Titanic (999)

    Keywords: armor ➞ None

    Power: 10 ➞ 11

    Health: 10 ➞ 11

He did his job a bit too well - dropping Armor for now and giving +1/+1 instead - should still tussle well, but should lose a lot more hp on average, so it should be more manageable, especially when copied or recurred.

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Vishiva (970)

    Cost: 2 ➞ 3

    Health: 2 ➞ 3

No real surprise here. Going +1c and +1hp. I like the 4c raise arms, but the extra value this generates for +2 mana over the base Raise Arms was a bit too good, not to mention 2c was a sweet spot that let her synergise with cards like Whelm, Undergrowth, Vanessa, etc. Moving her to 3c should cut down on recursion via those and generally make her easier to handle by slowing her down a bit.

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Demon Pact (102)

    Text: Kill ally units. Summon The Beast. ➞ Dust target unit to summon The Beast for its player.

Being able to summon The Beast for 4c + no cost with an empty board was too good, so I'm raising the bar for using it and diversifying/expanding the playspace for it. Now you can drag any unit into the abyss and dust it to call forth The Beast for its player. Usually doing this on an enemy won’t be great, but it does let Demon Pact serve as an emergency dust for some giant enemy like a Sky Phoenix, Titanic, etc. in a pinch, and demands you actually offer The Beast something to summon it for yourself. No more empty-board IOU’s!

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Chain Storm (1119)

    Cost: 4 ➞ 5

    Keywords: None ➞ wither

Moving another HRT overperformer up the curve, allowing for more breathing room for aggro before it comes down. It does wither now, so it's more agonzing when it hits, though even without wither it typically cleared most of of aggro's stuff, so it’s likely a similar result in most cases, but better vs mid-sized enemies. HRT also had a big congestion of AOE cards in the 4c slot, with Funeral moon, Flame Phoenix and Three Lashes all sitting alongside this, so moving this to 5c helps space out their removal suite out a bit more. Will continue watching it.

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Niko (593)

    Health: 6 ➞ 5

    Spell: None ➞ Lead

There were concerns about twist/turn and Niko, and I’ve often heard people talk about how Niko is a better guard than stuff 4x his cost, so I’m trading a bit of his raw bulk for the tech of Lead, which should pull triple duty by: A. Making him a bit less of a raw stat block, and thus easier to clean up with damage earlygame. B. Letting him resist enchants like chains, which could otherwise render him useless, as well as making him worse with stuff like Flame Sword/Full Bloom/Vapors, so he’s got more defensive applications and less offensive ones. C. Prevent the Twist & Turn strategy from working with Niko, since it can’t dust him to summon a new unit. I like twist decks being able to turbo an early big boy but the fact that Niko always began in your hand made that a tad too easy to set up with minimal commitment.

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Defragment (1069)

    Cost: 4 ➞ 3

    Text: Target unit loses power and health equal to its cost. ➞ Do damage to target unit equal to its cost.

    Keywords: None ➞ wither

-1c buff to an INT underperformer. It was pretty horribly outclassed by Extinction Event in the same prism, and had very poor WR. Also made it deal damage to offer the Barrier enchant more utility. Will be looking for places that tweak could be made in the future.

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Hyper Beam (312)

    Text: Give target unit Dazed. Do damage to it equal to the size of the enemy's hand. ➞ Do damage to target unit equal to the size of the enemy's hand. Give it Dazed.

Minor tweak alongside Defragment to increase the value of Barrier. There’s definitely a place for spells that beat Barrier, but in most cases I’d prefer they beat Barrier only if there’s another purpose to their enchant-before-damage ordering. Eg. Snap Trap, Deep Freeze, and Chain Storm rely on placing their enchant first to synergize with their damage-dealing effects, whereas Hyper Beam’s ordering only really makes a difference to Barrier.

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Doctor Vile (796)

    Health: 2 ➞ 3

+1hp buff to an INT underperformer, the 3/2 statline was just a bit too fragile overall, and it’d be nice to see him around more.

