Fung Loving Family - Patch #51

Team Horizon

Aug 26, 2020

ARC

New out-of-this-world portal animations for Conjure and Dust effects have begun to appear this week! Certainly a scary sight for our little Fun Guy friends. But with the support of Ma Shroom, they can overcome any fear! 🤗 Even galactic anomalies that threaten to consume their entire existence! Because all you need is love.

New Features ⭐

  • New out-of-this-world portal animations for Conjure and Dust effects (plus a nice little debuff animation). Can you spot some new cards? 😮

Improvements 🦾

  • Added a 404 error page (so now you can know for sure if you’re completely lost when navigating the menu screen 😂)
  • Improved styling of the menu tabs component
  • Several quality of life changes to the market & card collection to improve card grade usability
  • Added ability to view Gold cards in the shop (in preparation for the new features soon™)
  • Added card grade quick filters to the market and library
  • Added grade specific price info

Changes ⚙️

  • Only show empty list warning when there are no cards filtered
  • Hid ownership filters on library when a grade is selected
  • Adjusted card text & attached spell hover areas to account for added component height
  • Added balance info when no frame filter is selected
  • Display frame specific balance info when a frame filter is selected
  • Removed pricing info from the shop controls, adjusted layout to make room for the new balance info
  • Altered tutorial progress design to be more readable

Bugfixes 🐛

  • Fixed various casting animation issues
  • Squashed bugs related to the UI on refresh
  • Fixed some animation portals facing the wrong way
  • Fixed hidden cards audio effects
  • Fixed timing and visibility bugs
  • Fixed a bug that prevented some users from passing the 4th tutorial level
  • Fixed tutorial 4 from being out of sync during the card selection screen
  • Fixed a bug where Heavy Cavalry was drawing armor units

ARC

Cards

Hello Skyweaver Community!

In response to control’s meta dominance, I’m adjusting some of our largest healing tools to reduce their maximum healing output, while trying to make sure they still work well when played on-curve as counterplay to aggro in the early and midgame. Furthermore, I have been working on improving and tweaking aggressive midrange and lategame threats to reduce control's safety past turn 8-10, and make the endgame more dynamic and contested. These changes are in service of making a more varied and healthier meta, and expanding aggro's options beyond simply rushing down opponents in the early turns (though it should have an easier time of that too!) Since we're approaching Soft Launch, I don't want to make major sweeping changes, so the majority of this week's changes, beyond those to healing, are attempts to tune the stats of cards to allow aggro more options and mix up the meta while not breaking anything core to the game.

I'm always listening to feedback, and look forward to continuing to iterate on this amazing game with your help!

Earth Golem (108)

Earth Golem - Death: Give your hero +10 health. Dust this unit.

    Text: Death: Dust your bottom dead earth card to give your hero +10 health. Death: Give your hero +10 health. Dust this unit.

    Health: 5 6

Golem was a particularly low-hanging fruit in terms of overall healing tweaks. Easily recurred and abused via HRT’s Reanimation cards, Golem could routinely generate 20-30 life between cards like Jar of Souls and Grave Roil. This tweak makes that impossible, but adds a little more bulk, so he should remain a good roadblock early, and also becomes a tad harder to kill off, which can be good... or bad. The way this dust effect works is also unique in that the healing and dust are not codependent. It is not “Dust this unit to heal 10hp.” He heals, then dusts himself, so if you discard and then Grave Roil him later, you will still get the heal. Glacial Hulk received the same minor buff.


Jakintsu (513)

Jakintsu - Summon: Give your hero +1 health for each card in your hand.

    Text: Sunset: Give your hero +1 health for each card in your hand. Summon: Give your hero +1 health for each card in your hand.

Arguably our best healer since it healed immediately and demanded your opponent answer it, lest it heal for even more. Now only applies its effect on summon, giving your opponent more options since they can choose to ignore it and go face. It will also heal slightly less on the top end, since having 9 cards in hand when summoning him will be difficult. He's more flexible now - since the heal is instant, he can be used more freely with stuff like Prismata and Necrotic Pact. Will still keep an eye on him, since he can still be abused via reanimation/recycling, and I can definitely see further tweaks depending on his performance. One such tweak could be making him "Play: Give target ally +1 health for each card in your hand" Which would prevent him from healing when recurred via stuff like Jar of Souls or Necrotic Pact.


