Shifting Sands - Patch #131
The winds of change are upon us! The sands shift, and a prismatic realignment is in the stars. Brace yourselves, a cosmic shift in card balance is fast approaching 👀
Welcome, Skyweavers, to Patch 131!
Changes ⚙️
- We've unified the behaviour of cards that Play, Cast, or Fire other cards, and made all effects that trigger upon those events behave all in the same way. This also prevents cards that "fire" a spell from hitting a Shrouded unit.
Welcome to Patch 131, everyone! We’ve got a huge number of changes this time! We’re still working hard to make Draft the best experience possible. However, we’re going to be releasing our major Prism-Shift update tomorrow (originally planned to release alongside Draft mode) as the shifts are ready to go live!
These Prism-Shifts were primarily made to solidify Prism’s thematic and mechanical identities, in the service of creating a more guided gameplay experience. In addition to these changes, we also have a number of updates to some of the over & under-performers from the current metagame.
We hope you will all enjoy exploring these new changes, and thank you for your continued patience!
Card Changes
Ifrit (7)
Health:
6
→
5
Power:
5
→
6
Prism:
str
→
agy
Swapping Ifrit’s power and health to make it more aggressive, to coincide with its move to Agility.
The Beast (35)
Spell:
Fate
→
None
Prism:
str
→
hrt
Text:
↓
Death: Do 6 damage to the highest-health enemy unit.
Traits:
guard, banner
→
guard, wither
Moving to Heart, and trading Fate and Banner for Wither and a more thematic and powerful Death effect.
Beatle (73)
Spell:
Fate
→
None
Text:
↓
Slay: Draw a card.
Having Fate on Dark cards in Strength was outside of the Prism’s playspace, since Strength isn’t meant to be dark-focused, so we’ve changed Beatle to have “Slay: Draw a card.” instead.
Rite Knight (1036)
Spell:
Fate
→
None
Power:
4
→
2
Text:
Glory: Attach Ritual.
↓
Death & Glory: Do 2 damage to the enemy hero.
Traits:
stealth
→
stealth, lifesteal
A rework to be more Agility-themed, lowering the power and dropping Fate to reduce the focus on Dark cards, while granting Lifesteal and making her effect focused more on pressing damage.
Headcase (1056)
Health:
3
→
4
Power:
1
→
0
Prism:
agy
→
int
Traits:
guard
→
Moving to Intellect where it always belonged. We’ve also moved his power to health to make him bulkier and dropped Guard as the trait is a bit overrepresented currently.
Riptide (1057)
Spell:
Turn the Tide
→
None
Cost:
4
→
6
Power:
3
→
5
Text:
Glory: Add Twin Mana Crystal to your hand.
↓
After your hero attacks, this turn, the next card you play has
-1 cost.
Traits:
lifesteal
→
dash
A fairly comprehensive rework. One consideration we’ve made during this process of Prism-Shifting and reworking cards, Is that every card should either be tied to its Prism ethier by Element, or effect.
As an example, if we’re going to be introducing a card with an effect that is new to its Prism (but still within its design space). Then that card’s element should be one of those that is Primary to its Prism. If the card isn’t one of the Primary elements, then its effect and/or attachments should be tied closely to the Prism, to ensure it feels cohesive and like it belongs.
In keeping with this design direction, as an off-element Agility card, Riptide is dropping its attachment and trading Lifesteal for Dash, and its effect is changing to be focused on attacking with your hero to help it align more clearly with Agility’s playstyle.
Flurry (1085)
Traits:
→
banner
Fox has fallen off after the nerf to his ability, so we’re reverting this nerf to Flurry as it seems safer now.
Puppet Strings (1086)
Prism:
agy
→
int
Text:
Draw and summon a 1 cost enemy unit. Reveal two random cards in the
enemy hand.
↓
Draw and summon a base copy of a random 1 cost unit in the enemy deck.
Give it Dash.
A rework to coincide with its move to Intellect. Puppet Strings had the potential to create non-games by stealing important enemy units like Mechshroom or Hax. While this could serve as a counter to certain meta decks, such a harsh and luck-based form of counterplay isn’t healthy, and may actually serve to mask problematic metagame elements that should be addressed in a different way.
