Pre-Release (v1.3) Notes (1/29/16)

LakeStone

Hello –

Great news! The next update (v1.3) for Magic: The Gathering – Puzzle Quest will be going live next week on February 2nd and we wanted to share the Pre-Release Notes so you can see what is to come. We do not have an exact time on when the update will go live on the 2nd but please check-in with us via the game, forums, or social media for the news.

For those waiting for their compensation from the Daily Rewards last month, please note that your Fat Pack will be coming via the game once this update goes live.

Thanks for playing the game!

Pre-Release Notes

Release Notes

What’s New in 1.3!

- NEW Quick Battle with Ranking Rewards
- 25 NEW Heroic Encounters
- NEW Daily Rewards
- 20+ Cards REBALANCED
- Gideon REBALANCED
- Multiple Bug Fixes

Gameplay

New Quick Battle!

Fight decks created by other players (played by the AI) in the new Quick Battle mode. You don’t lose points when defeated and points earned through victories will earn you great rewards at the end of the event!

Quick Battle now offers you a chance at cards from specific colors, free card packs and currency. Events reset on a two-weeks cycle:

- Mon-Wed: Fight for the chance to get rare and mythic White cards
- Wed-Fri: Fight for the chance to get rare and mythic Blue cards
- Fri-Sun: Fight for the chance to get rare and mythic Green cards
- Mon-Wed: Fight for the chance to get rare and mythic Red cards
- Wed-Fri: Fight for the chance to get rare and mythic Black cards
- Fri-Sun: Fight for the chance to get rare and mythic Colorless cards

Rewards are earned for everyone that wins at least one fight during this time period, with the best rewards going to the top of the leaderboard!

Rewards Screen are available from the Leaderboards to view what’s in store!

New Heroic Encounters

We’ve added 25 new Heroic encounters to the game. They are unlocked when you complete Gideon’s Heroic encounter.

These new encounters will test the limits of your ability for deck building and strategic play!

Each Planeswalker is featured and has 5 encounters, each with a special tailored deck.

These encounters do not follow traditional rules - they have a static starting hand, and some even begin with cards already on the board! They also reward much more Mana Runes than most encounters, so beating them should help you level up your Planeswalkers more.

New Daily Reward

- Daily Reward Activity Hub widget clearly shows the current month.
- You can collect the Daily Reward once per day simply by logging in and claiming your reward.
- Daily Reward which can not be collected are grayed out (including the Extra Reward if applicable).
- Final Reward is now labeled as Extra Reward.
- Extra Reward is collected in addition to the Daily Reward.
- Extra Reward is earned if the player collects at least X rewards in the month (X being set up for each single month). This occurs BEFORE the end of the month, giving more players the chance to earn the Extra Reward

Balancing / Change Log

Planeswalkers

- Overall, Gideon’s abilities cost very little for their strength. While they are extremely powerful overall, we feel that these costs are more appropriate. We want players to commit more to be able to use these abilities.

- Gideon’s ability costs have been adjusted.

- Sharp Eyes
Rank 2: Costs 6 Loyalty, up from 3
Rank 3: Costs 9 Loyalty, up from 3

- Call to Arms
Rank 1: Costs 9 Loyalty, up from 6
Rank 2: Costs 12 Loyalty, up from 9
Rank 3: Costs 15 Loyalty, up from 12

- Champion
Rank 1: Costs 18 Loyalty, up from 9
Rank 2: Costs 21 Loyalty, up from 12
Rank 3: Costs 24 Loyalty, up from 15

- Gideon’s rank 3 abilities have been retuned
Rank 2 now grants Defender instead of Life Link
Rank 3 now grants Defender instead of Life Link and Regenerate 3 instead of First Strike
Gideon’s rank 3 abilities were too powerful - combining Life Link and First Strike made the buffed creature not only incredibly dangerous in combat but also let Gideon heal himself to full very quickly. These new abilities are more in line with how Gideon is played.

Game mechanics

Disable changes

- Effects that permanently disable through Supports are currently too strong and turn the tide of the game too strongly. Since only 2 classes have reliable Support destruction, we are globally reducing the Shield value on these Supports.

- Claustrophobia changes
Mana cost is now 9, up from 6
Shield decreased to 1
Claustrophobia is an incredibly potent control tool for Blue and costs very little. With this, it should remain strong, but will be a bit more manageable for both you and your opponent.

- Suppression Bonds
Shield decreased to 1
Similarly to Claustrophobia, it’s mana cost was too low and it’s Shield value made it too difficult to manage.

