Version 1.12

Minion Masters!

Wild Cards Rework

For the duration of Version 1.12, we’re testing a Wild Cards rework that attempts to put the power level of the mechanic in line with decks that do not use the feature. We have a full, in-detail write up of what we felt needed improving, and the reasoning behind the solution we chose, here.

Here’s the change we’re going with:

• Wild Cards are now added as the 11th and 12th cards in your deck.
• You must have 10 unique cards in your deck to start a match.

We’ll regularly be doing surveys throughout this patch, featured in the in-game news. Make sure your opinion is heard and express your honest opinions as the meta around this rework develops!

Balance

Note: Attack Speed is now being referred to as “Attack Cooldown”. Attack Speed usually has a connotation that would indicate - the higher a unit’s Attack Speed is, the faster an attack is. However, in our game it is the opposite. As such, we have decided to rename it to Attack Cooldown to better reflect what is actually going on.

Ardent Aegis

• Duration 5 > 4
• Developer Comments
• Ardent Aegis was proving a little too difficult to use due to the lengthy timer.

Caber Tosser

• Caber Attack Range 4 > 6
• Caber Width 3 > 4
• Developer Comments
• Caber Tosser often ended up missing large parts of a horde of minions you attempted to counter with him due to the narrow size of his Caber, making him feel frustrating to play in those circumstances.

Disruptor Puff

• First Teleport Cooldown 2 > 5 seconds
• Teleport Cooldown 6 > 5 seconds
• Developer Comments
• ”Teleport Cooldown” refers to how long it takes for the Disruptor Puff’s teleport to occur. We felt the shorter initial teleport wait was too strong for its job, being able to quickly take both bridges before your opponent could respond, but subsequent teleport times left it a little too vulnerable to pose much of a threat beyond that.

Dragon Ball

• Activation Mana Cost 6+ > 5+
• Developer Comments
• Dragon Ball has been seeing very little use due to the high requirement of mana expenditure in order to get value from the card. We feel this buff will make it much easier to fit into decks, but not as powerful as it was during its dominant era.

High-Inquisitor Ardera

• Damage 25 > 27

Jade Flingers

• Damage 16 > 20
• Attack Cooldown 1.8 > 2

Jahun, Keeper of Jadespark

• Sunder Mana Cost 1 > 0
• Now has Mythic
• Developer Comments
• Jahun was underperforming at higher levels, yet we felt the unit itself was for the most part at a decent power level. As such we’ve opted to improve his utility via Sunder, as well as letting him live with a small portion of health when targeted with a card such as Lightning Bolt.

Living Statue

• No longer has Call Slitherbound
• Developer Comments
• Living Statue was proving to be a strong card in Call Slitherbound decks, able to help generate an exceptional amount of value with the extra Slitherbound that we felt was ultimately unnecessary.

Morgrul the Swarmer King

• Mana Cost 4 >5
• Swarmer Count 2 > 3
• Developer Comments
• The Swarmer Count will affect both his on-play and on-death roars. Morgrul has been a very powerful Legendary card ever since his changes in Update 60. While we recently touched the card to align his stats better with Elite Swarmer, he still performs exceptionally well in all ranks, across all modes, providing a ton of value for the 4 Mana Cost slot that often enables a free trade with lower cost cards while putting a decent threat on the board. We felt that efficiency was too much for the 4 Mana Slot, and at the same time we saw an opportunity to reinforce the characteristic of being the Swarmer King. He should still be sufficiently useful at the 5 Mana slot, and the extra swarmers should help to keep him as a relevant threat with the strong DPS if left unanswered.

Snake Druid

• Speed 2 > 3
• Developer Comments
• Snake Druid often seemed to have stayed on your side of the field far too long for your opponent to effectively deal with him due to his low speed. By giving him a speed increase in this way, we want to maintain his current strengths but allow your opponent to simply wait him out, or push other lanes, more effectively.

Soul Stealer

• Speed 5 > 6
• Developer Comments
• Soul Stealer was able to hide behind defensive walls such as Living Statue a little too effectively, often making him difficult to answer with direct Minion combat.

Stormy

• Attack Delay 1.5 > 2.0
• Attack Cooldown 3.5 > 4.0
• Developer Comments
• Stormy was proving to still be too large of a threat in the context of 2v2 gameplay, being able to get out attacks a bit too quickly we felt. By increasing his overall Attack Cooldown, we hope that it’ll become easier to put damage onto it before it can attack again.

Sun Burn

• Radius 3 > 4

Ting Teng & Tung

• Damage 99 > 90
• [FIX]Projectiles cannot bounce off of dead minions
• Developer Comments
• Projectiles bouncing off of minions that were already dead was somewhat of an unintended behaviour, so half of this change can be classified as a bug fix, but we're listing it here as it's a significant change to the balance of the card.

Troubadour

• Health 1700 > 1800

Zealots of the Burning Fist

• Mana Cost 7 > 6
• Developer Comments
• Despite being able to output some serious damage in the right circumstances, the mana cost for Zealots of the Burning Fist was too high to justify playing it in most scenarios. Hopefully a simple mana reduction can help out the card a lot.

Zeppelin Bomber

• Attack Delay 2.0 > 3.0

Misc

• Expeditions have been retired for the time being. A new Weekly Quest to earn tokens by playing Premade 2v2 has been added to compensate.
• Attack Speed has been renamed to Attack Cooldown.
• Stormbringer has received new animations.
• Guardian, Dragon Ball and Shen’s Storm Staff have been removed from the Random Card pool.
• Minor improvements to the new way buffs are applied to the Healthbar.
• Defensive Spells are now categorised as such in the card view.

Bugs

• Fixed Leiliel not reflecting AtG Drone x8’s attacks - Thanks Lazur!
• Fixed Leiliel receiving only half the expected health from Spirit buffs, and blocking healing - Thanks saytin!
• Fixed being able to permanently steal minions with two copies of Hypnotize - Thanks Broken!
• Fixed the Barrel Shield buff’s health not consistently being 60 - Thanks to everyone that reported this!
• Updated the Bridge Buddies tooltip - Thanks EricIsFreaker!
• Fixed Mountainshaper Volco saying he can attack Air units - Thanks BadAsAFish80!
• Fixed issues with Ting Teng & Tung’s weight - Thanks KestreL!
• Fixed Stealthed units being targetable upon spawning - Thanks Jimi D Night!
• Fixed Keywords not being searchable - Thanks everyone!
• Fixed Blaze Volco’s skin using the default by mistake.
• Fixed Gor’Rakk Gate tooltips being broken (Was fixed via a stealth patch)
• Fixed Sewer Scrat preview still being a normal Sewer Scrat.
• Fixed Agate Milloween not appearing in the Master selection.
• Fixed Brother of the Burning Fist appearing in the Sixes bucket for Adventures.
• Fixed a rare occurrence where Legendary Find would not reduce the mana cost of a card by 1 in Adventures.
• Fixed King Puff signs being mistakenly set to the bottom of the bridge when reconnecting.
• Fixed the global chat covering the News board when opening the game.

Cheers from BetaDwarf!