MArcomage

Mojko wrote:
I found a nice picture in the picture library that Fithz Hood sent me :) and it was even named "Horde witch".

New apostate picture

Nice. I've updated the library.

Image for apostate

you mistake banish with durable in homepage

Yeah, I see it. Mojo made the mistake in the changeset and then used the changeset as reference when making the news update...

Sorry, my mistake >_<

everyone, remember to hit F5 to see modified pictures.
Ok, let's check what we have in this update:
Illusion now replaces a card (lowest rarity) from hand with a rare from enemy deck. I like it, it's a good boost to illusion decks. only problem: the discarded card could have been a common illusion needed to complete a chain, or it could be a card i really need (a titan in a titan deck or petrify in a unliving deck). Still I think it's a nice change. I like also new illusion cards, they're all dealing some damage and one is recruit based too.
Next major change is rebirth that can be discarded by banish (good thing), returns less gems (other good thing) and now works also with mage and legend (could be interesting), the bad part is about the two new rebirth cards, Lord of time and Avatar of vengange (former Word of power), they seems weaker than before. Avatar had lost its far sight (now it's impossible to summon via summoning cards) and the Lord has "Mage tokens = 0".
In the end we have new Aria keyword. Now it's only a support keyword, but I hope there will be the possibility to create a real Aria deck in the future.

I actually made an Aria deck and I say that experienced players will like it (so if you don't like it you are noob!). you have to plan your moves with attention, expecially with 2 rounds combos (nature, destruction, restoration, illusion,Vulture and Nightmare owl)

I agree about Word of Power. This and the changed Lancer is the two things that I don't like in this otherwise really good (and heavy) update.

One suggestion about Aria: I think Efreet and Genie could have Aria keyword also.

I disagree about Lord of Time and think that Rebirth is actually a buff to this card. Sure, you can't raise your magic with it anymore, but this card now returns 12 gems every turn, not 10 gems every second turn.

After extracting some feedback from other threads, replays and statistics I have gathered some balance changes. I plan to do a small balance changes update at the end of summer vacation.

Changelog:

- Globe of Myr - cost raised to 6G from 1G, removed Production x0, removed Durable keyword, added Rebirth keyword
- Mother of dragons - recruits cost raised to 12 from 5
- Necropolis now summons cards with fixed rarity (similar to Scepter of Evolution, but summons Undead cards only)
- Pegasus - removed Charge keyword added Aria keyword
- Sellsword - removed Brigand keyword, added Horde keyword
- Steelbeard - added If not New at the beginning of the card effect (note that if played when New both replacing and production x0 effects won't take place)

good move.
looking at stellbeard stats you can easily see how is overpowered. I usually check the statistic page to see how my concepts are going and belive me, I've never see a card with 44.44 (maybe only Byakko or Academy before they had "production x0")
About globe of Myr I had this crazy idea of making it durable and aria, I'm not sure if the proposed change will help it. anyway I think it's already a good card with nice summoning possibility.
ah, the change to necropolis could be applied also at other mass replacing cards, maybe with different proportions (for alliance I say something like 2 commons, 4 uncommons and 2 rares)

I think statistics are caused by many factors like
A new 'have to try out' rare
Durable
Very high summoning chance being a brigand

Also with the boosted illusion rarefest, it seemed like a nice remedy

I made some progress on the next balance changes. I plan to make an update in the first quarter of September, there is still a lot to do though. Here is the updated preview and changelog:

Changelog:

Cards:

- Crypt - resource gain is now conditional
- Dark templar - maximum stock gain lowered to 6 from 10
- Globe of Myr - cost raised to 6G from 1G, removed Production x0, removed Durable keyword, added Rebirth keyword
- Mother of dragons - recruits cost raised to 12 from 5
- Necropolis now summons cards with fixed rarity (similar to Scepter of Evolution, but summons Undead cards only)
- Pegasus - removed Charge keyword added Aria keyword
- Reiji Maigo - condition changed to "If Round is divisible by 3" from "If Round is divisible by 8 or 8 + 1", gems gain lowered to 15 from 20
- Sellsword - removed Brigand keyword, added Horde keyword
- Steelbeard - added If not New at the beginning of the card effect (note that if played when New both replacing and production x0 effects won't take place)