- Hixus, Prison Warden
Mana cost is now 15, down from 18
Shield decreased to 1
Hixus is an incredibly strong card, and becomes almost impossible to manage under certain conditions. With a Shield of 1, it should be a bit easier to manage, but to offset it’s loss of Shield we are also decreasing it’s mana cost.

Cards description fixes

The following cards have had their descriptions fixed:

- Flameshadow Conjuring: text now reads
When a non-token creature you control enters the battlefield, it gains Haste and Prevent Damage until the end of your turn.
The previous version of this text did not specify non-token creature

- Vryn Wingmare: text now reads
All Support have their mana cost increased by 3
The previous version of this text incorrectly mentioned Spells being affected

- Grasp of the Hieromancer: text now reads
At the beginning of your turn, gives {0}/{1} to the first creature you control and Disables the first creature your opponent controls with Defender or Reach until the end of your turn
The previous version of this text did not mention a duration for the Disable.

Card changes

The following cards have had changes to their abilities -

- Act of Treason: No longer only affects Attackers. The card now specifically targets creatures without Defender or Reach
Act of Treason had interactions with other cards that were hard to grasp - when a creature gained the Defender evergreen, it didn’t lose its Attacker status (thus was still a legal target), for example. With this change, Act of Treason’s behavior should be much clearer.

- Nissa’s Pilgrimage now has 3 shield, up from 2, and converts 2 gems, up from 1.
Nissa’s Pilgrimage was a great card in need of a bit of love - especially given the changes to the dual land cards. It should help provide Green with more efficient ramp.

-All dual land cards (Battlefield Forge, Caves of Koilos, Llanowar Wastes, Shivan Reef and Yavimaya Coast) now cost 6, down from 8.
We agree with the community those weren’t cost effective enough. With their cost down to 6, they will take a maximum of 3 turns (3 matches of enemy color early on) to come out, but usually will come into play with 2 matches!

- Knight of the White Orchid is now a 4/4, down from 6/6
Knight of the White Orchid was too strong, as playing it early made you win most of your fights due to dealing 6 damage with First Strike. Down to 4/4 it should be much more manageable and creatures with 5 Toughness will be able to damage it. It still is a beast when Reinforced!

- Harbinger of the Tides is now a 4/4, down from 6/6, and the bounce effect increases the mana cost of the card by 6, down from 9
As several members of our community have noted, Harbinger of the Tides is vastly overpowered for Blue. We have changed it to a 4/4, instead of a 6/6, to keep the theme of Blue having the worst creatures (more changes may be coming down the line), and reduced the card cost increase by 3 to make it more manageable. We’ll keep a close eye on Harbinger of the Tides in the upcoming weeks to see how it performs.

- Demonic Pact had it’s shield value reduced to 3, down from 4, and now deals 30 damage to you, up from 10, when it is destroyed and destroys the first 3 cards in your hand (up from 2)
Demonic Pact is an incredibly strong Mythic card as it basically denies card draw for your opponent unless they manage to play the card on the turn they draw it. One of the big themes for Black is “Pay for Power”, and Demonic Pact’s drawback wasn’t large enough to make you feel like you were paying for this power, so we vastly increased its drawback and reduced its shield value to make it more in-line with the theme and to keep its power level in check.

- Jace’s Sanctum now costs 9, up from 5.
Jace’s Sanctum is very strong as it can deny mana gains from your opponent when it is played. Increasing its cost to 9 makes it much harder to play on a single turn, requiring more commitment to bring it into play while keeping its power level.

- Angel’s Tomb now only triggers on non-token creatures
Angel’s Tomb was much too strong when tokens Reinforced, so we had to remove its ability to buff tokens as they came into play.

- The following cards that return cards to their owner’s hands require space in the hand for the effect to occur:

- Anchor to the Aether
- Disperse
- Separatist Voidmage
- Harbinger of the Tides

Note that these cards require space in the hand even for tokens, even though they are destroyed when bounced

This change had to be done to keep Blue’s control power in check. Bouncing cards back to hand is meant to be temporary removal, and as players often have full hands, these power level of those cards was massively undercosted. We want to keep the temporary removal aspect to them as it makes for interesting gameplay, without having to make them cost so much more due to their potential for permanent removal.

Note that the other cards that bounce do not have this restriction, so they can still be used as removal.

Overall, we expect this change to let players play around Blue’s weaknesses more, as more aggro decks will have the choice to go all in and risk more bounce, or keep their hands fulls with lots of draw and a more careful approach!

- Anchor to the Aether can now only target your opponent’s creatures.
This change had to be done with the bounce mechanic change.

- Dreadwaters no longer traps only on blue gems - all gem colors can be activated as traps.
In general, we have buffed Trap gems. They aren’t as effective as we had hoped, and so we changed all the Trap cards so be more effective. In the case of Dreadwaters, this change should make the card more attractive - since your opponent does not know which gems could be affected, it is much harder to avoid.

