Aethermancer

Devlog

• v1.1.7: Chess Battles
  April 23, 2025 by MasN3

  Barriers Considered Harmful Barriers are being removed. In addition, the Vanilla units are overperforming a bit in the stats, particularly Knight. As such, the vanilla curve is being revised to: 0 man... Continue reading
• v1.1.6: Deluxe Deluxe Edition?
  April 19, 2025 by MasN3

  UI Update I've been working hard on the UI. Enjoy the new animations when you gain mana. New Cards Ice Lance (Chronomancer 4) ! Attack and freeze opponent. 2 In the original spectromancer, there was a... Continue reading
• v1.1.5: Deluxe Edition
  April 16, 2025 by MasN3

  The patch is named Deluxe Edition because of the much improved UI this edition. Check out the new damage visuals! It should be a lot easier to tell what Deterministic Bombardment is doing now. I refus... Continue reading
• v1.1.4: Spell 'Damage' does what now?
  April 14, 2025 by MasN3

  More ranked spells Triosurge (Neutral Ranked) ! (some life total adjustment for balance fine-tuning) @ ally. +X Fire/Water/Air/Earth, except its element. Cannot target Aether creatures. Rank 2 3 4 5 6... Continue reading
• v1.1.3: More Ranked Spells
  April 13, 2025 by MasN3

  Let's start off with a sales pitch for each class. Abjurer is the strongest class because it can leave you 1 short of your plays with reduce mana effects. Sometimes you can play around this by overpre... Continue reading
• v1.1.2: The Class Update
  April 11, 2025 by MasN3

  UI Improvements You'll see them. Banisher Adjustment The class requirement for Banisher has been increased from 5 to 6. To compensate for this, Rising Aether and Flame Wave, Rank 0 have been given +1... Continue reading
• Bot Update
  April 09, 2025 by MasN3

  In order to give a wider spread of bot difficulties, the bots are getting some adjustments. Wishful: Now only uses 3+ class decks. Randomness increased. At the time of this post, the parameter is 30... Continue reading
• v1.1.1 - 1 life for 1 mana for p1
  April 08, 2025 by MasN3

  Can you tell I'm running out of title ideas? UI: Turn Counter added, Life Total font is now bigger Base Set Update The Base Set is incredibly balanced right now, there's not many changes to be made. T... Continue reading
• v1.1.0: Circling Back Around
  April 03, 2025 by MasN3

  I played some aethermancer recently, and I had two thoughts: - Wow, these bots are strong. (Probably due to the Chip Damage bot update.) - Wow, these games are fast. (Probably due to the removal of Ic... Continue reading
• v1.0.9: Cleaning Things Up
  March 31, 2025 by MasN3

  Base Set and Statistics Update F +007 -002 -026 +005 +016 -017 +001 +008 -005 -006 -007 -005 W -029 -010 -013 +029 -005 +010 -008 +025 +006 +027 -004 -020 A -009 -003 +015 +012 -008 -017 -015 +021 -00... Continue reading
• The Aethermancer Game Rules, Updated
  March 29, 2025 by MasN3

  Objective Reduce your opponent's life total to 0. [1] Setup Starting Life Total: Determined by deck. [2] Starting Mana: 2 aether, and about 4 of each basic element. [3] Starting Cards: 16 random basic... Continue reading
• v1.0.8: Seeking Balance
  March 29, 2025 by MasN3

  Theme Update Classes are being renamed to mage schools, as follows: Antimage -> Abjurer Chronomancer -> Chronomancer Warlord -> Banisher Evoker -> Evoker Illusion -> Illusionist Cleric -> Restorer No... Continue reading
• v1.0.7: Freezing the World
  March 27, 2025 by MasN3

  New Mechanic: Freeze A frozen unit skips its next combat phase. From now on, 'summoning sickness' is not a thing. Units enter the battlefield frozen. 'Skipping combat phases' is no longer a thing. Car... Continue reading
• v1.0.6: Moving Forward
  March 26, 2025 by MasN3

  Cleaning up the Rules The game is now only ticked: - After the start phase. - After the action phase. - Immediately after any creature attacks. Furthermore, the amount of attacks a creature will make... Continue reading
• v1.0.5: Getting that Chip Damage
  March 24, 2025 by MasN3

  AI Improvements Previously, the AI has played many creatures in a way where it immediately loses to E6 unnecessarily. Now, AI of all difficulty plays around E6 if it does not have it, (Similar to how... Continue reading
• v1.0.4: I like to charge it
  March 22, 2025 by MasN3

  Bot Update Bot ratings at the end of the previous patch, rounded to the nearest 100: Visionary: 7300 Tricky: 3600 Challenging: 1600 Easy: 1000 Wishful: 800 The best three human players: 4900 (me) 2100... Continue reading
• Aethermancer Quickstart Guide
  March 21, 2025 by MasN3