Keywords:

Aqua - Tower gain removed
Aria - condition changed to "If Round is divisible by 3" from "If Round is divisible by 8 or 8 + 1"
Banish - Discard highest rarity Durable, Persistent or Rebirth card from opponent's hand. Common cards can target common and uncommon cards, uncommon cards can target any rarity. Rare cards replace target card with a common zero cost card instead of discarding it. Opponent can't draw rare cards.
Illusion - Added "You pay a quarter of the replaced card cost."
Nature - Added "You pay a quarter of the summoned card cost."
Restoration - If a Restoration card is played after playing a different non-common Restoration card, you gain 6 of your lowest resource (12 if opponent lowered your stock last round).
Skirmisher - Discard highest rarity Charge or Recruits only card from opponent's hand. Common cards can target common and uncommon cards, uncommon and rare cards can target any rarity. Rare cards replace target card with a common zero cost card instead of discarding it. Opponent can't draw rare cards.

New keyword: Unique
Discard all instances of the played card in game except the played card. Can't draw rare cards.

The cards are ok. Maybe dark templar should not discards rare and it should give 1 stock every 2 dicarded card (stock:+N/2).

The keywords' changes are more troublesome.

you can use Aria every six round now making it easyer to use and more powerful. This could be a problem once new aria cards will be created.

Illusion nerf is feable but still unneeded.

Nature one is too harsh, modifing some rares (catastrophe is the more deadly) should be enough.

Restoration is ok, i like the conditional +12, but I'l probably miss the +1 to lowest facility.

Other changes I would like to suggest, many of them are old cards that haven't changed despite the introduction of many facility+, stock+ and changing hand cards:
architectural improovment: rise the cost to 30 bricks
banshee: raise the cost to 10/10
blizzard: raise cost to 32
call of the wilds: raise cost to 8
catastrophe: raise cost to 25, lower the damage from 5 to 4
clay golem: raise cost to 30
corsair: make it summons also common brigands
crusader: changing "enemy dungeon:-1" in "dungeon:+1"
curse: raise cost to 50
dark forest: raise wall gain to 23, changing "stock:+2N" in "stock:+N"
death wave: changing "attack:4N" into "enemy wall:-4N"
deathwood shaman: changing -6M into -5M, raising cost to 14/12
desert outpost: raise cost to 18
darwen dome: changing condition into "if tower<65"
darwen guard: change in "if there matching card or one of its neighbouring are new attack: 13 else attack: 25
elven apprentice: changing "summons" into "replace a (random) common in hand with"
elven rogue: switch its powers
eternal guardian: remove durable or remove attack
firestorm: change to "stock.-7" reducing cost to 24
firewall: lower cost to 30, lower wall gain in 35
flood: changing N into "40-#enemy bricks"
forest dragon: changing cost to 30r and lower attack to 7N
general's army: make it "sceptr of evolution" like
giant: add "enemy can't draw rares"
giant spider: remove frenzy lower cost to 4
goblin regiment: raise cost to 23
goblin sabotour: rise cost to 5
hungry dead: how came this one has still 4 keywords? remove Brigand
koshei the deathless: raise cost to 17
lava spectre: raise cost to 13, change "enemy magic:-1" into "magic:+1"
lich: raise cost to 9/9/9
master thief: raise cost to 15
myr's academy: lower cost to 7/7/7
necromancy: rise cost to 6g
orc regiment: raise cost to 65
pirates: lower attack to 9
poacher: lower attack to 3
poltergeist: changing reduction into 7
prince of thieves: add unique
Piramids: raise cost to 73b
redising: add "enemy tower:+enemy wall, enemy wall=0"
ravange of the fallen: raise cost to 9
rock elemental: change into "tower:+5N, N max 6"
spirith of earth: add unliving, lower cost to 8b
thug: raise cost to 6, add horde
tornado: raise cost to 37g
treacherus artifact: raise cost to 10/10/10
tribute: add "can't draw rares"
undead host: lower attack to 35+7N
volcano: raise cost to 32
warchief: raise cost to 15, raise wall gain to 20
wind witch: raise cost to 24, add aria
wishing lagoon: raise cost to 15

Edit: ops, I wrote too much

Cards:

Dark templar: I say again, make it able to draw rares for both players. That way it will be a powerful card with high risk.
Necropolis: But why?? I think it's balanced now. Maybe remove the tower gain or the gems gain. I think it's the Dark legion equivalent for undead.

