Patch Notes 10.5

[RyanSchou]

Hey everyone,

Update 10.5 will bring a bunch of changes and adjustments, with the highlights being Neutral reworks, Deathwish Monsters and a new 'Timer' Keyword!

Check out our latest Developer Update for an in-depth look at the upcoming changes:

New Features

New Keyword - Timer: Before the end of your turn, lower the number by 1. When the number reaches 0, trigger the ability.

Timer is a new keyword added to cards that had a counter going down every turn (Ciri: Dash, Megascope, Saskia: Commander etc.).

Timer abilities will now trigger before all end of turn effects - which means that if Portal or Megascope summon an engine card, its end of turn ability will now trigger!

Changes

Returning Journeys - Geralt and Ciri make a comeback! Choose which Journey you want to progress, and return where you left off!

• Rewards - Progress the Journeys to unlock ornaments and vanities, and earn Reward Points in the Standard and Premium paths.

• Contracts - Unlock even more rewards by playing matches with your favorite vanities.

• New Types of Trinkets - You will now be able to unlock additional rewards. For Geralt: Auras based on Witcher signs, and for Ciri: Trophies based on her adventures.

• New Weekly Quests - Each week only 3 quests will now be available for the Journey. If you’re unable to complete any or all of these quests, you’ll get the option to reroll old quests from the previous week to the new week. Quests stay the same no matter which Journey is selected. The Crown Pieces earned after completing a quest will be added to the currently selected Journey.

• Story - Check out the stories for Geralt and Ciri, which will be both fully available with the release.

Info: We are disabling non-completed contracts which are tracking the completion of Journey Quests, while we are working on a fix for these contracts. Your progress will continue to be tracked after the fix.

Neutral

Ciri: Dash - Tooltip adjusted to include the new Timer keyword.

Hen Gaidth Sword - Card type changed from artifact to special.

Ability changed to:

Echo.

Damage an enemy unit by 5, then Spawn and play a base copy of the stored unit and give it Doomed.

Deathblow: Banish the unit and store its soul in the Hen Gaidth Sword.

Mysterious Puzzle Box - Tooltip adjusted to include missing information.

Now reads:

Disloyal.

Deploy: Spawn a 7-power Lamp Djinn on the opposite row. If neither player has passed, choose a card from your hand.

Adrenaline 2: Spawn a 7-power Lamp Djinn on the opposite row and destroy self instead.

Order: Pick a card from your hand.

At the end of your turn, transform the highest-provision chosen card(s) in hand into Thing From the Box, then Banish self.

Portal - Tooltip adjusted to include the new Timer keyword.

Ring of Favor - Provision cost changed from 8 to 9.

Base boost changed from 4 to 3.

Saer Qu'an - Tooltip adjusted to include the new Timer keyword.

Sihil - Card type changed from artifact to special.

Provision cost changed from 11 to 12.

Ability changed to:

Damage an enemy unit by 1.

Deathblow: Play a bronze card from your hand, then move Sihil back to your hand.

Initiative: Also increase the damage by 1 for the rest of the game.

Stregobor - Tooltip adjusted to include the new Timer keyword.

Summoning Circle - Card type changed from special to artifact.

Provision cost changed from 6 to 8.

Ability changed to:

Resilience.

Deploy: Choose a unit from your deck and set the Counter to that unit's provision cost.

Before the end of your turn, remove a Counter from self for each adjacent unit.

When the Counter reaches 0, Summon the chosen unit from your deck to this row and destroy self.

Tesham Mutna Sword - Card type changed from artifact to special.

Ability changed to:

Damage an enemy unit by 5. Repeat once for each status it has.

Villentretenmerth - Tooltip adjusted to include the new Timer keyword.

Mastercrafted Spear - Card type changed from artifact to special.

Provision cost changed from 7 to 6.

Ability changed to:

Damage an enemy unit by 6.

Deathblow: Damage another enemy unit by the excess damage.

Megascope - Tooltip adjusted to include the new Timer keyword.

Petri's Philter - Provision cost changed from 7 to 5.

Ability changed to:

Deploy: Boost an allied unit by 3.

