submit your decks.

Good luck, Masters!

Our second tournament this weekend will be presented by Cockeyed Gaming on Sunday, June 17th at 17:00 UTC. This tournament will be the first competitive event hosted by Cockeyed Gaming and it aims more towards players that want to experience the tournament scene with a more casual approach at first.

The 2vs2 tournament comes with a huge prize pool featuring an exclusive Milloween skin (see below), Power Tokens, Rubies, Gold and for streamers who decide to stream the tournament, the Sunken Temple Arena comes as a special thanks (contacting Cockeyed Gaming prior is needed). For viewers, giveaways are waiting throughout the tournament stream.

If you and your friend want to participate in a more laid-back environment, check out this official announcement!

Let the Scrats burn!

Another tournament is around the corner and the sign-up phase is getting into its final week. Zgriptor decided to host his first 1vs1 tournament on Saturday, June 23rd at 13:00 UTC.

The tournament comes with the special twist that the rules for decks are not released until 2 hours prior to the tournament. Zgriptor assured us that he has a detailed plan to make deck submissions as easy as possible and thus "no participant should need more than 15 minutes to submit their decks". He also goes with the approach of: "Participants shouldn't have time to prepare properly, by purpose." There seems to be some kind of system behind it and we're very excited how this turns out.

The Burning Scrat Tournament will be a 1vs1 fun tournament with loads of in-game prizes and everybody is invited! So read the official announcement and better make sure to sign-up today.

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That's all for today, Masters! Please don't forget to report any issues you might experience and we're excited about your feedback regarding Update 68. See you on the flying arenas.

Cheers from BetaDwarf

Minion Master's Monday - Say hello to... Update 68 & a new Dwarf

Minion Masters!

How was your weekend? We sure hope it was great and personally, we enjoyed all that talks and speculations about the upcoming Update 68 and the new partnership. Looking at the new week, we're definitely just as excited as you are about all the amazing changes and new features coming to Minion Masters and about a new Dwarf arriving in Denmark on June 14th.

Clearing up some confusion

We saw a lot of talks and speculations about the Battle Pass and Card Glory. So let's shed some light into the dark, shall we?

Please note that the following pictures and used numbers could be different when Update 68 finally hits the live server. So take the following as subject to change at any point.

Alright, let's start with the Battle Pass and transition on to Card Glory, as well as Battle Pass progression later:

• The Battle Pass will be available for 1.500 Rubies (approximately $10). This price unlocks the full path and thus access to the premium rewards. But you still need to progress through the tiers.
• There is a free path for everyone. Means, if you don't decide to purchase the Battle Pass, you will still be able to progress through it and receive rewards, although not the premium rewards
• Progressing through the Battle Pass is done by Battle Pass XP. You will gain said XP by playing matches with Glory cards
• The moment you gathered all the XP for one tier, the tier unlocks and you'll receive your rewards from all the paths you have access to
• You can decide to buy the Battle Pass or single tiers at any time
• If you decide to buy the Battle Pass at a later point, you will receive all of the rewards up to your current tier, retroactively
• There will be more than 8 tiers, although the total amount can vary
• We plan to release the Battle Pass with a duration of 2 months

The Battle Pass and Card Glory are connected. Card Glory is - so to speak - the driving progression force. The amount of Glory a particular card has, will be indicated by a star below the card art. But how does it actually work? 

• Glory will be gained by getting more copies of the same card or crafting more copies
• A common card is worth 2 Glory
• A rare card is worth 4 Glory
• A supreme card is worth 8 Glory
• A legendary card is worth 16 Glory
• To raise the Glory of a specific card, you'll have to spend Shards. Adding Glory via Shards takes the same amount of Shards it would have cost to craft said card
• Duplicates gained from Spins or other rewards will grant Glory and Shards according to the respective rarity
• Glory will furthermore affect Wild cards. If you acquire an additional copy of - for instance - Plasma Marines, you will get more Card Glory and thus also access to use that card as a Wild Card, similar to how it is now
• Card Glory will also grant you card frames (Bronze, Silver & Gold), as well as a boost to your Card Glory upon reaching the thresholds for the frames
• Card frames also grant you special visual when playing the card along with a special cast effect from your Master in the corresponding card frame color

