Buckler Up (3016)

    Text: Give target unit Lead, guard, and armor. ➞ Give target unit guard, armor and attach Lead.

Starting us off is a card that actually has no meaningful mechanical changes, but showcases our new "attach" language update, and a change it brought to many cards. All effects that place enchants or spells onto units or heroes will now place them last (except in cases where the order matters, like with Snap Trap). Effects like this used to place their enchants first, since it was necessary to avoid any keywords they might also add being wiped by chains, but now that Chains simply suppresses keywords, rather than wiping them, the order of keyword and attachment placement is more flexible, and the grammar for 'Attach' was much cleaner when 'Attach' was last.

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Halcyon (13)

    Keywords: armor,lifesteal ➞ armor,lifesteal,guard

    Spell: Shield ➞ None

A change heralding a tweak to effect ordering. In the service of making effects more intuitive, Armor is now checked before Shield/Barrier, which makes Armor stronger than before, since you actually need to deal 2+ damage to consume the shield/barrier. As a result, I have changed the only two instances of inherent Shield + Armor on units for other boosts - in Halcyon's case, she trades Shield for Guard. I'm not opposed to trying armor + shield units in the future, but the interplay between Sheild and armor is still a bit tricky, so I'd rather armor + Shield show up through combinations of cards for now, rather than having any cards that just start with both.

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Electron (4026)

    Text: Inspire Metal: Gets Zap with wither. ➞ Inspire Metal: Attach Zap.

    Keywords: armor,wither ➞ armor

    Spell: Shield ➞ Zap

Like Halcyon, recived a change by taking its inborn Shield, though in Electron's case, returning its long lost Zap and simplifying its effect and statline, since there's a lot of Wither in the game. Starting with Zap should be a valuable trait.

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Hail of Arrows ➞ Hail Arrows (1038)

    Name: Hail of Arrows ➞ Hail Arrows

    Cost: 3 ➞ 4

    Text: Do 1 damage to enemies. Give units in the enemy hand +1 cost. ➞ Do 2 damage to enemies. Give units in the enemy hand +1 cost.

    Keywords: wither ➞ None

A change mentioned last patch, moving Hail up the curve and boosting its damage while dropping wither - should allow it to facilitate slightly larger swings via clearing more enemy units and pushing more face damage.

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Deep Cut ➞ Deep Xlice (1048)

    Name: Deep Cut ➞ Deep Xlice

    Text: Give a target Chains. Do 1 damage to enemies. ➞ Attach Chains to a target. Do 1 damage to enemies.

    Cost: 4 ➞ 3

    Keywords: banner,wither ➞ wither

-1c and Banner here, should make it more flexible on curve and allows it to fill the spot Hail Arrows vacated. Should also be good on Xythe. Also has a more Xtreme name to match Xythe.

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Rocket (52)

    Text: When another ally is summoned, give it +1 power. ➞ When another ally unit is summoned, give it +1 power.

    Keywords: None ➞ lifesteal

Buff to an often maligned card to add more lifesteal sources to STR to help solidify that part of its identity.

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Dracomantium (31)

    Text: Death: Dust your top three dead metal cards to give your hero armor. ➞ Death: Dust your top four dead metal cards to give your hero armor.

Another suggested nerf to a powerful card, 4 metal cards is a higher bar to cross, but shouldn't be too demanding thanks to stuff like Crystal Cache and metal token producers. Should make it a bit harder to trigger without making it unusable.

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Call to Action (10)

    Text: Draw a 1 cost unit. Give it Blind and +1/+1. ➞ Draw a 1 cost unit. Give it +1/+1.

Returning an old powerhouse, the meta has evolved a lot since Call's heyday, so It feels like a safe time to try a reversion. There's also a good number fewer 1c units with armor than there used to be, which really fed Call's former dominance.

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Illusion (4049)

    Text: Summon a copy of target ally unit as 2/2 with Barrier. ➞ Summon a 2/2 copy of target ally unit and attach Barrier to it.