Order: Give an allied unit Zeal.

Thunderbolt - Provision cost changed from 8 to 5.

Ability changed to:

Deploy: Boost an allied unit by 3.

Order: Boost an allied unit by 3.

Wyvern Scale Shield - Card type changed from artifact to special.

Provision cost changed from 7 to 4.

Ability changed to:

Boost an allied unit by 4 and give it a Shield.

While in your graveyard, when you play a unit, give it a Shield, then Banish self.

Monsters

Arachas Queen - Ability changed to:

Deploy: Consume an allied unit.

Order: Spawn and play Arachas Nest.

Deathwish: Spawn a base copy of the Consumed unit on this row.

Old Speartip: Asleep - Tooltip adjusted to include the new Timer keyword.

Ritual Sacrifice - Name changed to Brewess: Ritual.

Card type changed from special to unit.

Power set to 5.

Provision cost changed from 8 to 11.

Ability changed to;

Deathwish: Summon 2 random bronze Deathwish units from your deck to this row.

Hybrid - Ability changed to:

Deploy (Melee): If a unit was Consumed during this turn, boost self by 4.

Deploy (Ranged): Consume an allied unit.

Vran Warrior - Provision cost changed from 5 to 4.

Nilfgaard

Masquerade Ball - Provision cost changed from 15 to 14.

Amnesty - Provision cost changed from 6 to 5.

Northern Realms

Amphibious Assault - Provision cost changed from 13 to 14.

Queen Meve - Tooltip adjusted to include the new Timer keyword.

Traveling Priestess - Ability changed to:

Veil.

Deploy: Gain 0 Charges. Whenever this unit is put back in your deck, increase the number of Charges by 3.

Order: Boost an allied unit by 1.

Whenever this unit is Inspired, gain Zeal.

Charge: 0

Siege Master - Power changed from 2 to 1.

Armor changed from 0 to 1.

Scoia'tael

Brouver Hoog - Ability changed to:

Deploy: Gain 1 Armor for each Dwarf in your hand.

Barricade: At the end of your turn, boost all Dwarves with Armor on this row by 1, then lose 1 Armor.

Saskia: Commander - Tooltip adjusted to include the new Timer keyword.

Vanadain - Power changed from 6 to 7.

Provision cost changed from 7 to 9.

Zoltan's Company - Ability changed to:

Spawn 2 Rowdy Dwarves on an allied row. Increase the number of Spawned Rowdy Dwarves by 1 for each Zoltan in your starting deck.

Crushing Trap - Tooltip adjusted to include the new Timer keyword.

Skellige

An Craite Longship - Tooltip adjusted to specify that only units played by the opponent on their side of the board will receive damage.

Syndicate

Ludovicus Brunenbaum - Tooltip adjusted to include the new Timer keyword.

Eternal Fire Inquisitor - Tooltip adjusted to include the new Timer keyword.

Game Fixes

The game UI can no longer become uninteractive when the player is observing the graveyard while it is modified.

Deadeye Ambush classification corrected from "Utility Ability" to "Spawning Ability"

The Doomed keyword no longer incorrectly indicates that it only affects units.

Dual row cards will now always show the "row specific effect" highlight when played.

Cards with "Draw a card, then ..." will no longer perform the second action when a card could not be drawn.

Dol Dhu Lokke's Order no longer becomes uninteractive when there are no units in the player's deck.

Figgis Merluzzo no longer has Zeal.

Ihuarraquax's Ranged ability no longer Summons the opponent's unit to a random row.

King Bran's start-of-game ability now correctly progresses Veteran contracts.

Sunset Wanderers is no longer able to sometimes trigger the Ring of Favor's Banish effect.

Sunset Wanderers will no longer be Summoned to the board if transformed by the Mysterious Puzzle Box while in the rightmost position in hand.

Cat Witcher Saboteur no longer skips its damage when attempting to target a unit on a full row, and being unable to move it.

Drummond Berserker's ability will no longer trigger if it was forced to transform prior to its turn in the end of the turn sequence.