Knowing all that, we can move on to how the Battle Pass progression will work:

• Battle Pass XP will only be granted by winning matches
• The amount of Battle Pass XP is determined by the total amount of Glory in your used deck
• As an example: if you have 10 cards with 200 Glory, your Battle Pass XP would be 2.000
• But we wouldn't be Dwarves if we didn't add an additional booster: The lowest two cards in terms of Glory will be boosted to 400 Glory each, no matter how high your card's Glory is
• That means: our example now would give you 1.600 (8 cards á 200 Glory) + 800 (2 cards boosted)  = 2.400 Battle Pass XP
• Once you've acquired enough Battle Pass XP for your current tier, it will unlock and you'll receive all the rewards from all paths you have access to

To boost your Battle Pass XP further, once a day there's a Battle Chest. Every time you win, XP based on your Glory (see the example above) will be put into the Battle Chest and after 3 wins, it opens and gives a massive Battle Pass XP boost.

• In our example from above, the Battle Chest would give you: Deck Glory (2.400) * 3 wins * 10!

We hope that we could cover the most important questions with that overview. If there are still open questions, please don't hesitate to use the known communication platforms such as our official Subreddit, Community Discord or the Steam forums.

What's else is coming with Update 68?

Yes, Update 68 will be another huge patch and along the Battle Pass and Card Glory, we'll have the following features ready for you:

• New Emotes
• To express the evil inside you!
• New Skins
• Infested Settsu
• Molten Apep
• Demon Axe Volco
• Lightbringer
• And more!
• New Cards
• Demon Commander - 8 mana
• Destructive Demon Duo - 8 mana
• Shars'rakk Twins - 7 mana
• A new 5 mana spell
• Phase - 3 mana
• Cannibal Swarmers - 2 mana
• And more!
• Much more exciting stuff
• We need something left for the patch notes, right?

Don't forget our Dwarf stream on Tuesday, June 12th at 20:00 UTC, where we will talk - and maybe even look - some more about Update 68 and other exciting news. Why not following our channel already, so you can't miss us going live anymore?

Please note that we are trying to push Update 68 this week, but we have no ETA right now. It might be later than Wednesday, therefore. Also, the card stats and details will be revealed in the patch notes.

A new Dwarf is arriving soon

We are were recently looking for new employees (and still are!) and we're very happy that we were able to find someone from our amazing community crazy enough to join us. Without any more words, here's the introduction interview:

Hi Sprite, nice to have you again! This time though, not as a community member only. You’re actually starting to work for BetaDwarf and I’m sure our community wants to know a bit more about the person behind That Sprite. Would you introduce yourself, therefore, please?

Hey, my real name is Jason, I’m 22 years old from the United Kingdom, and I just finished my University studies under the course of Games Computing. I’ve been involved in gaming for a long time, generally been casting for over 5 years now, and I suppose all that has finally got me somewhere!

If I’m not mistaken, you will start your first day at BetaDwarf on June 15th. What’s your position in the team and your responsibilities?

I’ll be working as BetaDwarf’s dedicated Quality Assurance Masochist. My responsibility is going to be finding those game breaking bugs before they go live (Missing animation on Rampage comes to mind) and generally trying to break the game and its features once regular tests have been completed. My job is basically to really annoy the programmers by pointing out what needs fixing.

How did it come to your application for said position?

Well, I was streaming one afternoon during my exam period to let off some steam and casually brought up that I’d need to start looking into getting a job and going out into the real world soon. Tengs, the BetaDwarf E-Sports Coordinator was watching at the time and referred me directly to the BetaDwarf application page. I checked out all the jobs on stream and discussed that I thought I would be a good fit for the QA role and applied as soon as I finished my stream.

Could you explain the process of getting a job at BetaDwarf Entertainment for someone that might be interested?