Gift of Aya (671)

Gift of Aya - Gain 1 max mana. Draw your highest cost earth spell. Give your hero +5 health.

    Text: Gain 1 max mana. Draw your highest cost earth spell. Give your hero +1 health for each card in your hand. Gain 1 max mana. Draw your highest cost earth spell. Give your hero +5 health.

    Keywords: None banner

Reducing overall healing output and making it more stable, so it’s a bit better when you have a small hand, and doesn’t reward you for waiting until your hand is full to use it. Also has banner for greater tempo vs aggro early, but offers less overall sustain.


Libra (1115)

Libra - Summon: Give your hero +7 health if the enemy hero has more health.

    Text: Summon: Give your hero +7 health if your grave has seven or more cards. Summon: Give your hero +7 health if the enemy hero has more health.

The final healing titan to be tweaked, Libra now only seeks to balance the scales. If you’re already in the lead in terms of HP, it won’t let you stack more, which should help make for shorter games, and also creates the possibility for clever scenarios where you can benefit by damaging your own hero a bit to get lower HP than your opponent and get the heal to work. Have seen suggestions about switching to STR, but the curves didn’t line up effectively right now, and I think having some good on-curve threats in other prisms is nice. I have been working on other ways to provide STR with forms of healing though, since it is lacking there.


Ebb & Flo (1183)

Ebb & Flo - Play: Summon a guard copy with Vapors and swapped power and health.

    Cost: 2 3

    Text: Play: Summon a guard copy. Play: Summon a guard copy with Vapors and swapped power and health.

    Power: 1 2

Have seen a lot of talk on Vapors being too good - I get the feeling this less of a problem with Vapors generally, and more how easy Vapors was to generate/recur between these guys and Godlike. Now only the guard "water" half of the duo has vapors, while the stealth "ice" half has Frozen. This, along with being at 3c, means it cannot be abused as efficiently via "duplicating" it with stuff like Whelm, Jar of Souls, Evermore, and Undergrowth, which should cut down on the value of recurring it for mid-lategame heal + draws, and reduce the abuse of vapors as a whole, while focusing more on the stats and "water & ice" theme.


Reefus (123)

Reefus - Summon: Draw a stealth unit.

    Cost: 3 2

    Health: 4 3

Moved down the curve to swap with Ebb & Flo since they moved up to 3c. Poor Reefus had really been underperforming, so hopefully he works better as an early cycler + small defensive body. He may still be too low tempo, but should play a better role overall.


Beatle (973)

Beatle -

    Keywords: armor,wither armor,wither,lifesteal

STR is currently lacking on healing, having the lowest amount by far among all prisms. Trying to encourage it to heal more via lifesteal, emphasizing the body-based playstyle it prefers. Lifesteal is also a less abusable form of lifegain than most, since it's truly more of an “exchange” than a net gain, since one player’s life must drop as the other’s rises.


Dream Dragon ➞ Meng'long (340)

Meng'long - Has -1 cost for each element among other cards in your hand.

    Name: Dream Dragon Meng'long

    Cost: 9 8

    Text: Has -1 cost for each element in your hand. Has -1 cost for each element among other cards in your hand.

No longer counts itself - means that having other mind cards in hand is useful. Also shaved off 1c since not counting itself effectively gives it +1c. Also got a snazzy “new” name.


Wall of Dead (351)

Wall of Dead - Dust your top dead unit to summon Zomboid with guard. Repeat until your board is full.

    Text: Dust your top dead non-dark unit to summon Zomboid with guard. Repeat until your board is full. Dust your top dead unit to summon Zomboid with guard. Repeat until your board is full.

Had a low winrate, so I'm removing "non-dark." The non-dark clause is great on repeatable Zomboid generators like Bone Mask and Necrosiss to prevent using dead Zomboids to make more Zomboids, but this isn’t repeatable, so it doesn’t share that same risk. Should make it far easier to hit the full 6 zomboids, and is and also a stealth buff to Edgelord, since you can once again use his dead body to help build the Wall of Dead he gives you.


One Punches (720)

One Punches - Exhaust your hero to have it do damage equal to its power to enemies.

