arabikaa

Hello Skylords, Skyladies and other Skybeings; and welcome to CCC #8 – the eighth Crappy Community Contest!
 
THE CONTEST HAS ENDED.
To see the winners, CLICK HERE. If you are just here to grab the booster code, there you go:  CCC8-NOWA-LLNE-EDED



What are “Crappy Community Contests”?
CCC's are meant to be small-scale contests with weird challenges, hopefully luring you away from well-trodden paths. They are small-scale on the organizers side too: there will be no stream, video or event announcing the winners. What's special about these contests is a participation price for the whole Skylords community.

This is the first CCC not only presented by me, but the Winner of CCC # 7 - the contest-idea-contest: Sucks! (@womiy org) We have worked together the last few weeks to present you this challenge, an extension to what he submitted:
 
What, when, where, how?
He makes it sound easy...

The city is the last hope for the people of Lyr,
but Rogan Kayle still wants you to prove your prowess.

This challenge is to win the 1-player-map “Defending Hope” on Expert
without walls and as many extra-challenges as you are able to manage.

Even when exploring the expert maps for the first time, Defending Hope is usually a map that is an easy win. So let's start making it as difficult as you can handle! For an eligible entry, you are not allowed to build any walls and both Soulstones have to stay intact. After that, you can earn points to rank up your entry by taking on extra challenges. The Skylord with the most points will win this challenge - in case of a tie, the faster Skylord will win. You can earn points by adding the following hardships to your run:
 
Mandatory: Use no walls Mandatory: Both Soulstones stay intact
  A: 1 Point: No Faction Cards (Bandit, Twilight, Stonekin, Lost Souls) Cards are played B: 1 Point: Using a Pure Color Deck C : 1 Point: Only Twilight Edition Cards are used
  D : 2 Points: Play no Buildings E: 2 Points: Play no Spells F: 3 Points: Play no Units G: 2 Points: Play only Buildings H: 1 Point: Play only Units
  I: 1 Point: Don't go T4  J: 2 Points: Don't go T3   K: 3 Points: Don't go T2  
  L: 1 Point: No wells inside the city get destroyed M: 1 Point: No orb gets destroyed N: 1 Point: Both Soulstone Guardians Survive
  O: 1 Point: Claim 4 (or more) wells outside the city P: 1 Point: Claim southern 2 wells Q: 1 Point: Claim no well inside the city R: 2 Points: Claim all wells outside the city and don't lose any well during whole game
  S: 1 Point: Collect no gold chest
  T: 1 Point: Destroy two Twilight Manifestations U: 1 Point: Destroy all Twilight Manifestations V: 2 Points: Kill no Twilight Dragon
  W: 1 Point: No Shrine of War / Memory / Martys / Greed or Furnace of Flesh is played X: 1 Point: No Unity / Frenetic Assault / Thunderstorm / Frost Shard is played Y: 1 Point: No Razorleaf / Necroblaster / Magma Hurler / Stronghold
(Edit: After it has been suggested, I added letters to make it easier to submit an entry.)

As you can see, the list is constructed in a way that we expect NOBODY to get all possible points. This challenge is to set an attainable goal with as many points as you are able to get without losing the map. To avoid misunderstandings: points on this list accumulate. So, if you kill all Twilight Manifestations, you get one point for the "kill two Manifastations" AND one point for "kill all Manifestations", yielding a total of two points. Also, if you don't go T2, you will get a total of six points for that, not just the three points mentioned in the list on that line.
Please add the following information to your entry:
IGN: <Your ingame name> Objectives Achieved: <Name them: A, B, C, ...> Points total: <Points> Your replay with the following file name: CCC8_<Points>_<Your IGN>.pmv
  Battleforge automatically saves a replay file of the last match you play, named autosave.pmv.  After playing the map, rename this file, so it doesn't get overwritten. You can find your replays here: Documents => Battleforge => replays.

The contest has started with the release of this post – submit your entry through Discord (DM to Kapo#0116) or the Skylords Forum (DM to @Kapo) until 11.09.2022 23:59 CET  (= 8 days time total). You can submit multiple times, but only the one with the most points will count. Please note that your any submitted replay may be posted here in the forums.

Clarifications
 

 
 
What's the price pool?
Since this is not just a Crappy Contest, but a Crappy Community Contest, you may help with your participation to earn a price for the whole Community. If we reach more than 20 participants (unique players, not entries), we will unlock a Mini-Booster code for the entire Skylords Community. If more than 35 participants enter, the code will be upgraded to a Booster instead of a Mini-Booster. So tell your fellow Skylords to try this challenge – it's an occasion to try something completely new, and it raises our chances to hand out a code for everybody. 
Of course, the Skylords with the most points will get prices too, sponsored by myself, the Community and the Skylords Reborn Team:
1st place               5 General Boosters + Promo Rogan Kayle + Easter Egg
2nd place              4 General Boosters + Promo Lyrish Knight + Easter Egg
3rd place              3 General Boosters + Promo Snapjaws + Easter Egg
4th place              2 General Boosters + Lord Cyrian + Easter Egg
5th place              1 General Booster +  Core Dredge (B) + Easter Egg
6th place              250 BFP + Promise of Life (B) + Bloodhorn (R) + Easter Egg
7th place              200 BFP + Banzai (P) + Banzai (G) + Easter Egg
8th place              175 BFP + Bloodhorn (R) + Mind Control + Easter Egg
9th place              150 BFP + Home Soil + Giant Slayer + Easter Egg
10th place            100 BFP + Sunderer + Easter Egg
11th-15th place    Santa Claus

Last place              Juice Tank (x8)
For participation, there is a random chance to win one of the following cards:
Random Draws          5x1 General Booster, Avatar of Frost, Spitfire, Church of Negation, Bandit Minefield, Fire Worm, Skyelf Templar, Banzai Lord (P) (x5)
This CCC also features again a Newcomer Card Pool. By participating, players of Bronze or Silver Rank will automatically receive an uncommon random card sponsored by @THE_BIG_WET. Of course, you may also win other random draws additionally if you are lucky. The Newbie Card Pool contains the following cards:
 
Should we get more entries than 20 Bronze/Silver, the pool will be expanded, so every newcomer will receive a card. Those expansion cards will be rare cards (instead of more uncommons), so tell your fellow beginner to participate!
 
Sponsors
If one or more mighty Skylord(s) decides to sponsor this event, please contact me. I would be more than happy to beef up or expand the prize pool beyond the 10th place, add additional random draws, special bounties or any other upgrades to the prize pool. 
The following prices have been sponsored so far:
Skylords Team          General Boosters (x20), Community Booster Code
@Kapo                Promo Rogan Kayle, Promo Lyrish Knight
@womiy org        Promo Snapjaws
@THE_BIG_WET     Newcomer Card Pool (see above)
@Donaar             Juice Tank (x8)
@T1421               Spitfire
@DeLirium          1400 BFP (which has been in part used to buy random draw cards)
@Sylar                Avatar of Frost, Church of Negation, Core Dredge (B), Promise of Life (B), Lord Cyrian, Bandit Minefield, Sunderer, Giant Slayer, Mind Control, Bloodhorn (R), Bloodhorn, (P), Banzai Lord (G), Banzai Lord, (P), Fire Worm, Home Soil, Skyelf Templar
@Bozzah             Easter Egg (x10), Banzai Lord (P) (x5), Santa Claus (x5)
 
 
Special thanks and Conclusion
My very special thanks (and congratulations on winning CCC#7!) goes out to Sucks, who came up with this idea and worked with me designing on this challenge.

One last disclaimer: Should there be a patch rolling into the contest, it may end early.
Good luck, I hope you will like this very modular challenge where you can set your own difficulty!
Kapo
     
Future Events - get involved!
If you are interested in helping with these (or better) kinds of events for the community, or want to host one yourself, don't be afraid and simply reach out! Contact our beloved Event Managers @Minashigo Hiko and/or @Metagross31 on the forums or discord. They are happy to assist you with upcoming events and with sponsoring your prize pool!
If you especially like this small-scale-format, and you have an idea for it, you may also contact me directly to discuss your idea and host your own Crappy Community Contest.

This one is, to be honest, more of a joke.

On many of the previous contests, you had to collect all gold chests - and on several times people stated the hate the gold chest objective. That's why you get a point for not doing it this time 😃

The event has concluded, thank you for participating!
 
 
Dear fellow Skylords 
 
You have to prove yourself worthy – this time without air support! You have to break the walls and get yourself and Rogan Kayle to the end of the map as fast as possible! You can bring one friend on this endeavor, but that's it.
 
Information:
Map:                          King of the Giants
Difficulty:                   Advanced
Players:                      Either solo or duo (separate prizes)
Card restrictions:       No Amii Monument, Nether Warp, Enlightenment, and units that can fly
Goal:                          Win the map as fast as possible
Start:                          19.08.2022 18:00 CEST
Until when:                28.08.2022 23:59 CEST
Replays:                     PM in the Forum @Dutchy or DM via Discord Dutchy#4596
Replay name:             KingoftheGiants_Dutchy_time_0_20_12.0.pmv

You can send in multiple replays, the last one which I receive will be used for the event.
 
Prizes:
Solo
1st place:           5 Stonekin Boosters
2nd place:          4 Stonekin Boosters
3rd place:           3 Stonekin Boosters
4th place:           2 Stonekin Boosters
5th -10th place: 1 Stonekin Booster
Duo (each)
1st place:          4 Stonekin Boosters
2nd place:         3 Stonekin Boosters
3rd place:          2 Stonekin Boosters
4th place:          1 Stonekin Booster
Slowest solo run:         8x Juice Tank and 69 bfp
Random draw:             Rogan Kayle Promo
5th place solo:             Spitfire
Top 5 slowest overall runs gets 3 Magma Hurlers each - Nemoo SK / Hrdina Impéria
 
Big Thank you to:
The Skylords team for sponsoring this event.
Donaar for sponsoring 8x Juice Tanks and 69 bfp.
Kapo for sponsoring a Rogan Kayle promo
Ultralord for sponsoring a Spitfire
Nemoo SK / Hrdina Impéria for sponsoring 15 Magma Hurlers

Future events
If you are interested in helping with these (or better) kinds of events for the community, or want to host one yourself, don't be afraid and simply reach out! Contact our beloved Event Managers @Minashigo Hiko and @Metagross31 on the forums or discord. They are happy to assist you with upcoming events and with sponsoring your prize pool!

Winner announcement!
Before revealing the winners, I would like to thank everyone that participated in the event. It was very fun to receive so many replays and I hope you all had fun doing the runs as well. 
In total, we had 36 unique players participate, which is insane. 
Winners Solo:
1st place  Arabika    12.19.6
2nd place Kapo       12.55.9
3rd place Donaar    15.13.13
4th place Vornskr    18.55.3
5th place Mangler   19.56.2
6th place Hrdina_Imperia    19.58.0
7th place Hauclir    19.59.2
8th place Chimera     20.07.0
9th place Krodha    20.08.8
10th place Ultralord    20.10.9
11th place Weak1ings    20.13.6
12th place Masu1234    20.14.0
13th place Itap    20.17.5
14th place Kserske    20.29.5
15th place JiiPee    20.38.2
16th place Midra    20.45.0
17th place Metagross31    20.48.1
18th place Lans    20.48.1
19th place Kociula    20.56.8
20th place WaterMelonLord    20.59.2
21th place Nukie    21.09.0
22th place Titan    21.14.0
Winners Duo:
1st place Chimerae and Jiipee    15.48.7
2nd place 2022 and LordofBread    17.01.9
3rd place Sucks and SylarXXI    17.54.1
4th place Krodha and Beowolf    20.06.1
5th place Krodha and Toohuman    20.12.0
5th place Shiniryu and Sjans    20.12.0
7th place Yoooo and KingKeva    20.24.7
8th place Szhublox and Little_Ducky    21.15.0
9th place DeleriuM and Chiaki    21.37.3
 
Random draw winner:
DeleriuM 
 
Congratulations to the winner! 
 

I kinda forgot to share the replays, so here they are:

Solo:
KOTG_Donaar_time_15_13.3.pmvKOTG_Kapo_12_55.9.pmvKOTG_arabika_12_19.6.pmv
Duo:
KOTG_Sucks_SylarXXI_17_54.1.pmvKOTG_2022_LordofBread_17_01.9.pmvKOTG_Chimerae_JiiPee_15_48.7.pmv

Bad Harvest Position 3 Practice Map
Are you tired of losing on Bad Harvest? Do you want to learn how to defend the Gold Wagon on expert difficulty? Want to experiment with new strategies? Now is your chance!

 
Why this map exists
Bad Harvest position 3 on expert difficulty is feared by many players because defending the gold wagon is difficult. Position 3 is critical. If position 3 fails, this often results in a loss for the whole team. It's hard for players to learn position 3 because failure means potentially disappointing three other players. The goal of this map is to encourage newer players to learn position 3, and for veteran players to develop new and creative strategies.
 
Map Layout
This map is Bad Harvest, but modified such that the player doesn't have to worry about defending the main base. This is a single-player map. Enemy units are killed near the four main base entrances (the red areas shown below). 

 
Map Mechanics
All of the original mechanics should be intact, and the spawn waves should be identical to the original Bad Harvest map. You can still win the map by killing the Stonekin Lords and Rogue Giant. However, you can also win by surviving 25 minutes. Once 25 minutes have elapsed, a switch in the main base can be activated to obtain victory.

 
How to Play
Like all community made maps, this map can be found by clicking the blue "User Generated Map" icon on the world map screen. The map name is "Bad Harvest Pos3 Practice"
You can also download the map here.
Credits/Thanks
Thanks to Kapo for inspiring this map idea by hosting CCC #7.
Special thanks for Dallarian for making the first version of this map and introducing me to map-making.
 

For PvE it looks good. but I would surely put Juice Tank higher, it can be a life saver on some longass Expert maps. Although I understand that it can be a bit of noob trap. 

