Rhino Games announced they're going to be releasing a balance patch soon. This update will not require a download and will bring changes to 3 Paths and 20 cards. DO NOT UNMAKE ANY CARDS UNTIL THE PATCH GOES LIVE! There's also some news on the final two codes from the Core set.

Free Core Set Codes Update

First up, the codes! While no official statement was made, Rini, Rhino Games' Community & Social Media Manager, let us know on Discord that the codes were delayed due to changes in their PR team. No date for when we'll receive them was given, sadly, but hopefully, it'll be soon.

Quote From Rini

Final 2 were delayed for a few reasons, one major one being that our PR team was recently changed. They're definitely still coming.

Now for the balance changes. There are quite a few of them, so we'll be grouping them by their color. A quick note on Scylla of Dire Strait, who has received no changes in text, but whose ability requires you actually have a card in hand, as this was the original intention with the card.

Paths

 

Norden

  • Honed Edge -> Gives +2/+1 (changed from +1/+2)
  • Westingshire Vandals -> Was give 'Has Rush while your opponent controls an artifact' and is a 3/3 (changed from 4/2)
  • Death Maiden's Eye -> Now has 8 Durability (down from 9), and the activated effect now removed 2 Durability (down from 3)
  • Valr Smith -> Has left the Barrens Now has the Valkyrie tag

 

Aztlan

Dreni

  

Parsa

 

Quote From Rhino Games

We've got some balance changes coming through the live tuning system. While we are not 100% finalized on a time yet, it will be some time in the next couple days and we'll give you more warning/notice when a time is decided on.

Paths

Rebel Partisan (generated by Rebellion Safehouse)
1/2 → 1/1
We're removing a bit of resilience from the minions generated by both Rebellion Safehouse and Alliance Command Center. Each path has been performing stronger than we'd like so we're going to try this change out before taking more drastic approaches. With additional nerfs to hard control strategies, we aren't inclined to double dip in the nerf pool here and also weaken the card acquisition rate of this path just yet.

Triforge Trooper (generated by Alliance Command Center)
1/2 → 1/1
While a little stronger than we'd like, Alliance Command Center is not performing quite as well as Rebellion Safehouse and with a nerf to the Triforge Trooper, we think ACC is likely to land in a pretty good spot.

Journey of Souls
Pursuit: Starts with 1 Soul → Pursuit: Starts with 2 Souls
Journey of Souls has felt pretty weak for a while. Our previous buff to its pursuit has done a good job making up for tempo loss and this change should allow for that tempo to be made up just a bit earlier.

Cards

Traitorous Murmur
6[G]GG → 7[G]GG
We've seen Traitorous Murmur having a bit more impact a bit earlier than we'd like. We're moving it to 7 mana as a more conservative approach to potentially overreaching in combination with more Green control-targeted nerfs inbound.

Terminal Calculus
5[G]GG → 6[G]GG
Terminal Calculus is overperforming as a 5 mana banish spot removal so we're moving it up to 6. This cost seems more appropriate in both those situations where you are only taking one minion or the dream scenario where you're catching many more.

Plague Maidens
REMOVED: Regen 2
REMOVED: (1): Deal 1 damage to all minions.
NEW: (@): Give a minion Blight 1
NEW: Demise: Add a Troikasekt spell to your hand.
Plague Maidens is a card that is no stranger to this section of our patch notes. Our most recent change was aimed at addressing situations where Plague Maidens, in conjunction with Bol'shoy Constructor, was being used to end games from hand at thresholds that did not feel fun at all. We were aware of the potential problem of the self-inflicted damage being gone creating a different set of "feelsbad" situations. After seeing Plague Maidens overperform in its most recent role, we've decided to lean a bit more into the whole "plague" aspect of the Plague Maidens and get away from a more binary control tool.

Cradle of Life
Sunrise ability: +3/+0 → +1/+0
Cradle of Life is currently a bit too good at turning minions into monsters so we're reeling in its damage output.

Vibrant Quetzal
Awaken: Gain 3 life. → Awaken: Gain 2 life.
While deciding to remove some damage in place of some life gain with the Cradle of Life change, we are removing some of yellow's earlier life gain from Vibrant Quetzal.