Keywords:

I like the changes for Banish and Skirmisher. Restoration also seems reasonable. Aqua change is too harsh... I'd reduce the +5 tower/wall gain to +3. Nature seems also harsh. I hope we won't be hurting Nature once more... For Illusion I don't know. And for Aria, I think we should make it a token keyword, and maybe change it's effect to replacing opponent's cards with Wind (I think that was the original proposition).

dimitris wrote:
And for Aria, I think we should make it a token keyword, and maybe change it's effect to replacing opponent's cards with Wind (I think that was the original proposition).

nope, the original proposition was a token keyword with the same effects as actual aria, and I still think that was the better choice. I really don't want another replacing keyword, Horde and Burning are enough

Thanks for the detailed feedback. I'll be sure to process it in carefully. Here is the Aria usage simulation in rounds:

Player 1: 3, 9, 15, 21, ...
Player 2: 6, 12, 18, 24, ...

Another alternative would be to use division by 5. In that case, it would be like this:

Player 1: 5, 15, 25, ...
Player 2: 10, 20, 30, ...

I'll be revising the Illusion and Nature, but I think there should be some drawback for summoning rares. Necropolis is currently too random, the proposed change would help stabilize it.

I went through the suggested changes and here are my comments:

Call of the wilds - this is a significant increase in cost (from 1 to 8), i would probably just leave it at 5
Elven rogue - by "switch its powers" you mean changing attack from 8 - N to N and changing resource steal from N to 8 - N?
Giant spider - I would rather rework this card instead of removing Frenzy
Hungry dead - what's wrong with 4 keywords? 5 keywords are not supported.
Thug - I don't think this change is necessary, horde has quite a few common cards

All other changes are fine with only a little adjustment :)

Mojko wrote:
I went through the suggested changes and here are my comments:

Call of the wilds - this is a significant increase in cost (from 1 to 8), i would probably just leave it at 5
Elven rogue - by "switch its powers" you mean changing attack from 8 - N to N and changing resource steal from N to 8 - N?
Giant spider - I would rather rework this card instead of removing Frenzy
Hungry dead - what's wrong with 4 keywords? 5 keywords are not supported.
Thug - I don't think this change is necessary, horde has quite a few common cards

All other changes are fine with only a little adjustment :)

elven rogue: yes you understood corretly
hungry dead: my mistake

Skirmisher and Banish are great!
Aqua no more tower is kinda nice.
Aria is much better: easier to count,and bigger gap between players to use the keyword. Although I like 5 10 15 20 better personally.
Illusion toll is nice, but 25% of commons card is 0-4 resources.
Nature toll is expensive enough and I like it.
Restoration 6 is too low to bother, dunno if occasional 12 will compensate.


Templar is bearable, otherwise he had almost no drawbacks, but please don't touch rare discarding,it is great against halflings multiplying zero rares.
Globe of Myr now suits better the mage theme with rebirth, also mostly mages being swift.
Pegasus was asking for Aria.
Sellsword will get horde another big gun, which it has lacked. Will be great with goblin emperor or witch.
Steelbeard also asked for that change.

When I saw Unique- I thought it will mean my experimental concepts. Kinda jumped there for a sec, but no.
I am not sure if this new keyword will be a good thing. It's use is limited to discarding card alike Aria, which does it's job well already. What is the thought behind it, the incentive to take it in your deck? If it would prevent enemy from drawing same card or something, and Marcomage had some effects gained by keeping some cards in hand, but this one I do not get.

To tired to go through Fithz's lengthy suggestion list, maybe tomorrow.