Icedessert 11:29.2
Icedessert in 9:56.8 by me


Also:
Nyxia in 11:10.9 by RadicalX
 
 

Nyxia 10:31

nice jump animation

Hello Skylords, Skyladies and other Skybeings; and welcome to CCC #6 – the sixth Crappy Community Contest!
 
THE CONTEST HAS ENDED.
To see the winners, CLICK HERE. If you are just here to grab the booster code, there you go:  CCC6-TUTO-RIAL-DECK

 
 
What are “Crappy Community Contests”?
CCC's are meant to be small-scale contests with weird challenges, hopefully luring you away from well-trodden paths. They are small-scale on the organizers side too: there will be no stream, video or event announcing the winners. What's special about these contests is a participation price for the whole Skylords community.
While the first CCC was a small event, some CCCs have developed into a quite laborious undertaking - and this one especially. @LEBOVIN has poured dozens and dozens of hours into this contest's map, so we are at a point where the "crappy" is undeserving.
 
What, when, where, how?
While the last CCC was with unlimited amounts of resources, this CCC will be about a very special map with a harsh deck limitation:
 
Back to the Roots

New Skylords have conquered these lands to learn from Moon about the powers of the Forge.
Now it is upon you to take the forces of Nature and Shadow to these lands to bring peace once more.

This challenge is to win the Custom 1-player-map “CCC #6 - Back to the Roots”
on Standard difficulty with a predetermined deck as fast as you can.

This custom map is a copy of the Introduction map with a few new jumps and turns. To participate, you will have to use the following mirrored tutorial deck:
Forsaken Skeleton Warriors Surge of Light Burrower Stone of Torment Thornbark Mutating Frenzy Fear not - we removed as many ultra-long explanations as possible from the map. But, if you have some spare time, it is nice to check out the original tutorial before diving into this one - you will enjoy and appreciate the map a lot more if you can see what has been altered. Playing a disallowed card or playing it on any other difficulty than Standard will result in disqualification. Upgraded cards are allowed, you don't need to make a real tutorial deck out of it.
The contest has started with the release of this post – submit your entry through Discord (DM to Kapo#0116) or the Skylords Forum (DM to @Kapo) until 24.07.2022 23:59 CET  (= 9 days time total). You can submit multiple times, but only the fastest will count. Please note that your submitted replay may be posted here in the forums.
Battleforge automatically saves a replay file of the last match you play, named autosave.pmv.  After playing the contest map, rename this file, so it doesn't get overwritten. You can find your replays here: Documents => Battleforge => replays. To reduce my workload, you may rename your file to CCC6_<Time>_<IGN>.pmv (e.g. CCC6_15.53.9_Kapo.pmv).

There is some minor, unavoidable problem that it might appear in the lobby as a two-players-map - of course you have to play it alone.
 

 
Community Maps
How to access the map:
 
 
What's the price pool?
Since this is not just a Crappy Contest, but a Crappy Community Contest, you may help with your participation to earn a price for the whole Community. If we reach more than 20 participants (unique players, not entries), we will unlock a Mini-Booster code for the entire Skylords Community. If more than 35 participants enter, the code will be upgraded to a Booster instead of a Mini-Booster. So tell your fellow Skylords to try this challenge – it's an occasion to try something completely new, and it raises our chances to hand out a code for everybody. 
Of course, the fastest Skylords will get prices too, sponsored by myself, the Community and the Skylords Reborn Team:
1st place               5 General Boosters + Promo Mana Wing + Juice Tank (x4)
2nd place              4 General Boosters + Promo Rogan Kayle + Nether Warp (B)
3rd place              3 General Boosters + Promo Fallen Skyelf + Grinder (R)
4th place              2 General Boosters + Dreadnought + Matter Mastery (P)
5th place              1 General Booster + Avatar of Frost + Gravity Surge (B)
6th place              Primeval Watcher + Banzai (P)
7th place              Nether Warp (G)+ Banzai (G)
8th place              Cluster Explosion (R) + Bloodhorn (P)
9th place              Amii Monument + Bloodhorn (R)
10th place            Skycatcher (G) + Shrine of Memory
11th place            Forest Elder (P) + Grinder(P)
12th place            Church of Negation
13th-16th place   Bandit Minefield (x1 each)

Last place              Juice Tank (x5) + 500BFP
For participation, there is a random chance to win one of the following cards:
Random Draws          5x1 General Booster, Ironclad (R), Dreadnought, Wheel of Gifts, Core Dredge (R), Church of Negation, Moloch, Timeshifter Spirit, QueekQueek, Disenchant (P), Backlash, Disenchant (P), Gravity Surge (P), Oracle Mask (G), Shrine of War, Infect, Enlightenment, Abyssal Warder(R)
This CCC has a new feature for beginners, the Newbie Card Pool. By participating, players of Bronze or Silver Rank will automatically receive an uncommon random card sponsored by @THE_BIG_WET. Of course, you may also win other random draws additionally if you are lucky. The Newbie Card Pool contains the following cards:
 

Should we get more entries than 15 Bronze/Silver, the pool will be expanded, so every newcomer will receive a card. Those expansion cards will be rare cards (instead of more uncommons) sponsored by @Vysnia, so tell your fellow beginner to participate!
 
Sponsors
If one or more mighty Skylord(s) decides to sponsor this event, please contact me. I would be more than happy to beef up or expand the prize pool beyond the 10th place, add additional random draws, special bounties or any other upgrades to the prize pool. 
The following prices have been sponsored so far:
Skylords Team          General Boosters (x20), Community Booster Code
@Kapo                Promo Mana Wing, Promo Fallen Skyelf, Promo Rogan Kayle
@Simplifying*       Skycatcher (B), Nether Warp (G), Primeval Watcher, Cluster Explosion (R), Ironclad (R), Forest Elder (P), Church of Negation, Moloch, Timeshifter Spirit, QueekQueek
@THE_BIG_WET     Newbie Card Pool (see above)
@Metagross31     Grinder(R), Matter Mastery (P)
@Donaar             Juice Tank (x9)
@Trando             Dreadnought, Core Dredge (R), Gravity Surge (P), Gravity Surge (B), Oracle Mask (G), Backlash, Disenchant (P), Nether Warp (B)
@Sylar                Avatar of Frost, Dreadnought, Wheel of Gifts, Bandit Minefield (x4), Bloodhorn (P), Bloodhorn (R), Banzai (P), Banzai (G), Shrine of War, Shrine of Memory
@Kemek             Infect, Enlightement, Amii Monument
@Prajoss            Church of Negation, Abyssal Warder (R), Grinder(P)
@Vysnia             5000 BFP (Last Place BFP + Newbie Card Pool Rare Cards)

* Simplifying, a player who stopped playing, also donated his complete account. This is the fourth (and last) contest his collection is sponsoring - he expressed how nice the community is, and he wanted to give something back through the CCC.
 
Special thanks and Conclusion
My very special thanks goes out @LEBOVIN, who created this awesome map and introduced many surprising new features never seen to Battleforge before, also @Hodron who helped with the special camera sequence, and the Skylords Team in general who really went out of their way to support the creation of the map.
I hope you are having fun with the map, and I hope to see some awesome replays from our many Skilllords that have to work and think hard with the limited possibilities due to the deck.
Good luck, I hope you enjoy this twisted version of the Introduction!
Kapo
     
Future Events - get involved!
If you are interested in helping with these (or better) kinds of events for the community, or want to host one yourself, don't be afraid and simply reach out! Contact our beloved Event Managers @Minashigo Hiko and/or @Metagross31 on the forums or discord. They are happy to assist you with upcoming events and with sponsoring your prize pool!
If you especially like this small-scale-format, and you have an idea for it, you may also contact me directly to discuss your idea and host your own Crappy Community Contest.

3011 ❤️ 

Greetings Skylords!
This community update is a bit different to what you are used to. We would like to take a bit of time to communicate to you all, the player base, about the state of the project, and give you the opportunity to communicate to us as well. 

 
• Share your feedback, get two boosters!

Last month, we released our latest patch: "Force of Nature". We hope you are all enjoying it, and are curious to hear how you feel about Skylords Reborn in general.  
It has already been a year since our feedback survey, so it is time for some reflection and feedback. What do you like about Skylords Reborn? What could be better? We want to keep improving the game and growing our player base, and your feedback is crucial for us. 
As a thank you, there will be two boosters for everyone who fills in the survey. Your feedback will be anonymous.
 

• State of the Project

We are very proud of everything we have accomplished with Skylords Reborn so far. Not only are fans able to play BattleForge again, but over the last two years we have added many new features and content. However, a lot of effort is required behind the scenes to create these new features.
Skylords Reborn has a very loyal and consistent player base, but has been struggling to find new players. This also results in less potential contributors, resulting in a few individuals doing a ton of work. There is only so much we can do as volunteers, and at the current rate it is becoming unsustainable to keep the same feature output rate.
 
Without additional contributors, Skylords Reborn will only get card and balance updates moving forward.
This means new cards and adjustments on existing cards, but not features like Reforging, improvements to the UI, Happy Hours, etc. While we are currently working on a couple of new and existing cards, to improve the game, we would really like to add new features as well. 
To give you an idea of what we are currently missing out on, below are some features highlighted that we feel would really improve Skylords Reborn. This is a game with so much potential, and we would love to bring it to you! 
 
• What could be: potential features for Skylords Reborn

 
Before we dive into them, please note:
- The following features are currently not in development, due to a lack of game client developers, game server developers, and fullstack developers.
- You can directly help create this features by applying for a staff role.
- You can indirectly help by spreading the word.
- Images shown are very early mock-ups.
 
PvE Map Modifiers
Map modifiers are global effects that can be applied to matches. These can be chosen before the start of a match, and different modifiers can be combined for limitless replayability. Examples of modifiers are: all enemy units regenerate 3% of their health every second, all enemy units move 25% faster, all enemy units spawn a hostile Nether Crawler on death, or cards return less power to the void pool. The more modifiers are active, the higher the reward from the match. The following is a mockup of a UI to choose the modifiers before lobby creation.

 
New Reward Distribution System
Do you dislike receiving achievement and quest rewards through the in-game mail? What about your auctions? Isn't it also a bit boring to see your scratch code rewards in a small static window? This feature is a new way to make it more exciting to open rewards. Imagine the following mockup with nice animations and sound effects, showing you what you received and actions to take with the items. The idea would be to move away from the lackluster interface and user experience of the in-game mail.
 

 
Cosmetics
Currently, the player can only express themselves through their character avatar. This feature would add numerous cosmetics like character borders, character banners (textured and colored), player titles and more avatars in general. The following image shows a Christmas themed border, and a green character banner. Instead of `Master of the Forge`, the player can also own and change their title and other cosmetics in a cosmetic management screen. We already started on this with the Cosmetics window currently found in-game, although it is currently limited to avatars. The idea is to add more tabs to the right of the Cosmetics page for the different cosmetics. Achievements, events and even leaderboard positions can also reward special cosmetics.
 


 
Compare Profiles
Amassing many cards, becoming the richest player, completing all the achievements and collecting all the different cosmetics is rewarding, but showcasing and comparing your accomplishments with others is also part of the fun. With the compare profiles feature, players would be able to manage what they share publicly, and easily compare their profiles with those of other players, either globally or specifically with one player. The following image is a very early concept of a screen to compare achievements with a specific player.


Map Progression Indicators
Map progression indicators is a feature for the world map that indicates, through the usage of stars above each campaign map, what difficulties you have completed for each map. This allows you to quickly have a glance of what you have already completed, and what you have not.

 
New Campaign Maps
While rPvE is arguably the most played game mode, we know players would really like to continue the story and/or experience new campaign maps. While we already have some of the resources to make this happen, we are lacking in the map department to make the push to get this done in a way that fits the quality you can expect from an official campaign map. Please consider applying as Map Artist, Map Designer or Map Developer. 

 
New Community Map Experience
The experience of creating, sharing, finding and managing community maps has always been very cumbersome. Currently, it is a unmanageable list that leaves much to be desired. This feature would completely overhaul how the community maps screen looks like, for both PvP and PvE. More filters, more sorting, public upvoting and private downvoting, highlighting of frequently played maps, deleting maps you have uploaded, viewing when a map was last edited and viewing the minimap of community maps without having to download them are a few features that could be included.
Another option to improve the accessibility of Community Maps would be adding a second world map, where the best community maps would be found, similar to the campaign maps. 
 

 
rPvE Deck Builder Mode
Quite popular in other card games is a mode where you face challenges while your starting deck is slowly expanding by picking a card from a random selection. We think this could be a great new way to play Skylords Reborn, with every run being unique and allowing you to experiment with different cards and combinations. This would require quite a bit of UI work though, which is why this mode has not been developed yet. 


Seasons
Seasons are a broad topic that could include many features that reset or adjust based on the start of a new season. Some examples are Seasonal Leaderboards that reset at the end of each season and automatic events that occur throughout the season. But also seasonal objectives and/or objective trees to complete, similar to a battle pass in other games, are topics that have been discussed in the team quite often. We feel seasons would help make the game feel more fresh, and reward players for playing through each season, giving older players a reason to return. 
Seasons are a broad feature that would probably require other features mentioned above to be included first, like the improved reward system, modifiers on maps to create new challenges, and additional cosmetics to be rewarded.  
 
As you can see, there is still a lot of potential for Skylords Reborn, and we would love to add them to the game. 
As mentioned before, these features are currently not in development due to a lack of people to work on them.
 
• Help us make these features happen
So get your friends to join, or have them return to check out the new content and achievements, give us suggestions (through the survey) on how to improve the player base, or apply for a staff position yourself. We really can't do this without you! 
 
  
  

• Team Changes

Due to personal reasons, Friendly Firefly sadly had to resign from the team. We are grateful for his help with Burning Spears and wish him all the best!
While not technically a team change, we would also like to take a moment to thank Kapo for his contributions to Skylords Reborn. You might know him from hosting the CCC events, but Kapo has been doing a ton of work for the team behind the scenes as well. From helping out with the recent Force of Nature trailer, to proofreading and providing feedback, we can always count on him. Due to his contributions to Skylords Reborn, we have awarded him with the rare Skylord of Honor title. 
 