  Running the Game 1. Download the game. 2. Manually edit account.txt to pick a username (replacing "Noob") 3. Run the .exe 4. Click Play Online Introduction to the UI Win the game by reducing your oppo... Continue reading
• v1.0.3: No longer boonproof
  March 20, 2025 by MasN3

  Patch Notes Change From now on, patch notes might be released up to 24 hours early so I can get feedback on proposed changes. If it's not available for download yet, just wait a day and come back. You... Continue reading
• v1.0.2: Aether Surge
  March 18, 2025 by MasN3

  Rule Change To prevent certain kinds of perpetual situations, from now on, reaching 1000 life is an alternate means of winning the game. AI Change Seeing as people were getting destroyed by AI last pa... Continue reading
• v1.0.1: Rank... Zero?
  March 17, 2025 by MasN3

  Base Set Changes F5 hp: 17 -> 16 (It was feeling too strong a play to counter a mana dork, and was performing at > 3 sigma over 900 games played with it.) E2 replaced. The new E2: Healing Circle, Basi... Continue reading
• v1.0.0: Finalizing the Color Pie
  March 17, 2025 by MasN3

  Evokers Right now, the Evoker meta seems to be always Lava Spike, never multiclassing. The power level of Evoker does not currently feel out of line, so here's a buff to encourage players to explore o... Continue reading
• ​Thoughts on Ranked Cards in Aethermancer
  March 16, 2025 by MasN3

  I've been adding some ranked cards to aethermancer lately. I think ranked cards are here to stay - I like how they cause you to think more about your opponent's class's generally capabilities instead... Continue reading
• v0.9.9: Rethinking the Color Pie
  March 15, 2025 by MasN3

  Balance Balance is looking really good right now. Forbidden Construction is a bit overtuned currently, and more importantly, the gameplay patterns weren't really what I've had in mind when making the... Continue reading
• v0.9.8: Ranking Up
  March 14, 2025 by MasN3

  Balance Forbidden Rook has been too good at low levels. I suspect Forbidden Construction is as well. In addition, both it and Forbidden Construction currently scale a bit too well with spell power. Fi... Continue reading
• v0.9.7: Meditate and Firmly Resist Cult Influence
  March 12, 2025 by MasN3

  Bugfix Fixed bug where players can survive after being reduced to 0 from a Dying Flame trigger. Statistics Update and Base Set Change Here are my stats: F +017 -027 -010 +032 +036 +025 -007 -025 +005... Continue reading
• v0.9.6: Forbidden Cores
  March 11, 2025 by MasN3

  Balance Changes X-bow (6): 7/5 -> 7/25 (okay, this is more of a bugfix) Rising Earth: lifegain 3->4 Rising Water: [44] -> [45], class req 2 -> 1 Rising Fire: [44] -> [46], class req 2 -> 1 Call to Spi... Continue reading
• v0.9.5: The Power Rising
  March 10, 2025 by MasN3

  Bugfixes I'm trying to settle down to a slower release schedule. However, this patch is coming only a day after the previous one, to fix game-breaking bugs involving Poisonous Cloud (5) and some cards... Continue reading
• v0.9.4: The Flood
  March 09, 2025 by MasN3

  Welcome to v0.9.4. This update is called the flood, because a lot of things are getting flooded. Statistics First of all, I've been flooded with statistics. I've instructed Visionary AI to play 500 ga... Continue reading
• Aethermancer Stats Update
  March 08, 2025 by MasN3

  I've been playing a lot of aethermancer the past couple of days with stats enabled. I mean A LOT. Over 150 games with stats enabled, which means I have 50 games with and against each base set card. He... Continue reading
• v0.9.3: The Statistics Update
  March 08, 2025 by MasN3

  With this release v0.6 is no longer available for download. The online multiplayer version of Aethermancer is the only version going forwards. New Feature: Statistics The game will now record your sta... Continue reading
• Aethermancer Gameplay Walkthrough
  March 08, 2025 by MasN3

  Let's do a quick tutorial of how to play aethermancer. All you have to do is to open the game and press play, and wait to get matched. Here, we got matched against an AI. In the top right of our scree... Continue reading

  
• v0.9.2 patch notes
  March 07, 2025 by MasN3

  Optional Client-only patch. Army Editor. Clicking anywhere you're not supposed to will save and exit your army. If you didn't mean to do that, just reenter the army editor and continue where you left... Continue reading
• Aethermancer Card Notes
  March 07, 2025 by MasN3

  This article is here to answer all rules ambiguities. Ticks Ticks are the aethermancer equivalent to state-based actions in other games. They are checked once at the end of every phase, and once after... Continue reading
• v0.9.1 patch notes
  March 06, 2025 by MasN3

