Genre: Strategy, Turn-based strategy (TBS), Indie, Card & Board Game
Duelyst
Duelyst Patch 1.84 1 Year Anniversary!
April 27th marks one year since we left Beta and officially launched Duelyst, and we’re excited to celebrate this anniversary with you. Thank you everyone for being part of this community, building decks, playing matches, climbing the ranks, streaming and watching streams, competing in tournaments, memeing memes, and everything else we Duelysts do. We’ve got lots more Duelyst coming, so here’s to another great year of gaming!
With this patch we’re launching our first new game mode since The Gauntlet debuted back during Duelyst Beta!
Rift Mode
We’ve temporarily replaced The Gauntlet with a new experimental game mode for you to try out – a continuous draft with cross-faction card choices! This mode will be active for the month of May, and afterwards The Gauntlet will return along with any Gauntlet runs you had in progress.
Choose a General from 1 of 4 choices
Level up and evolve your deck including cards from ANY faction.
Gain deck rating when you win… and lose rating when you lose. Make crazy decks, go for the highest score, and let us know what you think of this mode!
Anniversary Quest
To celebrate with all of you, we’ve added a special quest. Log in before May 12th and win one match in the new Rift game mode to receive your gift box. Oooh what could be inside??
Note: this quest does not replace your regular monthly quest, in May you’ll still be able to complete 15 daily quests for a common crate key as usual.
Weekly Boss Battles Continue
We’ve got a whole slew of new challengers loaded, and they’ll continue to show up with new unique mechanics and fights. Check in weekly to see them all!
Duelyst Patch 1.83 is expected to deploy on April 19th around 4PM Pacific Time
We have some wide reaching balance changes coming with this patch, making adjustments to cards from all previous sets. But first, a note on our design philosophy with new cards and balance changes.
If you’ve been keeping track of our patch notes over the past few expansions you probably noticed us making changes for “design space” reasons as each new set rolled out, as well as various other changes we would make periodically. This is something we’d like to avoid in the future. We don’t want to break your existing decks or decks you are building towards, we don’t want to squash your ideas about upcoming card combos by changing an existing card you own as new cards come out. Metagames continually evolve and adapt, both through deckbuilding innovations and through new expansions. We want to encourage this type of organic exploration and innovation, rather than driving the meta with our own changes. We think Duelyst is most fun when you get to play with your cards, grow your collection and experiment with new decks, rather than us telling you how to play.
We will however continue to monitor the state of the game, and still have the ability to step in and make balance changes in the short term if needed, though our goal is to do this rarely.
That being said, there are a number of card changes we’ve been testing for quite some time that we are rolling out with this patch. We’re confident that these changes will allow us to take a step back and give the meta more room to grow on its own, and make more room for exciting new cards to be added to Duelyst in the future.
Enfeeble – Cost changed from 3 to 5.
Enfeeble allows Vanar to trivialize hard-fought board advantages, especially in combination with other cards, a bit more easily than we are comfortable with going forward. By increasing the mana cost to 5, Enfeeble can keep its board-clearing identity but will require a larger investment to do so.
Shadow Sister Kelaino – Stats changed from 2/5 to 3/3.
When a Shadow Sister Kelaino sticks on an Abyssian board, her healing grants tremendous long term impact. We’re reducing her stats to 3/3 to make it easier to remove her from the board, opening up a wider variety of cards to be viable options when playing both with and against Abyssian.
Thumping Wave – Cost changed from 3 to 4.
Thumping Wave’s versatility makes it a staple card in Magmar decks, but it is simply too effective as both a finisher and removal spell. We’ve increased its cost from 3 to 4 to shift the focus back onto its flexibility, rather than strictly outperforming its competition.
Flash Reincarnation – Ability changed to “If the next card you play this turn is a minion, it costs 2 less and takes 2 damage.”
With this change, Magmar can no longer play two Flash Reincarnations back to back to summon an end game minion in the first few turns of the game. They’ll still be able to ramp big minions onto the board early, but the more egregious edge cases will be removed.
Chrysalis Burst – Cost changed from 4 to 6.
The large amount of randomness on Chrysalis Burst when played at key moments in the mid-game created swingy and hard to predict board positions for both players. Often Chrysalis Burst would single handily win or lose the game for its caster, depending on where the eggs spawned and what minions came out of them. Additionally, Chrysalis Burst continues to be the most powerful egg effect by a good margin.
By moving Chrysalis Burst to 6 mana, players will have more time to prepare for it, and we’ll be able to support eggs in much more interesting and powerful ways going forward.
Windblade Adept – Ability changed to “Zeal: Gains +1 Attack.”
Windblade Adept is a widely played minion with no equal in Lyonar. By decreasing its Zeal from +2 Attack to +1 Attack, it will remain a powerful option without preventing other two-cost minions from seeing play.