• In Conclusion

Thank you for reading this Community Update. We hope you will consider helping us out. 
As is tradition, this community update comes with a scratch code. 
The code will reward you with a general booster: NEWL-EGEN-DARY-WHEN
And remember: By doing our survey, you can grab an additional two boosters! 
The code is valid until August 1st, when we will bring you our next Community Update. 
As always, we are open to feedback, so please let us know if you have any questions, suggestions or comments! 
 

Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update #24
 

Can we remove the "A" from the top middle spawning position, which is supposed to warn you for an incomming attack during the last sequence. (Or make the ravenships also spawn there). It is one of those little things which noones really cares about but can through some newer players off. It always makes this kinda cool map feel like it is unfinsihed or doesn't work properly, which is a shame for such a cool designed map.

Do wheels make mauler viable in T3 🤔 I never tried tbh 😉

You can only play units and buildings, that require at least two different orb colours. E.g. banditos would be allowed, since they require fire and shadow orbs, but firedancer/-stalker are not allowed, since they require only fire orbs.
You can still play cards of lower tiers later (e.g. T2 units when you are already T4), but only T1 units/buildings, that are of your starting colour. So if you start frost, you can play construction hut, but not embalmer's shrine.

Patch #400033 - Force of Nature
Welcome to our newest patch, titled "Force of Nature"!
This update contains our fifth balance patch for the game, brand-new cards, and many other changes, enjoy!

Patch Preview
 - Three new cards are now available! Jump in-game to collect Wasteland Terror, Burning Spears, and Transcendence.
 - Major changes to the PvP game mode, including PvP Happy Hours, reward reworks, hiding player loses, and more. 
 - Added 18 new, primarily PvE achievements for both beginners and veterans alike. Including one to earn the new promo Mana Wing!
 - Rebalanced Fire RPvE to provide a still challenging but less frustrating experience
 - Rebalanced over 40 cards, with a large focus on Nature cards. 
 - Changed several PvP and PvE maps to improve player experience 

General Changes
Updated in-game player banner colors for GM accounts to represent the current roles. Added ability to search for missing copies and charges in the Auction House. For example, writing `(charge=2 & copies<2) | (charge=1 & copies<3) | (charge=0 & copies<4)` in the textbox will show you all the cards you can still potentially buy to get a fully charged collection. Added ability to play cards by clicking on the upgrades in the upgrade scroll view or the upgrades in the upgrade window. Added ability to change the play speed in the forge, or to pause and unpause it. New hotkeys are available in the options menu. The default hotkeys are J, K and L for decreasing speed, toggling pause, and increasing speed. Added a responsive deck counter to the decks window that shows how many decks the player has, relative to the maximum number of allowed decks. Improved the UI that displays what is remaining to complete an achievement. Previously, players could hover over the progress bar to see a tooltip, but this was unclear. Now, there will be a clearly visible (?) icon next to the progress bar that has the tooltip instead. Added ability to press the Space button in the reforge window to reforge the current cards in the window. This removes the need to press the Reforge cards button.   Increased unit icon (dot) size on in-game minimaps from 4x4 to 5x5 pixels. Added the new Force of Nature loading screen. Added ability to change how the automatically generated replays are named. There is an extra setting in the GUI section of the configuration file at `/Battleforge/config.json` called `savereplaysnameparts` for this.
New Cards
Burning Spears - 80p T2 Pure Fire
You will find the upgrades for this card on the map Oracle. 
S-unit designed to counter Large and Extra Large units. For more information, check out our design spotlight below in the PvP Balance Changes, section as well as Community Update #23.
 
Wasteland Terror - 260p T4 Pure Bandits  (Fire and Nature Affinity)
You will find the upgrades for this card on the map Blight (Fire Affinity) and Raven's End (Nature Affinity).
Bandit dragon for those Bandits players who want other options besides Tortugun. Its ability acts as a mass Disenchant to let your army continue to more forward through crowd control. For more information, check out Community Update #14. 
 
Transcendence - 90p T4 Amii Spell 
You will find the upgrade for this card on the map Sunbridge. 
Our first Amii spell is castable on both enemies and allies, with different effects depending on the target. When cast on enemies, it buffs one unit and debuffs all of its surrounding allies. When cast on allies, it debuffs one unit and buffs and its surrounding allies. In both cases, it rewards careful target selection and micromanagement from the player side. For more information, check out Community Update #20.

Mana Wing - New Promo Card 
While not a new card, we have also added a new promo to the game. Every player will be able to get a promo Mana Wing by completing the new achievement "A Force of Nature". The promo will not be available in boosters, but it will be trade-able. For more information, check out Community Update #24.
 

PvP Game Mode Changes
[ New Player Protection ]
To protect new players from facing top players when they are just getting started in ranked play, it is no longer possible to get matched with players with a base ELO above 135.000 if your own base ELO is below 102.000.
[ Made Player Names Anonymous ]
To prevent players from dodging bad match-ups, player names have been anonymized in the ranked lobby. This does not affect the sparring lobbies. 
[ Losses are Now Hidden]
It has been proven in other competitive games that showing losses on the ranked ladder results in demotivation and higher entry barriers. We have therefore removed losses from the ladder. The information is still accessible on your profile if you want to look it up. 
[ Updates to the Free PvP Decks ]
We have made some changes to the cards contained in the free PvP decks to compete with the new meta. If we made updates to the free PvP decks you have currently selected, you will now have the option to either swap to the new cards, or keep your current set up. Changes have been made to Pure Nature (Parasite over Shrine of Memory), Twilight (Twilight Minions over Ghost Spears), Pure Shadow (Executor over Nightguard) and Pure Fire (Burning Spears over Scorched Earth). 
[ Improved Rewards ]
We have removed the gold penalty that was currently active for playing sparring games. Quests that require you to play 2vs2 games, now also count 3vs3 games for completion. 
We have also allowed you to drain the reserve while looking for ranked a match. If you queue for at least 5 minutes, even if you don't find an opponent, you will earn BFP as if you were ingame, meaning you get BFP not just for playing, but also while searching for matches. 
[ Happy Hours ]
Happy Hours are specific time periods where players will receive additional gold and BFP for playing PvP. The daily boost / reserve will drain at a factor of 1.5x, while you will also get 1BFP per minute extra for queuing. For Happy Hours, there will be an in-game announcement, and the icon on the world map will indicate Happy Hours are active. 

Happy Hours will take place during the following times:
- 1vs1 happy hours: 7pm-9pm CET
- 2vs2 happy hours: 9pm-10pm CET
- 1vs1 happy hours: 4am-5am CET
By clustering players together during certain time frames, players will have an easier time finding matches more frequently. 

New Achievements
Skylords Reborn currently faces primary two issues in terms of content: early game progression is too steep, and endgame content is nearly nonexistent. These achievements are intended to make the first step in tackling both issues. Smaller, more digestible progressive achievements will mean a player will no longer finish the campaign on standard, with the next goal in sight being to play all the maps again on advanced before being rewarded. New players will now be slowly guided through the campaign and RPvE, allowing them to steadily accumulate cards along the way. 
At the same time, we are adding our first set of endgame achievements to the game. This will provide more content for our veteran players and give them a reason to replay old maps, often with a twist. We hope you all enjoy these new challenges, and we will continue to expand the endgame content into the future.  
[ Infinitely Scaling Achievement ]
Reborn in Fire  [1 Mini-booster]
Reforge Cards (Unlocks every 20 reforges, scales infinitely)
[ Beginner Achievements ]

Just a Story  [1 Twilight booster]
Complete Viridya and Brannoc's story on standard difficulty or higher (Encounters, Siege of Hope, Defending Hope, Soultree, Crusade, Sunbridge, King of the Giants, Titans, Ascension)
The Most Dangerous Game [1 Bandits booster]
Complete Mo's story on standard difficulty or higher {Mo, Ocean, Oracle, Slave Master, Convoy, Blight, Raven's End, Empire)
A Debt Unpaid  [20,000 gold]
Complete the story related to the Treasure Fleet on advanced difficulty or higher. (Bad Harvest, Treasure Fleet, Mo, Blight, Slave Master, Convoy) 
A Mile in His Shoes  [2 Stonekin boosters]
Complete Rogan's story on advanced difficulty or higher (Encounters, Siege of Hope, Defending Hope, Crusade, King of the Giants, Titans, Dwarven Riddle, Guns of Lyr, Empire)
A Wrinkle in Time  [250 bfp]
Win the 4-player map Empire spawning at least 5 different Lost Souls cards from a deck containing only frost, shadow, and Lost Souls cards.
Godslayer  [250 bfp]
Win the 2-player maps Sunbridge and Insane God on any difficulty. 
Apprentice  [1 booster]
Win 20 randomly generated PvE matches of difficulty 5 or higher. 
[ Veteran PvE Achievements ]

The Road Not Taken  [3 boosters]
Win 20 randomly generated PvE matches of difficulty 9 or higher.
Turn Back All Ye Who Enter Here  [6 boosters]
Win 20 randomly generated PvE matches of difficulty 10.
Nevermore  [2 Bandit boosters]
Complete Blight's story on expert difficulty (Blight, Raven's End, Slave Master, Ocean, and Oracle)
Make it Double  [2 Amii boosters]
Complete all 2-player maps on expert difficulty. (Crusade, Sunbridge, Nightmare Shard, Nightmare's End, The Insane God, Slave Master and Convoy)
Never Thought of Him  [100,000 gold]
Complete the story of Mo becoming the new king of the fire tribes on expert difficulty with all players in the map using decks containing only Fire cards.  (Mo, Ocean, Oracle, Slave Master, Convoy, and Raven's End)
The Long Journey Home  [2 Frost boosters]
Complete the story re-establishing the Kingdom of Lyr on expert difficulty using decks containing only frost cards. (Encounters with Twilight, Siege of Hope, Defending Hope, Bad Harvest, Dwarven Riddle, and Guns of Lyr)
Not Even My Final Form  [Rogan Kayle Card]
Win the 1-player map Encounters with Twilight on expert difficulty without using T3 or T4 cards.
Forest for the Tree  [Viridya Card]
Complete the 1-player map The Soultree on expert difficulty using only Nature cards from T1 and T2.
A City Strongly Compact  [Stronghold Card]
Win the 1-player map Defending Hope on expert difficulty with a deck containing only spell and building cards.
A Force of Nature   [Promo Mana Wing]
Complete all 1-player and 2-player scenarios on expert difficulty with all players in your team using decks containing only Nature cards.

Those who complete "A Force of Nature" will be rewarded with a Promo Mana Wing! This promo is unique to this achievement and will not be available from boosters, but it will be trade-able. We hope you look forward to the challenge!

Card Balance Changes

Global Balance Changes
Each unit size has a defined limit of how many melee units of a given category can attack it at once. This limit directly affects the viability of melee units in a way that is not true for ranged units. As part of how balancing efforts, we have decided to increase the amount of melee units which can attack a given unit at a time. This should prove especially helpful for early strategies utilizing S-units or when fighting against boss units in RPvE with a primarily melee army.
Numbers of melee attackers for creatures of different sizes:
A single S creature can be attacked by at most 4 Normal, 6 Reach and 2 Huge attackers ➜ at most 6 Normal, 9 Reach and 4 Huge attackers
A single M creature can be attacked by at most 6 Normal, 10 Reach and 2 Huge attackers ➜ at most 9 Normal, 15 Reach and 4 Huge attackers
A single L creature can be attacked by at most 8 Normal, 12 Reach and 4 Huge attackers ➜ at most 12 Normal, 18 Reach and 6 Huge attackers
A single XL creature can be attacked by at most 12 Normal, 14 Reach and 6 Huge attackers ➜ at most 18 Normal, 21 Reach and 8 Huge attackers
Normal = S & M-units.
Reach = Units with extended range. Ghostspears is a good example.
Huge = L and XL-units.
S-units count as 1 normal (or reach) attacker.
M-units count as 2 normal (or reach) attackers.
L-units count as 1 Huge attacker.
XL-units count as 2 Huge attackers.
Fortification walls: increased the gate's toggle cooldown from 1.4 seconds to 3.4 seconds. 
Some units were unable to attack or pass through a gate when it was rapidly toggled between closed and open.
Twilight's Transformation ability: added scaling to the transformation cost based on tier.
Tier 2 units remain at 85%
Tier 3 units from 85% ➜ 80%
Tier 4 units from 85% ➜ 75%
Twilight Transformation is now as efficient as Breeding Grounds at T4. 
Changed all cone-attacker splash radii to 38m (ie. Frost Mage). This would reduce out-of-range issues faced by cards of this type.

