Hello everyone! We’re doing an early post-launch gameplay patch to address some concerns we have about the new player experience. For the most part, we’ve been extremely pleased with the positive response from the community and players after the game’s launch. However, we noticed that new players are depleting their hand of cards more quickly than we’d like during gameplay, and upon investigation we realized we had made a critical error; the core set of cards does not have nearly as much hand replenishment, via card draw and added cards, as we had intended. We feel this mistake has a subtle but important negative effect on the play experience, and we wanted to address it as quickly as possible. Experienced playtesters are good about building the right amount of draw into their decks, but many other players are not and we want to make this easier. The majority of this patch is focused on tweaking many existing core set cards to replenish your hand.

Since we are already having to do a patch to address this, we wanted to additionally tackle some issues that have been on our radar at the same time. Most critically, we feel that Crusaders have a little too much in the way of control cards that delete or invalidate the other player’s game plan. We are pulling back on this slightly, attempting to achieve a delicate balance between good answers and counterplay, and the ability for players to successfully set up and execute powerful effects and combos.

PATCH NOTES
Daily quests that require the player to win a match have had their requirement dramatically reduced.
Second player can now mulligan an additional card. Our stats show a win preference for the first player right now, and we want to make second player’s position more powerful.
Attacking buildings now have the SNIPER keyword, for clarity and consistency.

Manticore: Now has Last Will: Draw a card. Stats changed to 3/4. No longer a Beast.
Trap Door Ninja: Trap drawn no longer has its cost reduced. Stats changed to 2/4.
Snowy Owl: Now draws a card if there is a unit costing 1 or less on the battlefield. Is now a Beast.
Triceratops: Now allows you to add 1 of 3 dwarves to your hand. Stats changed to 2/6.
Frost Blast: Now draws a card. Cost increased to 3.
Harpy: Now draws a unit, but gives it -1/-1. Stats changed to 2/2.
Wraiths: Now draws a card. Cost increased to 3.
Fist of the Five Gods: Now costs 1, gives 1 unit Chain Lightning, depletes its actions, and draws a card.
Gorilla Fighter: Now draws the unit instead of summoning it. Stats changed to 3/3.
Mugging: Now adds Contraband of any cost.
Dwarven Mithril: Cost reduced to 2.
Frost Lich: Now has Last Will: Add a Frost spell to your hand. Stats changed to 4/2.
Wolf: Changed to Warcry: Draw a Beast. Stats changed to 1/4.
Dwarf Paladin: Now draws a Knight instead of giving +1 armor. Stats changed to 2/4.
Flame Prince: New design. Warcry: If you are holding a Fire spell, add a random Fire spell to your hand. Stats changed to 5/4.
Minotaur: New design. Draw a card when this slays an enemy. Stats changed to 8/7.
School of Magic: Now has Warcry: Add a random spell to your hand. Cost increased to 3.
Halls of Frost: Now has Warcry: Add a random Frost spell to your hand. Cost increased to 2.
Cryonic: Now costs 2 and draws a card, but stats reduced to 2/2.
Imp: Now allows you to pick from two 2-cost spells.
Draconic Temple: Now has Warcry: Add a random Drake to your hand. Cost increased to 2.

Battle Cry: Cost reduced to 2.
End of Days is no longer a Fire spell.
Frog Prince: HP reduced to 4.
Forest Revolt: Treants now also have EVADE.
Lucien: Dispel is now a LAST WILL effect.
Righteous Paladin: Stats changed to 2/5.
The Verdict: Cost increased to 2.
Sea Witch: Cost increased to 3. Stats changed to 2/3.
Centaur: Stats changed to 2/5.
Ragnar: Cost increased to 8, stats increased to 5/9.
Yaarhym Lightning: Cost reduced to 3, damage reduced to 2.