A small but important tweak. Now and moving forwards, Illusion and any effect like it which summons a unit "with X attachment", will be instead use "attach X to it" which is the new wording for "Give X attachment" meaning they will trigger Anima/Vapors and be blocked by Lead. The only case where units will still be summoned "With X Attachment" is when the units summoned are a specific unit, like in the case of Flock or Savage Garden, and as a result, we can garuntee what attachment they have.

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Hexed Doll (3081)

    Text: Give target enemy unit Hex. Summon a copy as 1/1 with Fate. ➞ Attach Hex to target enemy unit. Summon a 1/1 copy and attach Fate to it.

The same update as Illusion.

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Take Flight (3030)

    Text: Return target unit to hand. Give it Shroud, +1/+1, and -1 cost. ➞ Return target unit to hand. Give it +1/+1, -2 cost and attach Shroud.

Small tweak/buff, now gives -2c to the bounced unit, making it better on your own units but worse on enemies, hoping it makes the card more maindeckable.

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See Shore (3093)

    Text: Give your hero Vapors. Reveal the enemy's lowest cost cards in hand. ➞ Attach Vapors to target ally. Reveal the enemy's two right-most cards in hand.

A few tweaks here - can now target anything, letting you take advantage of it with cards like Arc Mask which can overwrite it for you, and has a tweak to its reveal, allowing it to reveal the two left-most enemy cards, which should reveal slightly more cards on average.

One other small change not listed here is that the logic for reveal cards is now a bit more potent. Similar to how effects that randomly place an enchants will prioritize characters without that same enchant (EG. flashbang) when a card attempts to reveal cards, it will prioritize cards that are unrevealed - so if, for example, your opponents two right-most cards in hand are already revealed, it will skip over them to reveal the two right-most unrevealed cards, if possible.

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Nimbus (4005)

    Text: Your 1 cost spells have banner. ➞ Your 1 cost and higher spells have banner.

A spicy change here. I really like INT having units that grant keywords to all your spells, and as the banner option, Nimbus was a bit narrow, however, banner is arguably the most abusable spell keyword, since its useful on every spell, rather than just damaging ones, so I've expanded the range of spells that benefit from him, but they still need to cost "1 or more" mana for him to grant them Banner, so you can't pop off with him using Zaps, etc.

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School of Fish (4047)

    Text: Draw and summon two 1 cost units. If you have no mana, give them Vapors. ➞ Draw and summon two 1 cost units. Attach Vapors to them.

A buff to an underperformer, now always gives vapors. Should make it a fairly valuable cycling tool lategame and also lets it work with cards like kook book more easily.

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Rite Knight (1036)

    Keywords: stealth,lifesteal ➞ stealth

    Power: 3 ➞ 4

    Text: Glory: Dust the enemy's top dead spell to get Ritual. ➞ Glory: Dust the enemy's top dead spell to attach Ritual.

Berf here, AGY was getting a bit more Lifesteal than I would like due to Nocturna's appearance last patch, since its supposed to have the most limited healing, so I'm trading Rite's LS for +1pow, giving her an even more extreme statline that feels very AGY.

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Razzle Dazzle ➞ Overmind (4059)

    Name: Razzle Dazzle ➞ Overmind

    Text: Give enemy units Dazed. Reveal cards in the enemy hand of their elements. ➞ Attach Dazed to enemy units. Reveal the enemy hand.

Another exciting and slightly scary tweak, wanting to try experimenting with some more powerful reveal tech, as it serves the purpose of reducing guessing in many scenarios in the lategame, helping to break stalemates sooner by letting a player know if its safe to develop units or not. Overall, I expect this to be fairly reasonable, as it allows you to see up to 9 cards, but your opponent can always mulligan their hand to hide them again.

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Eye Spy (4095)

    Text: Do 2 damage to target enemy. Reveal the enemy's highest cost cards in hand. ➞ Do 2 damage to target enemy. Reveal the enemy's two left-most cards in hand.

Similar to see shore, now reveals the opponents two left-most cards, prioritizing unrevealed ones.

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Vlad (1020)

    Health: 2 ➞ 3

Small midrange buff for an AGY card, shouldn't be too gamebreaking but helps him survive a bit more punishment.