PvE Balance Changes
The focus this patch for both PvE and PvP has been on the Nature faction. For more information on our vision for Nature, check out our Nature Deep Dive.
While changes are split here between PvE and PvP sections, many of the changes, such as Parasite, Shrine of Memory, and Spikeroot, have important consequences for both game modes. Our PvE and PvP balance teams work closely together to ensure that the impact of all changes are evaluated for both game modes. Below, we have listed both the changes and our reasoning behind them. 
[ Tier 1 ]
 Amazon (Nature):
   - Wildlife Protection radius increase: 20m ➜ 30m
Quality of life change to make it easier to use Amazon(g) with Werebeasts in T1.
 Fountain of Rebirth
   - Ritual of Rebirth healing: 15 / 18 / 21 / 25 life points regenerated ➜ 20 / 23 / 26 / 30 life points regenerated globally
A small buff to enable the Fountain to be used in more scenarios, particularly when supporting non-Nature players in multiplayer.  
 Treespirit:
   - Unit cost decrease: 60p ➜ 50p
   - Life points reduction: 680 / 720 / 800 / 880 ➜ 560 / 600 / 660 / 730
   - Thorns damage reduction: 100, up to 150 total ➜ 75, up to 115 total
These changes to Treespirit were initially intended to turn the unit solely into a Root Network battery, but testing has shown increased viability in all game modes due to the ability to spam them out quickly, a trait that Nature T1 otherwise lacks. The cost reduction means a net benefit for Root Network decks, allowing them to set-up more quickly while binding significantly less power.
[ Tier 2 ]
 Healing Well:
   - Water of Life:
      - Added initial healing capacity of 1500 life points.
      - Recharge rate increase: 20 life points per second ➜ 50 life points per second
Purely support buildings typically need to provide a lot of benefit to be considered for inclusion in a player's deck. Currently, Healing Well takes 2 minutes and 30 seconds, or 150 seconds total, to fill its healing capacity of 3000. This is a recharge rate of 20 life points per second. Given that the building starts with 0 initial capacity, this means that the player must not only wait for the building to construct, but also well over a minute before the building becomes usable, and then only for a few seconds before they will need to wait again. In some sense, this mimics an initial and recurring ability cooldown timer, but we do not think this state of affairs is proper to this card. These changes should allow Healing Well to fulfill its purpose as a stable source of sustain in a localized area.  
 Sunken Temple:
   - Orb requirements changed: 2 Nature ➜ 1 Nature, 1 Neutral
   - Building cost reduction: 120p ➜ 110p
   - Swapped Shadow and Nature affinities of the card.
   - Plague:
      - Changed from active ability to passive auto-cast ability with a cooldown of 30 seconds.
      - Now displays a respawn status bar indicator.
   - Summoned Pest Creepers:
      - Unit now dies after 40 / 60 / 60 / 60 seconds.
      - Added immunity against reviving effects.
      - Can no longer be infected with the Twilight Curse.
      - No longer grants ground presence.
      - Green affinity poison duration increase: 4 ➜ 5 seconds
Sunken Temple is a spawner building with has a high upfront cost of 120 bound power and a continually high cost of 80p for each ability activation. Given that the units it spawns are unbound units, the building will eventually pay itself off. This payoff comes in the form of melee S-units, which already begin to struggle in T2, particularly in PvE. Additionally, while the building eventually pays itself off, the time it takes for this to occur is quite long, both in terms of power cost and in-game time. This is not helped by Nature's newfound lack of void manipulation in T2. In nearly all scenarios, it would be better to push for T3 with a different strategy than using Sunken Temples.
One of the holes that currently exists in Nature's T2 is the lack of a splashable defensive tower. Even Pure Nature's tower, Living Tower, is often lacking when not supported by other root network entities. The idea with this change is to turn Sunken Temple into a shrine which continually spawns short-lived defensive units. These units can then be paired with cards like Infected Tower to create permanent Twilight bugs or Furnace of Flesh for some minor void manipulation. 
[ Tier 3 ]
 Northland Drake:
   - Unit cost increase: 240p ➜ 300p
   - Life points increase: 2435 / 2560 / 2820 / 3100 ➜ 3235 / 3360 / 3620 / 3900
   - Frost Breath (auto-cast) damage increase: 265, up to 398 total (2370 dp20) ➜ 400, up to 600 total (3570 dp20)
   - Active ability Blizzard:
      - Duration increase: 10 seconds ➜ 15 seconds
      - Ability cost increase: 60p ➜ 70p
      - Infused(r) Blizzard's flat damage bonus to frozen units is now consistently dealt against all frozen targets damaged by the storm.
We have done a lot to buff Pure Frost, but have thus far neglected Northland Drake. We wanted to give the card a substantial buff, but needed to sharply increase its power cost to avoid any potential issues with PvP. Overall, this constitutes a 20% total increase in stat efficiency and a much improved ability. 
 Oracle Mask:
   - Mysticism:
      - Increased duration of the internal buff from 8 / 8 / 10 / 10 seconds ➜ 12 / 15 / 15 /15 seconds to match the external buff.
      - Changed the buff effect of the aura around friendly buildings from granting units invisibility ➜ units take 100% less damage.
      - The granted buff of the aura will now reapply to existing units in range.
      - Changed the displayed status bar icon on affected units and buildings from the card artwork icon to the ability's activation icon.
      - Added a proper global status bar description.
      - The visual effect of the activation no longer lasts an unlimited time on Oracle Mask.
The old Oracle Mask was incredibly bugged and allowed the player to unbind their entire army and generate free units. This is a stopgap measure while we work on redesigning Oracle Mask entirely. 
 Shrine of Martyrs:
   - Power cost increase: 125p ➜ 220p
   - Blessing of the Martyr: Now a permanent, passive effect. Only one Blessing of the Martyr can be active at a time per team.
We have envisioned Pure Frost as a macro-based faction oriented around good preparation and diverse unit compositions. The recent changes have given Frost players a lot to do in terms of micromanagement, and the newly buffed Shrine of Martyrs has only added to that by requiring the player to check back every 30 seconds. Given Frost's nature as a faction, which we discussed at length in our Deep Dive into Pure Frost, we would like to test out a version of Shrine of Martyrs which applies a permanent global buff. By doing so, we hope to cut out some of the micromanagement we have added to Frost in recent patches. 
 Shrine of Memory:
   - Orb requirements increased: 2 Nature (T2) ➜ 2 Nature, 1 Neutral (T3)
   - Power cost increased: 100p ➜ 120p
   - Echoes of the Past:
      - Void return percentage increase: 100% / 150% / 200% / 200% ➜ 150% / 175% / 225% / 300%
      - Maximum void return increased: 20 power per 2 seconds ➜ 80 power per 2 seconds
      - Also affects allies now, also only one Echoes of the Past can be active per team.
      - Decreased duration: 30 / 30 / 30 / 35 seconds ➜ 30 seconds on all upgrades.
As a T2 building, Shrine of Memory sees play in PvP scenarios regularly, but falls behind in PvE compared to other void return mechanics. Its current effect is most efficient with medium amounts of void power, but actually loses efficiency beyond a certain threshold (333) and only works for the player which owns the structure. This means that Pure Nature as a faction has very poor void return tools, which is a major reason it is currently so weak.
Turning SoM into a tier 3 buildings opens up significant space for buffs. Shrine of Memory now affects allies again, an ability which was originally taken away due to its strength in 2v2 PvP. Additionally, we have increased the void return percentage and allowed it to overcome the natural void return cap to allow it to compete with other void return options in T3. The goal is that after this change, all four factions will have competitive void return options which are thematically appropriate to the faction itself. 
 Stone Warrior:
   - Damage increase: 1700 dp20 ➜ 1850 dp20
   - Life points reduction: 1950 / 2020 / 2170 / 2360 ➜ 1750 / 1820 / 1970 / 2160
   - Shatter Lance activation cost reduction: 100p ➜ 80p
      - Gifted(g) Shatter Lance: Can now target structures. Deals 50% damage against structures.
The blue affinity was recently given the ability to damage frozen buildings. The green affinity's description suggests it can do the same, and we don't see anything wrong with the interaction, so we have modified them to be consistent. We also reduced the ability cost to buff both affinities slightly. Stat realignment is for PvP viability which leaves unit with identical stat efficiency, which is the same as Mutating Maniac, better than Mutating Frenzy, and slightly worse than Fathom Lord. 
 Sylvan Gate:
   - Power cost reduction: 110p ➜ 80p
   - Add "Accelerated Construction" - Construction time is reduced by 50%.
   - Change Linked Fire ➜ Repeater
      - Range: 25m ➜ 100m
      - Sylvan Gate no longer provides support itself
   - Move affinities to their own passive:
      - Change Blessed(b) affinity to Tainted(p) affinity - Friendly entities connected to the root network within a 25m radius around Sylvan Gate will deal piercing damage
      - Infused(r) affinity - Friendly entities connected to the root network within a 25m radius around Sylvan Gate will deal 25% more damage.
Sylvan Gate is in a prime place for a redesign. We would like to turn Sylvan Gate into a long-distance Root Network repeater, a role that fits perfectly with its existing tunnel ability. With these changes, a single Sylvan Gate will cover 200m and be able to connect support from every root entity within 100m in every direction. This means that Sylvan Gate can bridge massive distances, allowing the player to easily move their frontline root network unit while leaving their root network battery far away from the battlefield. 
 Thornbark:
   - Linked Fire, out-of-combat support provided increase: 1 ➜ 3.
One of the aspects of root networks that has always been a little weird is the fact that every unit provides the same amount of support. There is no scaling, so it is always best to use the cheapest option in terms of power and population limit. With this change, Thornbarks used as root network batteries will provide significantly more support. Now only 2 Thornbarks will be needed to max-out another root network unit with full support. 
[ Tier 4 ]
 Banzai Lord:
   - Counter added: Banzai Lord now has an S-counter
   - Bird Calling summon amount: 3 birds ➜ 2 birds summoned in total
   - Banzai Birds:
      - Damage (p): 1000, up to 3000 ➜ 1500, up to 4500
      - Healing (g): 1000 life points ➜ 3000 life points restored
      - Life points increased: 800 ➜ 1200 
      - Explosion radius decreased: 25m ➜ 20m
Banzai Lord has causing performance issues by spawning massive amounts of birds at once. To mitigate this issue, we reduced the birds from 3 to 2, but increased the damage and health of each bird proportionally. This means that Banzai Lord (p) will continue to deal the same total damage. At the same time, we reduced the explosion radius slightly to give the purple affinity a minor nerf. The green affinity was severely underperforming and each green affinity Bird now provides 3000 life points worth of healing, which should allow it to properly fulfill its healing role. 
Fire Sphere & Shatter Ice
   - Fixed incorrect handling of overkill damage.
This is the first instance of us changing the way overkill damage works. It should provide a substantial buff for both cards by allowing them to always deal their full potential damage when a sufficient number of enemies are present.
 Forest Elder:
   - Flower Power / Pest Plants aura radius: 20m ➜ 30m.
   - New passive Ability, "Magic Link": Unit is surrounded by a magical zone of 30m radius where summoning friendly units requires 30% less of the usual power costs.
Forest Elder is meant to be the apex Pure Nature unit, but currently is a walking Regrowth on steroids and a slightly improved Wheel of Gifts. Pure Nature is a unit-centric deck, and a major part of being a unit-centric deck is needing to summon units. Many players who splash Nature want to summon units in base, next to a Breeding Grounds. It thus feels unsatisfying when you have to summon a unit in the field and miss out on the major cost refund. We wanted to let Nature players stay in the field without waiting for other units to catch-up, as well as decrease the faction's bound power cost. As such, we thought it fitting to give Forest Elder a slightly improved mobile Breeding Grounds effect. More changes will be coming to Forest Elder in the future.
 Lifestream: 
   - Life Link:
      - Damage absorption limit increased: 10000 ➜ 20000 damage
      - Removed maximum ability duration.
      - Range increased: 200m ➜ 300m
      - Implemented a new visual effect to prevent confusion with Regrowth.
Lifestream is Nature's superweapon equivalent and is a sustain option in a faction overflowing with sustain. In order to be used, it needs to either out compete Regrowth and Forest Elder or possess its own niche use. We have striven for the second option. To do so, we doubled the absorption limit and made the effect last permanently until the limit is reached. This will both increase Lifestream's strength in existing situations, as well as allow it to be used with less active input required from the player's end. Overall, it should fit in better as a part of a fixed defense and compliment Nature's healing in more offensive scenarios. To achieve this second aspect, we also decided to increase its range to 300m to match our recent buff to Comet Catcher.
 Necrofury:
   - Unit's default attack: Melee ➜ Ranged.
      - Damage: 1100 dp20 ➜ 4160 dp20
      - Range: 40m attack range
      - Needs to face enemies in order to target them.
      - Only affects ground units
   - Movement speed increase: 4.8 m/s ➜ 6.4 m/s
   - Nether Bomb is unchanged when switched into this mode.
Necrofury is a card with a good concept that doesn't see play outside using its powerful Bone Shards ability to one-shot bosses with Unholy Hero and Fallen Skyelf. We are wanting to leave its current boss killing identity intact while opening it up for general usage. The goal is to allow Necrofury to function as a backline archer without the need to constantly micromanage her. Given Necrofury requires only 1 Shadow orb, it will be flexible enough to be used in a wide variety of decks and provide a reason to single splash a Shadow orb. 
 Overlord:
   - Blood Share:
      - Effect radius increase: 15m ➜ 20m
      - Healing increase: 1000 ➜ 1500 life points
      - Self-inflicted damage remains at 1000
The ability is currently very thematic and fitting for Overlord but also quite lackluster, so we are giving it a small boost.
 Primeval Watcher:
   - Stasis Field targeting: Self-targeting ➜ Targeted area within a 30m radius
Primeval Watcher is the primary backline damage dealer for Pure Nature. We want to increase its overall strength and the flexibility of Primeval Watcher's paralyze ability to allow for more offensive application. More changes will be coming to Primeval Watcher in the future.
 Promise of Life:
   - Orb requirements changed: 3 Nature, 1 Neutral (T4) ➜ 3 Nature orbs (T3)
Allows Promise of Life to combo with Abyssal Warder and Pure Nature in T3, but otherwise has the same restriction for other decks, given it will still require 3 Nature orbs. This combo has proven to be quite powerful in testing and opens up a unique style of play, though one that can feel foreign to Nature. The idea is to attack a location with Abyssal Warder, purposefully allow it to die, and cast Promise of Life just before its death. This causes both a fully restored XL-warder and 2 L-warders to spawn, both of which are unbound. Promise of Life and Abyssal Warder will allow the player to quickly accumulate a large army of unbound units, while the new Shrine of Memory will grant fast void return, resulting into quicker transitions into T4.   

