IWC 0.78 Patch Notes

January 11^th 2023, IWC Version 0.78 - Balance Patch & Fixes

Major Features

Tutorial 2

Tutorial 2 is now available to play. Go to the Play screen to try it yourself.

We are hard at work to complete the rest of our initial 4 tutorials, with new mission builder systems to speed up this process in the future.

Major Balance Patch

As part of our improved commitment to feedback from our Patreons. We have released a array of major and minor balance changes. All changes required a minimum average vote of 5/10 from our Patreons after being reviewed, with all changes passing with flying colors. We hope these changes shake up the meta in interesting ways, and tone down some of the most powerful or frustrating cards.

Minor Features

New Store Items

New packs available in the store, with weekly rotations for upcoming bundles!

Keep an eye out for new alt arts available by these bundles, as well as full set single packs.

New Keyword: Barrier!

Barrier is a new mechanic being showcased in the next set: Revelations.

Barrier (When a card with Barrier is dealt damage or is killed by a kill effect, instead it breaks a Barrier.)

We are adding this keyword primarily in DoD, and Genesis as a defensive option against both combat and kill effects, with it not being as repeatable as shield, or as permanent as effects like Flame Dawn Paladin.

You'll see more used of the keyword in the next upcoming expansion, which the team is really excited to showcase soon.

Balance Changes

Trading Post 3 Cost Option

Now draws then shuffles.

Goal: Any change to a core gameplay system of IWC such as the Trading Post is not something to be changed lightly, this will very slightly increase the power of this option, but reduce negative experiences created by drawing the exact same card you shuffled away.

Medi, Herald of the Void

Draft Activation cannot be undone.

Goal: Keep the draft ability as a fun casual option for players at low/medium levels of play who want variety each game. But tone down the power of the card at high competitive play, as while it can still find finisher cards, you have to take one of the cards offered each time, no longer granting you a free peek at the options offered.

NOTE: If you cancel the choice or run out of time mid-choice, a card will be Drafted randomly.

The Calamity

Gains "You cannot play Calamity if another copy of this card is in your graveyard."

Goal: Re-adding IW1's Unique tag gameplay to Calamity, but spelled out explicitly to make it easier to understand. Multiple Calamities being cast each game has negatively impacted how control mirrors, and finisher cards play out, especially at a higher levels.

Forerunner of the Champions

Base stats changed from 4/4 -> 3/3.

Goal: A minor nerf to bring down the early game power of Forerunner slightly. We knew the redesign as first released was pushed, but so was the pre-redesign card, and thus wanted to give the community a chance to try out the more powerful version before scaling it back if necessary. After seeing the card's results over the last month or so this is necessary. We'll continue to keep an eye on Forerunner's performance if/when this nerf is applied.

Symbiote Prototype

Card text changed to "When Symbiote Prototype enters the deployed area, if you control an Artifact, Symbiote Prototype gains Barrier 1."

Goal: Symbiote Prototype has consistently been requested as a card to receive a redesign, keeping the "artifact matters" element at a low purity but not actively conflicting with single target buffs. When adding the Barrier mechanic, we looked at if any old cards wanted to receive the new mechanic and Symbiote Prototype seemed like a natural fit. The card is still unlikely to see non-casual play, but will certainly be more interesting in upcoming modes like Rift Runs.

Covert Battlesuit

Wording/minor mechanical change.

• "When Covert Battlesuit enters the deployed area, it gains Barrier 1. While Covert Battlesuit has Barrier, it has Untouchable."

Goal: Intergrate the Barrier mechanic into a card that essentially already has it, just unkeyworded. Keeps the card playing the same in 95% of situations, only making it slightly more powerful if it gains Barrier due to some other effect.

Shield Generator

Wording/minor mechanical change.

• "Exhaust: Target Character you control gains Barrier 1 until end of turn."

Goal: Integrate the Barrier mechanic into a card that essentially already has it, just unkeyworded. Keeps the card playing the same in 90% of situations, only making it slightly more powerful if used to block kill effects or noncombat damage when you have initiative.

