Genre: Real Time Strategy (RTS), Role-playing (RPG), Strategy, Turn-based strategy (TBS), Adventure, Indie
Minion Masters
Version 1.4 - Sand Wars Expansion!
Minion Masters!
War! The Scrat factions have waged an all-out assault on the Slither Dominion with their new contraption of carnage, the Wreckinator 9000, to fulfill their insatiable desires for more “Shinies”. The Slither Lords are swift to retaliate, with Apep’s most formidable Herald, Ah’Mun, leading his army of Slitherbound on a mission of pest control…
Sand Wars is a new Expansion packed with new content.
Featuring 10 new Cards:
New Mechanic: Poison Deals 20 damage per Second. Extra applications of Poison extend the Duration, but do not stack the Damage. Cannot be applied to Masters or Buildings.
New Faction Mechanic: Call Slitherbound Adds a Slitherbound Minion to a Slither card in your hand. Summon all Slitherbound when played. Max 3.
New Faction Mechanic: Sacrifice Kill all Slitherbound you command.
The following Slither minions now have Call Slitherbound:
Empowered Soulstealer
Hypnotise
Living Statue
Musketeer
Rabid Prowler
<*>This Expansion will last until November <*>10 new cards have been released! <*>Two brand new skins have been released - Scrattsu and Stormfeather! <*>Get your hands on Minion Masters’ first Legendary Arena - Altar of the Almighty Apep! <*>Scrat and Armoured Scrats have received a completely new model! <*>All existing Slither Cards have had their models and textures updated to create a new, cohesive art style for the Slither faction, inspired by Aztec and Egyptian culture. Learn more about it on the blog
Contender League & Season Roll-over Changes
A new summit for the most skilled of Minion Masters players has appeared!
Achieve Contender rank by earning 2000 Ranking Points while in the Grand Master League.
Contender rank players earn a special in-game chat icon to signify their achievement.
Your ranking points are now always displayed for Grand Master and Contender ranks.
Contender has a Conquest Glory modifier of 250%.
It is now possible to drop out of the Grand Master and Contender Leagues if your Ranking Points drop below 0.
The amount of points required to rank up from Silver and above have been increased.
The Season Roll-over now gives players a higher rank in a new season than before. For example, Grand Master and Contender players will start a new season at Platinum 5.
Season Roll-overs now happen during Update downtime, rather than at the start of the month.
Friend Gifting
Share the love!
When purchasing Shop Offers for rubies, you now have the option to Gift the offer to a friend or a member of your Guild instead for the same price.
The other user will receive their Gift instantly.
Gifting cannot be used to buy a user the same Shop Offer more than once, or buy a Shop Offer the user has already purchased.
Balance
Beam of DOOM!
No longer deals 50% damage to non-Master buildings
Brothers of Light/Caeleth Dawnhammer
Damage 130 > 140
Demon Warrior
Damage 100 > 110
Fire Imp
First tick of damage removed
Gax the World Bomb
Damage 175 > 200
Haunting Hugger
Damage 20 > 40
Lord-Sentinel Thelec
Health 500 > 600
Mythic (Keyword)
You can no longer have two of the same Minion with the Mythic keyword in play on your team at a time. Developer Note
For example, you cannot have two Nyrvirs on your field at the same time.
Rabid Prowler
No longer activated by having a friendly Minion with Rage on the field.
Now has the Sacrifice keyword - Rabid Prowler gains Rage if you control any Slitherbound Minions, and kills all of them.
Scrat Tank
Health 700 > 650
Misc
A new House event has started. Collect all the keys for your House of choice and choose a Legendary card as a reward!
Our Twitch Extension is fully functional again! Enable it on your Twitch Streams to streamline your viewers’ audience interactions.
The Conquest retry price has been adjusted from 100/500 Rubies to 100/300.
Added Master Damage and Cast Time stats to certain Spell cards.
Various improvements and changes to Card Descriptions to clarify mechanics.
Added new VFX to Gax the World Bomb.
Added the ability to sign-up for the Newsletter directly in-game.
Bugs
Fixed an issue where Morellia’s Basic Attack would stop working - Thanks Kyoshiro!
Fixed Bridge Buddies’ tooltip being outdated - Thanks Steven!
Fixed Empowered Soul Stealer still having Marksmanship in his preview - Thanks TomatoMato!
Fixed Guardian protecting Milloween - Thanks Joel Jones!
Fixed the Red Dot indicator for Deck Building remaining on if you didn’t own a card that had the “Changed” status - Thanks... everyone!