To this end, Strings now draws and summons a copy of the unit, rather than stealing the original, and also grants it dash, making it more valuable generally.
Moonbeam (2001)
Cost:
3
→
2
Text:
Give target unit -3/-3. Give your hero +3 health.
↓
Your hero steals 3 health from target enemy unit.
A bit of a new direction for Wisdom’s Dark cards. Some will now ‘steal’ Health, giving it to your hero and/or units. This kind of design feels appropriate for Wisdom, focusing on outlasting foes, while still feeling appropriate for Dark as an element. Note that moonbeam cannot steal health that isn’t there - if you use it on a 1 or 2 health unit, it will only give your hero that much health.
Scraggy (2014)
Cost:
5
→
4
Prism:
wis
→
agy
Traits:
stealth, wither
→
Moving to Agility and reducing cost by 1, while also streamlining the design by removing its traits.
Book Casey (2015)
Spell:
Barrier
→
Cross Reference
Health:
5
→
6
Prism:
wis
→
int
Traits:
guard
→
Moving to Intellect alongside Kook Book, and also dropping guard for higher health, and Barrier for Cross-Reference, in the effort of further supporting Intellect’s 1 cost subtheme.
Soul Shepherd (2022)
Spell:
Flock
→
Second Chance
Prism:
wis
→
hrt
Moving from Wisdom to Heart, and trading Flock for a more versatile and thematic card.
Octavian (2029)
Spell:
Mer Mask
→
Vapors
Prism:
wis
→
int
Traits:
guard
→
Moving to Intellect and adding Vapors, while also dropping Guard, as it's a trait we’ve found there is a bit too much of.
Ill Will (2038)
Text:
Attach Hex to enemy units. Give the enemy's left and right-most cards
in hand +1 cost and reveal them.
↓
Attach Hex to enemy units. Until your next turn, all enemy cards have
+1 cost.
Giving Ill Will a small rework. As a rule we would like to reduce the amount of ‘left and right-most’ terminology we use, since players have limited ways to control where units or cards in their hands move to. The cost increase now only lasts a single turn, but affects all enemy cards, rather than just two, letting it serve as a more effective temporary stall tool.
Throne Blade (2041)
Spell:
Shroud
→
None
Health:
1
→
2
Power:
2
→
4
Prism:
wis
→
str
Text:
Death: Add Wind Blade to your hand.
↓
Death: Add a random Blade spell to your hand.
Traits:
guard, armor
→
Moving to Strength and streamlining the design to focus more on the ‘Blade’ part of its identity, and allow it to grant a wider range of Blade Spells.
"Insomnia" ➞ "Fracture" (2074)
Name:
Insomnia
→
Fracture
Text:
Give target non-sleeping unit -3/-3.
↓
Give target unit -3/-1.
We’re trying to minimize the use of narrow terms like ‘Sleep/Sleeping’ to reduce the number of mechanics new users have to become accommodated with. To this end we are reworking Insomnia to be a more generically useful tool.
Fortune Seller (2098)
Spell:
Barrier
→
None
Cost:
3
→
4
Health:
5
→
3
Power:
2
→
3
Text:
Summon: Mulligan all but your lowest cost cards in hand.
↓
Summon: This unit steals 1 health from each enemy.
Traits:
guard, wither
→
guard
Fortune Seller has never really had a place in the metagame, so we’re reworking it to help showcase the ‘Steal’ mechanic and offer Wisdom a scalable answer for decks that want to go wide.
Twisted Metal (3041)
Prism:
hrt
→
str
Text:
Give target ally unit +3/+2 or target enemy unit -2/-3.
↓
Give target ally unit +3/+3 or target enemy unit -3/-3.
Shifting to Strength and increasing both sides of the effect to a clean 3/3.
Full Bloom (3048)
Cost:
4
→
3
Prism:
hrt
→
str
A fun tool for Anima strategies hamstrung by being a bit too expensive, and in the wrong Prism for them. We’ve moved it to Strength and reduced the cost by one to help support these decks.
Life Stream (3070)
Prism:
hrt
→
int
Text:
Attach Vapors to target ally. Attach Mana Crystal to each ally next to
it.
↓
Attach Vapors to your three lowest-health allies.