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Grubbs (968)

    Power: 3 ➞ 2

    Health: 2 ➞ 3

Had a very poor winrate, so trying a stat swap of 1pow for 1hp. More health offers a better payoff for it when it absorbs keywords like Banner and Armor.

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Speed Boots (1047)

    Cost: 5 ➞ 4

Buff to an AGY-centric combo & burst damage tool to make it a bit easier to employ. Hoping to open up more mid-to-lategame AGY combo kill options beyond Ravebeats.

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Flank Rider (983)

    Power: 2 ➞ 3

    Health: 6 ➞ 5

An extremely low-performing card that felt like it should be better - I think the simple tweak of swapping 1hp for 1pow should be very meaningful for it, letting it push more damage and fight better for board in the midgame, rather than just getting neutered by opposing wither/armor.

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Blademaster (1112)

    Power: 4 ➞ 5

+1pow buff to a midrange underperformer in AGY. This card has some fun highroll and build-around potential. A bit more power should make it a bit more threatening while not being too risky of a buff.

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Necrosiss (882)

    Keywords: wither ➞ wither,guard

Tweak to an INT underperformer, now has guard to protect the stealthed zomboids and your face, making for an interesting package that should hopefully hold tempo better overall.

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Whelm (753)

    Text: Return 2 cost or less units to hand. Give them Vapors. ➞ Return 2 cost or less units to hand. Give any with attachments Vapors.

A trim to incidental draw sources. Whelm had the ability to provide both players with a ton of additional draw and healing in the lategame, slowing games down. With this change, only units with attachments will be given Vapors, so you can’t use Zomboids or other dud units to generate additional Vapors (though it does work nicely with elderwoods). It may improve it a bit as an anti aggro tool since you give them less Vapors, but it also offers control less incidental draw in the lategame, which should make it worse for control too, albeit in a roundabout way.

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Nomad (1035)

    Health: 3 ➞ 4

Buffing a midrange WIS tool with +1hp. It's a nice package of cycling/healing that was really hard to use because of its fragility.

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Nimbus (95)

    Cost: 3 ➞ 2

    Keywords: None ➞ stealth

    Health: 4 ➞ 3

    Spell: Canny Mask ➞ Hush

A big HRT underperformer at 3c, moving down to 2c since Vishiva moved to 3c. Also pruning a bit of incidental draw and adding more silence sources via Hush. Hoping he fills a more proactive and useful niche.

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Minstrel (1054)

    Power: 1 ➞ 2

    Health: 5 ➞ 6

Another buff to a fun build around/payoff card that feels like it gets little love. Can hopefully encourage a more diverse meta overall via making unique archetypes and builds more viable.

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Eye Spider (1150)

    Health: 3 ➞ 4

Another earlygame card with a very low win/use rate. Trying +1hp to allow him to tussle better.

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Smite (127)

    Keywords: None ➞ wither

Had an awful winrate. Adding Wither as a consolation buff, makes small nonlethal Smites more valuable earlygame. Will continue to watch, since I don’t expect this will lift it up too far. In a bygone era, Smite could dust whatever it successfully smote. Could we see such a time come again? (Probably Not.)

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Dead Weight (941)

    Keywords: None ➞ wither

Like Smite, adding wither so its bottom end is more valuable. Should help make hitting stuff for 2-3 damage less weak earlygame.

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Mamba (964)

    Health: 3 ➞ 4

+1hp buff to another midrange tool in AGY. Seems like a fairly strong card overall.

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Sick Burn (690)

    Text: Discard your left card in hand to do damage equal to its cost to target unit. Give it Flames. ➞ Discard your left card in hand to do damage equal to its cost to target unit. Draw a fire spell.

Was very weak and underused. Dropping the ability to grant Flames (largely due to text space) but it now cycles into a fresh fire spell, so you go 2-2, rather than 2 for 1, when killing an enemy unit. Should make it more appealing.

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Tooth Hurty (69)

    Cost: 5 ➞ 4

    Text: Inspire Any: Gets +1 power, then randomized stats. (Minimum 1.) ➞ Inspire Any: Gets +1 power. Randomize its stats. (Minimum 1.)

