Let's talk about the OTA (they accidentally published early) that might determine the entire future of this game - because they finally took a hammer to Arishem!
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Arishem
● [Old] 7/7 - At the start of the game, +1 Max Energy. Shuffle 15 random cards into your
deck.
● [New] 7/7 - Game Start: Shuffle 12 new cards into your deck. On turn 3, get +1 Max
Energy.
Since release, Arishem has been among the most played and discussed cards in the game.
After some early balance, the archetype's winrate and cube rate both settled into a competitive
but acceptable range. However, its play rate has continued to crest above our preferred
threshold for metagame diversity. That band is a little more lax in Arishem's case–the deck itself
adds a lot of variety to the gameplay experience–but we've reached its limit. So, we're adjusting
Arishem to start giving additional Energy on turn 3. In addition to removing two Energy overall,
this changes how aggressively the deck can deploy pressure. Since this is a solid nerf, we're
also reverting to 12 random cards.
However, in reading through frustrations around Arishem, one element that came up often was
playing against cards created randomly that were also in Arishem's starting deck. Predicting
Arishem is already hard, but accounting for "doubles" tends to make it even harder. That aspect
isn't crucial to Arishem, so we've adjusted the effect to only add cards that didn't start in your
deck.
Lastly, you'll see above that we updated the text's structure. We'd planned to make this change
in 2025, shortening "start of game" triggers into a keyword, but we're previewing it a bit early
since Arishem's change was ready to go.
Typhoid Mary
● [Old] 4/10 - Ongoing: Your other cards here have -1 Power.
● [New] 4/10 - Ongoing: Your other cards here have -2 Power.
Since we shifted Typhoid Mary to focus the drawback on one location, Mary's seen a big surge
in play and winrate, fueling variations of the Surtur shell. Surtur is still the clear best deck, so we
want to weaken some of its core slightly–but many of the cards don't have "wiggle room" given
the significance of 10 Power and specifics of their effects. We could revert Typhoid Mary, but
chose to pursue this middle ground instead given the new design was more fun to play with.
Alioth
● [Old] 6/10 - On Reveal: Remove the text from all unrevealed enemy cards here.
● [Change] 6/10 - 6/9
Similarly, Alioth is unnecessarily providing some extra tools to a strong Surtur strategy. We use
Alioth as a fairly specific kind of tool, and churning its strength is one of the ways we can create
fluctuation within the metagame. It doesn't need any special help to earn the right slots.
Enchantress
● [Old] 4/5 - On Reveal: Remove the abilities from all Ongoing cards here.
● [Change] 4/5 - 4/6
Since the last time we experimented with this improvement to Enchantress, a fair bit has
changed–including how often people play Enchantress. That's noteworthy because several
strong Ongoing cards are current pillars of the metagame: U.S. Agent, Darkhawk, Quinjet, Gorr,
and Morbius, at least. Rogue has been doing a lot of heavy lifting lately, and we do want
Enchantress to also serve as an effective dial, so more Power is warranted.
Black Widow
● [Old] 3/4 - Activate: Add a Widow's Bite to your opponent's hand.
● [Change] 3/4 - 3/3
Shifting Black Widow to Activate didn't weaken her as much as we expected–it's possible the
Grand Master shenanigans were a distraction, and these decks are better when they're more
focused. Since we did still want to wind up with a Black Widow nerf, we're reverting the stats
back to 3/3.
Frigga
● [Old] 3/3 - On Reveal: Add a copy of the last card you played to your hand. (if able)
● [Change] 3/3 - 3/4
Shuri
● [Old] 4/1 - On Reveal: If you play your next card at this location, double its Power.
● [Change] 4/1 - 4/3
How the times have changed! Once a metagame tyrant, Shuri fell to the bottom range of our
winrates for individual cards last week. Given the card supports unique gameplay flows, we
wanted to restore a bit of glory to it now that a range of archetypes are capable of competing
with its Power output.
Lockjaw
● [Old] 4/4 - After you play a card here, swap it with a card in your deck.
● [Change] 4/4 - 4/5
Uncapping Lockjaw's swaps brought Lockjaw back to life, but there's room for a little more. One
major element holding Lockjaw back has been the continued success of Darkhawk decks, which
threaten to incidentally shut Lockjaw down, but that's not the only bad matchup.
Stormbreaker
● [Old] 0/1 - On Reveal: Double Beta Ray Bill's Power.
● [Change] 0/1 -0/3
Cerebro
● [Old] 3/0 - Ongoing: Your highest-Power cards have +2 Power.
● [Change] 3/0 - 2/0
Elsa Bloodstone
● [Old] 3/3 - Each card you play to fill your side of a location gains +2 Power.
● [Change] 3/3 - 3/4
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