SunWu

I love you all for everything you did to ranked pvp!

As someone who didn't know as much about this enemy, most confusing thing for me is: ,,shares pain inflicted to him with his nearby allies.'' So that's wrong because the reflect dmg is delt to enemies and not allies?

As someone who didn't know as much about this enemy, most confusing thing for me is: ,,shares pain inflicted to him with his nearby allies.'' So that's wrong because the reflect dmg is delt to enemies and not allies?

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.

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!

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
 

Oh I remember sketching those concepts during first days of war... Sirens and withering of hope. Yet never give up till you breathe and do what you must! And you can see how it progressed, together we all will win.✊

Greetings Skylords!
Every three weeks, we give an update on the things going on behind the scenes of Skylords Reborn. Welcome to another Community Update!

• Soon™

Last Community Update we revealed our upcoming new achievements and ever since we get daily questions when those (and the patch in general) will hit the live server. We are currently hard at work finalizing the upcoming patch, but aren't able to reveal a concrete release date just yet.
We expect to share more information with you regarding its release in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for that. 
In the meantime, we are excited to reveal a new card today! 

• New Card Reveal: Burning Spears

Burning Spears is a new tier 2 fire unit, requiring two fire orbs. Upgrading the card reduces its power cost and increases its stats. The values noted here are for U3. It will be an Uncommon and won't have an affinity. 

Burning Spears is an S-sized squad unit that contains a weapon-switch similar to Ghost Spears. They will also have the Steadfast passive ability, meaning they can't be knocked back. 
 
Weapon Change
Type: mode-switch
Makes unit more effective against large units instead of extra-large ones. Lasts until deactivated.
 
Weapon Change
Type: mode-switch
Makes unit more effective against extra-large units instead of large ones. Lasts until deactivated.
 
Burning Lance / Scorching Injury (passive ability)
Enemies hit by Burning Spear's attacks will be set on fire and take additional damage that steadily increases the longer they burn. The burn deals 2 damage per second and stacks up to 25 times. Attacked units may only walk at walk speed for 15 seconds.
 
Design Goals
Burning Spears are 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 backloaded damage potential to punish players that try to ignore them, whereas the slow and steadfast ability allow Burning Spears to stick to their priority targets while enabling further spell synergies with cards like Wildfire.
Please note: We are still testing the card. While we are generally happy about it and feel comfortable revealing it, numbers and effects might still change before release.
 
• Artwork Spotlight

Now that our art team has grown, we tried a different approach for our creation process. The card was already play tested, so we knew its effects and that it would use the Ghost Spears model, but there were no other hard restrictions for the art. 
Our artist Spirit Alpha worked together with Tweeto to explore some ideas, which resulted in multiple concept arts. They settled on a barbaric look. 


The next step was to visualize the design in-game, and make sure what we had in mind would actually be possible to implement, preventing a mismatch between art and model.

Once the theme, colors and general appearance were fleshed out, it was time to start working on the artwork. Different compositions were explored again.



 
Spirit Alpha then handed in this artwork. While we were generally happy with how this design turned out, there were still some things to be done. While the Deep One claw was a nice touch, we found it did make the artwork more cluttered and distracted the viewer's eye. With the help of Tweeto, adjustments were also made to the background, contrast and skin, left arm anatomy, right arm shape and the spear. 
 

After a couple of extra iterations (and lots of discussion about flames with our art critique), we finally settled on the current design. A big thanks to our artists Spirit Alpha and Tweeto for drawing the artwork, to Friendly Firefly for working on the ability icons and to our art critiques for their support and comments. 
As you can see, a ton of work went into this, and we haven't even showed you half of the iterations. 
We are very happy with how it turned out, and hope you like it as well!
 
• Upcoming PvP changes

While PvP has a very passionate community, the game mode currently has certain flaws that prevent players from getting into it. We hope to tackle these in our upcoming patch. Here are some of the changes we will implement:

Queue will drain the BFP reserve
PvP often enters a "Spiral of Death" when too few players are online. It takes too long to find a match, so players stop queuing, which results in it taking longer to find a match... We want to give players an incentive to wait in the ranked lobby for more than a few minutes, resulting in the lobby no longer being empty and the next person who wants to play finding an opponent quickly. 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. 

Hide Player Names
We have seen that some players tend to dodge certain high ranked players while playing ranked, not queuing up when they see higher skilled opponents in the lobby. To prevent this behavior, we will hide player names in the ranked lobby. To not impact casual play, we have separated the sparring and ranked lobbies, allowing you to still invite players into your lobby and make things like tournaments and Toggy's Fightclub still possible.

Hide Losses
Another reason that prevents players from queuing up is the fear of messing up their win/loss ratio, or even feeling shame to have their losses publicly shown on the ladder. It has been proven in other competitive games that showing losses results in demotivation and higher entry barriers. We hope this change encourages players to focus on what matters (playing the game and improving yourself) instead of stats that might not even represent your current skill level.

New Player Protection
To protect new players from facing top players when they are just getting started, we will prevent players with <102.000 base ELO from getting matched with players at >135.000 base ELO. 