Well it all starts with having the courage to just go for it. I updated my CV to fit my University degree and wrote a Covering Letter with as many positive references regarding the game and my hobbies as I could and sent it to UncleOwnage. After that I was offered a video interview with him and BaboonLord where they asked me a bunch of personal questions about my studies to help fill in the gaps that the basic application could not fill in, as well as get a feel for how I’d tackle the job role. From there it was just a matter of solving the puzzle of getting me to the office. Overall it was a really smooth process, and I would definitely recommend anyone that’s interested in applying to give it a shot.

As a Dwarf now, will we still see you casting the King Puff Cup tournaments and maybe even hosting more own tournaments?

Absolutely! I have no intention of departing from the competitive scene, casting has been one of my favourite activities for years and I’ll always be willing to lend a hand to the game I love. As for tournaments I run myself, well, I might need a bit of time to settle into Denmark first, but I’ve been given some positive encouragement from some individuals to keep running them.

What are you excited about the most, when your first working day at BetaDwarf starts?

Getting to put faces to the names I’ve been interacting with for a year and a half now! Knowing so many members of the team on Discord is one thing, getting to know them for real will be an entirely new experience.

Sprite, it was a pleasure! Leave some shout-outs if you want.

I want to give shoutouts to my family most importantly, who have been supporting me all the way in making my dream happen with this job. I also want to shout out Tengs for motivating me to apply for this role out of the blue, and to all of the active members of the Twitch and Discord community who’ve supported me this entire time. There’s far too many of you to list, but I want you to all know how much you’ve helped me define my future now. Here’s to a long run at BetaDwarf and to a thousand slaughtered bugs!

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That's all for today, Masters! May the Card Glory be with you as soon as Update 68 hits and we'll see you on the flying arenas (hopefully with all that fancy new effects coming with the card frames).

Cheers from BetaDwarf

Community Happenings - Lots of tournaments and new features

Minion Masters!

This week revealed quite a lot about the upcoming Season Update when our CEO BaboonLord was telling you about new cards, new conditional mechanics, and a Battle Pass coming to Minion Masters. But we should not forget all the other things coming with the Season Update as well as all the tournaments for you to participate in.

But first things first

The Season Update (Update 68) is currently scheduled for next week. We aren't sure if we can deploy it on Wednesday, but we're trying. So take that as: "Update 68 will be deployed if everything goes to plan". When the update finally hits, we will remove Salvaging. That means whenever you get a card from the Power Tower you already have, you'll get some Shards and the cards "Glory" will increase.

But wait, what is "Glory"? BaboonLord called it Star Power on the Dwarf stream last Tuesday, and here's our explanation:

With the Season Update, we will implement a Battle Pass. An additional progression system you may know from other games already. Dota 2 & Fortnite are pretty popular examples here. Now, you can choose to buy the Battle Pass and receive access for 1.500 Rubies. The more you play during the season the more rewards you unlock. Or you can instantly buy the next tier for 250 Rubies. There will also be a free path for each Battle Pass where everyone can earn rewards! To progress through the tiers of said Battle Pass faster, you'll need more "Glory". So to speak the amount of awesomeness of a card.

Like you can see on the preview screenshot above, these Swarmers have a Glory amount of 200, indicated by a star at the bottom of the cards picture. In addition, they have a golden border just for that bragging bonus. Glory does not modify the card stats in any way! What Glory does is to grant points for the Battle Pass. The more Glory you have in your deck while playing, the faster tiers will unlock.

"But what about Wild cards? The picture showed earlier only shows one copy of a Swarmer." Correct. With the new Season Update, we will also make it so that if you have more than 1 copy of a card, you will get more Glory and also access to use that card as a Wild Card, similar to how it is now.

When the Season Update hits and we remove Salvaging, all duplicates of cards will be transformed into Glory for the respective cards with the following values: 

• 1 Common = 2 Glory
• 1 Rare = 4 Glory
• 1 Supreme = 8 Glory
• 1 Legendary = 16 Glory

At given Glory thresholds you'll gain card borders (Bronze, Silver, and Gold), as well as Glory boosts. These thresholds are 32, 120 & 280 Glory. Glory will be mainly obtained by getting cards you already have, reaching border thresholds & spending Shards - the costs for Glory will be the same as actually crafting the card. So for a common card to add 2 Glory, you'll have to spend 50 Shards.