Fixed Nether Bat being able to blink while Stunned.
Fixed an issue where a Jungle Jumble discounted by Morellia would grant more than 3 cards.
Fixed in-game Chat showing the wrong emoticons.
Fixed freezes caused by Reporting a bug in Challenge mode.
Fixed the Recruit Friend button on the Colossus avatar not doing anything.
We’ve got loads more planned in the future for Minion Masters. Keep your eyes peeled on our Road Map for hints at future content and updates!
Cheers from BetaDwarf!
Minion Masters Friday
Minion Masters!
Introducing the Contender League
Coming in Version 1.4 is a brand new Ranked League for those that want a challenge beyond Grand Master. There'll be changes to the existing Grand Master league, where your ranking points within Grand Master are now visible on a scale of 0 to 2000. It's now possible to drop out of Grand Master, much like other ranks, and once you achieve 2000 points within Grand Master you will be promoted to the brand new Contender rank. Keep in mind that there are no Win Streaks in Grand Master and full rank loss for defeats, meaning reaching this new League will be a testament to your prowess as a true Minion Master.
While you're in Contender league, you'll receive a new icon next to your name in the in-game chat to represent your accomplishment. However, it's still possible to drop out of Contender if you lose too many matches, so stay on your toes!
The Contender League is just our first step in our ranked changes, and we have many plans for the new rank such as E-sports related interactions. This also of course comes hand in hand with our new changes to the rank roll-over being at the start of every new patch to ensure the entire season is played on the same set of balance changes.
Sharing is Caring
Starting with Version 1.4, you will also be able to buy gifts for your friends and Guildmates! Any Shop Offer item can be instead sent to a friend of your respective platform or any member of your guild, paying the usual costs. A user cannot be gifted the same Offer more than once however, and if you are gifted a Shop Offer you cannot purchase it for yourself from the store. Get out there and spread the love!
Balance Changes coming in v1.4
On top of the upcoming Sand Wars battle pass, Version 1.4 will be holding host to a number of Balance Changes we've been working on. It won't be the truly crazy roster of 20+ changes we had in Version 1.3, but some adjustments to existing cards that need an extra nudge to be effective, or perhaps a tuning down in regards to their power level. We also have a change coming to the Mythic mechanic that only allows a singular copy of a Mythic Card to be in play on your team at a time. You'll be able to read all about these Balance Changes as we get closer to the release date of Version 1.4 on the 16th of August.
That's all for today, Masters. We're super excited to bring these features and more in Version 1.4, and we're looking forward to your feedback as always!
Cheers from BetaDwarf!
Minion Masters Friday
Slithery (Colour) Schemes
Coming in Version 1.4 is a set of visual redesigns for the Slither faction. We wanted to craft a unique identity for the units to help set them apart from other factions such as the Empyreans by ensuring a similar color scheme and unique identifiers so that they are easier to recognise in a match. To that end, we've gone for a more Teal-based color scheme with feathers to help with the visual flair the units provide. We also wanted to help cement the Slither faction's roots in Aztec and Egyptian culture/mythology - Upcoming cards in the brand new Sand Wars Battle Pass will further indicate and explain the culture of the Slither.
Minion Masters in the Top 5 releases for May
We're a bit late to the draw, but Minion Masters was in the Top 5 games with highest playercounts during our launch in May! Steam's post here details that the support of our awesome community pushed our Peak player count above and beyond the norm. And with the content-packed update that is Version 1.4 swiftly approaching, we can't wait to see if we can smash that record again!
Deckbuilding from anywhere
The community Deckbuilding website, MM Deckbuilder recently updated to have all cards and masters up to Version 1.3! You can create decks of any kind as if you owned a full collection, with useful stat calculations such as the amount of Shards required to craft the deck, or how many of your units can hit Flying units. Once you're done crafting your perfect deck, you can share it with everyone else as well as your insights on how to play it, and have users vote on the quality of your decklist. High rated decks get pushed to the front page!
It's a fantastic site made by u/TheConcepteur on Reddit, and we highly encourage you to check it out here!
King Puff Cup 35
If you're a fan of high level competitive Minion Masters (and who isn't?) you'll love the 35th King Puff Cup happening this weekend! Happening on July 27th at 1400 UTC, you can tune in and watch top players fight through the Last Master Standing format for their piece of the $600 prize pool. Make sure to stop on by their Twitch channel here!
Cheers from BetaDwarf!
Minion Masters Friday
It's Minion Masters Friday! We've got news about a change to the Season Rollover dates, news about a new Art Contest, and our new Update site for the upcoming Battle Pass!
