Pre-Release (v1.4) Notes (4/14/16)

LakeStone

Hello –

We are getting even closer to the next update (v1.4) for Magic: The Gathering – Puzzle Quest, which is set to go live next week. The exact date is still being confirmed and we will be sure to communicate the timing when we have a better idea in the next couple of days. In addition to the Pre-Release Notes being shared today, Hibernum has been sharing a bit of added information and strategy (https://d3go.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=30) on the forums all week to help players prep for the release.

Thanks for playing the game!

Pre-Release Notes (v1.4)

- First Wave of Battle for Zendikar Cards are Released!
- New Planeswalkers Now Available with Level Cap Increased to 60.
- All-New Gameplay Mechanics Introduced for Battle for Zendikar.
- New Ability Ranks: Each Ability Now Goes Up to Rank 4.
- New Story Mode Encounters Added for Battle for Zendikar.
- Duplicate Cards Can Now Be Sold for Mana Runes.
- Other Improvements, Changes and Bug Fixes.

New cards

- The first wave of Battle for Zendikar cards are now available!
- The new cards are available in the Vault, under the Battle for Zendikar banner.
- You can purchase individual packs, fat packs and booster boxes.
- Battle for Zendikar packs are awarded whenever players receive packs through daily rewards or as rewards in Quick Battle.
- More cards will be added to the Vault in the coming weeks.
- Free boosters now contain all the Origin and Battle for Zendikar cards.

New Planeswalkers

- Gideon, Ally of Zendikar and Ob Nixilis Reignited are now purchasable through special offers!
- Gideon, Ally of Zendikar is a spell-oriented White Planeswalker, who relies on his Ally token generation to summon creatures and spells to make them stronger.
- Ob Nixilis Reignited is a Black Planeswalker who is balanced and has strong abilities that sacrifice his life to gain power.
- Look forward to more new Planeswalkers in the coming weeks!

New Battle For Zendikar Content

- New Battle for Zendikar mechanics: Void Gems, Rally, Converge, Awaken, Ingest, Process, Devoid and Landfall

- Void Gems: This new gem type is a resource used by some cards in Battle for Zendikar. They are created through Ingest and consumed as a resource through Process.
Void gems only give mana to cards with the Devoid keyword when matched. If you have no cards with the keyword, no mana will be gained at all when they are matched.

- Ingest: Cards that perform an Ingest convert gems on the board to the new gem type in Battle for Zendikar: Void gems.
The Ingested gems are always of your opponent’s color(s). For example, when playing against Jace, if you Ingest 3, you will convert 3 Blue gems to Void gems.

- Process: Cards that Process require Void gems for their ability to be triggered. If there are enough Void gems, it will convert the required amount into gems of your opponent’s color then trigger it’s ability.
For example, if a card has “Process 2: Deal 2 damage to your opponent”, when cast, if there are 2 Void gems on the board, 2 Void gems are converted into your opponent’s color(s) and you deal 2 damage to your opponent. If there aren’t enough Void gems on the board, the ability does not trigger.

- Rally: Whenever a creature with Ally comes into play, trigger the Rally ability.
Note that each creature with Rally also is an Ally, so them coming into play will immediately trigger their Rally.
Rally is a generic keyword with ability text after it; “Rally: Deal 1 damage to your opponent”. If you had that in play and triggered the Rally, it would execute the card text.

- Converge: Cards with the Converge icon track which colors were used to fill the card, then give scaling benefits for each different color used to fill their mana cost.
You can see the amount of different colors that were used on the Converge icon on the card in hand.

- Awaken: Cards with Awaken have dual casting costs: their main cost and an additional cost that is filled once the card’s initial casting cost is filled.
Note that the cards will auto-cast when their initial casting cost is filled, so you should disable the card in your hand to make sure you will fill the 2nd cost, if you so wish.
When you manage to cast the card with the 2nd cost, an additional action will trigger, such as summoning tokens or granting Power/Toughness modifiers.

- Landfall: The ability is triggered whenever you match 4 or more gems.
Some abilities are displayed as “Landfall <color>” - when this happens, if you match 4 or more gems of the specified color, that specific Landfall triggers.

- New Story mode: Battle for Zendikar
Split into 3 chapters, play against 30 all-new encounters!
Chapter 2’s encounters are Heroic and have a difficulty level similar to previous Heroic encounters
Chapter 3’s encounters are Legendary encounters! The enemies you encounter in this chapter are much stronger than usual, have bigger mana bonuses and have much more HP than other encounters.

New Features

- Cards now show their subtype! Look for any creature’s Subtype next to its type in the card description. It should now be much easier to identify which cards are zombies, elves, etc.
- New level cap: Each Planeswalker can now reach level 60.
- New ability ranks: Each Planeswalker ability can now reach rank 4.
- You can now sell card duplicates for runes.
Commons sell for 20 runes
Uncommons sell for 40 runes
Rares sell for 200 runes
Mythics sell for 1000 runes
To sell your duplicates, you can go into your inventory and tap the “Convert duplicates” button.
While we may or may not add a new function for duplicate cards in the future, we do not currently have any plans to do so.