    Health: 3 ➞ 2

Was a big underperformer. I’m seeking to expand INT’s ability to perform bigger combo turns via making it a little cheaper, at the cost of a little bit of health, though we do lose the 2/3 statline, which is admittedly a bit sad.

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Anchor Drop (1084)

    Cost: 6 ➞ 5

-1c buff to a weak card. The days of Seaweaver combos are largely behind us, so having this hit 1c-0c earlygame has less of an impact. Also a nice stealth buff to Deepus, who was also feeling a bit meh lately.

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Timber (974)

    Power: 0 ➞ 2

Buff to a good INT build-around that felt disappointing. Could see dropping Anima in the future if this statline is too good, but I like the frontend being more meaningful out of the gate. Seeking to offer INT the ability to reach back to its roots a bit more, and have more combo and build-around options beyond just Unophobia.

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Snap Trap (798)

    Text: Give a sleeping target Chains. Do 3 damage to it. ➞ Give a target Chains if it has any keywords. Do 3 damage to it.

A buff to an underperformer that feels like it should have more teeth. Can't usually chain vials, but can chain any target where chains would matter in terms of keywords.

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Chill (1121)

    Text: Give enemy units -2 power. Give your hero Vapors. ➞ Give enemy units -2 power. Give your hero +2 health and Mana Potion.

Pruning incidental draw. Now provides faster upfront heal and greater tempo setup for future turns via mana potion, but no longer cycles into another draw, making it weaker lategame when drawn OOD.

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Frank (591)

    Power: 5 ➞ 4

    Health: 3 ➞ 4

Stat shifting to make an underperformer more durable.

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Sunder (1131)

    Text: Do 5 damage to target enchanted or guard unit. ➞ Do 2 damage to a target. Do 6 damage instead if it has armor or guard.

    Prism: agy ➞ str

I like the idea of a guard (and armor) punishing removal, so I merged this with an old design that had been phased out for a bit. Should be great at smashing through defensive units, and has more flexibility than before, since it can always be used as 2c for 2dmg in a pinch.

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Fish (954)

    Text: Draw your lowest cost unit. Give it Vapors. ➞ Draw your lowest cost unit. Give it -2 cost.

A very underused card that offered more incidental draw. Now serves as a potent cycling & tutor tool. Should help encourage creative deckbuilding in INT to try to make your lowest-cost unit something that can really use the cost buff. I also like that 1c units waste part of the buff, helps keep it more fair and asks you to possibly not run 1c units to get full value off it in the earlygame. Might be a bit too effective, so will be watching carefully.

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Ancients Rise (947)

    Cost: 9 ➞ 8

A good thematic finisher for HRT that’s considerably harder to use than Entwail, so it feels like it deserves some love, or at least a bit of a cost drop. Trying -1c to make it a bit easier to play. Maybe the 1-2 punch of HRT + WIS Ancient-Wail could be possible?

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Queen of Jacks (788)

    Keywords: wither ➞ stealth,wither

Adding her long lost stealth back to see how it works in the current meta - was very scary before but midrange threats as a whole are improving. Another buff to a midrange AGY card. I like the high-health low-power statline here. It’s unique in AGY and helps with the defensive/anti-tempo role she plays.

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Mothermander (694)

    Keywords: banner,wither ➞ banner,wither,guard

    Power: 2 ➞ 3

    Health: 4 ➞ 5

    Spell: Scorch ➞ None

Buff to a payoff/build around card. Giving her more raw stats + guard to protect her babies (including skyweavers) better, and dropping Scorch for simplicity. Should help offer fire-centric builds a bit more kick on their big Mothermander turns, and make recurring her a bit better. I’d like to try to push more niche builds like this, and she’s a good midrange powerhouse in the right deck, so I’m excited to see how this pans out. She's also a bit better in discovery now, though still not too phenomenal.

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Hammerhead (1082)

    Power: 5 ➞ 4

    Health: 4 ➞ 6

Buffing an underused defensive midrange STR tool. Should brawl and stall more effectively on-curve now.

