As the balance patch brews, a wild herd of tournaments suddenly appear. Grab your decks and charge forth!

Prototyping practice

This week the Scrolls team has been heavily involved in prototype projects at the Mojang offices. It’s an excellent way to build teamwork and stir up the well of creativity present in each development team. You can check out some of the interesting results of the efforts at Måns’ twitter feed. In the mean time, we have been gathering and compiling the immense amount of feedback from the latest proposed balance patch. You can expect some adjustments based on what you’ve had to say soon.

As I mentioned in the previous blog post, the goal of this balance patch is to raise the factions up to near the same level, rather than beat them down. One way of doing that is to increase the viability of units and spells that seem slightly below the curve on where they should be, while toning down only those scrolls that seem far and away too strong. We want to avoid “reworking” scrolls as much as possible unless there is a clear need to do so. We’d rather introduce new scrolls with new properties in the next set. There are nearly forty scroll adjustments in the proposal, a lot of which affect very key scrolls to several of the factions. We think a lot of the new options that will be provided for players should increase the variety of effective decks in general. Of course, effects of the patch will be closely monitored as always – and don’t expect this to be the last adjustment to game balance by any means.

Weekend community events

Saturday – February 7th

The Braggin’ Brawl is a monthly competition between Scrolls guilds . Each guild selects a team of five representatives to do battle against one another. The competition takes place over two weekends, with the finals being on the second weekend. Winners receive an imaginary trophy named Susan. They’re not crazy, I swear.

The Braggin’ Brawl is a great format that showcases the fun to be had by joining or creating a Scrolls guild. Simply put, it’s always a lot more fun when you play something with your friends. You can join one by visiting the Scrollsguide guild recruitment forum or by visiting that guild’s individual website, such as the newly launched Wheel and Sail’s wheelandsail.com. Looking good!

Not in a guild yet? You’ve got another competitive option this Saturday, and it involves pineapples. Actually, I don’t think it involves pineapples at all – but it’s called the Pineapple Cup. Hey, things need names, alright?

The prize pool is over 25,000 gold, and it’s free to join! What do you have to lose? At the very least you’ll have fun trying your luck in a competitive format. If you’ve ever been interested in joining Scrolls tournaments but have been intimidated by the competitive nature of some of them, this is the perfect one to join.

Sunday – February 8th

The ESL Scrolls All Star series has come to a close, and the top 5 winners have been announced. Congratulations to _antirad_, Ghost_Bomb, Donkey74, Holofoil, and Legrandin!

Now it’s time to get back to more traditional ESL formats. That’s right – use any deck you want the whole way through. The Scrolls Open Cup Series for 2015 begins this weekend. This season lasts from now until the 22nd of March – so you have plenty of opportunities to earn points. Sign up for this Sunday’s Cup#1 here.

Tournaments to come

Resident top Scrolls player GuidoFubini, not the mathematician of the same name, is planning on hosting a tournament with a very competitive format – and he’s called it the Pirate Trophy. I know, it’s weird to name a tournament a “trophy”, so I’ve added the word tournament on to the end of it. Familiar with Swiss tournament formats? It’s designed so that you will play against others more on your skill level throughout. Basically: Do very well and play only against the best players, or lose a few matches and play those at your current win rating. Either way, it’s a lot of fun and there is a large amount of gold being awarded for placing high in the tournament or even just participating.

How much gold is the prize pool? Currently over 140,000. Sign up here!

Don’t let the name of this one fool you, it’s actually very simple. Build and submit two decks, be assigned a team, and beat the other teams! The twist is that you’ll be using decks others have submitted.

The members of the winning team receive a small amount of pizza-sized cash, and a Tier 3 Scroll of their choice. It’s free to enter, so why not give it a go? Find the instructions to register here.

I hope that’s enough for now to sate your tournament desires!

-Gary (@Atmaz)