What's important here for you is: once the update hits, you will not be able to salvage anymore! So you have to decide what you value more: Shards to craft new cards and boost individual card Glory or all that Glory staying on your collection.

Moving on to other exciting content that didn't make it into our last Dwarf stream: yes, there will be new Emotes with the Season Update and new Skins, too. And because the first set of cards is themed around Demons, the Emotes are perfectly designed to express the evil in you. When we look at the Skins, the most interesting one for many people seems to be the new legendary Infested Settsu Skin:

Now, not only Settsu will get a new look, though! How about Molten Apep or the Lightbringer?

Volco will not receive an entirely new skin. Changes will be noticeable though, especially with this new weapon:

We will provide another overview of the content and features coming with the Season Update on Monday and - of course - next Tuesday at 20:00 UTC live on Twitch.

You like what you see? Want to let us know your first thoughts? Feel free to do so on our official Subreddit, the Steam forums, the Community Discord server or - if you prefer Social Media - on Twitter and Facebook.

Tournaments for everyone!

Beginning with Saturday, June 16th, we'll be able to watch competitive Minion Masters live on Twitch three times in only 7 days. King Puff Cup 21 will make the start on June 16th at 13:00 UTC and comes with a prize pool of $350 and a new format! There's still some time left to sign-up and proof that you will be the last Master standing.

Cockeyed Gaming will follow the action up on Sunday, June 17th at 17:00 UTC with their first casual 2vs2 tournament.

The prizes will range from the exclusive Dynasty Milloween Skin & Power Tokens all the way to Rubies and Gold. For streamers who are interested in streaming the tournament, there's also the Sunken Temple Arena waiting for a little 'Thank you'. Just contact Tengs for more information.

Zgriptor wants to let Scrats burn on Saturday, June 23rd at 13:00 UTC. He will host his first tournament as well and decided to run it as a 1vs1 event with a special twist. Instead of letting participants prepare themselves for weeks prior to the tournament, he decided to publish the information about deck submissions just 2 hours prior to the start of the tourney.

Participants don't need to worry though, Zgriptor assured us that every player will be able to submit their decks "as fast as in 10-15 minutes". Prizes will range from the exclusive Dynasty Milloween Skin & Power Tokens all the way to Rubies and Gold.

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That's all for today, Masters! All that's left to say is: have a nice weekend everyone and we'll see you in-game ;)

Cheers from BetaDwarf

Minion Master's Monday - Dwarves on Twitch and Burning Scrats

Minion Masters! 

We sure hope you had an amazing weekend and to make the start of the new week just as amazing, we'll talk about tomorrow's stream, a new tournament announced from last weekend, a hotfix for Update 67 & the delayed King Puff Cup 21! Let's jump right to it, shall we?

Dwarves live on Twitch

We're back at streaming for two weeks and we're planning to do so on a weekly basis. For now, every Tuesday at 20:00 UTC we'll be happy to welcome every single one of you on our official PlayMinionMasters Twitch channel. The streams are presented by our eSports Coordinator Tengs and our Community Manager Erythais, as well as special guests, whenever it fits. The main purpose is to get in touch with you, even more, having a good time together, and of course, revealing new and exciting content/features/changes coming to Minion Masters & BetaDwarf Entertainment.

Tomorrow, we're excited to talk about the upcoming Season Update, which is actually scheduled to be deployed this month! We will have a special guest live on stream to interview about the new update, as well as to answer your questions. Here's our agenda for tomorrow:

• Season Update insights
• Interview with our special guest
• eSports news
• Viewer games
• Questions & Answers throughout the stream
• Giveaways throughout the stream
• Shoutouts

Make sure to tune in & hang out tomorrow at 20:00 UTC!

Hotfix for Update 67

We brought down the live server earlier for a hotfix. We're sorry for the connection issues since the introduction of our new game server system DwarfNet, last Thursday. Our main aim is to get rid of the connection issues many of you experience right now. We told you this first version could be rough around the edges and we are very grateful to have such an engaged and communicative community, sending us that much feedback and reports. You guys are really helping us to improve Minion Masters!

