Patch notes: April 8th, 2016

NEUTRAL

• +Queen's Assassin: now 3f 1/1
  (was 4f 1/2)

MULTI

• +Wavecrash Colossus, Windstorm Colossus, Volcanic Colossus, and Primeval Colossus have had their Attack and Life values set to 1/8
  (were 0/8)

GREEN

• -Ruunin’s Avenger now gains +0/+1 for each time you've been dealt damage this game.
  (was Gain +1/+1 for each time you've been dealt damage this game.)

BLUE

• +Gabrian Warden can now target herself
• +Tale of the old Turtle now costs 4f
  (was 5f)
• +Orosei, Dream of the Deep now transforms all your other creatures into creatures who cost 2f more.
  (was 1f more)
• +Humbling Vision reworked to 3f LL "Reduce a creature's Attack and Life by half (rounded up)."
  (was 2F LL "Reduce a creature's Attack by half (rounded down)")
• -Ninja Toad is now 4f LLL
  (was 3f LLL)

RED

• +Lord of Terror now 5f, 2/6
  (was 6f, 1/6)
• +Bomb Slinger can now target structures
• -Flame Burst changed to:
  Choose one:
  Deal 3 damage to a creature.
  Pay 3f more to also deal 3 damage to adjacent creatures.
  (previously could target and damage the Orb and structures)
• -Blood Obelisk reworked to 3f MM- "Whenever a friendly creature destroys an enemy creature, you gain 2 Faeria."
  (was 4f MM - “"Whenever an enemy creature dies, gain 2 Faeria.")

YELLOW

• Wind Gate reworked to:
  2fDD
  4 life
  You can summon creatures adjacent to this structure.
  Activate - Move Wind Gate.
• Celestial Tower reworked to:
  2fDD
  3 life
  Activate - Give a creature Charge 5 this turn. Deal 1 damage to this structure.
• -Soul drain can no longer target orbs.
• -Azarai, Wrath of the Desert’s ability reworked to:
  Gift - Azarai drains 2 Attack from each enemy creature.
  (was Gift: Destroy an enemy creature.)
• -Last Nightmare now costs 3 Deserts.
  (was 2)
• +Death Walker Now has Deathtouch.
  (translated versions will not see this yet)

Crafting and Disenchanting updates

• You may now disenchant all cards that were "nerfed" in the most recent patch for 1 week at the full crafting rate.
• Starting from this patch, you will receive the full amount of spent Memoria for each previously crafted card when purchasing the full collection

Bug fixes and UI adjustments

• Fixed a bug in crafting where you could not craft a card while having only the exact amount of Memoria required
• Fixed a client crash that could sometimes happen involving quests
• Changed the text "Surrender" from the observer menu to "Quit"
• Fixed an issue where a re-connection could cause a player to have to wait for their turn to end without being able to act.
• Private game lobbies now persist after a match is finished
• If a Private lobby moderator leaves during a game or disconnects, the moderator role will now be assigned to the first player in list
• Colossi should now properly display their Attack for spectators
• In private game lobbies, deck selection is no longer cancelled when the background is clicked
• Hovering over codexes in the divine challenges should now show the cards within the codex

Known issues

• Bomb Slinger currently cannot target minions. This will be fixed tomorrow.
• Humbling Vision functions correctly, but displays the wrong health values. This will be fixed tomorrow.

Developer insights

Azarai, Wrath of the Desert

Azarai has been terrorizing the meta for over a week now. We agree with the community that his presence extended a little farther into most games than he probably should have. That said, we want to keep a lot of “comeback” cards in Faeria. Azarai was certainly that, but just a little over the line. We think keeping a decent selection of “comeback” cards is a very important part of what can make Faeria fun to play. We considered many, many new designs for Azarai, and finally decided on one that takes advantage board interaction, leaving bodies in the field that can continue in play. We hope the new Azarai will generate some new, memorable plays. It’s also another card that can deal with the swarming of units in Faeria, something we continually point cautious eye toward. The new Azarai is very much a disguised board sweeper, only he does it in a much more interactive fashion, and board interaction is really a big part of what makes Faeria so unique and fun to play.

Last Nightmare

This change did not come lightly. We considered many, many different options here. This may be the most dangerous card change in the entire list. We recognize that hard removal is what keeps a lot of potentially overwhelming strategies in check. Faeria could be said to be “hinged” on the availability of hard removal, and Last Nightmare has always been the pivot point.

On the other hand, we also recognized that Last Nightmare was being splashed into nearly every deck, decreasing deck diversity by far too much. We felt that moving Last Nightmare deeper into the Desert could have terrible consequences with no other changes, so we have in turn buffed a few other hard removal options to help deal with any potential issues that might arise. Lord of Terror, Humbling Vision, Death Walker, and Queen’s Assassin could be considered to be the counterweights to this change. We hope it will give more options for other deck types to use forms of hard removal that exist within Faeria that are not only Last Nightmare.

Regardless, we will continue to monitor the meta-game and see the long-term effect of these changes, and continue to make adjustments as necessary - as we always do!

Burn

We want to continue to steer decks away from dealing too much out of hand damage that avoids board interaction. Flame Burst and Soul Drain are two of the clear culprits here, and have been reworked to interact with creatures only. In addition, Blood Obelisk has been reworked to be more creature oriented. Though Blood Obelisk provided no direct “burn” damage, it’s part of the engine that can make decks like this work a little too efficiently.

The Collossi

We recognize these units could use a slight boost in power after their recent redesign. We hope to find a nice balance where these giants have great utility in Pandora, while still being a reasonable include for constructed. Time will tell.

Wind Gate and Celestial Tower

These changes may seem strange, but the main issue we are dealing with here is the ability to do an incredible amount of Orb damage in one turn using the previous Celestial Tower. We weren’t happy with how it limited out current and future design space, so we’ve reworked these structures into something new.

Green and Blue

We’ve talked a lot about Red and Yellow, but we’ve had our eye on the other colors as well. Ruunin’s Avenger was performing slightly above where we intended it to be. We want it to be a strong defensive unit that gets even stronger as the game goes on against continued aggression. The extra attack it was given made it a little too offensively strong as well, so we’ve toned it back a bit.

Tale of the Old Turtle previously had a high cost of 5 for a very good reason - and that reason was the previous Wavecrash Collossus design. Now that this card no longer exists, there is no real reason to keep Tale at such a high cost, so we didn’t.

Ninja Toad has had free reign over the battlefield for far too long. He is able to routinely harvest Faeria once, sometimes even twice per turn when used - making his true cost much lower than it initially appears. We’ve increased his cost to compensate for this, but still feel he remains a powerful creature.

In contrast to the Ninja Toad nerf, we’ve given a strong buff to Gabrien Warden. This should give more options for Blue decks in a variety of situations, including against the newly empowered Deathtouch units.

That’s it! Thank you for reading, and don’t forget about our huge eSport and tournament announcement made earlier today. We're very excited about it.

Have a good weekend!

-The Faeria Team