    Text: Exhaust your hero to do damage equal to its power to enemies. Exhaust your hero to have it do damage equal to its power to enemies.

A suggestion made by our players which I had also considered in the past - The hero now deals the damage, letting the hero’s wither/lifesteal carry onto the effect. Feels right like this, but watch out - cards like Sparky, Enfuego, and Andromeda will no longer provide any benefits to this spell, since the spell isn’t dealing the damage - your hero is!


The Beast (666)

The Beast -

    Text: Death: Give a random ally Hex. None

A big push to a midrange player that’s been doing terribly lately, I could see removing Fate if this is too much value, but he’s languishing at the very bottom of constructed STR cards currently, so for now, The Beast's shackles are coming off!


Unikron (724)

Unikron - Summon: Gains power equal to your hero's power.

    Keywords: guard None

    Health: 3 4

    Spell: Shroud None

Trading in Shroud + Guard for more raw stats to enable larger payoffs for banner-focused decks, since it can scale better with banner thanks to higher base HP.


Great Gusto (453)

Great Gusto - Play: Return target unit to hand. Mulligan other cards in that hand.

    Health: 4 6

In addition to nerfing heals, I want to try to combat control decks and game length through developing better mid-lategame threats in the 5c+ range. +2health should make gusto considerably harder to kill off, hopefully giving aggro and midrange decks more opportunities to push onto the board and close out the game even as they reach the 8-12 mana range.


Glorious Mane (712)

Glorious Mane - Give target unit +2/+2 and lifesteal. Give units in your hand of its element +1/+1.

    Text: Give target unit +2/+2 and guard. Give units in your hand of its element +1/+1. Give target unit +2/+2 and lifesteal. Give units in your hand of its element +1/+1.

Another source of Lifesteal in STR to give it more sustain options, while maintaining STR’s stats-driven theme. Also differentiates it from other STR buff options like Taunt.


Heavy Cavalry (1057)

Heavy Cavalry - Summon: Draw a metal unit. Give it Lead and -1 cost.

    Power: 3 4

+1pow Buff to a midrange underperformer, allowing for more midgame pressure.


Sanik ➞ Speedster (842)

Speedster - If sleeping, readies if you have no mana,

    Name: Sanik Speedster

    Text: Wakes up when you have no mana. If sleeping, readies if you have no mana,

Changed the name to avoid problems down the line, and reworded the effect to eliminate the term “wakes up” which was only used here, as “Ready” is the standard everywhere else. The effect remains almost the same mechanically - there is one edge case, where if he has already attacked in a turn, and then is put back to sleep, he can potentially re-ready and attack again, which can currently only happen via an enemy Spirit of Sleep.


Raise Arms (377)

Raise Arms - Dust target hero's top and bottom dead units to summon two Royal Mummy of their elements.

    Cost: 5 4

    Keywords: banner None

Before the community gets the torches out, I’m buffing this because I think that it's far better to work to encourage healing in reactive “speed bumps” rather than in big proactive chunks. IMO 4/4 worth of guard stats +4 heal is reasonable at 4 considering the tools aggro has available and the nerfs being brought in to larger heals. I will have to watch Vishiva though.


Spirit of Sleep (449)

Spirit of Sleep - Death: Enemies sleep. Give your hero Take Flight.

    Health: 3 2

Bumping down the health to make it easier to clean up with a bannered hero or a 2atk guy, putting more emphasis on its role as a “give me one turn to breathe” effect, rather than a tempo play. I’m hoping the changes to sustain tools will help its stalling effect be less powerful. If it's still too good, my next step will be changing Take Flight to something less impactful like Hush.


Buckler Up (199)

Buckler Up - Give target unit guard, armor, and Lead.

    Text: Give target unit guard and armor. Give target unit guard, armor, and Lead.

A severely underused card overall, buffed to grant Lead to its target, letting it be used both to create a more durable defensive unit, and/or protect valuable HRT units like Earth Golem from dusting/silence, letting them more reliably get death effects off. You can even do something wild, like sticking it to an enemy Arcadeum Mask to block his conjures.


Tatt (244)

Tatt - Play: Give target ally unit Shield and lifesteal.

    Text: Play: Give target ally Shield. Play: Give target ally unit Shield and lifesteal.