  Base Card Change Ice Guard (W6) 2/14 -> 3/11 When talking about cards that flip who's winning the game, there's no base card higher on that list than ice guard. He comes down, immediately reduces burn... Continue reading
• v0.9 patch notes
  March 06, 2025 by MasN3

  v0.9 is a minor, OPTIONAL patch, with UI improvements only. (It's being rolled out early so people can report any bugs with the new menu.) It features a new menu screen, as well as two bugfixes: - Ele... Continue reading
• v0.8.5 patch notes
  March 05, 2025 by MasN3

  Improved AI Pruning Visionary AI now only looks deeper into the 5 most promising lines. Testing indicates the best line tends to be within these lines. 4-ply AI is not quite practical yet. For now, en... Continue reading
• Revisiting the Value of Mana
  March 04, 2025 by MasN3

  Last week, I've talked about improving the value of mana from a linear model. But to some of you, perhaps this methodology was a bit peculiar: we've constructed a function to satisfy some nice propert... Continue reading
• v0.8.4 patch notes
  March 03, 2025 by MasN3

  A Templating Change The production phase is a weird beast in Aethermancer. Why couldn't have simply been part of the start of turn phase? Well, a long time ago, Aethermancer wasn't as clearly defined... Continue reading
• The Future Bot and The Value of Mana
  March 02, 2025 by MasN3

  If you've been playing on ladder recently, you might have seen a new AI on the ranked ladder: [AI2.1]Future As the name implies, this bot is the future version of the Visionary AI. Unlike the other AI... Continue reading
• v0.8.3 patch notes
  March 02, 2025 by MasN3

  This will be the last release for a while. I've been working 12-16 hours every day to get Aethermancer off the ground, and I don't feel like doing that anymore. Besides, I think the game is now in a p... Continue reading
• v0.8.2 patch notes
  March 01, 2025 by MasN3

  Thanks for playing! It's been a tremendously successful launch of the Aethermancer online queue, with dozens of games played already. I've collected a lot of your feedback, and have prepared a new pat... Continue reading
• The Roadmap for v0.7
  March 01, 2025 by MasN3

  After rethinking the code architecture, I've decided that having both a PvE and PvP executable file is unfeasible because in PvE mode the client basically has to act as its own server. Thus, a client... Continue reading
• A change in the base set
  March 01, 2025 by MasN3

  After playing a number of games against the AI, I've noticed that too many games are being stolen by burn spells, A6 > F11 > E6. The obvious solution would be to nerf A6. While it's fine when fired at... Continue reading
• Prototype pvp_main.exe
  February 28, 2025 by MasN3

  A prototype version of pvp_main.exe is now available. Warning: it's extremely fragile: On start up, there will be a black screen while you wait for someone else to connect. if that doesn't happen in 1... Continue reading
• The Challenge of Balancing Vampires
  February 28, 2025 by MasN3

  Vampire cards are more powerful than the average aether card, but cost 2 life each. These life is gained by your unique 0, siphon. The problem: They are very hard to balance. You can use non-vampire c... Continue reading
• Balancing Combinations in Aethermancer
  February 28, 2025 by MasN3

  With almost any card game, the game immediately devolves to people finding the best combinations of cards to put in the deck, resulting in a very stale meta. This would seem to be even more true in Ae... Continue reading
• Update v0.6.3
  February 28, 2025 by MasN3

  The main feature of this patch are AI improvements and bugfixes. Due to sloppy code, the AI was previously making some extremely unprincipled moves, and I was able to get 5 wins in a row against "Visi... Continue reading
• Update v0.6.2
  February 28, 2025 by MasN3

  New Features: Climb the bot ladder! Fight bots to gain rating. Rating is saved across sessions. Fight tougher bots to gain more rating. Beware: if you lose, you might lose rating! Bugfixes: Hovering o... Continue reading
• Improving the AI in aethermancer
  February 27, 2025 by MasN3

  I've been looking for a challenge in Aethermancer. Only level 5 AI provides me that challenge, but with turns occasionally taking 50s, the wait time seems excessive. Brief recap on how the AI works: T... Continue reading
• Aethermancer Launch!
  February 27, 2025 by MasN3

  Aethermancer is out! Expect devlogs in the coming days as I talk about the aspects of this game... Continue reading

  
• Deckbuilding in Aethermancer
  February 26, 2025 by MasN3

  Deckbuilding in Aethermancer is a bit different from most other games. You play every game with 20 cards, and only 4 of them (your Aether cards) are ones you bring with you in your deck! That said, Ae... Continue reading
• The Aethermancer Game Rules
  February 26, 2025 by MasN3

  Setup Each player brings a deck of 4 cards. (The rules of deckbuilding will get their own article.) In addition, there are 48 cards of the basic houses. Each player will get 16 of them at random (thou... Continue reading
• The status of Aethermancer
  February 26, 2025 by MasN3

  Currently, there's a fully playable PvAI version of Aethermancer. (In private playtesting) The game is fully feature complete, and balanced after a lot of playtesting. This project will be available f... Continue reading