This patch we’re bringing some frequently requested features to the game by means of a streamlined Bug Reporter and 2v2 Report option as well as a tonne of balance changes to shake things up in the meta.
Please note that for the time being Xbox will not have the Bug Report feature. The Unity feature we use for reporting does not currently support Xbox, but we’ll be investigating how to make it work for Xbox in the future.
Also note that the In-Game timer for the next Battle Pass has increased. We’re doing this to align the Battle Pass release with something as yet unannounced. We’ve added another weekly quest for you during this time, so you can get even further in the Battle Pass and claim those rewards!
With all that away - Let’s dive right in!
Tri-Team Tourney
The Tri-Team Tourney has returned! Collect 15 keys for the house of your choice and vote for which card you’d like to see in the game next! You can only vote for one house, so choose wisely, and earn yourself a Random Legendary Card!
House Valor - Stormbringer, Volco, Ratbo - Ghost Storm
House Triumph - Apep, Morellia, Mordar - Mal’Shar
House Glory - Milloween, Ravager, King Puff - Taurus
The event will last until the release of Version 1.4 - Good luck!
Bug Reporter
Help us help Minion Masters without even closing the game! With the new Bug Reporter tool found in the Settings Menu, you’ll be able to attach a screenshot of the game, add Replays and Crash reports, and give detailed descriptions on the issues encountered. Thanks in advance for our awesome community’s commitment to helping us catch bugs!
2v2 Report
Also coming in this update is the ability to report your teammates at the Results screen for Leaving matches or Griefing. Simply click the Report button and choose between the options provided (You won’t be able to report someone for leaving unless they disconnected from the game) and your replay will be submitted to us for future review. Note that no action will be taken against players before the replays are viewed by a dwarf, and simply being bad at the game doesn’t count as Griefing ;)
Balance
We’re including a huge number of changes in this patch - quite possibly too many to write full Developer Comments for. Check out our Developer Stream VOD for the initial reveals of these changes and insights on them!
Apep
First and Third Perk now only selects Minions
Armored Scrats
Health 90 > 60
Unit Count 3 > 4
AtG Drone x8
Health 250 > 275
Bridge Buddies
Now always spawns Armored Scrats
Armored Scrats gain Frenzy if you already control the bridge
Crakgul Doomcleaver
Mana Cost 9 > 8
Divine Warrior
Health 350 > 400
Mana Cost 4 > 5
Dragon Nest
Now spawns a Flying Dragon instead if the spell cost 5+ Mana (After any mana cost discounts)
Empowered Soul Stealer
No longer has Marksmanship
Starts with 2 Souls
Gains an additional 2 when summoned if you control a minion with Rage
Grasping Thorns
Mana Cost 2 > 3
Health 50 > 75
Harbinger
Speed 3 > 4
Jungle Jumble
Mana Cost 8 > 7
Laser Turret
Health 350 > 300
Attack Speed 1.4 > 1.2
Cooldown decrease per attack 0.3 > 0.2
Minimum Attack Cooldown 0.1 > 0.2
Lone Wolf
Health 350 > 400
Mana Cost 4 > 5
Morellia
Range 12 > 10
Perk 2 Spirits 3 > 2
Queen’s Dragon Mana Cost 6 > 8
Rock Rivals
Living Statue no longer has Rage
Screaming Scrat
Health 90 > 60
Damage 100 > 60
Scrat Pack
Mana Cost 1 > 2
Unit Count 2 > 5
Spawn of Fury
No longer has Voidborne Wound
Mana Cost 4 > 3
Spirit (Mechanic)
Flying Minions now only receive 100 extra health
Troubadour
Attack Speed 5 > 4.5
Warrior
Health 350 > 400
Wizard Puff
Attack Speed 1.8 > 1.6
Misc
A new Conquest Season has started! Earn your guild a Tombstone Avatar, Admiral Mordar the Mad skin and a new Guild Banner this season!
You can now restart your Conquest after its completion for a Ruby fee. The highest score of your Conquest attempts will be your contribution at the end of the Cycle.
Adjusted the priority of Shields again. The new order is Constant Abilities (i.e. Scrat Tank/Divine Shield) > Cooldown Abilities (Musketeer Parry) > Consumable Damage Prevention (Shields) > HP Guards ( Guardian) > HP
Re-enabled the /syncachievements code for chat.
A message is now displayed when the game is waiting for a response from the Server.
Recently changed cards will now be marked stating as such. The notification can be removed by hovering over the card in Deckbuilding. A link to the patch notes is also available in the card details for changed cards.