    Keywords: stealth stealth,lifesteal

Another Lifesteal addition for Strength, lets you pass lifesteal to another unit for immediate healing/pressure, but can no longer give your hero the buff, for obvious reasons.


King Slay (635)

King Slay - Play: Kill target 3 cost or less unit.

    Health: 2 3

Durability buff to another underperformer, still leery about more playable death ball sources, but I could see buffing him more depending on how this plays.


Scythe Mantis (518)

Scythe Mantis - Inspire Dark: Do 1 damage to enemies.

    Power: 6 7

Another +1pow buff to a midrange player to allow it to push more damage in the midgame.


Gift of Qai (315)

Gift of Qai - Give ally units +1 health and banner.

    Text: Give allies +1 health. Give ally units banner. Give ally units +1 health and banner.

A simplification and micro nerf, no longer heals the hero for 1hp.


Frantic Inquiry ➞ Unophobia (843)

Unophobia - Dust your dead 1 cost cards. For each dusted, give a random enemy -1 health.

    Name: Frantic Inquiry Unophobia

    Cost: 11 10

    Text: Dust your dead 1 cost cards. For each, give a random enemy -1 health. Dust your dead 1 cost cards. For each dusted, give a random enemy -1 health.

Minor cost buff to a finisher + name tweak. You will learn to fear the number 1!


Mountain Lion (1030)

Mountain Lion - Your banner cards give +2 power instead.

    Cost: 8 7

Buff to another finisher with -1c, letting him start brawling earlier to present more pressure to defensive decks in the mid-lategame via his uber-banner ability and chunky body.


Enfuego (993)

Enfuego - Your spells have wither.

    Text: Your fire and light spells do 1 damage more. Your spells have wither.

I really like the role of a unit that gives spells wither. The dual light+fire and metal+light spell buffers felt like overkill at this point. I’ve also expanded and simplified the role of Andromeda to buff all ally spells.


Andromeda (1134)

Andromeda - Your spells do 1 damage more.

    Text: Your light and metal spells do 1 damage more. Your spells do 1 damage more.

As mentioned on Enfuego, I wanted to consolidate spell damage boosting into one card for now and make it more general. Though this +1 spell damage effect is one I could see repeating on other units in the future.


Incinerate (934)

Incinerate - Do 4 damage to target unit.

    Text: Do 4 damage to target unit and 1 damage to your hero. Do 4 damage to target unit.

Simplifying. 4dmg to a unit for 2c isn’t out of line when options like Insomnia, Snaptrap, Whisk Away and Grave Omen exist around it.


Fan of Knives (308)

Fan of Knives - Glory: Gets Knives.

    Text: Glory: Dust your top dead metal card to get Knives. Glory: Gets Knives.

Simplified to an older design, the fact that she brought her own Knives made the “dust top metal” clause redundant in 99% of cases, and I like simplifying cards where low hanging options exist. Players have enough to track already.


Light Ranger (849)

Light Ranger - Summon: Draw your lowest cost light spell onto this unit. Give your hero health equal to its cost.

    Keywords: None lifesteal

Another source of Lifesteal in STR to add more sustain.


Mushka (667)

Mushka - Glory: Dust your bottom dead earth card to get Anima.

    Keywords: None lifesteal

Adding lifesteal to an underperformer in STR, should make for bigger payoffs with Anima. Also always love lifesteal on Glory units.


Sphinx Mask (866)

Sphinx Mask - Dust target hero's top highest cost dead unit to summon Royal Mummy.

    Text: Dust target hero's top and bottom dead units to summon Royal Mummy. Dust target hero's top highest cost dead unit to summon Royal Mummy.

    Keywords: banner None

Buffing its utility via letting it always eat the biggest dead unit and requiring only one unit to cast should make it much more appealing as both an earlygame option and tech choice. Removed banner for safety since it feels far easier to use early now and has more potential lategame as grave-hate. Could re-add banner in the future if it's weak.


Call to Mind (1123)

Call to Mind - Spend your mana. Draw your highest cost spell of that cost or less onto your hero. Set it to 0 cost.

    Text: Spend your mana. Draw your highest cost spell of that cost or less onto your hero. Set it to 1 cost. Spend your mana. Draw your highest cost spell of that cost or less onto your hero. Set it to 0 cost.

