v1.3.5: Doubleplusgood

Rules Change

When Vitality is involved, some games land in the 100-200 turn mark. To make these games end a bit faster, the life requirement to win the game has been reduced to 500.

Balance

Our Entries over 2.5 sigma for this patch:

[CORES] Pass                             : +4.53σ over 849 games
[CLASS] Evoker                           : +4.43σ over 7120 games
[BASIC] Cloud                            : +4.31σ over 12671 games
[BASIC] Elder                            : +3.92σ over 13042 games
[AETHR] Poison Darts, Rank 9             : +3.85σ over 454 games
[AETHR] Chromatic Sphere, Rank 6         : +3.66σ over 810 games
[BASIC] Fire Elemental                   : +3.59σ over 14024 games
[CORES] Ritual of the Pyramid            : +3.41σ over 793 games
[SETUP/v12] Second W5                    : +3.39σ over 6486 games
[AETHR] Absolute Zero, Rank 9            : +3.21σ over 248 games
[CORES] Pawn                             : +3.16σ over 813 games
[AETHR] Priestess of Storms              : +3.07σ over 345 games
[AETHR] Armageddon, Rank 6               : +3.07σ over 362 games
[CLASS] Elementalist                     : +2.99σ over 1875 games
[CORES] Lava Spike                       : +2.96σ over 463 games
[AETHR] Holy Blastwave, Rank 8           : +2.96σ over 309 games
[CORES] Healing Circle, Rank 0           : +2.93σ over 275 games
[AETHR] Chain Darts, Rank 6              : +2.88σ over 303 games
[BASIC] Earth Elemental                  : +2.80σ over 12659 games
[AETHR] Arc Lightning, Rank 3            : +2.79σ over 233 games
[AETHR] Burst Lightning, Rank 7          : +2.73σ over 398 games
[BASIC] Meditate, Basic                  : +2.70σ over 10870 games
[BASIC] Burst Lightning, Basic           : +2.65σ over 12752 games
[AETHR] Vitality, Rank 4                 : +2.61σ over 609 games
[CORES] Fire Darts, Rank 0               : +2.60σ over 782 games
[AETHR] Chromatic Sphere, Rank 7         : +2.60σ over 683 games
[CORES] [HUMAN] Lava Spike               : +2.52σ over 95 games

[AETHR] Stone Rain, Rank 4               : -2.50σ over 262 games
[AETHR] Vitality, Rank 3                 : -2.50σ over 623 games
[AETHR] Rising Water, Rank 4             : -2.51σ over 178 games
[SETUP/v12] Second F3                    : -2.52σ over 5979 games
[CORES] Ritual of the Pyromancer         : -2.54σ over 801 games
[AETHR] Mystic Flare, Rank 7             : -2.60σ over 323 games
[AETHR] Vitality, Rank 6                 : -2.62σ over 926 games
[AETHR] Healing Circle, Rank 2           : -2.62σ over 222 games
[AETHR] Stone Rain, Rank 3               : -2.62σ over 224 games
[AETHR] Ignite, Rank 2                   : -2.64σ over 260 games
[AETHR] Wall of Ignition                 : -2.64σ over 369 games
[AETHR] Meditate, Rank 2                 : -2.74σ over 592 games
[CORES] Mist of Avernus                  : -2.74σ over 798 games
[AETHR] Vitality, Rank 1                 : -2.78σ over 705 games
[CORES] Overheal                         : -2.89σ over 302 games
[AETHR] Craftsman                        : -3.11σ over 645 games
[CORES] Ritual of the Aeromancer         : -3.14σ over 784 games
[BASIC] Titan                            : -3.25σ over 12666 games
[CLASS] Universalist                     : -3.29σ over 8872 games
[BASIC] Phoenix                          : -3.41σ over 12734 games
[SETUP/v12] First F3                     : -3.45σ over 5894 games
[AETHR] Monastery Swiftspear             : -3.91σ over 253 games
[BASIC] Disciple                         : -4.22σ over 11873 games
[CORES] Ritual of the Commander          : -4.53σ over 760 games

(Someone tell itch.io to let me make code blocks without doing hacky stuff with the HTML editor.)

(A9) Cloud: 3!/21 -> 3!/20

(A7) Phoenix: 4/18 -> 4/19

Dev comment: At a certain point I'm going to lower the revive threshold to 8 fire.

Poison Darts, Rank 9: -6 life -> -7 life

Priestess of Storms: 1!/16 -> 1+!/7, on-play ability is now "I immediately attack". (This is a stronger on-play ability than before!)

Ritual of the Commander: [35] -> [40], now a Chronomancer card.

Vitality, Rank 1: 2 -> 3 (it had a very sus comparison with the other vitalities)

Lava Spike: [44] -> [43]

F7 now has the [Chronomancer] tag.

The prod server says that W5 > E5 > F3 VERY noticably. This is a hard problem, and I would like to see how the rebalance to A9 and the elementals this patch affect these numbers before trying to make any changes.

Evoker is also doing better than I'd like it to be. I want to see how much the new Rejuvenate spell this patch moves the needle on that, as well as the few nerfs Evoker is receiving this patch, but it's likely that some of Evoker's best toys will be hit with the nerf bat next patch. I also have an adjustment idea for Armageddon, but I want to get more data before doing it because the great performance of the Rank 4 version is confusing me.

It's possible that elementalist and universalist will have their starting life total adjusted, but I will leave this at the status quo for now as there's other changes being made.

Elementals

F10: hp 21 -> 20

W10: hp 21 -> 20

A11: hp 21 -> 20, damage 7 -> 8

E10: hp 21 -> 20

Aether Elemental (7): hp 21 -> 20

Ritual of the Pyramid: [47] -> [46]

Dev comment: this card was balanced when elementals were 23hp, but elementals having lower hp makes this card substantially better.

New Cards

Holy Nova, Rank 7 is now available. It has 3+ power.

Rally (Chronomancer Ranked)

! Modify ally creatures with +X power.

?

Pure Healing

The restorer color pie now includes pure self-heal. There's some reasoning that went into consideration over this decision, including Restorer and Vitality in neutral, Restorer counterplay, and race situations, which I don't feel like explaining right now.

The factor that ended up deciding it is I want pure heal in the game (especially seeing current Evoker stats) and Restorer is clearly the best place to put it.

Rejuvenate (Restorer Ranked)

Heal yourself.

The Power of Shrapnel Storm has been adjusted for non-balance reasons. This is strictly a buff, but the bots are claiming these numbers are balanced.

Flame Wave, Rank 5 and up have been adjusted, as such:

Flame Wave, Rank 7 and Rank 8 no longer summon tanks.

Tank is now available as a standalone unit:

Tank [Banisher 8]

! Damage all enemy creatures equal to your aether. (Before paying this card's cost.)

6/27

Stone Rain, Rank 5: 15 -> 10+

Stone Rain, Rank 6: 18 -> 6++

Stone Rain, Rank 7: 14+ -> 0+++

Finally, people have accidentally been clicking the exit game button, so now the picture is a white flag to make it more clear what that does.