Balance Report: July 26

For this occasion we focus on the spirit of the cards, criteria correction, power level adjustment, metagame opening and Strengthen foundations.

Head Quarters

Some have changed to better address their approach, others have seen an improvement in their numbers.

Dogana

Dogana was hitting in proportion to his yellow cards. Now he will do it depending on the total resistance he has on the table.

We hope that this will allow the incursion into new ways of playing HQ.

The Elephant

The Elephant lacked an identity of its own as it looked a lot like other HQs that do similar things. We have taken a new approach looking to give NB decks an identity beyond the far left or far right focus.

This is a new focus. We believe that Slot 3 is an important and little exploited position. With an initial push of +39 ATK in that position, The Elephant comes to propose another way to dismantle the opponent’s lines.

OS Ares

We think OS Ares is well focused in its essence. However its bonuses feel soft and it is often frustrating to lose a Character just when their attack was getting interesting.

We hope that with this formula OS Ares will manage to provide bonuses that will allow it to compete with the other HQs of its faction.

Sand Abbey

The home of the Acolytes of the Needle has not contributed much to their offspring. We believe their approach is still the right one, but their numbers are still insufficient.

Greater Toughness and a more serious bonus may be what solidifies this Inhuman approach that is so rarely seen in tournaments.

Binder Tattoo Studio

This is an important change of focus for Inhuman who were being discriminated against as they were the only ones who did not have the +1RES global bonus that the other Factions had.

We took out the penalty on ranges that rather than responding to any particular proposal ended up restricting the construction of the BTS itself. We also gave them the RES bonus they were missing and raised the bonus on HP in the hope that this would make Green Technologies more attractive.

Characters

We have fine-tuned 4 higher rarity Characters to make them feel more complete and made minor adjustments to 2 Characters that see play today in the competitive environment.

Thanata, Medium

Thanata was a character that felt complete only when he didn’t have an rival. Most of the time he does have someone in front of him and this made him seem more like a deficient character. By raising both his natural attack and bonus, we hope that she can put up a fight against other deviants and that when she connects her sneak attacks to the opponent’s HQ she can do the damage that her space in the deck deserves.

Florencia Wolff, Sworn Saboteur

Florencia’s condition was preventing her from doing her job well. She is a specialist we expect to see in Entropy formations or helping out in Female decks. That’s why her condition is now Loyal.

Another issue we addressed with Florencia was her reduced attack and reach. We hope she can support her teammates with a little more aggression.

Epsilon, Martyr

Both Epsilon bonuses were very low. In trying to support both factions at the same time it doesn’t end up contributing to either.

On the one hand, the Inhuman-Owner amalgam is more interested in what happens on the far left side of the table while the Entropy-Inhuman alliance targets the far right.

Hopefully this new form of Epsilon will allow it to get into decks focused on one of its abilities at a time.

Finally this new focus comes with a readjustment to its range, as it now weakens the right side of the table, its attack will seek to do damage in that place.

Alia Oz, Trader

It is time to see Alia Oz out of red HQs. We want her to be an asset in other formations that need her support. That’s why in addition to removing her condition, we have raised the amount of attack she provides.

His range has also been changed to help lock down the damage he provides through his bonus. He is a character that will tend to be on the right side of formations and is not aimed at siege so it made sense for us to give this orientation to his range.

Hired Ops Team, Undeviant

While we wanted multi-faction decks to have access to a Technology Hate, we felt that H.O.T. was overkill. We have reduced their Hits by 1 in the hope that they won’t give us reason to lower it further.

Spilling Nick, Gatherer

Nick’s main role is as a tank. He is an offensive tank and therefore his defense will be lower than other purely defensive tanks, such as Lucio. His defense at the time of his appearance was too low, although this was not perceived as such because he was surrounded by base cards. As more Unlocked cards appear we will see better defined the limits between which the parameters of these cards move and perhaps more adjustments like this will be necessary along the way, but we hope they will be as few as possible.

Another Gatherer’s issue that caught our attention was the amount of area damage it was spitting out thanks to its trigger. We have decided to lower its firepower so that it can coexist with the rest of the cards which, at the moment, are mostly base cards. We do not rule out the possibility of raising that edge again in the future when there is a more defined metagame.

Finally we changed his range and condition for its trigger. We want him to stay in blue HQs and we believe that attacking to the right is how he will best take advantage of his own damage output.

Technologies

All Factions have more or less efficient or effective ways of raising the RES of their Technologies. But they have not been able to take advantage of both Inhuman and Owner. That is why we have made a couple of adjustments to Technologies of those colors to encourage the incursion in strategies that include them.

Yaba, Enhancer

We have made the Toughness granted by Yaba proportional to its RES. This offers the opportunity to raise it as well as another way for the opponent to penetrate the shield.

Red Council, Enhancer

In this case we have also given room for ingame improvement to the defensive aspect of this card.

Another detail we have addressed on this card is to remove its Slot 1 status. We felt it was too restrictive. There are chairs for everyone!