Being unable to immediately employ the spell was a real weakness for this, and took away a lot of the fun of it IMO. Mootichi has also had a pretty poor winrate lately, so hopefully this buff also serves to aid him a bit.


Tiamat (477)

Tiamat - Glory: Do 3 damage to enemies. The enemy loses 1 max mana.

    Keywords: guard guard,wither

Another step towards improving finishers. Adding Wither to give her more bite to her comparatively lower attack when tussling with a few other buffed finishers, and makes her glory more devastating via withering whatever lives to a charred husk. Could still see doing more with her, and/or other lategame brawlers in other prisms.

Ma Shroom - Summon: Summon a Fun Guy. Give it stealth.

A moment of silence for Mothermander’s former status as cutest card. I didn’t want to add many new cards, but I really wanted to work this amazing art in since I know so many people have wanted more Sporekin representation. Should also be a very effective midrange/aggressive tool via the decent body + fun guy you can cash in later. (If you can bear to see it die that is)


Sunson ➞ Tactician (1107)

Tactician - Sunset: Reveal a random card in the enemy hand.

    Name: Sunson Tactician

    Text: Sunrise: Reveal a random card in the enemy hand. Sunset: Reveal a random card in the enemy hand.

    Spell: Godlike Forcefield

Technically a change to Sunson, but it’s almost new between the new art + effect tweak and spell. Godlike is very fun, and I 100% want to bring it back in the future, but currently it creates a bit of a knowledge gulf for new players that I’d like to avoid, since Godlike cannot effectively explain what it actually does. You need prior/outside information to know what its effect actually means. I hope Forcefield will fill a similar role in Anima/Vapors decks, trading maximum possible buffs and draw for a lower cost on the spell and greater board durability via granting Shield and Barrier.


Shell Officer - Sunset: Summon Shelly with Lead if you have no mana.

The turtle returns after hitting the gym! Trying something a bit more impactful in Steel Shield’s place, offers a durable defense in the endgame plus a decent means of pressuring your opponent via armor and spawning more turtles.


Dead Beats - Summon three Zomboid with Hex. Ready them.

A very spicy aggro tool, offers a flat 6pts of burst on its own, but can quickly be scaled via stuff like Band together or Rave later in the game for big finishing pushes. Could be scary, so I’ll be watching this one carefully.


Titanic - Play: Fights the front enemy unit. Repeat if lethal.

An apocalypse in card form. Strength deserves a unit to tower above all others, the very Avatar of its ideals. Play it from hand to devour your opponents whole board and then threaten to eat their hero for dessert. Will likely require some tweaking, as I'm curious if this is too good or could still go further via Shroud, if that’s what it takes to try to push onto the board past turn 10-12. Pretty scary with Entwail, it must be said.

Lilly (1076)

Lilly - Summon: Summon Hoplite.

    Prism: hrt int

Moving a frog to INT to make room for Ma Shroom in HRT, Her Orchid may also help enable some combo turns for INT via spell discounting.


Cross Reference (790)

Cross Reference - Draw two 1 cost spells of different elements.

    Prism: int wis

Swapped with Overload.


Overload (1187)

Overload - Add Knives, Mana Potion, and Zap to your hand.

    Prism: wis int

Swapped with Cross Reference.

    Godlike (1139)

Was only on Sunson/Tactician. Was awkward with our current UI, and confusing for new players. I am confident it will return.


    Draco (1136)

Draco benched for being a fake dragon. In honesty, It's a very cool idea but I’m benching for now in favor of a simpler speedy finisher in Dead Beats. Will definitely re-explore someday.


    Steel Shield (1179)

I do like the idea in principle, but in practice it wasn’t doing a lot in either Constructed or Discovery. I’m sure we’ll revisit something of this nature in the future, maybe lower on the curve with lower stats.


    King Rex (150)

The King (Rex) is dead, long live the Titanic! Didn’t do enough for a 10 mana investment in constructed IMO, but there’s definitely still a place for something like it. Will have to explore what that place is in the future. For now I want to try to push the finisher envelope with Titanic.


    Bit (938)

Starting as a 8/2 really hurt this, so while I like it, I’m gonna retire it for a bit, also moved it out as part of getting Ma Shroom in, since I moved Lilly from HRT-INT. Will almost certainly see a return in the future.

Recent Posts

Recent Posts