We’re starting the new year off with a bang of a balance patch, ready to wreck ruin on all your decks to usher the new year in with style.
This patch will hit the nearest battlefield tomorrow, January 12th, so brace yourself.
The last few balance patches were not accompanied by a dev blog, which made some people sad.
Sad is bad, as the saying goes and as we’re banned from hugging you to make you feel better, we’re forced to do the next best thing, which is publishing a new dev blog.
So here we are.
In light of the new times, we’re shaking things up slightly - instead of going by nations, the card changes are being grouped into three categories - nerfed cards, underused card buffs and strategic buffs. Read on to find out what these enigmatic terms mean.
Per usual, the patch tomorrow will also see numerous bug fixes, stay tuned for the full patch notes for further details.
Nerfed Cards
The first category consists of cards we want to tune down in power for one reason or another.
This can be because the card is too strong, sees too much play, is too oppressive in certain scenarios, or we want to tone down a specific strategy the card empowers.
For this category, success is based on the tears shed.
FLAMMPANZER
The Flammpanzer is a very important tool in keeping aggressive decks in check, and we want to keep it like that.
But it does a bit too much and the once-popular British small air deck has suffered because of the Fire in the Sky panzer.
17th RIFLE REGIMENT
This card is very powerful in the lower brackets of the game and in draft. Slowing it down takes the sting out of it a little bit while maintaining its powerful abilities. This should still be a popular choice for newer players, just not as oppressive.
RUSH PRODUCTION
Rush Production is best known for its role as the Kredit generating villain in the infamous Baby Combo deck. But in recent months it has been getting credits in other productions as well, playing its stereotypical role of a ‘puke-your-hand-out’ enabler.
Good villain roles are always appreciated, but this one needs to go back to its sideshow roots.
NIGHT WITCHES
This change retains the ‘endless’ value of the card, but reduces its power significantly.
While the Soviet value decks are not over-performing, they can lead to fairly long and tedious battles, which reliable sources tell us is boring if encountered too frequently.
ENCIRCLEMENT
When we added the Blitz clause to this card a few months back, it saw Encirclement blitz into top tier status overnight.
At the time, aggressive decks needed a bit of love, but now they have too much love, so we are scaling this card back or we will end up with a spoiled brat.
BOLSTER THE RANKS
Bolster the Ranks saw the advent of a new archetype of sorts, where operation cost matters much more.
This archetype has been very successful, so successful in fact that we are required to bolster the cost of the card to 4.
This will not kill the archetype, as we like it in general, but does slow it down a bit.
SEABORNE INVASION
Since this card came out we’ve seen an invasion of new cards that increase its potential power.
With this borne in mind we sea no other option but to increase the cost to 9.
Buff little used cards
This category has cards that see play so rarely that when they do pop up you wonder if your opponent is a genius or a madman (often both).
For this category, success is based on damns given.
COUNTER OFFENSIVE
The damaged unit theme the Soviets have is pretty weak right now, but has big potential in the future, especially as, believe it or not, units do tend to get damaged in the normal course of a battle.
Strengthening this card is not going to propel this understrength strategy into the forefront, but is a step in that direction.
BARRAGE
Barrage is not intended to be a strong card, but rather a role-player for newer players and in draft. Nevertheless, the two choices it gives are currently so weak that the choice tends to be not to play the card at all.
So we are making the card slightly more appealing for its intended audience.
EXPLOIT THE GAP
Exploit the Gap has a huge potential ceiling, but requires a lot of hoops to jump through.
Too many hoops it turns out as the card sees very little play. Let’s hope a lower cost sees the card hop, skip and jump to a higher play rate.
Cards buffed for strategic reasons
This final category sees cards that we want to strengthen for various strategic reasons.
This can be to promote a deck archetype we feel is underplayed, to strengthen a tool against a popular strategy or, most importantly, just to mess with our players (don’t tell them).
For this category, success is based on the amount of ant farms upset.
HEINKEL HE 219
In the Allegiance set we introduced the you-hurt-me-I-hurt-you theme for the Germans on a couple of cards.
While Retaliation has seen a fair amount of play, the Heinkel has never really taken off. Part of the problem is that the old version reads like a Poe horror story.
The new version reads much cleaner and even if it is a slightly less powerful ability, it more than makes up for it with a lower cost.
Will it still be stuck on the ground? Nevermore!
P-51 MUSTANG
This iconic plane sees no play, for a good reason. We want to put it in the spotlight where it should be.
More importantly, we are anticipating more air decks showing up, or at least more decks with a few powerful air units, and want to create more tools to deal with them.
DIVE BOMBING
Dive Bombing is a versatile, but not overly powerful, tool. It acts as a removal against many small, aggressive units, but can also soften up a unit before attacking into it, or simply buy you time by reducing incoming damage next turn.
We don’t want to strengthen Dive Bombing as a removal tool, but we do want to strengthen its other applications, hence the change.
SURPRISE ATTACK
A pin-based strategy is rarely seen except in a handful of decks aiming to drag the game out.
While we are wary of strengthening non-interactive strategies too much, we feel this change to Surprise Attack gives a solid boost to pin-strategies without causing too many issues.
CALL TO THE COLONIES
France is finally crawling out of the shadow of Resistance decks and exploring other deck strategies.
We want to encourage these attempts and this change to Call to the Colonies makes an already decent card quite potent in several archetypes.
That’s it for now. It will be interesting to see how these changes affect the metagame once the patch is live tomorrow, January 12th.
Look out for the full patch notes with information on various bug fixes as well. We have many more changes and additions coming in the upcoming weeks and months, so stay tuned.
We’ll see you on the battlefield, commander!