Reworking to support and build upon Vapors as an Intellect subtheme.
"Hope" ➞ "Hope, Arisen One" (3080)
Cost:
5
→
8
Name:
Hope
→
Hope, Arisen One
Text:
Summon: Attach Shroud to ally units.
↓
Play: Resummon each ally unit that died this turn.
Traits:
guard, banner
→
guard, lifesteal
A Rework similar to Riptide, making the card’s effect reflect the Prism’s core identity and playstyle, letting her revive all allies that died in a turn.
Burning Blade (3085)
Health:
2
→
3
Power:
3
→
2
Prism:
hrt
→
str
Text:
Death: Attach Flame Blade to your hero.
↓
Death: Attach a random Blade spell to your hero.
Like Throne Blade, taking another ‘Blade’ focused card and allowing it to add a random Blade rather than a specific one.
"Chain Storm" ➞ "Breaking Point" (3086)
ArtSlug:
spell-rubio-07
→
spell-patty-01
Cost:
4
→
3
Name:
Chain Storm
→
Breaking Point
Prism:
hrt
→
str
Moving to Strength in keeping with its metal Element, and dropping the cost to make it more useful.
See Shore (3093)
Prism:
hrt
→
int
Text:
Attach Vapors to target ally and give it +2 health. Reveal the enemy's
two right-most cards in hand.
↓
Attach Vapors to target ally and give it +2 health. Reveal two random
cards in the enemy hand.
Centering ‘Reveal’ effects in Intellect and changing the reveal to random for simplicity.
Rags the Returned (3132)
Cost:
1
→
2
Giving +1 cost to nerf it as an early game play without reducing its usefulness when recurred.
Alight (4016)
Prism:
int
→
hrt
Text:
Draw a Light card. Reveal the left and right-most cards in the enemy
hand.
↓
Draw a Light card. Enemy units lose Stealth.
Removing the reveal effect as those are being focused more in Intellect, allowing it to break stealth instead.
Cinder (4038)
Text:
Death: Fire Scorch at the lowest-health enemy.
↓
Death: Play a Scorch targeting the lowest-health enemy.
We've reworked the wording of cards that 'Fire' spells slightly to make them more clear. The effect remains unchanged.
Necrosiss (4051)
Prism:
int
→
hrt
Text:
Sunset: Dust your top dead non-Dark unit to summon Zomboid with
Guard.
↓
Sunset: Summon Zomboid with Guard. Dust the highest-cost dead enemy
unit.
Simplification and buff. Dusting a unit and summoning a Zomboid are no longer connected, so the effect won’t fail if the enemy doesn’t have a dead unit.
Overmind (4059)
Text:
Attach Dazed to enemy units. Reveal the enemy hand.
↓
All enemy units have -2 power until your next turn. Reveal the enemy
hand.
Traits:
banner
→
Nerfing a card that has been noted as frustrating by giving it a temporary power-reducing effect rather than a mass-Dazing one.
Cobalt (4061)
Health:
1
→
3
Prism:
int
→
str
Text:
Summon: Draw and attach your lowest cost Metal spell to this
unit.
↓
Summon: Draw and attach your lowest-cost Metal spell to this
unit.
Traits:
guard, armor
→
We’ve moved all the spell-attaching units to the Prism that is tied to their element. We’re also streamlining Cobalt by trading Guard & Armor for +2 health.
Defragment (4084)
Cost:
3
→
1
Text:
Do damage to target unit equal to its cost.
↓
Give target unit -1 health. Repeat for each other spell you played this
turn.
Traits:
wither
→
Reworking an underperformer to tie into Intellect’s theme of spell synergies.
Lilly (4085)
Spell:
Orchid
→
None
Power:
1
→
3
Prism:
int
→
wis
Dropping the attached spell and giving +2 power to make her statline more relevant.
Eye Spy (4095)
Text:
Do 2 damage to target enemy. Reveal the enemy's two left-most cards in
hand.
↓
Do 2 damage to target enemy. Reveal two random cards in the enemy
hand.
Changing the reveal to random for simplicity.
Eliminate (4105)
Cost:
4
→
3
Prism:
int
→
wis
Text:
Do 3 damage to all units of a different element than target unit.