Tri-Team Tourney now removes the Claim buttons for each house once the reward has been claimed to clear up confusion about only being able to claim the reward once.
Bugs
<*>Fixed issues with Diona spawning traps when Buildings were in play - Thanks MiKe! <*>Fixed two Walking Blind Dates colliding not killing both units - Thanks the_red_soul! <*>Fixed a visual bug when Haunting Hugger possessed a Magma Turret - Thanks the_red_soul! <*>Fixed a scenario where a Crossbow Dude could be stuck outside of the map - Thanks Kriszace! <*>Fixed matches found during Queue Master requiring you to “Click to Continue” - Thanks GReY WolF! <*>Fixed Blank card slots displaying 200 Glory when posted in chat - Thanks DX2! <*>Fixed a bug where Defenso Chopper killed Haunting Huggers - Thanks Siskodemon! <*>Fixed Magma Storm actually firing 11 balls - Thanks Siskodemon! <*>Fixed all Guild Applicants saying they haven’t been online for a month - Thanks BadAsAFish80! <*>Fixed an issue where Re-Boomer could get stuck in one place and never move for the rest of the match - Thanks Maldiga! <*>Fixed an inconsistency with Morellia’s Auto Attack causing it to sometimes not slow Minions - Thanks Jules! <*>Fixed an issue where Bridge Swap could swap a unit without it capturing the bridge - Thanks Naethure! <*>Fixed an issue where Guardian transforming while stunned could cause immortal units. <*>Fixed Morellia’s Auto Attack preventing units from Charging/Jumping. <*>Fixed an issue where Armored Escort would not work after Morellia uses Book of the Dead. <*>Fixed the tooltip for Recruit Friends saying “Invite this player to a battle”. <*>Fixed Conquest Cards not counting as an extra copy of the card for Wild Carding. <*>Fixed an issue with Crakgul’s description formatting. <*>Fixed an issue where Ragdolls kept being enabled after changing Screenshake or Camera Movement options. <*>Fixed Cursebearer’s Aura VFX jittering when it took damage. <*>Fixed a rare bug where Cleaver would not be stunned by Chain Lightning. <*>Fixed an issue where Conquest Cards would not apply a Season Gold Star correctly for the purposes of calculating glory for Conquest if they were the lowest Glory card in your deck. <*>Fixed Lone Wolf not having Rage in the unit preview.
Cheers from BetaDwarf!
Minion Masters Friday
Minion Masters!
We've got more of a look at the upcoming features in Version 1.3 as well as the new Tri-Team Tourney that lets you vote for a card we'll be making in a future update.
Tri-Team Tourney
The return of our card voting format is here! Similarly to the way our Card-House Contests have worked, the Tri-Team Tourney has you collecting keys for your favoured house and receiving a Legendary card from the first team you open the chest for. We've got Mal'Shar and Taurus making their return appearances from the previous tournaments, and with a new contender Ghost Storm picking up the flag for House Valor. Here's the teams and their respective cards:
House Valor: Stormbringer, Volco, Ratbo - Ghost Storm
House Triumph: Apep, Morellia, Mordar - Mal'Shar
House Glory: Milloween, Ravager, King Puff - Taurus
Your prize for voting for your card of choice will be a random Legendary card. Remember, you can only vote for one of the three teams! Look forward to the contest in Version 1.3.
Version 1.3 Feature List
We've decided to mix things up a little and give a full overview of what can be expected in Version 1.3 - These are the features we're aiming to include, though note that some of these may end up being delayed. Here's what we're planning for the next update:
Conquest Season 4
Tri-Team Tourney
Conquest Retry & general Improvements
Balance Changes
Player Reporting System
Bug Report System
Most of these are fairly self explanatory, but expect to hear more about them in the coming weeks!
King Puff Cup Season 5
The Fifth King Puff Cup Season is just around the corner, with King Puff Cup 34 just recently being announced with a date of July 6th, 2019! We can expect to see the familiar faces that ran a fantastic circuit in the fourth season reprise their roles with the new Sideboard format tested in the Prince Puff Cup series! The sideboard format allows players to submit 8 additional cards that can be swapped into their decks as they wish to adapt to strategies or pull surprises out of the bag, and has already proven to be quite popular with the high-level Minion Masters players. The prize pool hasn't been announced yet, but there is a promise from Julaiwnl that it'll be coming "really soon", so keep your eyes peeled for that.