Grandmaster Nosh-Rak – Cost changed from 7 to 8. Health changed from 7 to 8.
Grandmaster Nosh-Rak has an extremely powerful and often immediate effect that ends the game quickly for Vetruvian players. At 7 mana, it’s difficult to give Vetruvian new high-impact minions when their damage could effectively be doubled the following turn. By moving Nosh-Rak to 8 mana, there will be a bit more breathing room before the Grandmaster comes online.
Meltdown – Cost changed from 7 to 8. Stats changed from 7/7 to 6/6. Ability now deals 6 damage.
While we still believe randomness can produce interesting and dynamic gameplay, Meltdown is too frequently being used as the finisher of choice and deciding the outcome of close games. We’re increasing its mana cost and decreasing its stats to lower its power level a bit and make room for a wider variety of late game card choices.
For roughly 1 week after these changes, Thumping Wave, Flash Reincarnation, and Chrysalis Burst will be disenchantable for full spirit value. Disenchant values are not applicable to the other changed cards, as non-Prismatic cards from small expansions and basic cards are not craftable/disenchantable. (Prismatic versions for small expansion cards are still disenchantable for full value).
Continuing the Story – Chapters 25-30 added to the Codex
Enter the Alcuin Library and hear more tales from Mythron’s historia
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Ancient Bonds: 39 New Card Expansion (Patch 1.82)
39 Card Ancient Bonds Expansion is here!
We have 39 new cards arriving in this expansion with a focus on tribal synergies between minions with a unique type like Arcanysts and Golems, a new Keyword “Bond” that triggers when minions of the same tribe are played to the board, and a variety of new strategies and effects to try out in your decks. Check out a few of the new cards below, and see the full set.
These new cards can be collected from Ancient Orbs purchased through the in-game Armory. Ancient Orbs are a special type of Spirit Orb, similar in structure to Bloodborn Orbs from our previous Rise of the Bloodborn Expansion. Each Ancient Orb contains a full playset (3 copies) of 3 unique cards from the Ancient Bonds expansion and will never contain duplicates of any card you have already owned. This means that after opening 13 Ancient Orbs you will be guaranteed to have added 3 copies of all 39 new Ancient Bonds cards to your collection.
Ancient Orbs cost 300 gold or $2.99 each. Alternatively, the entire Ancient Bonds set can be purchased for $19.99 by buying a one-time purchase 13 Ancient Orb bundle.
Balance Changes
Cards that have a mana cost of 0 are uniquely powerful, as they don’t limit the other actions you can take on your turn. We are increasing the cost of two 0-mana cards, Inner Focus and Slo, as they were proving to be too efficient and were limiting the strength we could give new cards going forward.
Inner Focus (Songhai Spell – Core Set) – Cost changed from 0 to 1.
There are so many stylish combinations of spells that Songhai players use to burst their opponent, with Inner Focus acting as the centerpiece of some of the more egregious cases. We’ve increased the cost of Inner Focus to 1 in order to up the cost of some of the more destructive turns, especially those involving multiple casts of Inner Focus or otherwise full turns with Inner Focus added in for free.
Slo (Lyonar Minion – Denizens of Shim’Zar set) – Cost changed from 0 to 1.
Slo accomplishes a lot in the early game. It could snag a mana tile to let Lyonar play more expensive cards a turn earlier, take over the board alongside other minions, or allow Lyonar to cast Holy Immolation with only 4 mana. We’ve increased Slo’s cost to 1 to curb these early power plays.
For roughly 1 week after the change, Slo will be disenchantable for full spirit value. Disenchant values are not applicable to Inner Focus, as basic cards are not craftable/disenchantable.
Other Changes with Ancient Bonds
Kara Winterblade (Vanar General – Core Set) – Bloodborn Spell changed to “Friendly minions summoned this turn gain +1/+1”.
Kara’s previous rework left her trailing behind the other Generals, and many of the tools she wanted to use to catch-up didn’t quite work when you had to cast your Bloodborn Spell before summoning them. Now, Kara’s BBS will work both before AND after you’ve summoned minions for the turn, allowing you to keep your options open while making a number of select cards much more appealing.
Diamond Golem (Neutral Minion – Core Set) – Stats changed from 4/11 to 5/11.
Diamond Golem wants to prove its worth in Ancient Bonds. Thankfully, this extreme pressure has the friendly Golem looking sharper than ever!
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DUELYST PATCH 1.81
Next Patch – Ancient Bonds Expansion Launch
39 New cards coming mid-month. Check out our sneak peek for more info and see the latest spoilers for the upcoming expansion.