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Gear Grind (820)

    Text: Do damage to target unit equal to the size of your hand. Give metal cards in your hand -1 cost. Mulligan your hand. ➞ Do damage to target unit equal to the size of your hand. Give units in your hand -1 cost. Mulligan your hand.

Expanding the role of a setup card for INT. Discounting units is a rarer effect than discounting spells, and it plays nicely with how Mechabun draws a unit for you. Seems powerful though, so I will need to watch it carefully.

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Mootichi (670)

    Cost: 7 ➞ 6

    Power: 4 ➞ 3

    Health: 6 ➞ 5

Moving him down the curve to make him a bit more midrangey. INT as a whole has suffered lately, so I’m trying a few buffs to some of INT’s iconic and flavorful cards to make them more effective.

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King Slay (635)

    Power: 3 ➞ 4

Still underperforming, so giving +1pow to offer more tempo. You’re still paying around 2c for his “kill target” effect, considering the 4/3 statline is worth around 3c, so he should remain fair.

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Shell Officer (1077)

    Cost: 7 ➞ 6

    Health: 4 ➞ 3

Dropped 1c down the curve and dropped 1 health to make room for a few other cards moving to the 7c slot in INT. Wasn’t huge at 7c so maybe the lower-curve body will help her see a bit more use.

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Magnanimous (1062)

    Cost: 6 ➞ 7

    Text: Summon: Give mind cards in your hand and deck -1 cost. ➞ Play: Give spells in your hand and deck -1 cost. Mulligan your hand.

    Health: 4 ➞ 3

Restoring some power to his effect by letting it discount all your spells again, but only when hard-cast, like Titanic. Should hopefully allow him to be more potent and exciting, while preventing rampant abuse of his power via clone effects, and encourage players to experiment with using INT’s copy effects on other cards. Also added the mulligan effect to let INT decks dig for answers, and also slow combo decks down a bit via reshuffling any cards they were already holding.

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Zam (474)

    Cost: 4 ➞ 7

    Text: Inspire Spell: Spend 1 mana to do 2 damage to a random enemy. ➞ Inspire Spell: Dust that spell to do 2 damage to a random enemy.

    Power: 1 ➞ 2

The final change, and it's a scary but exciting one! The meta has changed a lot since Zam first shredded it, but I have no doubt he can still do work. I really wanted to try to open up the gates for an iconic INT finisher again. The key safety valve here is that multiple Zam will no longer work if played together, since only the first one can dust the spell to deal the damage. It should open up another archetype and new build around option for INT decks. Hopefully the improved mid-lategame units will give Zam decks less breathing room, making their big burn turns tricker to safely achieve. Will be watching him closely though.

Trying a cute earlygame ‘explosive unit’ design I’ve been interested in for a bit. It’s a solid early tempo play that explodes on death, possibly clearing more stuff, giving a nice anti-tempo 1-2 punch to fight for the board early. A Banner unit that doesn’t mind dying feels very HRT, and it offers more than Firemander did in the 1c slot.

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Another Silence option + removal for AGY, letting them Silence problematic boards and punch through an enemy unit. Gusto cares not for your effects!

Firemander (574)

    Prism: hrt ➞ tok

The 1/2 statline here was honestly really poor, especially when compared to cards like Mechurai, Gato, and especially Axolotl, but it's really nice as a token, so for now, moving to token status and adding Pyrecrafter as a replacement for it in HRT.

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Grasp of Kraken (1067)

    Prism: str ➞ agy

Moving to AGY because I wanted to swap the new Sunder to STR since AGY has the newly buffed Snaptrap, which is a similar effect, so Sunder felt too similar there.

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Cross Reference (790)

    Prism: wis ➞ int

Swapping this and Overload back - With Zam being scary once more, I don’t feel safe leaving Overload in INT with him.

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Overload (1187)

    Prism: int ➞ wis

Swapped back to WIS so Zam doesn’t have a 3mana = 10dmg combo card with him in the INT prism alone.

    Steady Shot (1081)

Wasn’t really filling a major role currently, moved speed boots into its 4c slot and added Gusto’s Rebuke in the 5c slot in AGY as another means of silencing sticky death effect units and smashing them aside.