↓
Do 3 damage to target unit and all units of its element.
Reworking the card to hit all units of a single element, rather than other elements, to fit in better with Wisdom’s theme of using many elements, letting it reduce the risk to its own units.
Grizzled Fisher (4134)
Health:
6
→
5
Traits:
guard
→
A card that’s been overpowered for some time, we’re giving Fisher -1 health to make it less bulky, and dropping Guard to make it less easy to trigger.
Prism-Shifts
Our core goal when making these Prism-Shifts was to reinforce each Prism’s relationship with its two primary elements, and those elements' key mechanics. We also prioritized moving cards that naturally fit into another Prism’s playstyle better than their current one.
When considering shifts for Strength, one goal was to shift the few pieces of the Blade archetype from other Prisms into Strength to make the archetype more centralized, and make Blade decks a more viable option for Strength Heroes besides Fox. We also moved a few stray Anima and Armis Guard support cards like Drum Up and Honor Guard to Strength to reinforce those archetypes.
For Agility, we prioritized moving key Fire and Air synergy cards and payoffs to the Prism, such as Mothermander and Birb. We also moved some aggressive tools to Agility, like Blood Hunter, and shifted a few stray cards in other Prisms that supported or rewarded attacking with your hero, like Xythe.
Heart received a number of Zomboid and Death-focused cards, in particular those from Strength. Heart’s identity is consistent and well established, so most of the additions to the Prism were fairly straightforward.
A focus for Intellect was shifting over cards that directly supported the Water element, especially those from Wisdom. We also moved a number of spell-centric cards to the Prism, and also re-centered most Vapors-centric cards into Intellect, as while many were in Heart, Vapors as a strategy was generally only seen in Heart-Intellect Sitti decks.
Since Wisdom doesn’t have any ‘primary’ elements, what cards to move to it couldn’t be informed by element. We aimed to give Wisdom cards that tied into its themes: supporting healing and health gain, defensive gameplay, and making use of multiple elements, such as Cosmicon, Subjugate and Tempest Brew.
Foul Stench (1)
Prism:
str
→
hrt
Firesight (4)
Prism:
str
→
agy
Demon Pact (5)
Prism:
str
→
hrt
Ifrit (7)
Health:
6
→
5
Power:
5
→
6
Prism:
str
→
agy
Hyper Beam (14)
Prism:
str
→
wis
Grimstone (24)
Prism:
str
→
hrt
The Beast (35)
Spell:
Fate
→
None
Prism:
str
→
hrt
Text:
↓
Death: Do 6 damage to the highest-health enemy unit.
Traits:
guard, banner
→
guard, wither
Mothermander (39)
Prism:
str
→
agy
Unikron (41)
Prism:
str
→
agy
Light Ranger (57)
Prism:
str
→
hrt
On the Hunt (65)
Prism:
str
→
agy
Colossoid (74)
Prism:
str
→
hrt
Charkram (79)
Prism:
str
→
agy
Earwig (94)
Prism:
str
→
hrt
Icy Touch (100)
Prism:
str
→
int
Wane Blade (1000)
Prism:
agy
→
str
Kook Book (1004)
Prism:
agy
→
int
Drum Up (1005)
Prism:
agy
→
str
Scythe Mantis (1024)
Prism:
agy
→
hrt
Dawn Blade (1027)
Prism:
agy
→
str
Honor Guard (1044)
Prism:
agy
→
str
Snap Trap (1052)
Prism:
agy
→
str
Headcase (1056)
Health:
3
→
4
Power:
1
→
0
Prism:
agy
→
int
Traits:
guard
→
Puppet Strings (1086)
Prism:
agy
→
int
Text:
Draw and summon a 1 cost enemy unit. Reveal two random cards in the
enemy hand.
↓
Draw and summon a base copy of a random 1 cost unit in the enemy deck.
Give it Dash.