Here are a few of the cards we’ve revealed so far:
Monthly Quest – Common Crate Key
The Montly Quest returns in March – earn another Common Crate Key for completing your Daily quests!
Even More Bosses!
We’ve ramped up production on boss battles with 3 new bosses who will be appearing in the upcoming weeks. Are you ready to face these new challengers?
iOS Beta
Thank you to everyone who has already applied to help us test our iOS build. We’ll be sending out the first wave of invites to try the Beta iOS app in the next couple days!
Check out our iOS Beta announcement for more info or to apply for a future Beta test slot.
We are making balance changes to two cards: Entropic Gaze and Grandmaster Variax.
Prismatic versions of these cards are disenchantable for full spirit value for approximately 1 week after the change.
Entropic Gaze – Damage dealt reduced from 4 to 2.
Magmar games are ending slightly faster than we’d like due to how easily they can win with cards from their action bar. We’re reducing Entropic Gaze’s damage to shift its focus towards decks that care about players drawing cards, instead of it being used primarily as just another finisher.
Grandmaster Variax – Cost increased from 7 to 8. Stats increased from 7/7 to 8/8.
While we love that Grandmaster Variax has a significant (and AWESOME) impact when summoned, the combination of early mana spring tiles and Darkfire Sacrifices are allowing her to take over games too consistently in the early turns. We are shifting the Grandmaster up to an 8-cost minion so that she can continue to crush games, just a little less early and a little less often.
Monthly Quest – Common Crate Key
For the duration of February, we are adding a one-time monthly quest (complete 15 quests) that rewards 1 Common Crate Key.
New Boss Battles Arriving Soon
We’re loading up even more bosses for you to battle. Expect to see some familiar faces, with colorful twists, in the coming weeks.
We expect Patch 1.79 to be released on Jan 18th/19th 2017.
Boss Battles
Over the next few weeks we will be testing out a brand new feature we’re very excited about: Limited Time Boss Battles
We’re super excited. Here’s how it all works:
We will be testing out 2 Boss Battles over the next few weeks to gather feedback so make sure to check-in next week. We’re excited to hear what you think!
Free Card of The Day is replacing The Daily Challenge
We putting The Daily Challenge on a break and replacing it with a Free Common Card of the Day. You can claim one random common craftable card every 24 hours in place of the 5 Gold reward that the challenges offered.
We know there are a lot of challenge lovers out there so we want to regroup and explore a better vehicle to deliver challenges for those players that love that game mode.
Monthly Cards
In 2017 we’re going to take a step away from adding Monthly Cards to each season on a regular basis and instead we want to focus on bigger expansions and seasonal special events.
There are 3 main reasons:
The Season Reward Crate will still contain 1 card for each division you’ve achieved at the same rarity as before.
Match History Maintenance Note
As part of some housekeeping in 2017, during the rollout of this patch, we will be wiping old match history on your profile page. In the near future we will do our best to re-import the old match history from 2016 into the new system.
Sneak Peak: Continuous Draft Mode
We don’t often preview things here at Counterplay Games, but we’re going to make a dangerous exception and tease a new limited time game mode we plan to release in the near future: a Continuous Draft Mode.
In this mode, you will pick a General, receive a fairly basic starting deck, and improve your deck over time by leveling up.
But there are a number of twists including something special: in this mode you can build cross faction decks.
That’s all we’re going to reveal for right now, but feel free to start dreaming up zany cross faction combos you can build.
2017 Roadmap
We’re continuing to put most of our effort into 3 major areas:
* Mobile and Console development.
* Localization and worldwide release.
* Card Expansions, Boss Events, and new Game Modes.
Patch 1.78 should be available on Dec 15th around 3PM PST.
Rise of the Bloodborn Expansion
We’re excited to bring you the latest DUELYST expansion with 39 New Cards, featuring a new keyword Blood Surge: (activates when you use your General’s Bloodborn Spell), and including some of our favorite artwork for Minions and Spells.
If you open 3 orbs for GOLD or for $2.99 and then decide to buy the whole set for $19.99 USD you will receive a 300G refund per purchased orb. TLDR: we refund you any Gold you spent.
New Card Lore
We’ve added new lore for the following Cards:
Still no word on the origins of a certain marble white serpent.
No Patch on January 1st
There won’t be a scheduled patch on January 1st. The gang here is taking a break over the holidays and we anticipate our next patch to be mid-January 2017.
The Rise of the Bloodborn expansion as well as the past 77 patches are a culmination of a year of very hard work for the team. We look forward to showing you what’s in store for 2017.
The season rewards for December Season will be a random card of the appropriate rarity for each division:
Bug Fixes and Minor Changes
Duelyst Patch 1.77
The Frostfire Festival Begins
It’s that time of the year! For the entire month of December (starting Dec 1st), we will be offering a special new Frostfire Quest:
Complete 15 Quests to earn a Free Gift Crate.