 

[saodhar]

Just great. Some minor to average nerfs to Dwarves, a new life for the Spear and Shield, boost for the Arachas Queen (because we've all missed her and a swarm of Maduks), huuuge nerf for the broken Wandering Priestess, and absolutely nothing to the other cards from the April pack (ah, yes, the ring got a small nerf, yay!). I foresee a lot of fun and diverse games this season.
As for the reappearing journeys - so I can only choose one to get the new trinkets?

 

[Lidisse]

I hate where this game is going, lot of problems unsolved with almost to none balance changes. The new reworks are fine but you have to do 10 times more than that for me to play the game sorry.

 

[Sky_Waka]

They literally spammed "Tooltip adjusted to include the new Timer keyword" to make this update look bigger. Meanwhile 70% of the cards are still useless.

 

[Bedlam19]

Just remove draft from the game if you can't afford to keep it updated

 

[DosenCasualGamer]

Hen Gaidth Sword - Card type changed from artifact to special.

Ability changed to:

Echo.

Damage an enemy unit by 5, then Spawn and play a base copy of the stored unit and give it Doomed.

Deathblow: Banish the unit and store its soul in the Hen Gaidth Sword.

So this is like neutral Coup de Grace but the spawn and play is for next round?

 

[EduFerraz]

Oh boy, One more entre month playing against Golden nekker decks, with a singke adjustment in The provision nerf from ring.

The same goes for the priestess deck and The adjustment for AA provision nerf. (here, at least, they should be inspired to zeal, but its not that dificult)

Post automatically merged: May 9, 2022

About sihil. Really, you guys played that card to see if its vale 12 provision?

Its 1 damage (or 2) per turn, considering you need to play bronze units.

So, without iniciative, for 12 provision value you need to play 12 bronze units. Since usually you play 16 cards, that means you will only play 4 golds The entre game.

Lets say you get iniciative in One turn, it wont (problably) happens in turn 1, so lets say it happens im turn 3.

You need to play 8 bronze units to get acess to 13 points damage.


Aaaah and we cant forget it needs to trigger deathblow, wich is way more dificult.

OK devs, Nice joke with this card

 

[Slizzl]

AA into a massive Priestess swing is not difficult. I think this nerf is the wrong approach. Reducing the boost to 2 charges per shuffle seems more logical.
Instead of having the entire NR deck manipulation archetype revolve around this one card there should more to it.

Disappointed to see SY did not get anything this patch. The faction still needs work. Especially the self-poison and bounty hunter archetypes.

 

[igor565]

Why so many same topics?

 

[BALAGAN_GUN]

No nerf for skellige and nilf.... elfs and monsers dead(

 

[theodoro84]

I loved the game!
This was made with passion
i work with 3D motion graphics
Being a while since I´ve played magic

Amazing work
Congratulations

I have ONE COMPLAIM
That card 3 / 10

Geralt kills even the dead
Just like that

Thanks

 

[yeahalright]

Looks pretty good, but not sure if this will change the meta. I like how cards that haven't been touched in years are finally being made useful again. The new "timer" keyword is a nice addition, and is a major tempo buff for these cards. Saskia:Commander may actually be viable again, which is nice. Nerfing Ring of Favor seems appropriate, probably not as needed anymore.

 

[Euan_Davidson]

Oh boy. I really don't like sounding overly critical, and I hope I'm wrong about how the next month will pan out, but these patch notes fill me with dread. Seems like a few new strong neutral cards which are going to be tediously ubiquitous, and nowhere near enough to tackle existing problems.

This last month has been pretty dreadful really, and it doesn't look like it's going to change. For me there are three big problem cards currently, and this patch fixes only one of them.

The one good thing - Ring of Favour has been nerfed. Phew. But otherwise? Travelling Priestess, one of the most absurdly broken cards I've ever seen, has been left essentially unchanged. She always comes out of the deck boosted anyway, so the Inspired requirement is going to do NOTHING. More importantly, they haven't tackled the broken interactions with Necromancy or Teleportation at all. And finally, Magic [insert swearword of choice] Compass, they haven't touched. Play a Legendary unit of your choice which can win one round, plus help out with thinning/discard package in another round, and all for 8 provisions, so it can even be used in a Golden Nekker deck? This card is an absolute monstrosity. How has it been left alone?