PvP Balance Changes
 [ New Card Design Spotlight  - Burning Spears ]
Burning Spears were designed as a new tool to increase deck building options in pure Fire. The faction currently has a limited pool of pure cards in PvP leading to a very M-unit centric deck design with a limited amount of deck building options and balancing levers to change specific matchup behaviors. The addition of Burning Spears will add a versatile small sized unit into the faction, that is supposed to help with some of the factions counter issues against L and XL units in T2, while demanding a deck slot investment in return. The passive ability enables very high back loaded damage potential to punish players that try to ignore them, whereas the slow and steadfast ability allows Burning Spears to stick to their priority targets while enabling further spell synergies with cards like Wildfire.
[ Nature Rework ]
Pure Nature has been struggling to find its place in PvP for a long time. The faction features some tools prone to snowballing games once a lead is established. This can be frustrating to play against. While these tools offer great snowball potential, the faction lacks ways to actually get ahead through more conventional means. At higher levels of play the deck could be considered the weakest, since it was possible to shut down the strenght points it has while abusing its weaknesses.  
To address these issues, we want to increase Nature’s pool of options in open field trades while increasing its capacities of defending structures more consistently. At the same time, we are toning down the snowball mechanics to avoid creating an overly strong faction, which can’t be dealt with at some point in the game. This should lead to a more enjoyable experience for all players involved. Considering some of these changes are quite drastic, follow-up tweaks might be necessary to reach the desired goal.
 Burrowing Ritual:
  - Cost reduction: 50p ➜ 40p
Our previous plan of slightly buffing Tunnel in PvP didn’t work out for various reasons. As a result, we decided to add a bit of power to one of its combo pieces, making slot investments for Tunneling strategies a little bit more worthwhile.
 Creeping Paralysis:
   - Cost reduction: 60p ➜ 50p
   - Paralyze duration increase: 15s ➜ 20s
   - Target limit increase: 7 ➜ 10 total targets
Adding more crowd control and open field trading options for pure Nature allows the deck to compete with nature splash factions. The listed buffs are supposed to enable its role at defending power wells against melee units by preventing them from focusing down power wells. The spell also excels at disrupting immobile army stacking strategies.
 Deep One:
   - Life points reduction: 1650 ➜ 1450
   - Catch ability cost reduction: 25p ➜ 10p
Deep One happened to be the most stat efficient T2 L-unit. Combined with Surge of Light, this led to very powerful snowball potential, allowing straight focus onto power wells ignoring any counter units. We reduce the overall health ratio to impact the effectiveness of Surge of Light support. On the other hand, we want to maintain Deep One’s ability during more defensive trades and are reducing its ability cost as a result. Deep One’s performance will be highly impacted by the upcoming Nightguard nerf as well.
 Energy Parasite:
   - Counter type change: S-counter ➜ M-counter
   - Power Drain: added 30s initial cooldown
Any tool capable of generating maximum energy leads can snowball out of control very quickly. Therefore, preventing Energy Parasites from connecting to power wells at any given state is an absolute must if you want to beat pure Nature consistently. This necessary zoning of Energy Parasites often lead to a tempo loss by default, leading to heavily restricted gameplay options when playing against them. While this power level was necessary to keep pure Nature viable in the past, it did not leave a lot of room to buff the faction. This change is supposed to bring up more counter play options to Energy Parasites while keeping the unit strong and viable. The initial power investment can’t provide fast payoff, as counter unit spawns can be delayed. As nature often struggles with attacks based on M units, we also change the counter type from S to M. This might allow Energy Parasites to be utilized in combat before the initial cooldown goes off.
 Ghostspears:
   - Orb requirements changed: 1 Nature, 1 Neutral ➜ 2 Nature orbs
   - Weapon Change ability cost removed: 10p ➜ 0p
   - Damage increase: 900 dp20 -> 990 dp20
With the introduction of Amii Paladins, every nature splash has its own melee S-sized M counter nowadays. By moving Ghostspears to pure Nature, we can tweak each of these units to specifically balance them towards each faction's needs. This change opens up room to buff pure Nature’s overall trading capabilities. 
 Parasite:
   - Orb requirements changed: 1 Nature, 1 Neutral ➜ 2 Nature orbs
   - Cost reduction: 100p -> 80p
   - Damage per second increase: 60 / 60 / 60 / 66  dmg/s -> 70 / 70 / 70 / 80 dmg/s
   - Max targets increase: 4 / 5 / 6 / 6 -> 8 / 9 / 10 / 10 total targets
   - Fixed damage interval from 0.9 to 1 sec without increasing total damage
Pure Nature had little room to interact with air units in the past. Spirit Hunter poison gets countered by strong sustain tools (Ravage, Crystal Fiend healing etc.) and Parasite Swarm is too expensive and too susceptible to cc in order to work consistently. Parasite is supposed to be a strong support tool addressing this issue. Additionally, the card synergizes well with crowd control options to deal with stacked unit setups. We will move orb requirements towards pure nature to avoid interactions with splash factions, creating space for such a strong buff.
 Parasite Swarm:
   - Splash damage removed
   - Total damage increase: 16, up to 24 total damage (800 dp20) ➜ 24 damage (960 dp20)
   - Counter type change: M-counter ➜ XL-counter
   - Mind Control: added 10s initial ability cooldown
Parasite Swarm is mostly reliant on using its active ability to generate value. This makes using the card rather inconsistent, especially in early T2 stages. The upcoming change increases single target damage by 50% vs L, S and buildings, while increasing damage by 125% against XL units (M remains unchanged). On top of that, its counter type is getting shifted from M to XL in order to provide a new option of dealing with XL units. This should make Rogan Kayle less mandatory in pure Nature. In return, we add a small initial cooldown on the ability to prevent undazed spawn into instant swap plays.
 Rogan Kayle:
   - Damage increase: 990 dp20 ➜ 1075 dp20
   - It’s the Shoes range increase: 15m ➜ 20m
While not a pure Nature card in the first place, Rogan Kayle often gets used in combination with crowd control spells to produce permanent cc-chains. Outside of that, the card is rarely used and has large drawbacks due to rather underwhelming stat cost ratios. We increase its power a bit to open up more situations where the Lyrish leader can actually lead to victory.
 Shrine of Memory:
Shrine of Memory will be shifted away from a meta pure Nature card and redesigned as a T3 tool. The card used to be a catch-up mechanic to compensate for nature’s weak early T2 complementing its spell spam heavy snowball tools. With the upcoming buffs, a back loaded hyperscaling mechanic is no longer necessary. Considering gameplay with SoM point and click hard counters like Suppression or Matter Mastery would naturally get more popular if Nature would increase in popularity, we decided to rework the card entirely. For more information, head towards the PvE section, where SoMs new powerful role will be further discussed.
 Spikeroot:
   - Unit cost reduction: 120p ➜ 110p
Root Network decks were kept in a rather weak state in PvP considering static siege setups are rarely fun to play against. That said, we think it’s safe to increase Spikeroots power level a bit considering the card can complement Nature decks in various ways and is not reliant on root network support to be functional in the first place. It can be used as another tool to address nature’s M-counter issues. 
[ Shadow L-counter Adjustments ]
Nightguard has been dominant across Shadow splashes by shutting down a lot of L-unit centric strategies entirely across multiple matchups. The advantages of getting unbound units through mind control effects are more substantial than just removing units from the map. When kept alive, even a single unbound L-unit would lead to a huge long term advantage. Her omnipresence is preventing options to diversify faction identities, but also leads to numerous unhealthy interactions like shutting down L-unit centric factions entirely. We haven’t been able to touch Nightguard so far as a few L-units were at risk of getting out of hand without her (i.e. old Mountaineer). But since these outliers have received nerfs, we want to attempt to redesign the L-Counter role in Shadow splashes to enable more proactive skirmishing.
 Nightguard:
   - Unit cost increase: 65p ➜ 90p
   - Swap ability cost reduction: 75p ➜ 50p
As the central change here, Nightguard unit cost will be increased by 25 energy, rewarding energy investments to prevent the swap from going through in the first place. On the other hand, her ability cost will go down by the same amount, so total swap costs remain unchanged. This will weaken Nightguard’s preemptive zoning power before the swap goes through and also strengthen any re-swap scenarios. Therefore, taking down the Nightguard after a swap goes through needs to be prioritized even more than before. As the total cost per swap remains unchanged PvE impact is minimized considering it is way more likely to be able to keep her safe compared to PvP.
 Executor:
   - Counter type change: M-counter ➜ L-counter
   - New passive ability, "Piercing Death" - Unit deals 60% piercing damage
Executor has been redundant so far given that Shadow already has exceptional M counter options. To bring up a combat based alternative to Nightguard his counter type will be changed from M to L. In addition he will receive piercing damage to be able to help against buffed L units. This should help against early T2 or in 2vs2 matches.
 Knight of Chaos:
   - Chaos ability cost reduction: 50p ➜ 40p
Pure Shadow was quite reliant on Nightguard to sufficiently counter L units. This buff should help compensate for the loss of power, and will also open up more opportunities for the less reliable purple affinity to finally cause real chaos.
[ Miscellaneous Changes ]
 Dreadcharger:
   - Charge increase: 12 ➜ 16
Small change as a response to recent design changes in the Shadow vs Frost matchup. This should enable more extended T1’s given that Frost also receives Ice Guardian buffs in this patch.
 Eliminator:
   - Taming ability radius increase: 20m ➜ 30m
      - Added radius preview
      - Buff increase, fire(r) affinity only: 30% ➜ 50%
   - Fixed affinities not working together without allowing it to stack infinitely 
Helping Eliminator to reward very specific strategies in decks that are built around him.
 Ice Guardian:
   - Increased range from structures before Ice Shield decays: 25m ➜ 30m
   - Added a visual indicator when the Ice Shield is not decaying.
After acquiring more data from the Master Archer change, the previous spam scenarios are less effective in PvP as predicted. That said, Frost often ends up being confined to its own structures. We are giving Ice Guardian a bit more room to chase units and add a little bit more power into close well combat, where Frost is supposed to excel. This is needed to avoid map cutoffs early into the game. We also added a visual indicator when the ice shield is not decaying. This should lead to more comfortable unit micro options.
 Mountain Rowdy:
   - Ice Block ability cooldown increase: 30 / 25 / 20 / 20s ➜ 40 / 35 / 30 / 30s
While we are satisfied with the overall position Mountain Rowdy took in pure Frost, he currently has the potential to keep his ability active constantly. With the increased range, this is a very potent zoning tool and sometimes slows down the game a bit too much. Therefore, we want to provide a proper window for players to attack after the ability runs out. 
 Phalanx:
   - Damage increase: 570 / 600 / 660 / 750 dp20 ➜ 600 / 630 / 690 / 780 dp20
Phalanx recently saw a bit more play in PvP. We think they still are on the weak side, therefore a small buff, which doesn’t impact their combo potential with Nasty Surprise should help them take a more consistent L counter role in Frost splashes.
 Slaver:
   - Cost reduction: 80p ➜ 75p
Small buff to bring stat efficiency more into the line of other T2 L counters. Shouldn’t affect the unit performance too much.
 Stoneshards:
   - Life points reduction: 840 ➜ 810
Small tweak for Stoneshards considering Stonekin is slightly overperforming and will benefit a lot from upcoming Nightguard changes.
 Strikers:
   - Movement speed increase: 6.4 m/s ➜ 8 m/s
While Strikers are underperforming as a unit, we do want to keep them in a niche role rather than buffing them back into a meta position. Increased movement speed should help to seperate the great Striker players from the good ones without inflating their power level. This should make it easier for them to isolate and pick off units more often.
 Twilight Brute:
   - Damage increase: 940 dp20 ➜ 970 dp20
Even though Twilight Brute is a strong tool in a few matchups, deck slot limitations are quite restrictive in Fire Nature decks, so the card doesn’t see too much play all in all. Increasing the attack should provide a small extra reward for selecting them.
 Twilight Minions
   - Damage increase: 900 dp20 ➜ 930 dp20
   - Life points increase: 780 ➜ 840
Considering Fire Nature loses Ghostspears as small sized M counter, Twilight Minions need to step in and take their role. Despite their superior stat efficiency, they were rarely played due to ranged disadvantages compared to Ghostspears and a less flexible ability. As a result, we will increase stat efficiency a little further to compensate for this patch and also look to add a lot more value for Twilight oriented deck builds in Fire Nature in the near future.
 Virtuoso:
   - Damage increase: 1790 / 1890 / 2075 / 2265 dp20 ➜ 2025 / 2125 / 2310 / 2500 dp20
Even after the recent ability buffs, Virtuoso remained underplayed due to his inferior stat efficiency compared to most other L sized melee units. As a result, we decided to increase his damage output to help him at countering L units and sieging.
 Warden Sigil (Frost):
   - Blessed(b)Sigil ability: Can no longer be attached to structures that are still under construction.
We are working on Wardens Sigil buffs to add more defensive tools in Frost T1. Unfortunately, the testing process isn't finished entirely, therefore only some technical preparations will be included this patch. We will follow up on this one soon.
 Warlock:
   - Cost increase: 45p ➜ 50p
   - Damage increase: 430 dp20 ➜ 600 dp20
      - Blaze Bolt: 60, up to 90 total damage (430 dp20) ➜ 72, up to 108 total damage (600 dp20)
      - Attack speed: 3,5s ➜ 3s
   - Witchcraft ability now allows self-targeting
After testing the Warlock sufficiently, we do think it’s safe to enable a little more combat power rather than keeping the unit just as a cheap supportive tool. Warlock still should remain as a part of growing armies, but once he can deal a bit of meaningful damage himself, the required amount of set-up to make him work is reduced. This should help Warlock become more valuable in earlier T2 stages.
 White Rangers:
   - Increased ability damage against non-Amii buildings from 50% ➜ 100% (orbs and power wells still do not receive any damage)
White Rangers already perform well in PvP, but given there is a distinction between normal and Amii structures (orbs and power wells), we can remove their reduced damage output against buildings to open up more use cases in PvE without inflating their PvP power level.

