v1.5.0: The Art of Runecraft

Runes!

I'm sure you're all excited to find out how runes work.

You may include a rune in your deck. A rune acts as a fifth card in your deck. Unlike most cards, runes cannot be played; they provide only a passive effect.

Like a core, runes have a starting hp number. However, unlike cores, the starting hp number of a rune is always negative. This number is deducted from your starting life total.

While I have plans for multiple runes in a deck, for now, to keep things sane, you're limited to 1 rune per deck. Nevermind, you can have up to 4 runes per deck. Have fun!

Pass has been overperforming for a while now. It's been reduced from 48 to 47hp. With the new runes, there's still reason to use it.

To avoid weird interactions with Runes and other things, Assault Formation has been removed from the game.

New Terminology: Base HP

 The base HP of a creature is its default value for its max HP. Creatures are summoned at their base HP. Things that change Max HP do not affect starting HP, but things that change Base HP do.

No matter what, the Base HP of a creature cannot be less than 1.

Call to Spirits has been removed. There's a new rune that has a similar effect.

Similarly, Falling World has been removed, and there is a new rune with a similar effect.

New Cards

The new cards for this expansion, are of course, the runes. In addition to "No Rune", this patch features:

Many of the passive cores (lens of truth, ticking clock...) have been converted into runes at the same rate as before (starting life is however much they paid compared to the 47 of pass).

Card(AETHER, -8, "Rune of Aether",
     passive="You start the game with +1 Aether.",
     expansion="The Art of Runecraft")
Card(AETHER, -9, "Rune of Regeneration",
     passive="You start the game with +1 Regeneration.",
     expansion="The Art of Runecraft")
Card(AETHER, -17, "Rune of Frost",
     passive="Your opponent starts the game frozen.",
     school="Chronomancer", expansion="The Art of Runecraft")
Card(AETHER, -14, "Rune of Dominance",
     passive="Your victories count x2 times. Each additional Rune of Dominance has a +x1 multiplier.",
     expansion="The Art of Runecraft")
Card(AETHER, -18, "Rune of Apprenticeship",
     passive="Your spells have +1 power.",
     expansion="The Art of Runecraft")
Card(AETHER, -2, "Rune of Siphoning",
     passive="Start of Turn: Steal 1 life from your creatures, with 2 or more hp.",
     expansion="The Art of Runecraft")
Card(AETHER, -7, "Rune of Lifeforce",
     passive="Your creatures have +1 base hp.",
     expansion="The Art of Runecraft")
Card(AETHER, -8, "Rune of Deathforce",
     passive="Your opponent's creatures have -1 base hp.",
     expansion="The Art of Runecraft")
Card(AETHER, -5, "Rune of Falling",
     passive="Start of Turn: all creatures lose 1 life.",
     school="Banisher", expansion="The Art of Runecraft")
Card(AETHER, -12, "Rune of Harvesting",
     passive="Gain 1 Aether whenever your creature with 2 or more attack dies.", expansion="The Art of Runecraft")

Dev Comment: The Rune of Dominance is a design all other game devs are too cowardly to do. When you win a game when using the run of dominance, the victory will be recorded twice; the stats will show 2 wins for every card in your deck (including the rune of dominance), and you will gain rating (and your opponent will lose rating) as if you beat them twice in a row. 

All runes stack with themselves. This includes the Rune of Dominance - with 4 Runes of Dominance, they provide a multiplier of x2, x3, x4, x5. Therefore, if you somehow win, this will be recorded as you defeating your opponent 120 times in a row, and in this case your opponent definitely deserves it.

Combined with Channel, Rune of Siphoning lets you play kind of like a Vampire Lord from the original Spectromancer. 

A lot of games (shadowverse, inscryption, hearthstone) allow you to use corpses of your creatures as resources. The Rune of Harvesting is my take on the mechanic.