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Mountain Lion (1074)

    Cost: 8 ➞ 7

    Power: 7 ➞ 6

    Health: 7 ➞ 6

Reverting back down the curve since I've actually taken aim at the real offender this time.

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Glorious Mane (40)

    Text: Give target unit +2/+2 and lifesteal. Give units of its element in your hand +1/+1. ➞ Give target unit +2/+2 and lifesteal. Give units of its element in your hand and deck +1/+1.

A very exciting buff here to throw a bone to decks that want to incorporate an elemental-focus. Now buffs up all units in your hand and deck that share the unit's element! Should be quite appealing to build around.

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Meng'long (2019)

    Cost: 8 ➞ 9

    Traits: guard ➞ guard,banner

The ability to burst this out early made it a bit of a menace, so I've given it the old +1c +banner treatment. Should still pack a wallop but coming down a turn later in many cases should slow it down enough to make it more managable.

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Orchid (2021)

    Text: Give units in your hand +1/+1. Give spells in your hand -1 cost. Gain 1 mana next turn. ➞ Give units in your hand +1/+1. Give spells in your hand -1 cost.

Nerf to a WIS staple, no longer banks mana for next turn. Hopefully its raw effect + banner is enough to keep it viable.

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Rosewater Charm (2026)

    Text: Give your hero +3 health. Gain 2 mana next turn. ➞ Give your hero +2 health. Gain 2 mana next turn.

Small nerf here, should still be very powerful, but shaving off a bit of healing. Rosewater is potent but I like it as an iconic WIS card that enables strategies like Entwail.

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Kha Meht (2075)

    Traits: lifesteal,wither ➞ lifesteal,wither,guard

Adding Guard as a buff to compensate rainbow strategies a bit for Menglong and offer them another interesting tool. Could be more powerful than intended, will have to watch it.

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Guru (2077)

    Text: When you draw a spell, give it -1 cost. ➞ When you draw a 2 cost or higher spell, give it -1 cost.

It was only a matter of time until this got hit with the nerf bat, as being able to give -1c to a hand full of spells 2-3 times in a turn starting from turn 5-6 was pretty ridiculous when compared to other options like Magnanimous and Cloud sloth. Similar to Nimbus/Starfield's change, Guru can only impact spells that cost more than 1, so he can no longer make 1c spells free, which should slow down combos/at least require you to combo him with something like Orchid/Brainstorm to actually bottom-out the cost of 1c spells to 0. overall it shouldn't totally kill the card, but will make it less of a standalone combo enabler, and require you put in some extra work to go totally banannas with it.

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Eclipse (3058)

    Power: 4 ➞ 3

    Health: 1 ➞ 2

    Spell: Lead ➞ None

Nerf via removing Lead and shuffling a statpoint into health to compensate. Between this and CHester HRT had a few too many 'free lunch' units that garunteed draws. comparing this to Beatle, it also seemed particularily unfair (and may still be unfair to beatle) since it draws 2x the cards, share all his keywords, and beatle's draw is dependent on his fate, meaning that it can be stifled by any attachment as well as dusting. Eclipse should still be ok without lead but will carry a bit more risk.

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Evermore (3075)

    Cost: 3 ➞ 5

    Text: Return your top and bottom dead units to hand. ➞ Return your top and bottom dead units to hand. Give them +1/+1.

HRT's unique recursion ability allows it out outlast many other prisms in games of attrition, and while I love HRT, that ability needed some toning down, with the largest offenders being those that could resurrect more than one unit at once. So we have large nerf to Evermore moving it up the curve 2 spaces and having it buff the units it returns as some compensation, making it less of an autoinclude in HRT decks. It should still be a very valuable lategame tool but now carries a much greater risk of being dead mid-earlygame due to its much more restrictive cost.

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Pyrecrafter (3091)

    Text: Death: Do 2 damage to a random enemy unit. ➞ Death: Do 1 damage to the left-most enemy unit.