Map Balance Changes

PvE Map Changes
Behind Enemy Lines: increased initial power wells from 2 to 3. All three have a capacity of 1200, equivalent to a 40 min lifetime.
Behind Enemy Lines is a map with a high failure rate with non-Nightguard strategies, and is none to have substantial periods where the player is forced to wait. The primary goal is to keep the map strategic and difficult, while removing the tedious moments. A secondary goal is to buff non-Nightguard strategies in preparation for the upcoming changes to mind control. Convoy: buildings are now properly blocked from being built in the canyon in the center of the map in all locations.
Nightmare Shard: increased initial power wells from 2 to 3 and increased the capacity of the T2 & T3 power wells from 600 (20 min) to 900 (30 min). Once the goal is activated to destroy the infected Twilight spawns (which occurs either after the player has reached the Shard or the first Twilight Witch spawns, whichever is first) the fog of war over each infected camp is cleared in a 35m radius.
The average completion time for this map on expert is 48 minutes. The idea is to increase early power generation to reduce waiting, and to increase well capacity in-line with how long the map actually takes. Additionally, many players do not have a good idea of the strength of the various Twilight camps. The choice to remove the fog of war over the camps should help the players to make a better informed decision of where next to attack. Nightmare's End: increased initial power wells from 2 to 3 and increased initial well capacity from 900 (30 min) to 1200 (40 min). Increased the capacity of the T2 power wells from 600 (20 min) to 900 (30 min). 
Nightmare's End has an average completion time of 72 minutes. This makes it the longest map in the game, and it is notoriously frustrating, leading to low replayability. Initial power generation and well capacity does not match the map's actual difficulty or length, so we are hopeful these changes can help bring about a smoother gameplay experience. There are other issues with the map in need of changing, but they will need to wait for a future patch. The Dwarven Riddle: added a monument and 3 power wells on each side of the map, regardless of number of players. 
This change will allow both players to go T4. It should only affect players who play the map in a more "standard" method, in contrast to the speedrun method.   Standardized all official single player campaign maps to have 4 gold chests.
Defending Hope: added 2 gold chests to match the standard.  Ocean: removed 2 gold chests to match the standard. The Soultree: added 1 gold chest to match the standard Introduction: added one gold chest to introduce new players to the concept of gold chests.

PvP Map Changes
While PvP has been moving steadily towards a more and more balanced state, a major issue we still face is the maps themselves. Just like we previously made changes to the 1v1 maps, we are happy to finally unveil our changes to all the 2v2 PvP maps (and Yrmia). These changes should create a more competitive and fair play environment, with many existing imbalances and cheese opportunities removed. All minimaps have been adjusted to reflect the changes and to be more accurate in general.
[ 1v1 Maps ]
Yrmia / Yrmia (Spectator Map):
Decreased the capacity of all power wells with 900 capacity to 600 capacity (1). Decreased the capacity of all power wells with 1500 capacity to 600 capacity (2). [ 2v2 Maps ]
Danduil:
Removed the 4 fortification walls surrounding the Monuments on both sides. Added 1 power well of 600 power capacity at each of the 4 monument positions in the corners. Fixed an issue where it was not possible to spawn non-S-sized units by the ground presence solely provided by the outer power wells (2 and 3). Swapped the starting positions including the power wells and monuments of the teams, whilst preserving previous symmetry. Fyre:
Increased the construction cost of the 4 outer fortification walls from 25 to 50 energy. Decreased these wall's distance to the power wells. These walls can no longer be built by enemies if the player or ally own the power well closest to the wall. Additionally, slightly narrowed the layout of the respective area around the wall in the bottom left to enable the same effect there. Added flying blocking at the 2 big lakes in the center to prevent sieging across them with long-ranged flying units. This is now visualized by permanently present clouds in the area. The power wells in the top left of the upper starting base now provide spawn presence for units and buildings. The power wells in the bottom right of the lower starting base now provide better spawn presence for units and buildings. Fixed various other minor blocking issues. Swapped the starting positions including the power wells and monuments of the teams, whilst preserving previous symmetry. Gorgash:
Increased the construction cost of the fortification walls at each starting position from 25 to 50 power. These walls are no longer pre-built at the start of the game. Increased all player's starting void power from 400 to 425 to compensate for wall changes. Decreased the power cost of the walls at the central northern and southern bases at the border of map from 75 to 50 energy. Adjusted the position of the monuments and power wells in all 6 bases in the north and south of the map to decrease distance to the wall. These walls can no longer be built by enemies if the player or ally owns the power well or monument closest to it. Removed the 2 walls around the northern and southern bases in the center of the map. Changed the layout of power wells and monuments in these bases by rotating each cluster by 180 degrees. Moved the power wells and monuments in these bases outwards, hence further away from the center of the map. Removed the northern and southern power well in the well cluster in the middle of the map. Moved the 4 power well clusters near the outer left and outer right bases closer to the center. Swapped the starting positions including the power wells and monuments of the teams, whilst preserving previous symmetry. Koshan:
Swapped the starting positions between players, whilst preserving previous symmetry. Added 2 ramps to the sides of the new start positions, granting access to the plateau behind. Opened up the plateaus in the corners by creating connecting ramps towards the diagonal of the map. Adjusted the positions of wells, so that they are further away from the nearby wall, and thus hostile units mounted on the wall cannot attack the wells anymore. Nadai:
Added 1 power well of 1200 capacity at each side of the center monument position. Adjusted the positions of monuments and walls, so that 4 of the walls cannot be taken anymore if an enemy has taken the adjacent monument. Adjusted the positions of monuments, so that they are further away from the nearby wall, and thus hostile units mounted on the wall cannot attack the orb anymore. Swapped the starting positions including the starting power wells and monuments only within teams for consistency, whilst preserving map symmetry. Turan:
Opened up the middle of the map by creating 4 connecting paths between the power well clusters and the central monument. Swapped the starting positions including the power wells and monuments of the teams, whilst preserving previous symmetry. Yshia:
Adjusted the positions of the 4 outer fortification walls to prevent offensive walling, by moving them outwards and thus closer to the power wells and monuments there. Opened up the plateaus by adding 2 ramps to each of them. Widened one of the ramps leading up to the two small plateaus. Increased the cost of the plateau walls from 25 to 50. Moved the well clusters more towards the center of the plateau, but keeping them close to the wall to prevent offensive walling. Moved the monuments previously located off the plateau to add to each of them 1 power well of 600 power capacity. Swapped the starting positions including the power wells and monuments of the teams, whilst preserving previous symmetry. Zahadune:
Added flying blocking at various places at the borders of the bodies of water to prevent sieging across them with long-ranged flying units. This is now visualized by permanently present clouds in the area.
Fire Random PvE Balance Changes
Fire was added as an enemy faction in rPvE in our Anniversary Patch. While we are currently working on adding Nature as the next faction to fight against, we have been keeping a close eye on the balance and player experience against Fire among all skill levels. With this patch, we will be making some changes to improve the experience. 
[ System Changes ]
    - Significantly reduced the difficulties 6 and below.
    - Volcano now only spawns in level 4 camps and beyond.*
    - Incoming attack waves should now be less oppressive on higher difficulties.
[ Bosses ]
Removed fire class from all fire boss units - Protector's Seal no longer blocks the damage of Fire bosses.
Abaddon: 
   - Rage:
       - Reduced the damage bonus from the second stage from 300% to 200%.
   - Gates of Hell: 
       - Reduced the initial damage from 800 (2400 in total) to 400 (1200 in total).
       - Reduced the eruption damage from 2000 (6000 in total) to 1000 (3000 in total).
Aspect of Summer:
   - Global Warming: No longer prevents ice shield from being applied to target units.
Brannoc:
   - Reduced life points from 65000 to 60000.
   - Fire Sphere:
       - Increased channeling time from 3 to 5 seconds.
       - Reduced damage from 2000 (10000 in total) to 1500 (7500 in total).
       - Reduced the radius from 25m to 20m.
       - Reduced the casting range 30m to 25m.
Fireback:
   - Increased life points from 30000 to 40000.
Fiend of Fire:
   - Flamethrower: Reduced damage per second from 600 to 500.
Molten Golem:
   - Blazing Surface: Reduced damage returned from 50% to 25%.
Vulcanos:
   - Unit is now XL.
   - Can now damage air units.
[ Units ]
Emberstrike:
   - Fire Lance
       - Reduced damage from 1200 (3100 in total) to 1000 (2500 in total).
       - Only deals 50% damage to structures.
Firesworn:
   - Fixed a bug that prevented the unit from attacking units other than L-sized units.
Fire Dragon:
   - Rage: Reduced the damage bonus from the second stage from 300% to 200%.
Fire Worm:
   - Earthquake:
       - Reduced the damage per hit from 1000 to 500.
       - Now properly deals L counter damage.
Magma Spore:
   - Ground Blast: 
       - Reduced the damage from 720 (1120 in total) to 350 (1050 in total).
       - Reduced the area Radius 15m -> 10m.
Spitfire:
   - Fire Bomb: Reduced range from 50m to 35m.
[ Buildings ]
Pyromaniac:
   - Reduced the duration of the damage over time debuff from 10 seconds to 3 seconds.
Tower of Flames:
   - Volcanic Ground:
       - Reduced the damage from 6 times 200/1000 to 6 times 150/750.
       - Reduced the range from 25m to 20m.
Volcano:
   - Reduced life points from 5000 to 3500.
   - Reduced the size by 10%.
New Building: Flame Crystal - Spawns in Level 4 and Level 5 camps* and will periodically remove debuffs and cc effects from allied units
Fire can be extremely strong, but due to its high attack and low defense, it is extra vulnerable to Crowd Control spells. We want to counter this weakness with a brand-new building, while some major enemy damage dealers have been rebalanced
* Level 3 camps are usually right behind the T3/T4 camp; Level 4 camps are the row behind Level 3; Level 5 is always the last row.

Map Editor Changes
Increased maximum allowed file size of community maps from 64 to 512 megabytes. Added optional verbose logging for LUA. This is relevant for mapmakers and can be enabled in the debug section of the configuration file at `/Battleforge/config.json` using the `lua` configuration. The logs can be found in the `/Battleforge/Diag` folder. Increased max brush size in the map editor. Fixed crashes for the height map generation for Random PvE in the map editor in certain cases. Allowed selection of the fire Random PvE preset in the map editor.
Bugfixes
Fixed issue related to character names becoming too long with the added `{GM}` prefix and not being able to be whispered. Fixed issue with deleting community maps while they are being downloaded by another player. Fixed incorrect ordering for all time rankings in the leaderboards. Fixed ability to add 21 cards or 21 boosters to trade, instead of 20. Fixed too large scroll step size for upgrade view when trying to scroll through the upgrades. It now scrolls with the same steps as the cards scroll view. Fixed inconsistencies in the Amii card frames. Card descriptions will no longer overflow into the card artwork. Fixed walk speed mismatch between respawned squad members and existing ones, causing the group as a whole to move at an unfavorable speed. This could be noticed for example with Werebeasts and Strikers. Fixed wrong displayed remaining card charges for Offering in rare cases Fixed incorrect handling of overkill stampede damage when destroying buildings. In general, this has a nerfing effect on stampede. Improved error handling and logging for issues related to starting BattleForge with DirectX10. and many more!

Greetings Skylords!

We are very excited to tell you about our newest patch. Welcome to this special Community Update! 

• Patch Release

We are currently hard at work finalizing the upcoming patch, which is planned for release later this weekend. We do not have a specific time yet, but we expect the patch to hit the live servers this Sunday. We have also created a special video for this patch, be sure to check it out! 
In this community update, we will show some of the changes that will be included in this patch. For a full list of changes, please check out the patch notes, as there are many changes not mentioned here. 
If you start the game after the patch has released, you will be greeted by a new loading screen. This is a combination of the wallpapers drawn by our former artist Nano, and additions and alterations by Tweeto. We hope you notice all the attention to detail and love they poured into it!

• New Cards

We are excited that you will finally get your hands on the cards we have been working on for the past months. With this patch, three new cards will be added to the game:

Wasteland Terror
Wasteland Terror is finally here! This awesome Bandit-take on the dragon model fires streams of sand that will lay waste to your enemies.
This card has been long in the making, check out the original announcement for an overview of its abilities. 


Transcendence
Transcendence is our first Amii spell, and provides a powerful buff or debuff as long as you keep its target alive, rewarding careful management of the fight. Check out the original announcement for more information.


Burning Spears
Burning Spears joins the Fire faction to battle an age-old weakness of its pure deck: L and XL units in the early game. 
Check out the original announcement, for more information and an artwork spotlight.



• New Promo Card: Mana Wing

Alongside our new cards, we have also added a new promo card to the game. Every player will be able to get a promo Mana Wing by completing the new achievement "A Force of Nature". The promo will not be available in boosters, but it will be trade-able. 


• New Achievements

This patch will add 18 new achievements into the game. Those are aimed at improving the new player experience, while also giving our more veteran players something to work towards. Please note that if you have beaten specific maps previously, they do not count towards these new achievements.  
 
[ Infinitely Scaling Achievement ]

Reborn in Fire  [1 Mini-booster]
Reforge Cards (Unlocks every 20 reforges, scales infinitely)

[ Beginner Achievements ]

Just a Story  [1 Twilight booster]
Complete Viridya and Brannoc's story on standard difficulty or higher (Encounters, Siege of Hope, Defending Hope, Soultree, Crusade, Sunbridge, King of the Giants, Titans, Ascension)
The Most Dangerous Game [1 Bandits booster]
Complete Mo's story on standard difficulty or higher {Mo, Ocean, Oracle, Slave Master, Convoy, Blight, Raven's End, Empire)
A Debt Unpaid  [20,000 gold]
Complete the story related to the Treasure Fleet on advanced difficulty or higher. (Bad Harvest, Treasure Fleet, Mo, Blight, Slave Master, Convoy) 
A Mile in His Shoes  [2 Stonekin boosters]
Complete Rogan's story on advanced difficulty or higher (Encounters, Siege of Hope, Defending Hope, Crusade, King of the Giants, Titans, Dwarven Riddle, Guns of Lyr, Empire)
A Wrinkle in Time  [250 bfp]
Win the 4-player map Empire spawning at least 5 different Lost Souls cards from a deck containing only frost, shadow, and Lost Souls cards.
Godslayer  [250 bfp]
Win the 2-player maps Sunbridge and Insane God on any difficulty. 
Apprentice  [1 booster]
Win 20 randomly generated PvE matches of difficulty 5 or higher. 
 