Burning Scrat 1vs1 Tournament

Our tournament scene is about to see the next casual tournament after Wednesday Sprite Fights #1 & #2! Zgriptor had the time to plan a tournament and will host it on Saturday, June 23rd at 13:00 UTC. According to Zgriptor, the Burning Scrat 1vs1 Tournament will be "a for fun tournament so even if you’re new to Minion Masters you can join, you’ve got nothing to lose." But a lot to win! Here's the prize pool:

• 1st place: 25 Power Tokens + 500 Rubies + 5.000 Gold + exclusive Dynasty Milloween skin
• 2nd place: 25 Tokens + 500 Rubies + 5000 Gold
• 3rd to 8th place: 15 Power Tokens + 300 Rubies
• 9th place and below: 3 Power Tokens + 1.500 Gold

Just as That Sprite, Zgriptor will make sure that every participant wins at least 3 Power Tokens (and therefore the chance for 3 new cards for your collection) and an additional 1.500 Gold.

The tournament will run - similarly to the King Puff Cup tournaments - through a Best-of-3 Swiss group stage and a Best-of-5 single elimination final stage. Other than the KPC events, there will be no banning throughout the group stage, though. The final stage, however, will feature bans.

Additional rules aren't announced, yet. For instance, players do not know if Wild cards are allowed or not. According to Zgriptor, this information will be revealed 2 hours prior to the tournament! The purpose is that Zgriptor doesn't want "to have the participants be able to practice under the tourney rules, to see who can adapt on the spot." 

We're excited about Zgriptor's first tournament! You're interested in participating? Here you go for all the information you need and the sign-up link.

King Puff Cup 21 delayed

The King Puff Cup staff delayed King Puff Cup 21, which was scheduled to happen on Saturday, June 2nd at 13:00 UTC. According to FFA, the announcement was published too late and thus there wasn't enough time for all potential participants to prepare themselves.

The new date for King Puff Cup 21 is Saturday, June 16th at 13:00 UTC. Make sure to sign-up in time ;)

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That's all for today, Masters! We don't have an ETA for the live server to come back up, yet. Make sure to join the Community Discord server for real-time information.

Cheers from BetaDwarf

Community Happenings - June brings excitement

Minion Masters! 

It's June 1st and the next weeks/months will bring exciting stuff to both Minion Masters as a game and to you as our community. But also to us as a company. So you can already prepare yourself for more big patches, more events, more tournaments, more exposure for Minion Masters and new Dwarves.

King Puff Cup 21 this weekend

When we're looking into our tournament scene, the name "King Puff Cup" comes to our mind immediately. The biggest tournament circuit to date plans to kick off the 4th tournament of Season 3 on Saturday, June 2nd at 13:00 UTC.

The sign-up phase is still running and the official announcement, as well as the rules, can be found right here! Read the rules carefully though, because the format changed a bit. Where it was Conquest before, it's Last Master Standing now.

Please note that you have to submit 4 Masters along 4 decks lists, as well as sign-up on "Challonge" by clicking the provided sign-up link in the official announcement, prior to the sign-up deadline, which is today at 13:00 UTC.

Season Update

This is just a little update on the progress of the Season Update. As a reminder, that is what we already revealed:

• New seasons
• 8-10 themed card packs every new season
• Season Token that contains the latest season cards
• New skins
• New progress system

But there's a lot more. The new gem indicating the card rarity has its purpose, for instance. A very popular feature known from other games will make its way into Minion Masters. But to not talk too much about features we aren't about to reveal just now, let's come to the main news:

We plan to release the Season Update in June. The team is working on the new features with a priority and we're confident to be able to introduce you to the whole list of changes and features soon.

Oh and by the way, did we mention new Emojis?

Dwarf stream with a special guest

We mentioned more events, more tournaments and growth as a company in the beginning. Next Tuesday, June 5th at 20:00 UTC, we will have a special guest live on stream to talk about these things. We planned a lot of content for this first stream of June and will be more than happy to entertain you with a lot of new and exciting stuff to talk about.

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Now, that's all for today, Masters! Short blog post? Yes, indeed. But the upcoming weeks will bring you more than enough content to make up for that ;) Have a nice weekend and

Cheers from BetaDwarf