    Traits: banner ➞ banner,wither

While I really like Pyrecrafter, the tempo it gave earlygame was likely a bit too bonecrushing, so i'm working a sidegrade here, dropping its death damage by 1 but giving it wither, meaning it still takes 2 statpoints off an enemy unit on death, but now its -1/-1 rather than 0/-2, making its raw killing power lower, and it also now targets the leftmost enemy unit, allowing opponents to counterplay it with barriers and armor. IMO it should still be a good tool, but offers aggro decks more options for playing around it.

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Casket (3095)

    Cost: 3 ➞ 4

    Traits: None ➞ guard

A nerf to a major powerhouse - Casket offered a very solid body on curve, coupled with the ability to float into another unit on death and activate its death effect, potentially granting even more tempo. This tweak offers it guard, which forces your opponent to trigger it, but also moves it 1c up the curve, making its formerly solid statline much flimsier at its current cost. It should still be good, but hopefully will be less of an autoinclude now.

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Magnanimous (4083)

    Cost: 7 ➞ 6

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

    Traits: guard,banner ➞ guard

With Guru being taken down a peg, it seems fine to buff Magnanmous up a bit, dropping 1c and banner, as well as the sself-mulligan clause. Will have to see what he can do with Zam and Friends - should help buff up some more int-driven combo strategies.

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Royal Mummy (20016)

    Text: Death: Give your hero +2 health. ➞ Death: Give your hero +2 health. Dust this unit.

Probably one of the more impactful changes, our beloved mummies are now a bit dustier, following the route of earth golem, they now self-dust on death, meaning that you can't unfallow or Grave Roil a ton of mummies to gain a massive amount of hp, which should cut into HRT's long-range healing potential signifigantly, While not hurting the immediate power of any mummy-spawning cards.

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Volcanic Blast (50)

    Text: Dust the top three cards of both graves to do 3 damage to each unit. Attach Flames to units if fire was dusted. ➞ Do 2 damage to each unit. Dust the top three cards of both graves. Attach Flames to units if a fire card was dusted.

A few tweaks here - first, the damage rate on Volcanic blast was kind of unusually good, owing to its weird casting restriction that created weird interactions with banner, so I've bumped its base damage down, but now it no longer requires both players to have 3 dead cards, it will deal damage, then dust the top 3, and then give flames. Note that because of how unit death cleanup works, it will not dust units killed by the inital 2 damage, since the spell has to fully finish resolving before those units will actually die.

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Jar of Souls (3054)

    Text: Summon your top three dead units as 1/1 with wither. Ready them and attach Hex to them. ➞ Summon your top three dead units as 1/1 with guard. Attach Dazed to them.

Another Nerf to perhaps the most powerful multi-rez card in the game, and one that I've been thinking on for awhile. This 'nerf' actually lets you keep the units Jar brings back as guards, which is similar to a much older version of Jar. However, since they don't ready on summon, you can't inherently kill them off to trigger their death effects, which means your opponent can actually respond to your play and take action against it, potentially dusting death effect units like Phoenix, etc and thus denying your their effects. Similar to removing Lead from Dracomantium, this should offer more dynamic gameplay by giving your opponent the opportunity to respond to death effect units summoned by Jar.

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Meranda (3057)

    Cost: 4 ➞ 3

    Text: Summon: Attach Vapors to allies with enchants. ➞ Play: Attach Vapors to target ally unit.

    Traits: guard ➞ stealth

    Health: 4 ➞ 2

With two 3c heart cards moving up the curve in Casket and Evermore, the 3c slot needed at least one more card, so I've retooled meranda, moving her down the curve and making her stealthier, to differentiate her from trident true, as well as allowing her to immediately place a vapors as a play effect, maintaining her ability to heal off negative enchants and also letting her synergize with units that can overwrite their own attachments, like Light Knight, etc. Coupled with the buff to her school of fish spell, shes likely to be one to keep an eye on.

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Chester (3096)

    Text: Death: Draw two spells. ➞ Death: Draw two spells. Make them GOLD! (For this match only.)

Probably the most overpowered buff in Skyweaver history, Chester now makes the spells he draws GOLD! (for this match only) Styling on opponents has never been easier!

(Note that the effect is exactly the same as it was before in terms of mechanical power, but the psychological impact of flexing on your opponents with purely asthetic changes should not be underestimated!)