[ Veteran PvE Achievements ]

The Road Not Taken  [3 boosters]
Win 20 randomly generated PvE matches of difficulty 9 or higher.
Turn Back All Ye Who Enter Here  [6 boosters]
Win 20 randomly generated PvE matches of difficulty 10.
Nevermore  [2 Bandit boosters]
Complete Blight's story on expert difficulty (Blight, Raven's End, Slave Master, Ocean, and Oracle)
Make it Double  [2 Amii boosters]
Complete all 2-player maps on expert difficulty. (Crusade, Sunbridge, Nightmare Shard, Nightmare's End, The Insane God, Slave Master and Convoy)
Never Thought of Him  [100,000 gold]
Complete the story of Mo becoming the new king of the fire tribes on expert difficulty with all players in the map using decks containing only Fire cards.  (Mo, Ocean, Oracle, Slave Master, Convoy, and Raven's End)
The Long Journey Home  [2 Frost boosters]
Complete the story re-establishing the Kingdom of Lyr on expert difficulty using decks containing only frost cards. (Encounters with Twilight, Siege of Hope, Defending Hope, Bad Harvest, Dwarven Riddle, and Guns of Lyr)
Not Even My Final Form  [Rogan Kayle Card]
Win the 1-player map Encounters with Twilight on expert difficulty without using T3 or T4 cards.
Forest for the Tree  [Viridya Card]
Complete the 1-player map The Soultree on expert difficulty using only Nature cards from T1 and T2.
A City Strongly Compact  [Stronghold Card]
Win the 1-player map Defending Hope on expert difficulty with a deck containing only spell and building cards.
A Force of Nature   [Promo Mana Wing]
Complete all 1-player and 2-player scenarios on expert difficulty with all players in your team using decks containing only Nature cards.

• Map Changes

Campaign Maps
We have made adjustments to a couple of campaign maps. These changes include standardizing gold chests (adding or removing them on maps that break the standard) and adding extra power wells or additional capacity of current wells to improve the early game of maps like Nightmare Shard and The Dwarven Riddle. For a full list of changes, please reference the patch notes.


Rebalanced 2vs2 Maps
The rebalanced 2vs2 maps can now be played on the live server. Changes include removal (or adjustments) of walls, wells, slight changes to the layout, and making certain areas immovable for flying units. This should result in a better play experience and more balanced maps. These maps also have observer versions, and we have updated the minimaps to be accurate. 


• PvP changes

We have implemented multiple changes that should make playing PvP easier and more rewarding. If you need any help to get started, remember that you have access to free and fully upgraded PvP decks, and we have a great guide available, written by top players. The following changes have been made:
New Player Protection
To protect new players from facing top players when they are just getting started in ranked play, it is no longer possible to get matched with players with a base ELO above 135.000, if your own base ELO is below 102.000.

Made Player Names Anonymous
To prevent players from dodging bad match-ups, player names have been anonymized in the ranked lobby. This does not affect the sparring lobbies. 

Losses Are Now Hidden
It has been proven in other competitive games that showing losses on the ranked ladder results in demotivation and higher entry barriers. We have therefore removed losses from the ladder. The information is still accessible on your profile if you so desire. 

Updates To The Free PvP Decks
We have made some changes to the cards contained in the free PvP decks to compete with the new meta. If we made updates to the free PvP decks you have currently selected, you will now have the option to either swap to the new cards, or keep your current set up. Changes have been made to Pure Nature (Parasite over Shrine of Memory), Twilight (Twilight Minions over Ghost Spears), Pure Shadow (Executor over Nightguard) and Pure Fire (Burning Spears over Scorched Earth). 

Improved Rewards
We have removed the gold penalty that was currently active for playing sparring games. Quests that require you to play 2vs2 games, now also count 3vs3 games for completion. 

We have also allowed you to drain the reserve while looking for a match. If you queue for at least 5 minutes, even if you don't find an opponent, you will earn BFP as if you were ingame, meaning you get BFP not just for playing, but also while searching for matches. 

Happy Hours
Happy Hours are specific time periods where players will receive additional gold and BFP for playing PvP. During Happy Hours, there will be an in-game announcement and the icon on the world map will indicate Happy Hours are active. 

Happy Hours will take place during the following times:
- 1vs1 happy hours: 7pm-9pm CET
- 2vs2 happy hours: 9pm-10pm CET
- 1vs1 happy hours: 4am-5am CET
By clustering players together during certain time frames, players will have an easier time finding matches more frequently. 

• rPvE Fire Balance Changes

We have rolled out some balance adjustments to the fire faction for rPvE. The Fire faction in rPvE can be extremely strong, but due to its high attack and low defense, it is extra vulnerable to Crowd Control spells. We tried to counter this weakness with a brand-new building that removes Crowd Control effects from nearby units.
Some major enemy damage dealers have been rebalanced, which should result in an improved experience for all skill levels. For more information on exactly what was changed, please reference the patch notes. 
We have also expanded the wiki to contain information regarding the various bosses you might encounter.

 
• Balance Changes

This patch also contains rebalancing of over 40 cards, with a large focus on Nature cards. These changes follow the mindset written out in our Nature Deep Dive. While already a great step forward, our work on (Pure) Nature is not yet finished, with some of the more complicated changes (f.e. Abyssal Warder and Grove Spirit) still being worked on. Regardless, these changes should have a positive impact on the faction. 
Players will enjoy seeing a Forest Elder on the battlefield, since the card now has a mobile Breeding Grounds effect, reducing the cost of friendly units spawned by its side. Promise of Life has gone down a tier, now requiring only 3 Nature orbs, while Shrine of Memory has gone up a tier, now costing 2 Nature + 1 Neutral orb but increasing its effect greatly.
These are just a couple of examples from the many changes that will be included. You will be able to check out all the details in the patch notes soon. 

• Tournaments / Events

• NEW - Official PvE Contest #6: The Soultree Faction Battle - Until 19.06.2022
In this event, you can show off how much you like your favorite faction. Beat the single player map 'The Soultree' on advanced difficulty using only mixed-colored units and buildings! The event will start after the new patch is live. More information.

• NEW - Skylords Battleship Kahoot Quiz - June 12th 2022 16:00 CEST
Dallarian and Volin are hosting a Skylords Reborn knowledge quiz! The quiz will be streamed on Twitch and use Kahoot, which is easy to access by phone or PC. There are a ton of prizes up for grabs, so the majority of players should win something. More information.
 
• NEW - The Skylords Open #15 - June 19th 2022 - 14:00 CEST
The new balance changes and addition of Burning Spears should shake up the PvP meta, so what better time to host another Skylords Open? This 1vs1 tournament is open for all players, and will be streamed live on Twitch. If possible, please sign-up in advance. More Information.
 
• FINISHED - CCC #5 - Prophecy, Prophecy, PROPHECYYY!
Kapo hosted another successful Crappy Community Contest© on an altered Oracle map. Players had access to 16 orbs and 10.000 power to beat the map as fast as possible. As with all CCC, the more players attend, the better the prizes are, resulting in a free booster for the whole community. View the event and the code.

• FINISHED - Skylords Bounty: Spring Forge
A Skylords Bounty is an open-source task for the community to create something needed in one of the departments of Skylords Reborn. For this Bounty, we asked the community to help us create a spring-themed Forge. We got multiple submissions, and will now work together with the most promising candidate. Every serious attempt will also be rewarded with a Nature booster. If you participated, you will hear from us in the coming week. 

• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our Event Organizers Hiko and/or Metagross to have your event prizes sponsored by us. If you have a cool idea for a PvE event, or want to host a PvP tournament, please don't hesitate to reach out to us, we will gladly assist you. 

• Team Changes

Hirooo has joined our team as Faction Designer / Balance Developer. He has already been helping us a lot with testing and balancing PvP, so we are happy to welcome him to our team!

Sadly, MarcoMaar (UI Developer) and RookieN (Map Designer) will leave the team due to long inactivity. We do want to thank them for their contribution to the project!
 
• Contribute To Skylords Reborn

We are currently looking for more people to help us create new content. Many upcoming features are on hold or take a long time due to a lack of volunteers, so we encourage you to take a look at our open positions. 
For example, we are looking for a Map Artist to help us with Defense rPvE, and a Map Designer to work on creating new Campaign Maps. And we could always use more developers to improve the game in general. 
If you want to help with creating new cards, we encourage you to consider our Artist and Balance Developer roles. We can always use more people in those departments to speed up progress. Adding voice lines to our new cards is currently on hold due to us missing an Audio Editor. 
We would also like to improve our marketing; you can help out as a Marketeer, but also a Video Editor, creating short card reveal videos and exciting trailers would be greatly appreciated. 

If you don't want to join the staff, you can still help with proofreading, testing our maps or creating a community event. 

• In Conclusion

We really hope you will enjoy our latest patch "Force of Nature"! 

To celebrate the release, and to help you out with your Nature decks, we have a special scratch code for you. 
This code will reward you with two Nature boosters! SOIL-ROOT-TREE-LEAF
Feel free to share this code, but please do so by pointing players towards the Community Update instead of sharing the code itself. 
The code is valid until July 1st, when we will bring you our next Community Update.
Going forward, we will bring you these Community Updates monthly, on the first day of every month.

What changes are you most excited for? What decks will you build around the new cards? We would love to hear in the comments!  

Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update #23

New Record for Treasure Fleet 14.47.8

Welcome to this guide on how to construct and pilot the Batariel deck. This guide will go over all the ins and outs of the deck, what to do in certain situations, and general tips and tricks for both beginning and more advanced Batariel players. Let’s open the Gates of Purgatory and jump in.
 
What does Batariel do?
Batariel is a Tier 4  card. It is a rare card and got two affinities.
 Its first ability is Gates of Hell.

ACTIVE: Activate to smash Batariel's giant mace onto the ground, dealing damage to enemies in a 10m radius. The impact will crack open the ground, allowing an enormous cleft to emerge that will erupt fountains of red-hot lava after 5 seconds. Reusable every 30 seconds. Affects ground targets only.

The second ability is Infused/Tainted Purgatory.
PASSIVE: Unit enters stages of rage in battle depending on how much damage it has recently dealt. Either it does more AoE damage around himself, or he shreds the enemy’s armor, depending on the affinity. But if there is no damage dealt for 4 seconds, the flames will abate again.

For this deck we will only be using the fire affinity, and all future references, unless explicitly stated, will refer to the fire affinity Batariel. The fire affinity is used because his passive does more damage, and the shadow affinity reduces the armor of the enemies. Reducing the armor is only relevant if you have other units to do damage as well, in a pure fire deck for example.
How is the Batariel summoned if you do not have four Fire orbs? Enlightenment. Enlightenment is three orbs, two of which nature, and it allows you to use any card for the next 20 seconds without orb restriction. You do still have to pay the cost, 300 power in this case. 

 
The Deck
Let’s start with the Tier 1 options this deck has. When playing a Batariel deck, you have three factions to choose from. Either you start with fire, nature, or shadow. Frost is by all means the worst faction to start with, as a general Batariel deck does not contain a single frost orb.
 
Fire start
With fire, most of the time you want to start with 3 Nomads (Nature affinity). An alternative could be Sunderer in some cases where you try to speedrun certain maps, but Nomads are recommended over Sunderer as they heal themselves and can hit air with their ability and are in general more flexible.
The second card you want is Mine. Mine is an excellent card to take out the enemy units at your t2 camp. In bandits and Twilight maps, often one Mine should be enough. If you are fighting Fire you could use only one Mine, but if you are less experienced or are not as comfortable with a fire start, you can use two mines. When you encounter Lost Souls, you always place one mine and wait with engaging the camp until a second mine is off cooldown. The reason for this is that you may encounter Tier 3 units like Mana Beasts, one mine if often not enough. If there are also units that give shields, then two Mines might not be enough, and you need to place a third one.
The third card you want to bring is Eruption. This card is excellent in taking out pesky (flying) units or to help out your opponents when they are in trouble. Eruption has one other very important use, which is to take our crucial spawn camps. One eruption does 300 damage for 75 power. All small spawning camps have 1200 health, so four eruptions will take out the camp and will set you back 300 power. This tactic is the mostly used in RPvE difficulty 10, but can also be utilized, and encouraged, in RPvE difficulty 9 when you try to clear the Tier 3 camp. In difficulty 9 and below, one to two Eruptions are often enough as you have your Nomads hitting the camp as well.

Blaster Cannon an optional card. This card is not necessary in RPvE difficulty 9 and below, but is almost a must-have in difficulty 10. The reason for this is that there can be flying enemy units on your Tier 2 location, which does not happen in difficulty 9 and below. Blaster cannon fire affinity does insane damage versus flying units and because of that it is preferred over the shadow affinity. The shadow affinity also hits air, but traded extra damage against flying units for extra damage to ground units, but that damage is negligible.
Sunstriders can be a nice addition too as they could replace blaster Cannon, they are inferior, but more versatile.
 
Shadow start
Shadow starts are very straight forward. The first card you want to bring are Forsaken. Forsaken do insane damage and have an awesome ability to do even more ridiculous damage at the cost of dying after the ability wears off.
Nox Trooper is a decent alternative to Forsaken, and is far superior against Crystal Fiend camps, where Forsaken get destroyed. Also, they have a better trapping capability as they shoot each unit in a squad one by one. And base damage output is higher than Forsaken, even when they lose overall to frenzied Forsaken especially when getting rid of the spawner. Dreadcharger also a decent alternative, but very situation.
Motivate is a card shadow can not go without. This card gives a near-dying unit a new purpose by allowing the same units to do more damage for the next 30 seconds.
For Soul Splicer, we want to have the Nature affinity. You want to build this shrine outside the enemies range, as it takes some time to construct it. When constructed, it can collect corpses around itself and a select area. These corpses can be used to heal your Forsaken when they are within the range of the Soul Splicer.

