Patch Notes 1.4.2

The main focus of this patch is around providing players with valuable tools in order to play out their cards, while reducing the number of cards that feel stuck in the hand, or not valuable enough to play.

The second large change is the addition of what I’m temporarily calling Lane Cards. Lane Cards replace the basic 2 Mining, 0 Attack, 1 Tech cards that players start the game with and give you a range of passive and active abilities that can help change up gameplay. These are currently unbalanced and limited to 1 per player to avoid changing up the game too drastically. Hopefully this gives some ideas around how these type of cards and abilities shake up the game.

Naming Updates

• Trying out a new name that better represents the game and it’s lore and playstyle, Crystal Factions
• Updated the naming of all factions to allow more room for lore around their origin planets and races.
  • Mining Consortium → Megalaxian Mining Consortium
  • Knowledge Seekers → Atani Knowledge Seekers
  • Rebellion → Calador’s Corsairs
  • Assassin’s Guild → Endracor Federation

Endranoc Federation (Previously Assassin’s Guild, Yellow Deck)

• NEW mechanic, Corrupt. Add a number of -1 corruption tokens to the specified location. End of turn: Discard a card from your hand to remove a corruption token.
• NEW mechanic, Stealth. Play a card face down in a lane. End of Turn: Reveal this card, then pay its costs and tech requirement and trigger it’s abilities during the End of Turn phase instead, or return it to your hand.
• Corrupt Policies. Tech Power 1 → 2. Removed Steal, replaced with Add 1 corruption token to your Attack lane.
• NEW card, Arms Dealer. 3C, 1TR, 1-2-1. When Played: Add 1 corruption token to your Mining lane.
• Stealth Generator. New ability, When Played: Play a Basic Trooper from the deck in Stealth. (Play them face-down and reveal it and pay the cost at the end of your turn)
• Trade Embargo. New ability, When Played: You may disable target card in a players mining lane this turn, if you do, add 1 corruption token to your Mining lane.
• Tentative Arrangement. New ability, When Played: You may reduce target players attack by 5 this turn, if you do add 2 corruption tokens to your Attack lane.
• Illegal Marketplace. New ability, When Played: You may gain 5 crystals, if you do add 2 corruption tokens to your Mining lane.
• New Card, Strife. 6C, 1TR, 2-2-2. When Played: Move up to 2 of your corruption tokens to target opponents lanes.
• Stealth Trooper. New ability, Stealth. (You may play this face-down and reveal it and pay the cost at the end of your turn instead). End of Turn: If you revealed this from stealth, steal 2 crystals.
• Cloaked Transport. New ability, Stealth. (You may play this face-down and reveal it and pay the cost at the end of your turn instead). End of Turn: Draw 2 cards. If you revealed this from stealth, also steal 2 crystals.
• Master Plan. Updated ability, End of Turn: You may do any or all of, steal 1 crystals, deal 1 damage, draw 1 card, return 1 card to your hand, and remove 1 corruption token from any lane.
• Sniper Squad. Tech Req 5 → 4. Cost 8 → 6. New ability, Stealth. (You may play this face-down and reveal it and pay the cost at end of turn instead). End of Turn: Destroy target players card with 3 or lower power in its lane. If you revealed this from stealth, you may destroy any power card instead.
• NEW card, Spread Dissent. 2C, 4TR, 6-6-6. When Played: Move up to 5 corruption tokens to your opponents lanes.
• Heist. Changed power values, 8-5-5 → 7-7-7.
• Sleeper Agents. Changed power values, 6-6-6 → 8-8-8

Megalaxian Mining Consortium (Green deck)

This deck is playing rather well and I’m seeing a lot of different combos and ways of playing it which is great. The main issue was the repetitive play style around returning cards to your hand. To address this I’ve removed the return to hand from Ore Hauler as that was a card that had almost no reason to stay on the field. I’ve also updated Explosives Technician to have it stay on the field as well, while still keeping the theme around blowing something up. Finally I tried to address the issue of them being able to move 12 cards from lane to lane to either force a mining or attack victory by reworking the Shift 3 card, High Tech Operations.

• Ore Hauler. New ability, End of Turn: Gain 1 crystal for every card in your mining lane. (Including this one)
• Explosives Technician. New ability, End of Turn: You may deal 1 damage to yourself to gain 3 crystals.
• High Tech Operations. New ability, When Played: You may play an additional card for -1 tech requirement this turn.

Calador’s Corsairs (Red deck)

Similar to the Mining Corp, this deck has been one of the favourites amongst the play-testers, so I’m trying to keep it fairly similar while trying to enhance the key parts of the deck that people like. In this line I’m looking to better enhance the discard synergies, while also removing the awkward playstyle where you play a card and immediately discard it.

• Raiding Party. Updated ability to End of Turn. End of Turn: You may discard this card to deal 2 damage to your opponent.
• NEW card, Replacement Parts. 9C, 1TR, 3-2-2. When Played: You may return a discarded card to your hand.
• Paratroopers. Updated ability to End of Turn. End of Turn: You may discard this card to draw up to 3 cards from your deck or discard pile.
• NEW card, Battalion. 6C, 5TR, 1-1-1. When Played: Put 5 troopers from the deck into play in any lane.
• Clear Skies. Renamed to Air Control Tower. Added Building type.

Atani Knowledge Seekers (Blue deck)

I’m still looking into how to better lean in to the fact that this faction is supposed to have access to more tech. Other than that I feel like there is a cool play style around timing damage reduction abilities as well as lane manipulation through returning cards to your hand and re-playing them.

Reducing the tech and cost on the satellite cards has seen them played more often, so I’ve also reduced the cost on the Spaceport to hopefully see it be used more as well.

• Spaceport. Tech Requirement 8 → 6.