Improvements and Changes

Planeswalker changes

We have made several changes to the Planeswalkers from Origins. Overall, we normalized their ability costs, as well as rebalanced some of their abilities. Ability costs no longer increase from one rank to another, but instead can decrease to buff a new rank. The full changes are below:

Nissa, Sage Animist

- Nissa’s ability costs have been increased across the board. They are very strong and further testing showed they were under-costed. They are otherwise unchanged.
- Nature’s Bounty: Each rank costs 9, up from 6
- Nature’s Gift: Each rank costs 15, up from 9
- Nature’s Regrowth: Each rank costs 24, up from 21

Liliana, Defiant Necromancer

- Liliana’s abilities have been normalized, and in some cases have been modified to be more in line with their effects.
- Corrupt: Ranks 1 to 3 now cost 9, up from 3/6.
Corrupt rank 2 now discards 2 cards from your hand, up from 1
These changes are done to normalize Liliana’s discard power.
- Grave Mist: Each rank now costs 15, up from 12
- Grave Mist: Ranks 1 to 3 now have Activate 5, up from Activate 3
Grave Mist was too inconsistent in it’s activation, so we decided to buff it a bit.
- Raise Dead: Ranks 1 to 3 now cost 18 (Up from 15 for Rank 1, down from 21 for rank 3)

Gideon, Battle-Forged

- Gideon, Battle-Forged has been modified so that leveling breakpoints are no longer an issue - it is always worthwhile to level him.
- Sharp Eyes rank 1: Now grants +1/+1 to one of your creatures (used to give Vigilance) and now costs 9, up from 3
- Sharp Eyes rank 2: Now grants +1/+1 and Flying to one of your creatures (used to give +1/+1 and Vigilance) and now costs 9, up from 6
- Sharp Eyes needed a redesign. Giving Vigilance at 3 cost proved to be far too powerful and discouraged players from leveling up. Vigilance is an incredibly potent defensive ability and thus deserves to be the crown jewel of Gideon’s Sharp Eyes ability.
- Call to Arms: Each rank now costs 12 (up from 9 for Rank 1 and down from 15 for Rank 3)
- Champion: Each rank now costs 21 (up from 18 for Rank 1 and down from 24 for Rank 3)

Jace, Telepath Unbound

- Jace’s abilities have been revised. Confusion and Ingenuity were too powerful, and Mind Sculpt has been modified to match its original vision better.
- Confusion: Ranks 1 to 3 now cost 6 (up from 3 for rank 1, down from 9 for rank 3)
- Confusion rank 3 now grants -4/0 to target creature, down from -6/0
-6 to power proved to be very strong and would effectively disable most creatures. At -4 to power, it should still have an effect, but it should not be as pronounced on larger creatures.
- Ingenuity: Ranks 1 to 3 now cost 12 (up from 9 for rank 1, down from 15 for rank 3)
- Ingenuity: Cost reductions have been modified:
Rank 1: Reduce cost by 1 (down from 3)
Rank 2: Reduce cost by 2 (down from 6)
Rank 3: Reduce cost by 3 (down from free)
Ingenuity proved to be incredibly strong with several spells and made some very strong combos. To compensate, Rank 3 was slightly buffed in its cost.
- Mind Sculpt: Ranks 1 to 3 now cost 15 (down from 18/21/24)
- Mind Sculpt: Ranks 1 to 3 now place Trap tiles instead of Activated tiles
- Mind Sculpt’s initial vision was to trap control your opponent during its turn, and putting this ability as Trap tiles instead of Activated tiles should make the ability much more attractive.

Chandra, Roaring Flame

- The major focus to Chandra was to give her more reach with her abilities - Chandra could very easily run out of gas, and she needs a way to close out fights quicker. Her Fireball ability also received a major buff which should definitely help her close out fights.
- Flameshot: Ranks 1 to 3 now cost 3 (down from 5/4/6)
Scorching Strike: Ranks 1 to 3 now cost 9 (up from 6 for ranks 2 and 3)
- Fireball rank 2: Now deals 15 damage, up from 10
- Fireball rank 3: Now deals 20 damage, up from 10

Card changes / fixes

- New keywords: Fetch and Discard
Fetch is used for cards that are taken from the deck instead of drawn. Cards that use this new keyword do not trigger abilities that trigger when a card is drawn.
Affected cards:
Abbot of Keral Keep
Pyromancer’s Goggles
Talent of the Telepath
Tower Geist
- Mizzium Meddler: Now drains 1 mana every time you match colored gems
- Mizzium Meddler was proving to be much too cumbersome, as the AI did not know how to play against it.
Embermaw Hellion
Now gives +3/0 to any Red creatures when they attack
- Embermaw Hellion had issues with how it used its ability, so we changed his effect to have the intended impact but in a different way
- Tainted Remedy: Fixed card text and it now correctly places 5 Trap gems.

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