Game Rule Changes coming in 1.45

 

Game Rule Changes

With the patch 1.45 Season, we are trying out a change to the game rules. We understand that these changes can be divisive, so we’d like to take this opportunity to explain the reasoning for this change and why we think it’s healthy for the game.

• Minions cannot be played directly on bridges (formation is squished similar to when there is a wall).

• Minions with summoning sickness cannot be pushed on to bridges.

These change will be released on a trial basis in 1.45. After letting people play with these changes for a couple of weeks, we will put out a survey asking everyone whether they feel the changes were an improvement. The result of that survey will then determine whether we keep the changes or not on a permanent basis.

This change is specifically meant to address the "backcapping" strategy where when an opponent captures the bridge, you wait until his minion steps off the bridge, and then you immediately play something behind that unit to recapture the bridge. We feel that the prevalence of this strategy is unhealthy for the game for a couple of reasons.

• Being able to use cheap minion cards in this way makes them comparatively more efficient, and as a result, over time most of the cheaper cards have become somewhat undertuned. This is also a big reason why we no longer really have 1 mana minion cards.
• In the hands of a skilled player this strategy can be so effective that it has reshaped the entire meta to revolve around getting to mana frenzy first. Not exclusively so but in large part.
• The strategy being so effective places an unfortunately large emphasis on exploiting the collision system and the sizes of different units. In some cases the main distinction between a skilled player and an unskilled one could be argued to be their ability to understand and effectively utilize this strategy. This system is a very niche mechanical aspect of the game and isn't something that is easily engaged with except through experience. And outside of getting your small units pushed on to the bridge to capture it, you rarely ever even have to understand how the system works.

We believe that the depth of the core gameplay - coming up with novel defensive and offensive strategies and/or leaning counters and combat positioning - is being limited by the efficacy of backcapping.

Playing a handful of 1-2 mana cards in almost every deck has been fairly standard for a while now. This change also doesn't prevent playing with this strategy in mind. It just means you'd have to use cards where their ability to capture bridges in that fashion is a more deliberate part of their design. S.T.Int, Wrecked Walker, Bridge Buddies, Screaming Scrat, Walking Blind Date, Windwalker Shi-Hou, ect. Or simply waiting till the enemy minion is further past the bridge before backcapping. There are still options available and some PTR people reported not even noticing the changes in the first place.

With this change, we are also adding a slew of balance changes, namely buffing a few low-cost minion cards, and nerfing a lot of high-mana cards.

We are super excited about this change, and we are looking forward to seeing how this will affect the meta, and also hearing what you think about it a couple of weeks after the patch is released on March 9th.

1.45 Patch Notes

These are the planned changes in 1.45. They might be subject to change before the patch is released.

In this list the buff to Scrat Pack, as well as the nerf to Troubadour, Living Statue, Colossus, Rammer and Blue Golem are directly tied to the changes discussed above. We fully expect to buff other low-cost cards in the future if these changes to the game rules become permanent. But we find it very hard to predict precisely how the full suite of changes will affect the performance of individual cards, so we've decided to wait and see how the stats change before deciding on any further changes.

NEW CARDS

• Mana Chaser

• Spelldancer

BUFFS

Morellia

• Book of the Dead Cost 1 > 0

• Forbidden Knowledge perk 2 now reduces the cost of 3 different 4-mana+ spells by 1 (instead of 2 by 2).

Valorian

• Searing Light attacks 4 > 5

R3-KT

• One Punch Blast changed: 

• It is now a line nuke dealing 300 total damage. Every unit killed reduces remaining total damage by the health they lost.

• One Punch Blast: Deals True damage

One Punch Blast is hard to pull off. This allows him to kill a congo line of 20 scrats, never doing overkill damage, or help with clearing out a warrior, or a combination of the two. Making it so that it won't get blocked by a scrat or a shield should make the ability feel substantially more impactful.

Ravager

• Terror Brutus health 2300 > 2500

Mordar

• Tombstone changed:

• Tombstone is no longer added to the deck but on a 25sec cooldown timer that starts when the Tombstone dies.

• Tombstone activation delay: 15 > 10

• When ready the Tombstone will resurrect the next unit that dies. This will no longer destroy the Tombstone but will instead restart the activation delay. Effectively putting the Tombstone on cooldown.

• The Minion resurrected by Tombstone deals damage to Tombstone equal to half its max health.  Resurrects with health equal to twice the amount of health lost by the Tombstone.