Scraggy (2014)
Cost:
5
→
4
Prism:
wis
→
agy
Traits:
stealth, wither
→
Book Casey (2015)
Spell:
Barrier
→
Cross Reference
Health:
5
→
6
Prism:
wis
→
int
Traits:
guard
→
Sea Mage (2020)
Prism:
wis
→
int
Soul Shepherd (2022)
Spell:
Flock
→
Second Chance
Prism:
wis
→
hrt
Octavian (2029)
Spell:
Mer Mask
→
Vapors
Prism:
wis
→
int
Traits:
guard
→
Etherwail (2034)
Prism:
wis
→
str
Throne Blade (2041)
Spell:
Shroud
→
None
Health:
1
→
2
Power:
2
→
4
Prism:
wis
→
str
Text:
Death: Add Wind Blade to your hand.
↓
Death: Add a random Blade spell to your hand.
Traits:
guard, armor
→
Amaruath (2051)
Prism:
wis
→
str
Sphinx Mask (2062)
Prism:
wis
→
hrt
Birb (2070)
Prism:
wis
→
agy
Earth Warden (2072)
Prism:
wis
→
str
Mind Rune (2087)
Prism:
wis
→
int
Eldritch Lore (2092)
Prism:
wis
→
int
Glizzbot 325 (2108)
Prism:
wis
→
str
Xythe (3007)
Prism:
hrt
→
agy
Mind Control (3031)
Prism:
hrt
→
int
Twisted Metal (3041)
Prism:
hrt
→
str
Text:
Give target ally unit +3/+2 or target enemy unit -2/-3.
↓
Give target ally unit +3/+3 or target enemy unit -3/-3.
Full Bloom (3048)
Cost:
4
→
3
Prism:
hrt
→
str
Blood Hunter (3052)
Prism:
hrt
→
agy
Friendly Fawn (3055)
Prism:
hrt
→
str
Meranda (3057)
Prism:
hrt
→
int
Trident True (3068)
Prism:
hrt
→
int
Life Stream (3070)
Prism:
hrt
→
int
Text:
Attach Vapors to target ally. Attach Mana Crystal to each ally next to
it.
↓
Attach Vapors to your three lowest-health allies.
Traits:
banner
→
banner
Cosmicon (3071)
Prism:
hrt
→
wis
Burning Blade (3085)
Health:
2
→
3
Power:
3
→
2
Prism:
hrt
→
str
Text:
Death: Attach Flame Blade to your hero.
↓
Death: Attach a random Blade spell to your hero.
"Chain Storm" ➞ "Breaking Point" (3086)
ArtSlug:
spell-rubio-07
→
spell-patty-01
Cost:
4
→
3
Name:
Chain Storm
→
Breaking Point
Prism:
hrt
→
str
Chill (3087)
Prism:
hrt
→
wis
Bill (3088)
Prism:
hrt
→
str
See Shore (3093)
Prism:
hrt
→
int
Text:
Attach Vapors to target ally and give it +2 health. Reveal the enemy's
two right-most cards in hand.
↓
Attach Vapors to target ally and give it +2 health. Reveal two random
cards in the enemy hand.
Wing Construct (4006)
Prism:
int
→
agy
Tempest Brew (4010)
Prism:
int
→
wis
Alight (4016)
Prism:
int
→
hrt
Text:
Draw a Light card. Reveal the left and right-most cards in the enemy
hand.
↓
Draw a Light card. Enemy units lose Stealth.
Cast in Chrome (4019)
Prism:
int
→
str
Ivy (4041)
Prism:
int
→
wis
Frog King (4045)
Prism:
int
→
wis
Necrosiss (4051)
Prism:
int
→
hrt
Text:
Sunset: Dust your top dead non-Dark unit to summon Zomboid with
Guard.
↓
Sunset: Summon Zomboid with Guard. Dust the highest-cost dead enemy
unit.
Cobalt (4061)
Health:
1
→
3
Prism:
int
→
str
Traits:
guard, armor
→
Deactivate (4075)
Prism:
int
→
wis
Lilly (4085)
Spell:
Orchid
→
None
Power:
1
→
3
Prism:
int
→
wis
Subjugate (4099)
Prism:
int
→
wis
Eliminate (4105)
Cost:
4
→
3
Prism:
int
→
wis
Text:
Do 3 damage to all units of a different element than target unit.
↓
Do 3 damage to target unit and all units of its element.
Bit Shifter (4117)
Prism:
int
→
wis
Eldritch Egg (4164)
Prism:
int
→
hrt