- Relic Seeker now gives +1/+1, down from +2/+2, when dealing damage while Renowned.
Relic Seeker’s buff was much too strong, and needed to be scaled back. It is still rather powerful, but now shouldn’t completely overwhelm the game once it starts.

- Starfield of Nyx now requires 4 supports, down from 5, to activate its ability.
Starfield of Nyx is a very tricky support to play that needs a deck built around it, and needing 4 extra supports on the board meant it was practically never activated. It now needs 3 other supports on the board, which should be much easier to achieve.

- Tragic Arrogance now costs 18, down from 24
Tragic Arrogance was overcosted, and while powerful needed to have its mana cost scaled down.

- The Great Aurora now costs 15, down from 30
The Great Aurora is a difficult card to play and gauge as it is massive creature and support removal and has incredible comeback potential, but it needs to be set up in specific ways and cost way too much for what it did. Cutting it’s casting cost by half should make it much more attractive, but we’ll monitor its effectiveness “just in case”.

- Molten Vortex has been changed to:” When you match 3 or more Red gems, deal 4 damage to your opponent”.
Molten Vortex was an interesting card, but unfortunately its execution stopped short of being good. With this change, it should be back to a Mythic-level quality of card that really fits with the Red theme of aggression and damage.

- Priest of the Blood Rite now puts its trap gems exclusively on Black gems, and matching those gems deals 4 damage to its controller, up from 2.
With the “Pay for Power” theme in Black, this card’s drawback was almost nil. By putting the Trap gems exclusively on Black gems, your opponent has a double opportunity to harm you (clearing your highest mana generating gems and dealing damage to you) so you have to be more careful with this card.

- Tainted Remedy now creates 5 Trap gems, up from 3, deals 2 damage and heals for 2, up from 1 each.
Tainted Remedy was too weak for its effect. At 5 Trap gems, they are much easier to activate and have a stronger effect.

- Catacomb Slug now costs 12, down from 16.
Catacomb Slug was in line with our internal cost calculations, but it did cost too much to be worthwhile. We love the idea of Black having a strong early Defender with lots of toughness, so we focused the buff towards lowering it’s mana cost. Being 4 mana cheaper should make it more accessible, especially in the early game.

- Dark Petition now costs 9, up from 6, but also returns the creature to the battlefield, instead of the hand. Note that you must have 2 or less creatures on the battlefield for this spell to work.
Dark Petition wasn’t as good as it should have been. To be more in line with Black, the creature now returns to the battlefield, but it costs 9 to offset the raise in power.

- Sword of the Animist now has 2 shield, down from 3.
Sword of the Animist’s main drawback is that it can end up destroying itself, and with 3 shield, this wasn’t happening as much as it should have. With 2 shield, it should be easier to manage.

- Pyromancer’s Goggles now makes the last spell you control in your hand free, regardless of if you drew a spell or not.
Pyromancer’s Goggles was already a very strong card, but had a major drawback in that you needed to have an empty slot in your hand. With this, the effect is the same as it was beforehand, but if you don’t have an empty card slot, the effect is not totally lost.

Card bug fixes

- The AI will no longer cast Helm of the Gods on its opponent’s creatures
- Shadows of the Past was incorrectly doing 2 damage and healing for 2 - it now deals 4 damage and heals for 4.
- Tainted Remedy will deal damage to enemy creatures if you don’t have any creatures on the board. It was incorrectly not doing so if you didn’t have any creatures.
- Tainted Remedy incorrectly stated it would only put Trap gems on Black gems. The text has been corrected, but the effect on the card itself is unchanged.
- Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen incorrectly stated it gained +1/+1 instead of +2/+2 when matching it’s Activated gems. The text has been corrected, but the effect on the card itself is unchanged.
- Sigil of Valor didn’t correctly apply a +1/+1 buff to your first creature when you temporarily controlled 4 creatures.
- Send to Sleep now shows a confirmation popup when cast.
- Blessed Spirits now correctly gains +2/+2 for every Support card you cast.

Planeswalker bug fixes

- Gideon now earns +1 Black instead of +1 Spells at level 33
- Gideon’s Sharp Eyes ability can now properly be used on non-controlled creatures
- Chandra’s main colors are now appropriately Red/Black/Green instead of Red/White/Green. Her mana bonuses now appropriately start at 0 Black and -1 White, and now end with +1 Black and 0 White.
- Liliana now earns +1 Black instead of +1 Regeneration at level 41

Additional Bug Fixes are also being addressed but are not listed here in the notes.