Salvage Operation

Can only raise artifacts or characters that cost 10 or less.

Goal: Raising artifacts from the graveyard into play was a previously unseen effect in Infinity War's cardbase. The resulting Omnitron decks have played poorly. Requiring very specific answers for often a low deckbuilding cost. This restriction will mean either reanimating other cards like Omnimind, AI Singularity, or playing enough artifacts to reduce Omnitron's cost to 10 or less.

The BIG-ANATOR

Base stats changed from 1/1 -> 3/3.

When you Overcharge or discard a card, If The Big-anator is deployed, it gains +1/+1. (Previously +2/+2)

Goal: Big-ANATOR is an excellent "build-around" card that currently is just a little too swingy with mass overcharge or discard effects, especially when used in multiples. This could often be used for annoying OTK turns that created negative experiences. This minor modification to its stats will make the card more powerful with small amounts of discharge/overcharge, but not have it scale to such huge sizes as quickly.

Filing Cabinet

Draw a card, then put the two left-most cards in your hand onto the bottom of your deck.

Goal: Filing Cabinet being a cheap factionless artifact that can be activated any number of times per turn could be abused with Overcharge matters cards which was not part of the card's goals. This change keeps the repeatable filtering aspect, but no longer works with cards like Hungry Abomination to create negative play experiences.

Infested Hulker

Added the 'Beast' subtype.

Goal: Most players due to the name and art already assumed it had this type, this change means reality lines up with expectations, while very minorly buffing a fun casual dual faction card.

Bug Fixes

General:

• Removed duplicate card entries in the deckbuilder (Proctul Sniper, Devil of Despair).
• Fixed issues with deck cover art on deck displays in the main menu not properly updating.
• Fixed deckbuilder incorrectly hiding mixed purity cards even if it was legal with the selected commander purities.
• Fixed deckbuilder not updating commander faction filtering when mix purity filtering is used.
• Fixed quest 'Big Boys' counting progression for 7 cost cards.
• Fixed several cases of cards not getting put into the end of your end due to the cards not being shifted across (E.g. when using Acquire or Denial of Reason).
• Fixed effects that Gain Control and move into your deck incorrectly putting them on the top.
• Fixed Graveyard and Deck targeting to close the card viewer if cancelling targeting while the zones are being showed.
• Refactored card removal system to be fused in with the death system more consistently, to improve queuing or ordering. This fixed inconsistencies between cards that die and then get removed from resulting triggers, e.g. Kali's removal upon killing a card, and two Kali's killing each other.
• Fixed Graveyard cards not being repositioned when being played from the Graveyard, causing a possible inconsistency between players.
• Expanded targeting system to support showing a notification when the current effect has no targets available to target.
• Fixed 'On Enters Deployed' effects sometimes not triggering when being rasied from the graveyard to a deployed zone.
• Fixed the deck builder cosmetic selector showing outside of the deck builder when zooming a card elsewhere in the main menu.
• Fixed poor performance issues with the card deployment system for Units due to an inefficient Unique validation check, which caused large frame drops.
• Fixed the incorrect deck sometimes showing in the deck builder after returning to the main menu from a game.
• Stopped quests progressing during a tutorial game.
• Fixed Quest 'Push the Limits' not correctly checking the Max Resources for the player at the end of the game, and incorrectly completing the quest after only 1 game.
• Fixed Zone Overlays not showing and fading away when first entering the game, resulting in the player not getting feedback for the different zones there are. Also improved performance when dragging cards over the zones due to inefficient checks.
• Fixed Resources not being consumed for the opponent in Offline game (tutorial/AI) due to Action's ignoring spend cost for opponents.
• Fixed Deck cards showing modified stats when viewing the cards in the zone, resulting in the player receiving too much feedback on what position in the deck the card is in.
• Fixed the Graveyard viewing to reverse the order of the cards so that the top of the Graveyard is shown first.
• Fixed Keyword disabling to remove all card modifier instances of that keyword (This fixed Drag Down, Shattered Veil, Dive and Prowling Hunter sometimes not working properly).
• Fixed cards with multiple On Field activation abilities (E.g. Agent Coyle, Superior Symbiote), incorrectly having their cost modified due to cost increase cards such as Gabrielle, the Torch in the Dark.
• Fixed Store pack and bundle items in the store not having correct image and descriptions displayed.
• Fixed the account transfer info message in the login screen incorrectly showing the localization key instead of the description for new players.