Holcan Assembly Line
REMOVED: Sunrise: +1(e)
Holcan Assembly Line decks are pushing out threats a bit too effectively right now. Removing the energy gain on Sunrise still allows for the payoff of bigger minions when you're dropping artifacts but doesn't provide the reliability of the assured energy gain. This should push the card into a spot where you need to dedicate a bit harder into artifacts to really get the best activations from Assembly Line.

Automagic Artillery
2/7 → 2/6
With Armor 2 still in place, Automagic Artillery is definitely still nice and chonccy but now it's just a bit less chonccy.

Scylla of Dire Strait
Fixed the discard ability to require a card in hand to use.

Adorner of Fertility
1/2 → 1/3
Low cost mythics are very hard to get right. You don't want them being too good because they can set a pattern of early doom and gloom on a rather inconsistent metric and you also need to have some level of power to them to be worth playing them with the inherent inconsistencies around finding an early mythic on curve. Moving Adorner to 1/3 isn't going to make it show up in plenty of new decks it wouldn't have made the cut in before but should provide a bit more of a body for those looking to summon the Champion of the Contest.

Kaveh, Khyber Warlord
-7e… → -6e…
This is a minor buff to tribal Rebel strategies with the potential for the ultimate ability of Kaveh to go off a bit more reliably. Down with the Alliance!

Si'lat Elite
2/4 → 3/4
This is a minion with some cool synergies and combo potential so we're pushing the stat line up a bit to make it more in line with the top end of her cost.

Parsa's Cornucopia
5[O]OO → 4[O]OO
Cornucopia's strict gem limitation forces you pretty hard into orange so we're dropping the cost a bit to reward that dedication a bit earlier.

Battleball Kicker
Awaken: You may spend (2)… → Awaken: You may spend (1)…
Battleball Kicker has been training really hard for the next Pantheon Games and has gotten a bit better at precise ball placement.

Ghul
2[O]O → 2[O]
This is a change we've made before and eventually walked back. With more power in graveyard strategies now than when we last brough Ghul to one gem, we're looking to try it out at the less restrictive cost again.

Xerxian Agitator
2[O]O → 2[O]
Removing the second gem from Agitator might make small orange splashes in decks primarily in other colors a bit more interesting.

Parsa Immortal
4/4 → 4/5
A small buff to Parsa Immortal to bring its stat line up to par with other minions near the top of its price point.

Shaitan Pariah
3/4 → 3/5
OO@: Take control of an… → OO: Take control of an…
Shaitan Pariah is a really interesting tech card but as a Mythic it is inherently less likely you'll draw it when you need it. We're increasing the power of this one a bit due to its otherwise niche application. Removal of the utility action does allow for the dream scenario where you steal all the things.

Death Maiden’s Eye
-3 DUR → -2 DUR on activation
DUR: 9 → DUR: 8
We're moving Death Maiden's Eyes numbers around a bit to allow for another activation of its effect while bringing its overall durability down.

Westingshire Vandals
4/2 → 3/3
NEW: Has Rush if you opponent controls an artifact.
Westingshire Vandals needing to stick around for a turn to maybe do something to the artifacts it's supposed to be hurting often left it being removed before it was getting in. This pain point was exaggerated by the change to Samosek a while back not allowing it to get in at all at times. This change should do a better job of letting Vandals exist as a good tech option if you expect a lot of artifacts.

Valr Smith
Undead → Undead Valkyrie
Valr Smith has been moonlighting as a mechanic and has become good friends with the Valkyrie. Valkr Smith confirmed! This is a thematic change and does allow it to benefit from some of the Valkyrie tribal synergy. Maybe they're going to be working more hand in hand with the Undead?

Honed Edge
+1/+2 → +2/+1
This just puts Honed Edge back to its original state from before a buff and subsequent nerf. We expect it will continue seeing the same amount of play (read: not much) at +2/+1 as it does at +1/+2 so we're moving the axe back to an offensive stat line as a flavor thing. There's also a neat tie-in where Valr Smith gives Undead minions +2/+1 so it's like she is actually forging them a Honed Edge. We definitely don't foresee meta implications to this change and are more just cleaning up some awkwardness around theming here.

More information on refunds will be available when we announce the time these changes will go out. We definitely advise that you NOT unmake nerfed cards just yet until we've told you the unmake window for refunds.