Frostheart Gems

Hey all! Corey Burkhart here with a design and development article about the new gems coming with Frostheart!

We really enjoyed how the changing of gems went with Herofall, as it gave us the power to alter the landscape for the limited format as well as adjust the nature of the constructed format. Design-wise, socketable cards are meant to have a feeling of customization. We want socketed cards to be flexible and exciting, letting you alter them as your strategy requires. With the gem rotation, we saw this design realized through an exciting meta shift that took place around the new gem offerings. Older cards had new combinations of gems socketed in them, while newer cards were freed from the context of Shards of Fate gems. It was great to see, and we’re standing by our decision to print new gems at the beginning of each chapter.

As we stated in the original rotation announcement, however, we are not always going to switch out every single gem in each rotation. We will occasionally want some of the gems to remain the same—not forever, but at least for this chapter. These gems are worth keeping around because they either give context to the designs in the new chapter or because they play exceptionally well within the design space of their shard. That said, we will always make some number of new gems!

To start, let’s show off the new offerings. These gems will be focusing on some of the themes and mechanics in the set:

You’ll notice there’s one new Minor and one new Major gem each. As we change thematic location and storyline away from the war between the Ardent and the Underworld to the troubles at the Frost Ring Arena, we want our gems to highlight this change mechanically. As such, there are new gems here that relate thematically to each of the new teams that we’ll be seeing do battle in the arena!

However, with something new, we must lose something old. Thus, we’re removing 1 Major and Minor gem from each of the shards, specifically the old gems that held Herofall and Scars of War specific mechanics. Here are the gems rotating out of Standard and into the Immortal format:

As you’ll notice, each of the gems that focused on the Ardent/Underworld, Valors/Dreadlings, and “attacking matters” mechanics have rotated out of Standard. This helps establish a climate much more suited for the tournament at the Frost Ring Arena!

In summary, these are the twenty gems which will be legal in Limited, Standard, and PvE once Frostheart is released:

If your favorite gem is no longer in Standard, never fear! This doesn’t mean that it’s gone forever. You can still play with your old favorites in Immortal, and it’s possible that some of the more generic gem designs will return to Standard someday. For now, there are tons of new combinations to explore with these fresh, Frostheart options, and we’re super excited to see what players will come up with! We’ve really enjoyed how these gems have played in our own Standard and Limited testing, and we cannot wait to see what you guys will build using these new gems!

See you on the battlefield~

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