Patch notes: 34 adjustments

As Faeria shifts its purchase model away from free to play and towards a single purchase system, we have been evaluating what that means to general card balance in the game.

In a traditional collectible card game, rarities are something that often dictates the power level of an individual card. Rares tend to be stronger than commons. Epics tend to be stronger than rares. Legendaries sit at the top. While Faeria never practiced this philosophy rigidly, its effects can still be felt most often in the lower rarity cards that see very little play in the game, especially in the competitive level. While it makes sense to have some "bad" cards in a system where you open hundreds of packs chasing the best cards, it makes little sense in a system where you make a single purchase for a core set or expansion. Under this new system, since most cards should be potentially viable in one game mode or the other, we are making an effort to bring the power level of individual cards closer together.

In this patch we are focusing on two major areas:

Increase the usability of many cards that are considered "unplayable" in standard games

Restrict the usability of cards that push other cards out of play

While there are many more cards we would like to adjust, we kept our changes restricted to the biggest offenders or changes that we felt were the safest to make with limited testing.

We are waiting to see how the release of Fall of Everlife impacts the game before making further adjustments, as this patch along with the expansion will likely cause big shifts in the meta. If you don't see a buff today for your favorite underplayed cards, or a nerf to the card you think is the most OP in the game, it doesn't mean those changes won't happen somewhere down the road. We will continue to monitor the meta and make balance changes regularly for the health and fun of Faeria.

With all of that said, let's get right to it.

The Buff List

Yellow

Doomgate Reduced the cost to 1 from 3.



Malevolent Spirit Reduced cost from 5 to 4. Increased Desert requirement from 1 to 2.



Oath to Oblivion Cost reduced from 2 to 0. Desert requirement increased from 2 to 5.



Red

Architect Land requirement changed from 2M to 1W1M .



Blazing Salamander Damage is now dealt to all adjacent enemies instead of just creatures.



Devouring Plant Reduced Mountain requirement from 2 to 1.



Firebringer Stats changed from 1/1 to 2/0.



Herald of War Increase cost, attack, and life from 3 to 4.



Shedim Pest Mountain requirement increased from 1 to 3. Life reduced from 3 to 2. Buff increased from +2/+0 to +2/+2.



Green

Tarum, the Forest World Reduced requirement from 5 to 4.



Tiki Chieftain Cost reduced from 3 to 2.



Tiki Healer Cost reduced from 5 to 4 Life and life gain reduced from 6 to 5.



Weeping Idol Reduced the cost from 1 to 0. Increased the Forest requirement from 1 to 2.



Blue

Gabrian Noble Life increased from 4 to 5.



Triton Trainer Gives +1/+1 instead of +2/+0.



Neutral

Explorers All six explorers effects are no longer Gifts. They will now gain stats whenever you meet the land requirements and not just when you first play them.



Long-horned Yak Increased life from 2 to 3.



Monkey Genius

Reduced Wild land requirement from 2 to 0.

Queen's Favorite Life increased from 2 to 3.



Walking Fortress Attack increased from 6 to 7.



Multi-color

Dream Keeper Increased life from 3 to 4.



Icerock Behemoth Cost, attack, and life decreased from 8 to 7.



Skyward Swordfish Reduced wild land requirement from 3 to 2.



The Nerf List

Soul Eater Ability no longer works while in play.



GroundShaker Increase Mountain requirement from 2 to 3.



Frogify Increase Lake requirement from 3 to 4.



Imperial Drain Refills wells immediately when destroyed Increased faeria cost from 0 to 1.



Yakkapult Increase cost from 3 to 4.



Gemshell Tortoise Reduces cost of drawn cards by 2 instead of 3 Attack reduced from 6 to 5.



Bug fix

Ancient Herald now takes into account the current stats of the creatures drawn, and not their original stats.

Designer Commentary

The following are some insights on some of the changes made today.

Frogify and Groundshaker

These are both cards that, in their own way, limit which cards can be competitive in the meta, and are often auto includes in their respective colors. Frogify limits expensive creatures by being a cheap way to neutralize both stats and abilities, while Groundshaker limits both creatures with Protection and creatures with 1 life. By increasing the land requirements on both of these cards we hope to not only make them tougher choices to include in decks, especially multi-color ones, but also decrease the window in which you have to worry about these cards being played against you.

Imperial Drain

While we believe rush should be a viable deck archetype within the game, we wanted to curb some of its more frustrating aspects, as a powerful rush meta can sometimes drive out many other deck types. Imperial Drain has often be considered one of the worst parts of playing against aggressive styles of play. There were few counterplay options without getting either further behind on Faeria, and even if you do destroy it the wells remained empty that turn. With these changes you opponent must invest some faeria into the card and, if you destroy it, you will immediately be able to collect. However, this also means the opponent will be able to collect on the turn it runs out of health - which is where they may not be able to recover the invested Faeria.

Gemshell Tortoise

Because of the power level of this card, Blue/Red control was freezing out a lot of other control decks that couldn't compete with the raw card and faeria advantage it could generate. Even after the discounted cards, you were left with a large creature that could achieve favorable trades with most other creatures in the game. By decreasing the faeria discount provided and lowering its attack, the Tortoise should be still a good addition to Blue/Red control without the deck overshadowing all other control decks.

Soul Eater

The change to Soul Eater is more about balancing against the additional tools that Green/Yellow sacrifice decks will be getting in Fall of Everlife. This also brings the Soul Eater more in line with other cards that get buffs while in your deck or hand, and should help with the over-complexity caused by a creature in play that is constantly getting buffs from multiple sources.

Yakkapult

Everyone's favorite yak transportation device is being changed primarily because it is incredibly faeria cost efficient. Seven points of stats, with ranged, and the ability to create 2/2 yaks across the board is a lot of value for three faeria. Its value only grows more and more the longer it stays alive. Increasing its cost to 4 helps balance out the cost/value ratio. As much as we love yaks, we feel this change is necessary.

Disenchanting bonuses

With the release of Fall of Everlife only a few weeks away and with the majority of today's changes being buffs, we will not be applying disenchanting bonuses to today's nerfed cards.

We generally have used disenchanting bonuses in the past to help out those players who no longer have viable decks. With 28 buffs and only 6 nerfs, it's very likely players will just hoard the memoria in anticipation of the economy transition. Instead of playing Wall Street Kid, we think it's better for players to hang on to what they have and experiment with new decks. As a reminder, disenchanting will be completely removed with Fall of Everlife.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading to the end - and we hope you enjoy today's changes. As always, we will observe the effects and collect feedback. We look forward to July 18th and the Fall of Everlife.

If you read all of today's post, make sure to type :faceman: in our official Discord chat.

See you there!