 

[radesign]

, Magic [insert swearword of choice] Compass, they haven't touched. Play a Legendary unit of your choice which can win one round, plus help out with thinning/discard package in another round, and all for 8 provisions, so it can even be used in a Golden Nekker deck? This card is an absolute monstrosity. How has it been left alone?

Yup, another lazy patch, that leaves most broken cards untouched - Compass, Priestess, Highland Warrior, etc.
Because of concurring lazy and uninspiring design, I`ve decided not to buy Jaskier journey.
And it seems, I will not buy anything else right now.
I`m not going to support this, unless the team finally starts to listen and do some proper balancing and reworks.

 

[DolphPingus]

The one good thing - Ring of Favour has been nerfed. Phew. But otherwise? Travelling Priestess, one of the most absurdly broken cards I've ever seen, has been left essentially unchanged. She always comes out of the deck boosted anyway, so the Inspired requirement is going to do NOTHING. More importantly, they haven't tackled the broken interactions with Necromancy or Teleportation at all. And finally, Magic [insert swearword of choice] Compass, they haven't touched. Play a Legendary unit of your choice which can win one round, plus help out with thinning/discard package in another round, and all for 8 provisions, so it can even be used in a Golden Nekker deck? This card is an absolute monstrosity. How has it been left alone?

I feel the nerf is almost non existent. Most deck will sacrifice a 5p card and use the ring anyway.
I mean, this abomination will guarantee 19 points instead of 20..wow..what a smart move

Priestess and compass are just broken and unhealthy. The first one allows a "solitaire" gameplay which is bad by default in every card game, the second one is insanely cheap considering what it provides. An 8p card that can potentially generate two fucusyas it's beyond crazy.
Maybe they are aware of that but they just don't care or it's simple incompetence.

 

[quintivarium]

This patch seems pretty insignificant.

I appreciate the timer keyword — it helps identify cards and facilitates searches. Nice quality of life improvement. The change in timing of counters is a huge buff to Megascope which used to be awkwardly low tempo on engines. But I don’t know that Saskia needed the same buff.

And I think the priestess nerf will have a huge impact — it makes it hard to play 2 priestesses in the final round, it prevents easy replay of a priestess, and it will require a rework of the deck that thins to two cards, then uses Roche to draw a Priestess and Tridam Infantry on the final turn. Priestess decks will now be far less consistent or they will rely on the now pricier Amphibious Assault.

Otherwise I don’t see much that’s interesting.

Ring of Favor is still a strong insurance policy for round one — as well as being its own best (and maybe only) counter. If a deck must win round one, it will include this card. If a deck doesn’t have to win round round one, it will still take the card to deny decks that do have to win round one.

Sihil is now more unplayable than it used to be.

Summoning Circle is now strategically rich and exciting. But I’m not sure it has sufficient, consistent value to justify four provisions, let alone eight.

Changes to the other Neutral artifacts are ok, but none are enticing. They still seem high priced for what they do.

On the whole, I doubt the monsters changes will mak any difference to Deathwish decks. Those decks (excluding Viy which is not helped — fortunately because it is toxic to strategic play) have inadequate control and too few points to be viable. These token “buffs” don’t change that.

The new Brewess Ritual is exciting — a burst of tempo might help (I would have to try it), but the loss of Ritual Sacrifice is costly — especially to meme deck potential.

I will also miss the old Hybrid. I’ve been trying to make a viable deck around him for months with no success. Now I guess I never will. The new ability is interesting because it’s less like Vran, but it won’t carry a deck.

Nilfgaard also need help in the current meta — instead they got two extremely obnoxious changes. All scenarios are imbalanced — they need to increase in provision (if you lack the courage to remove them entirely — but that is a separate topic). If NG needs a buff —and I believe it does — do that by buffing underperforming cards, not one toxic, overpowered garbage card. Seizing is another mechanism that does not need to be buffed — especially the seizing of low power units. All that does is encourage more reliance on archetypes using huge, on deploy type cards — and these are the least interactive and least skill-based decks.