We're so excited about this patch we don't want to delay any further, let's get into it:
New Master - Morellia the Lich Queen
Morellia the Lich Queen, Ruler of the Cursed lands, Queen of Souls, and Dragon Binder. Her magical power is rivaled only by her sister Milloween, but unlike her sister, Morellia uses her powers mercilessly in pursuit of her own ambitions. Wielding the Book of the Dead, she can call upon a host of powerful Death Magic to decimate her foes. However, the ancient soul trapped within the book is forever plotting its release.
In the end all will serve the Lich Queen.
Morellia will be available for 1500 Shards, or 775 Rubies.
Azali’s ability to protect flying swarm minions, in particular Nether Bats produced by Bats Bats Bats, was a frustrating mechanic to play against due to their unpredictability and “backstabbing” of units played to counter the combination.
One of the things Azali does well is providing a dream scenario you can build your deck around, but when you combine the shield mechanic with flying swarms, you get distinctly frustrating decks to play against. We wanted to maintain the dream, but make sure the opponent had a greater chance of being able to deal with the strategy without requiring an extremely specific deck counter.
Guardian
Now only shields Crystal Elves
Mana Cost 6 > 5
Damage 60 > 80
Damage change also affects Crystal Construct
Developer Comments
Guardian is a card that has proven particularly problematic as the card collection developed due to its high potential to protect otherwise vulnerable, but powerful Minion combos from removal effects or general damage, creating strategies that often felt unfair to play against. We opted to have Guardian fit more of a faction-based niche to fit thematically with the theme of the Crystal Elf Constructs. Like the Azali change, this greatly reduces the potential for abusive combinations with the card, but still retains its core identity.
Nyrvir the Fallen
Nyrvir Slumbers now does 80 damage over 4 seconds via 20 damage ticks once per second.
Health 1800 > 2200
Bug Fix: Fixed an issue where Nyrvir’s damage was significantly lower than intended during her first attack.
Developer Comments
Nyrvir Slumbers was a bit harder to pull off than we’d have liked, with effects such as Shield providing a hard counter to your ability to collect Spectral Essence from the card, as well as the small damage range not being effective enough to kill some desirable targets. Additionally, Nyrvir herself felt too easy to remove once you had managed to play her, so we felt a health boost was in order.
Ratbo
Damage 5 > 6
Developer Comments
One of Ratbo’s weaknesses was his basic attack, with its total DPS being among the lowest in the game, often leaving him defenseless against medium or larger sized units if he wasn’t able to flood the board with his scrats.
Snake Druid
Health 60 > 80
Root Duration 2 > 6 seconds
Developer Comments
Snake Druid, while a much beloved card of a small audience, suffered from how easily it could be picked off from small units, meaning that it often failed to get much value after its initial play. By increasing the HP he remains a bit more survivable, though easy to deal with on his own. More significant, however, is the increase of the Root Duration that will primarily apply once Snake Druid has been removed or forced to stop attacking, ensuring that the card will gain value.
Stormy
No longer stuns himself
Range 8 > 6
Speed 3 > 5
Developer Comments
Stormy was particularly safe for how frustrating it could be to play against. By removing the self-stun (but not the self damage) it will no longer continuously retarget to the closest minion, while the range and speed nerfs aim to put him in harm’s way faster and make him easier to deal with by reducing the effective time he can stay in the radius of cards such as Priestess and Healing Shrine.
Undying Skeleton/Cursebearer
Damage 50 > 60
Developer Comments
This change is mainly directed towards Undying Skeleton as we felt it has been underperforming, particularly in the new Toll of the Dead. Hopefully a small buff in damage will help give it the impact it needs.
Xiao Long
Damage 25 > 20
Developer Comments
Xiao was a bit too effective at his job - Being an annoying ranged minion that could discourage the usage of spells and support a push effectively. This damage nerf aims to retain that discouragement while making him less effective in more general cases.
[h1Misc <*>Made resummoning minions more consistent. Minions with buffs, such as Shielded Crossbow Dudes or Divine warrior, do not resurrect with their buff effects anymore. Additionally, on play effects such as Lord-Sentinel Thelec or Empowered Souls Stealers rage-trigger are no longer triggered when the Minion is resummoned. <*>Changed the name of “Recruit” to “Craft”. <*>Added a tip to the “Trophy Up” tutorial quest to indicate where achievements can be claimed. <*>Added highlights to buttons in the tutorial when a player is asked to click on them. <*>Claimable Quests will now show up first in the Quest Carousel. <*>Reworded the Season Crafting Discount to prevent confusion. <*>Clarified that the +2 from Stormbringer’s second perk is from Marksmanship.