• Tombstone health: 400 > 500

• Lifetime: 40 > 60

• Perk 3: Tombstone health becomes 1500.  No longer adds a second Tombstone.

• Stunning the Tombstone disables the Tombstone and restarts the activation delay.

Essentially this means Tombstone is now using its own health as a resource for resurrecting units and allows it to resurrect multiple times. The intent is to make it more interesting to build a deck around Tombstone by making deck building less restricted.

Milloween

• Arcane Missiles changed:

• Missiles now targets a random unit in the area and is homing towards the target. Still impacts first enemy unit encountered. Moves slightly slower.

• Master damage 100% > 10%

This change should make Arcane Missiles significantly harder to misuse or miss with entirely, while also making it a little easier to counter.

Cowardly Imps

• Attack Speed 4 > 3.5

Pincer of Dread

• Damage 120 > 140

Rocket Scrat

• Damage 100 > 90

Sanctum of the Cleansing Fire

• CD 7 > 5

• Duration 30 > 25

Giving it limited range completely killed the card, so we want to bring the power level back up to compensate.

Scrat Pack

• Scrat Count: 4 > 5

Slitherbind

• Cap 3 > none

• Distribute Slitherbound to random Slither cards instead of all on the same card

Stormy

• Attack Speed 4 > 3.5

Sun Burn

• Removes Frozen and Slow from targets

More utility for a hybrid spell that's having a hard time finding it's niche.

Taloc the Vessel

• Attack Speed 2 > 1.8

REBALANCE

King Puff

• Knight Puffs health 50 > 2

• Knight Puffs spawns with shields.

King Puff heard somewhere that his knights were supposed to have a shield, so he decided to give them one.

Crystal Sentry

• Remove Mana Surge

• AS 1.7 > 1.5

We want to put Sentry in the starter deck, but don't want to confuse new players with Mana Surge. Therefore we are introducing a new rule that male crystal elves do not have Mana Surge.

Fanriel

• No longer has mana surge

• Damage 130 > 140

Male crystal elf that no longer has mana surge. Lets him lean more into his unique mechanic, makes him less of a threat when he sits and beats at enemy master tower.

Thelec

• No longer has mana surge

• AS 1.3 > 1.1

• Damage 55 > 50

Male crystal elf that no longer has mana surge. Increased damage output when below 6 mana, reduced when above. Let him be more useful as a reactive play and get more value right away, which is useful for a 10 drop to be viable.

Puff

• No longer dies when defeated. 

This is specifically to preempt shenanigans with the new Tombstone design.

Walking Blind Date

• Now Transforms instead of dying.

This is specifically to preempt shenanigans with the new Tombstone design.

NERFS

Apep

• Perk 3 cooldown: 28 > 33

• Base Attack damage: 40 > 30

A.I.M Bot

• Damage: 45 > 40

Bearvalanche

• Damage: 160 > 140

Blue Golem

• Attack Cooldown: 2 > 2.2

Caber Tosser

• Caber Damage: 200 > 150

Colossus

• Damage: 275 > 250

Crystal Construct

• No longer has Mana Surge

Dormant Defenders

• No longer has Mana Surge

Drone Walker

• Damage 45 > 40

Guardian

• No longer has Mana Surge

Living Statue

• Health: 1000 > 900

Rammer

• Damage 180 > 160

Red Golem

• Attack Cooldown: 2 > 2.2

Vulture Prime A83

• Attack Speed 0.9 > 1.0

S.T.INT

• Attack Speed 1.1 > 1.2

S.T.INT is already everywhere, and the game field changes are going to make it stronger compared to other 2-drops, as well as making the ability more useful.

Troubadour

• Health: 1500 > 1400

FIXES

• Fixed yet another interaction between Apep, Simulacrum and Ability cards.

• Using /cd or /sd while in deck collection view no longer crashes the game.

• Frozen now correctly lasts 3 seconds.

It's possible that this amounts to a nerf that is too big for what is warranted, we will be keeping an eye on Frozen.

• Fixed A'Zog's description.

• Fixed Lash of Ah'Mun's description to correctly state master damage.

• Fixed Bearvalanche bears internal compasses again.
  

• Added a discount label to the always available 10 token bundle in the token section of the shop.

• Adjusted Mayhem start time to Thursday coincide with patch releases.