I also believe the ST changes to be ill-considered. I am not convinced that ST needs any nerf — and I certainly don’t think dwarves does. But if dwarves do need a nerf, the problem is not with Zoltan’s Company — it is with Brouver Hoog and Munro Bruys. Fix what is broken, not a random card that is already hard to use well.

I also hate the Vanadain buff. He needs to be easier to remove — not harder. All this does is make a badly uninteractive deck more binary.

As far as Northern Realms, I like the nerf to Amphibious Assault — it is well deserved. I don’t know about Siege Master (I’ve not found it a problem), but Ok.

What I find most disappointing is how little this patch gives us. I was hoping for something to be excited about trying. I guess, for me, summing circle and brewess: ritual are worth a go. I expect the former to be bad, and the latter, insufficient, but we will see.

 

[ItsLordSnow]

Overall, not a bad balance update. I liked the idea of reworking some of the old neutral cards and transforming them into specials and echo cards, adapting to the current way in which the game is being played. I did like the attention that was given to Brouver, however, I think he would be better balanced if he had an Adrenaline ability set to (3/4) instead of him losing one armor at the end of every turn. In playing dwarves, making sure that Brouver has armor is one of the most difficult things to do, especially with your opponent's pinging it off of him every chance they get. By making him lose armor after every turn, the struggle of being able to provide him with armor would only grow more difficult. Give him an adrenaline ability, don't make it easier to take away the only thing that makes him such a good card in dwarves. Traveling priestesses have been one of the more oppressive decks this season, I would have liked to see her get more work done, such as a provision nerf, or an adrenaline ability that allows her to perform what she currently does, at a specific number of cards left in hand.

 

[Barracuda88]

Interesting change to Sihil. So instead of the old artifact, it works the same way, but you can keep it in your hand potentially for 3 rounds, making it better as long as you have clean deathblow targets AND bronze cards? Also, you have to draw it in R1. Sounds fun, but 12p? 8 maybe?

Zoltan's Company nerf is just silly. That card was bad for so long, finally became playable with the armor boost ability, then became really useful with the Zoltan rework, but NO, a 6p st gold can't play for conditional 10 while boosting like 2 units with 1 armor each. OP craziness. Must remove armor boost.

 

[Euan_Davidson]

Travelling Priestess, one of the most absurdly broken cards I've ever seen, has been left essentially unchanged. She always comes out of the deck boosted anyway, so the Inspired requirement is going to do NOTHING. More importantly, they haven't tackled the broken interactions with Necromancy or Teleportation at all.

I realised later that this isn't entirely accurate. The need for Inspired does slow down the replay with Necromancy or Teleportation, but not enough. A leader ability charge is all that's needed to bypass this and have it work again immediately.

The real issue here is how card abilities behave in the graveyard, which in some cases is just plain silly. TP should lose her charges upon entering the graveyard, in the same way Patience values should be reset, and units should not have their Veteran ability triggered whilst in the graveyard. This last one is particularly ludicrous - think about what it actually means. A soldier becomes a veteran by staying alive, not dying!

Yup, another lazy patch, that leaves most broken cards untouched - Compass, Priestess, Highland Warrior, etc.

And yes, I had forgotten about Highland Warlord. Another absolutely stupid card, and one they could so easily have fixed. Make his deploy an order, give the unit doomed, limit the deploy ability to working once per card per match, anything!

 

[quintivarium]

I realised later that this isn't entirely accurate. The need for Inspired does slow down the replay with Necromancy or Teleportation, but not enough. A leader ability charge is all that's needed to bypass this and have it work again immediately.

I think you missed something else — a player cannot choose both the leader that swaps units in and out of hand and the leader that gives zeal. Either you choose pincher maneuver to get lots of charges, or inspired zeal to replay without risk of removal.

Although I don’t agree that the card continues to create a deck that is unbeatably powerful, I do agree that the extent of possible carryover (through cards like Melusine and Viy with growing base value, cards with patience and non resetting charges, cards that handbuff, and now cards that deck buff, or cards that change rules like Highland Warlord) has become very dangerous.