Cards:

• Fixed Mysterious Box of Wonder's Alternate Art not having an animated spritesheet.
• Fixed Raise Dead on an opponent card incorrectly synergizing with Memorial to Heroes causing an additional spirit token being created.
• Fixed Marina, Touched by Infinity's Lifelink being set as 0 instead of 4.
• Fixed Mysterious Box of Wonder's Christmas alternate art spritesheet being missing.
• Fixed Symbiote Prototype causing the game to hang.
• Fixed Undeath Wish second choice sometimes not moving the killed card to your graveyard.
• Fixed Denial of Reason not working properly when stealing an opponents ability card from the hand.
• Fixed Search for the Key not filtering for Unique cards in the deck when targeting.
• Fixed Zuza Angelic Siren's ability to take control of the character into the same zone type the target was in, and fixed it to move the controlled card back to the opponents zone that it was currently in when it is returned (E.g. If the controlled card had died, then it is moved to the opponents graveyard when Zuza leaves play or takes control of another card).
• Changed Rally and Unfazed inconsistently removing themselves at different times, due to removal being different from death. (Possible desync solve).
• Fixed Awaken's graveyard targeting not properly filtering out cards that can't be targeted.
• Added VFX Painful Lesson for improved player feedback.
• Added VFX's for the 'Replace Death' effects of the DoD Avatar Cards (Daode, Lingbao, Yuanshi).
• Added VFX to Pras, The Traitor of Dawn's fortress damage effect.
• Added a VFX to Extirpate for improved player feedback.
• Fixed Tormented Thrall not working in synergy with friendly kill effects, such as Mass Death, Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust.
• Fixed Spontaneous Combustion causing the game to crash.

January 13^th 2023, IWC Version 0.78.1 - Hotfix

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Tutorial 2 soft-locks occurring.
• Fixed cards being viewed in the deck only showing base stats (This affected Deck targeting effects when the cards had reduced costs, such as Nature's Wish).
• Fixed Evelee not recruiting cards in deck that have their cost reduced.
• Fixed Extirpate being legal in a deck that has no factionless commanders.
• Fixed Tome of the Dead not killing the deployed characters and instead moving them the players support zone.
• Fixed Removal effects of cards from the Graveyard not working (Fixed Aleta, Immortal Sufferer's ability).
• Fixed Player of the Month profile titles being used by the AI.
• Fixed the store scroll groups getting hidden by the friend/profile display, resulting in not being able to see the cost.
• Fixed typos in the descriptions of store items.
• Fixed Spontaneous Combustion Profile Pic not showing as the new Alternate Art.
• Fixed Agent Kael Card instances appearing in the profile pictures scroll group in Inventory.
• Fixed Torment Intruder missing it's description.
• Fixed missing SFX and VFX from Tutorial 2.
• Fixed graveyard/deck zones not allowing to be shown when clicked during targeting if the targeting effect allows it (This fixed Raise Dead).
• Removed duplicate Aubade, Heart of the Empire card in the deck builder.
• Fixed Aublade, Heart of the Empire's effect working even if it wasn't combat damage.
• Fixed Empath Battery triggering from opponent cards entering the deployed area.
• Fixed Rescue Angel causing immense performance drops and freezing the game.
• Fixed Nature's Wish first choice to only show valid targets that it can pull from the deck.
• Fixed Merlin, Master Tactician's Factionless choice incorrectly removing the shuffled card from the deck.