Completing the quest will award you the The Free Gift Crate that can be opened from the Mystery Crates screen:
The Gift Crate does not require a key to open and will contain:
December Season Rewards
December does not have monthly cards (we’re working hard on the next expansion that is going to be announced VERY soon). Therefore, the season rewards for December will be a random card of the appropriate rarity for each division:
Quest Tweaks
For the “Ultimate Aggressor” quest, if you win the game or if your opponent concedes you will always receive a minimum of 25 damage towards the 150 damage goal to Enemy Generals.
Minor Changes
Roadmap
We’re currently working primarily on:
If you want to see previews of the upcoming units and get realtime updates on our progress and community events, follow us on Twitter.
As always all changed cards are disenchantable for roughly 1 week after the change for full spirit value.
We’ve got some exciting new changes this patch. When we make changes it’s with the goal to create a healthy environment for a wide variety of decks and play styles, and to maintain great faction balance.
Mana Vortex – Text changed to “The next spell you cast this turn costs 1 less.”
Songhai has been performing really well this season, and we’re looking to tone down their ability to recover from all-in turns. Mana Vortex will still allow you to create explosive turns, but you’ll have to look elsewhere to keep your action bar full.
Lantern Fox – Stats changed from 2/4 to 2/3.
Lantern Fox has been a staple in Songhai decks for a long time, and we don’t intend to change that. We do feel that it should provide slightly less value on average. Lantern Fox’s health has been reduced by 1.
Spelljammer – Cost changed from 3 to 4. Stats changed from 2/4 to 3/5.
Spelljammer is one of the strongest options for card draw, especially in aggressive decks. By bumping up its cost and stats, other deck strategies should have more room to flourish.
Cryogenesis – Cost changed from 3 to 4.
Cryogenesis is a good removal option in Duelyst, and can limit the viability of minions with 4 or less health. By increasing its cost, you’ll have to think twice when deciding to destroy their minion, or summon your own.
Rite of the Undervault – Cost changed from 5 to 6.
Abyssian can be a a strong faction when it comes to the late game. Rite of the Undervault’s cost has been increased to 6, so that it will take a bigger commitment for Abyssian players to draw cards. You’ll still get to refill after expending your hand, but the increased cost should ensure that your enemy isn’t quite as far behind.
Blistering Skorn – Cost changed from 3 to 4. Stats changed from 3/4 to 4/5.
Blistering Skorn gives each faction a board-clear option, which can disproportionately hurt the “swarm” playstyle. By bumping up its cost and stats, smaller minions should have a bit more breathing room.
Premium Battlemaps
We’re adding 4 new Legendary Battle Maps to the Armory!
Quest Economy Changes
We’re re-balancing how gold is distributed between the 2 daily quests, and we’re introducing new quest types.
Gold rewards help encourage play patterns. Right now, there is a big drop-off in rewards after playing your first 4 games every day. Instead, we want there to be a big GOLD payoff for playing 7-10 games while still having a viable way to grind to earn lots of GOLD every day.
Here’s how the math works out based on our simulations and play pattern data:
We want an incentive for casual players (~4 games) to play a bit more, and we want a slight reward buff to engaged players (~8 games) that don’t win more than 60% of the time.
When we make these changes we do think of EVERY player type that forms the backbone of DUELYST (Casuals, Competitive, Grinders, etc.). We can’t always design systems that work perfectly to incentivize all 3 without hurting some other part of the game.
4 New Codex Chapters
We’ve added 4 new chapters to the Codex / Historia. Come and explore the chapters:
Bug Fixes
December Season Patch Preview
The December patch will not include new season cards as we aim to release our next expansion in mid-December. The season rewards for December will be a random card of the appropriate rarity for each division:
Roadmap
We’re currently focusing on:
If you want to see previews of the upcoming units and get realtime updates on our progress and community events, follow us on Twitter.
Duelyst Patch 1.75
75 patches since we started the BETA. We can hardly believe it. Thanks everyone for playing, streaming, sharing, laddering, pack opening, practice AI clobbering, card crafting, chest opening, opponent gold tipping, quest completing, replay watching, game spectating, gauntlet drafting, and solo challenge solving in DUELYST.
November Season Cards
The new cards will become available on November 1st, and as always will be given as rewards at the end of the October season in the Season Reward Chest:
Division Starter Bundles
We’re introducing a new type of product into the Armory: Division Starter Bundles.
Each bundle can be purchased only once and unlocks as you hit a division or meet its requirements.
We plan for DUELYST to have many expansions, and we want newer players to have an easier time deciding what to purchase.
If you’ve already completed the requirements for a starter bundle in a past season, you should see appear it in the shop under the Specials category.