A general tactic when approaching the Tier 2 orb is to construct your Soul Splicer and wait until you have 6-8 Forsaken, depending on how comfortable you are. With the Forsaken you want to lure the enemy towards the Soul Splicer, so it can collect their corpses whenever they die. When fighting the enemy, use motivate on one of your Forsaken to allow the others to do more damage, and to have your first corpses inside the Soul Splicer.
You want to bring an Embalmer’s Shrine if you bring Shadow Phoenix as your Tier 2 unit. You want to construct two Embalmer’s Shrines before doing anything else.
If you play a shadow start in RPVE difficulty 10, then it is recommended to bring 9-11 forsaken, Lost Souls can require more, 3-4 squads gets frenzied and immediately attack the spawner. The remaining units clear the units with the help of a Soul Splicer and Motivate.
 
Nature Start
Nature t1 is relatively effective, in some cases better than fire, especially in solo. Basic composition is Windweavers + Dryad (Blue affinity) + Ensnaring Roots, for difficulty 10 Hurricane and Mark of the Keeper are very strong as well, and may be essential. Root is preferred over Hurricane is because it also helps vs non-S-units up to Tier 4. The edge that nature has over fire is solely not having to build a fire orb until an orb switch, with access to cultists + furnace and breeding grounds (especially useful with Shadow Phoenix against stronger t3-t4 camps)
Windweavers is the go-to damage dealer for Nature Tier 1. They are versatile and can shoot multiple enemies at once, which makes them excellent in clearing early camps. 
Dryad provides the units around her with a damage reduction buff. One Dryad is often enough, but keep in mind that she does not buff herself. Having a damage reduction buff on your units allows you to use less heals. 
Surge of Light is great. It is super good to heal your low health Windweavers, and  it scales super good into the later stages of the game as you can still use it to heal your Batariel. 
Ensnaring Roots is a must have. This spell can create distance between the enemy and your Windweavers. This card is also very effective when you need to take out a spawner in difficulty 10. 

Mark of the keeper is a must have in difficulty 10, but in difficulty 9 or lower it is not needed.
No Shaman? Yes, Shaman is not used in Batariel decks. Shaman is a unit that rarely attacks, and it binds power. For every Shaman you have, you have one Windweaver less. There are only 20 deck slots, and Shaman should not be in there.
 
Tier 2 options
On Tier 2, there are a couple options to choose from. When you start with Fire, you are generally safe to use your Nomads + Mine and use Eruptions on the spawning camp. In difficulty 10, you can bring Gladiatrix (Nature affinity) with Curse of Oink, or you can bring Shadow Phoenix with Embalmer’s Shrine. If you start with Shadow, your best option is to bring Shadow Phoenix. You need three Shadow Phoenix to kill a small spawning camp.

or

When you are playing difficulty 10, if you start with fire and want to use Phoenix, you will need to do an additional orb swap for your Batariel. This sets you back some power, but might be required sometimes.
 Less optimal, but alternative options are Bandit Minefield and Lavafield.
 
Core of a Batariel deck
The core of a Batariel deck are Life Weaving and Unholy Hero. Life Weaving keeps Batariel alive, and Unholy hero allows the Batariel to do insane amounts of damage.

Heals are important in every deck, Batariel decks are no exceptions. You should bring at least one heal spell, such as Regrowth. It is recommended to bring a backup heal in case you run out of Regrowth charges or the card is on cooldown. Two options are Surge of Light and Equilibrium (Frost affinity). It is totally fine to bring all three heal spells, as even some veteran players do.

Very important spells to bring are both Frenetic Assault’s (one is mandatory, the other is quality of life), Infect (mainly quality of life, you can do without) and Disenchant (depending on the enemy faction). Frenetic Assault makes sure the enemies are not attacking your Batariel, but each other, which gives Batariel more survivability. Both Frenetic Assaults are recommended as they have a long cooldown between casts, and you might need more than one in a difficult camp. Infect serves a similar purpose and cleans up remains. After the enemies kill each other with the Frenetic Assault effect, two Nightcrawlers will spawn from each corpse, up to 10 corpses. 20 extra units to soak up damage and to do more incremental damage.

Batariel needs to have his burning passive ability active as soon as possible. He does this be damaging enemy units or buildings. If Batariel is not able to attack, due to a paralyze effect, the chances are the Batariel will die. To solve this, Disenchant is a must-have when you fight enemies like Bandits and Twilight. Those otherwise annoying Willzappers and Windhunters are now useless when you bring Disenchant. Bandits have one boss that permanently reduces the attack by 50% when it does damage: the Equestrian Twins. This debuff can also be nullified with Disenchant.

There are two more must have cards in every Batariel deck, which are Curse of Oink and Nether Warp. Curse of Oink was mentioned earlier as well in the Tier 2 section, but it is also an all-star when Batariel is out already. Curse of Oink is an instant CC (crowd control) spell. Whenever Disenchant is on cooldown, or whenever there are scary enemy units, Curse of Oink can keep incoming damage to a minimum. Keep in mind, this has no synergy with Frenetic Assault.

When entering an enemy camp, you want to position your burning Batariel in a location where it can either hit as many enemies as possible, or where it can take out a spawner. Nether Warp is the solution for this. After you Batariels AoE burning is active, you can warp him further into the camp. Keep in mind, all the enemies will be able to target him, so make sure you have some heals ready and Life Weaving active. Recommended is the Nature affinity Nether Warp because the Frost affinity debuffs your Batariel with a slow effect. Yes, the Nature affinity heals your opponents units too, but that heal is insignificant compared to the damage output of the Batariel.

When you have your core, there are one, two or three spots left for other cards. Thunderstorm is the one that is most recommended bringing as it is such a versatile damage spell. The second card is Soulshatter, as it can decimate smaller camps on its own, but you need to be careful as the damage also damages friendly units. The third option is Earthshaker. This card can take out crucial enemy buildings. This is optional, as Batariel should not have any problem taking out buildings on its own, but can be a quality of life.
 
 
Void return
Because spells are cycled non-stop in this deck, void return is of utmost importance. There are two options available for a Batariel deck. Either Shrine of War, or Cultist Master + Furnace of Flesh.
Shrine of War is the best void return card in the game for multiplayer maps. You use spells whenever you want to kill enemy units, and whenever enemy units die, the Shrine of War gives back void power. It is the perfect synergy, there is however a big downside. Shrine of War costs 150 power and has no continuous upkeep. You will need two to be able to keep it running constantly. You will need to invest 300 power, which delays your Batariel immensely. Shine of War is recommended in fire starts.
Shrine of War has been nerfed and now require 2 fire orbs, which forces you to play either the alternative option with Furnace of Flesh and Cultist Masters, or rely on a teammate. 

The ability of the Cultist Master is free, and it summons three Nightcrawlers that die after 20 seconds. When they die near a Furnace of Flesh, it gives back void power. Similar to Shrine of War, you will need to maintain the upkeep of this. It is recommended to have around three Cultist Masters to give reliable void return. If you have more than four, then consider building a second Furnace of Flesh or to alternate between the activations, but this requires way more micro. This option is preferred in Batariel decks that start with Shadow or in solo RPvE maps. If a teammate has a Shrine of War, you can kill the Cultist Masters and the Furnace of Flesh, as Shrine of War is superior to them.

 
Fallen Skyelf
Fallen Skyelf can play a critical role in certain scenarios, vs bosses like Twilight Hulk or Abaddon, which have very high damage output, or Hellhound who will eat all your units if you don’t kill him quick enough. And helps overall vs bosses.

 
Plague
Double Shadow starters sometimes gravitate towards triple shadow instead of switching to fire. These decks require more precise play due to the lack of cards like Disenchant or Earthshaker, but end up being significantly faster upon being executed well, given how strong Plague is. The spell speeds up camp clears in general and sometimes even allows very powerful pathing advantages as a spell combo around Plague + Infect (+ Frenetic) sometimes removes T4 camps on its own (ideally this even works against small boss camps i.e. Umbabwe/Bandit Lancer). Sometimes Disenchant cannot be removed upon facing factions like Twilight, but whenever there is an angle to cut the fire orb Plague should be your go-to choice when considering the orb swap with a double Shadow start.

 
How to kill a camp
When entering a camp best to attack a unit, preferably flying, because Batariel doesn’t dance around those, like he may sometimes when trying to attack ground entities. Also, because Batariel does more damage per hit with his normal attacks against flying units. If power levels/refund permits, then Batariels ability is a great way to enter, use it on a building cluster or a boss. Best to warp after front buildings are destroyed or nearly destroyed (possibly finished by infect). Infect should also be used when entering the camp to maximize the crawlers spawned, after the buffs with frenetic, not necessary, but can be useful, plays an especially important role vs Lost Souls and Twilight bugfest.
When playing vs Lost Souls always have at least two Batariels for later camps, keep one in front to tank all the debuffs and for ground presence to cast cc spells against spellbreakers, and teleport second Batariel in the back line, who will take care of the camp. Preferably, use infect to soak up the damage and all the debuffs as well. In case of 2 Lost Bane presence, drag the camp out use spells (with infect) and try to either use Batariels ability on Lost Bane closest to the spawner, and then warp, or if possible just warp in. Can also try to power through after dragging the camp after getting rid of Lost Banes and having crawlers, enemies won’t pose as much threat even if they respawn, just keep eyes on Spellbreakers.
Against Twilight Infect is crucial, especially against difficulty 10, where Twilight gazers are bugged and reflect huge damage back to Batariel if not careful, crawlers soak up that damage. Best wait to approach them is to use Batariels ability and maybe even port them together in a bunch, then frenetic/oink and use Batariels ability. But be careful as you won’t have nether warp available to get close to the camp.
 
Bosses
Against Bosses, either focus them with Skyelf support, if they can be killed within the ability right away, or warp in the backline and deal with a boss after taking out the majority of the camp. Raven ship is very tricky to kill with a Skyelf, she most likely will get focused, must use infect and possible defensive spells on her, or be on a safe side and deal with the boss without, it’s not too dangerous to Batariel, just have to oink gunner when it spawns. Twilight Dragon boss also takes a while to kill, and Skyelf will heal it if used too early, so it’s better to used when more than half hp is depleted. Nyxia debuff can be disenchanted, which means that the Batariel can freely attack her. Hellhound is best if approached with at least two Batariels like all late game LS camps, and infect must be used. Try to get rid of him asap, before your Nightcrawlers die and he starts eating Batariels. Killing him is not a problem, surviving is.
Due to the Lost Spellbreakers Disenchant, engaging with Frenetic Assault (both work here) or Curse of Oink may save you a lot of trouble. Can be tricky, especially in non-motm maps where you don't know exactly where they're located. Against higher tier Souls camps with Banestones:
1 Banestone: Try to disable the Lost Spellbreakers as mentioned above, engage with Batariel ability onto the Banestone and port into the camp. Can be hard with Lost Dragons and such where the Batariels ability couldn’t be used, in that case Disenchant (G) works well.
2 Banestones: From my experience it's best to just wait for the camp wave to spawn into your direction, use Infect on it and engage the camp with the Nightcrawlers before Batariel to distract the Lost Spellbreakers.  Try to get one Banestone down as fast as possible and use Frenetic Assault + Nether Warp into the camp (hoping that Bata burns at this point)
Fire Bosses: Abaddon, you must avoid his ability at all costs, either send a unit in front to take it, or just dodge/warp in the backline and deal with Abaddon when you have taken care of the camp. Golem should be attacked with ability for the majority of HP, auto-attacking is dangerous.  Magma Fiend boss is the most difficult to deal with as a Batariel deck. Must have at least 2 units, if only playing Batariel in t4, have 1 or 2 extra when approaching it, go in with a single Batariel without any buffs and instantly warp in the back line and cc the camp, infect will help as well, then buff Batariel and take care of the camp. After the majority of the camp is gone, send in other Batariels to tank debuff, and buff the one not being attacked. For all these bosses Skyelf is crucial, may not be mandatory. Keep Fallen Skyelf in a distance from Abaddon, she will die very quickly if she is close.
 
General tips
You might be asking, but what about Unholy Power? That increases the damage of Batariel too, right? Simple answer, no. Unholy Power is basically a dead card in your deck, as it does not stack with the burning of Batariel.
When you fight Lost Souls or Fire, Disenchant is not needed, as these enemies has no way of stopping your Batariel via cc. When you start with Shadow, you can stay and you do not have to switch an orb to fire.
If you spawn your Batariel at Tier 3, it is recommended not to build the two wells at your Tier 4 orb location. This will set you back 200 power, and will only pay off when you are floating in power anyway.
Batariel does more damage with an attack than against non-flying:
XL Ground: 481
L Flying: 697
XL Flying: 1045
This is due to the longer animation when attacking flying units and as the damage per 20 seconds is fixed, attack types with different execution durations deal different damage.
 
@Volin has a in-depth Twitch Stream about Buffed Batariels, where you can see some gameplay: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1423615481?t=00h06m39s

Special thanks to the following people for helping out with this guide!
@arabikaa @Damo @Donaar @Kapo @Mocaak @RadicalX @Volin
 

I really wonder why there was no thread for Mo 😃

There is one point I would heavily suggest to change: If you kill the Walker, it shouldn't respawn - no matter which difficulty. It is presented on this map as a "special boss" option, and once you kill it, it shouldn't come back.

I think the reason for this is so the soulhunter can use its minefield immeadiatly. Normally the soulhunter will attack you until he sucked up a certain amount of corpses, after which he will place his minefield. If you go to him, you will notice him using his minefield immediatly, which is supposed to make this part a little more difficult.

Hey Skyladies and Skylords,
to give you a little update: We crossed 40 participants for the league today! Pretty much all the divisions are coming together quite nicely and I am very happy to see a lot of new names there. Signup will stay open for another ~4weeks until we go to Phase III which will be a tournament to kick things off and publishing of the Division lists. 
 
See you in the Forge,
Toggy