Changes to Free PvP Decks
With upcoming balance adjustments and new cards, we will update our free PvP decks to compete with the new meta. Additionally, we have made changing these decks more flexible; resulting in no longer having to reset all the free PvP decks when we make these changes.
If we update one of 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. We are currently planning to make the following changes:

Pure Nature:
+ Parasite
- Shrine of Memory

Fire/Nature
+ Twilight Minions (G)
- Ghost Spears

Pure Shadow
+ Executor
- Nightguard

Rebalanced 2vs2 Maps
While we mostly balance the game around 1vs1, we know players really enjoy 2vs2 as well. We are very happy with how our rebalanced 1vs1 maps turned out, and we want to give 2vs2 the same treatment. 

Changes include removal (or adjustments) of walls, wells, slight changes to the layout, and making certain area's immovable for flying units. This should result in a better play experience and more balanced maps. 

These maps will also have observer versions, meaning it will now be possible to host 2vs2 tournaments again! We also updated the minimaps to be accurate. 


PvP Happy Hours
A feature long in the works and finally nearing release is Happy Hours. Happy Hours are specific time periods where players will receive additional gold and BFP for playing PvP. 
We have noticed PvP is currently quite scattered, with a lot of players wanting to play, but going offline again when they can't find opponents. While rewarding to queue is one incentive to have players stay online longer when the lobbies are empty, we also want to help players find opponents in general. We hope that by clustering players together during certain time frames, players will have an easier time finding matches more frequently. 
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

These times were decided upon by going over our available data and keeping different time zones in mind where possible. During Happy Hours, there will be an in-game announcement and the icon on the world map will indicate Happy Hours are active. 

We hope to release all these features with our next patch, though Happy Hours is currently still in active development. We hope to finish it in time to be included as well. 

• Team Changes

We have a new teammember in Nukie, who has joined the team recently as a Global Moderator. Welcome, and thanks for your help!

• Open Positions Rework

We have made some changes to our open positions and spotlighted them in their own forum section. It is now easier than ever to see the current open positions, and we also added some extra information to each role, better showcasing what you will be doing. 

Skylords Reborn is always looking for motivated volunteers to help out the project. You can currently help out in multiple areas, ranging from artwork to development, map design and much more. 

Want to help out but don't want to join the staff? No problem! We also have positions like proofreader and map tester where you can more easily drop in and out, helping out when you have time. Lastly, we also have open-source projects and our Skylords Bounty (see below). Please take a look!

 
• Active Bounty

While we already have some nice contenders, our current Bounty to create a Spring Forge is still open. A Skylords Bounty is an open-source task for the community to create something needed in one of the departments of Skylords Reborn. If your entry gets chosen, you can win a great prize, and we will reward everyone who applies with a serious attempt with a participation reward as well. View more information on Active bounties.

• OPEN - Spring Forge Bounty
Spring Forge Bounty is an opportunity for the community to have full engagement with the next upcoming Forge. This allows everyone to submit a possible design for how they would like the Forge to look! The winning design will be rewarded with a Promo Razorleaf!
A tutorial video has been provided to assist and help the community take its first steps for doing so!

• Tournaments / Events

• NEW - Toggys Tome Tournament #4 17.05.22 
A midweek tournament held on Tuesday May 17th, at 18:30 CEST (Berlin time). The format will be Tome, meaning you will build your decks for this tournament out of a booster pool Toggy provide to you. Tome tournaments always result in crazy decks and cards you dont see very often, so be sure to join the action or watch the tournament on Twitch. The tournament will be played on the Testserver. More information and sign-up. 


• STREAM - Official 2p rPvE Contest#3 Last Resort - 25.05.2022 16:30 CEST
In this event, players were only allowed to use units, not spells or buildings. We will host a stream revealing the winners of this contest on Wednesday 25rd of May, 16:30 on our official twitch channel. 

• FINISHED - CCC #4
Kapo hosted another successful Crappy Community Contest© on the map Mo. Players were encouraged to play as few cards as possible to complete the map. As one of the first events to not focus on speed, this resulted in some interesting strategies. As with all CCC, the more players attend, the better the prizes are, in this case resulting in a free booster for the whole community. 
 
• FINISHED - Skylords Open 14
The Skylords Open returned with a blast! We saw some of the best players battle it out, with some match results that would surprise you. You can rewatch the matches here. 

• 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. 
 
• In Conclusion

And that's it for this Community Update, thanks for reading! 
As is tradition, this community update comes with a scratch code. 
The code will reward you with a mini-booster: FIRE-CARD-HYPE-TIME
The code is valid until June 4th, when we will bring you another 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 #22

You can watch the video with sound @ https://vimeo.com/709862323
Ok, turns out you have to be logged into vimeo to watch the video, since the video hasn't been rated on vimeo yet...
At these moments, I miss the good old days when such matters were simpler.🙄
Although no I don't miss those times at all, because back then you could only dream of FullHD live streaming. 🤣

Battleships are my favourite rPVE deck at the moment. With their standard attack i find them to be realtively broing, too - but i just love the ability! The long range means you can destroy anything on the ground before it gets to damge you. It's really fun with unholy power. I don't really think they need a buff, especially when you play with winter witch, ice age or coat of protection they are already indestructible (unless magma fiend boss in fire rPVE 😞).

Hey all,

here are the long awaited results of this event!

Top 22:

The remaining participants will be able to draw random boosters out of following lottery: 10 x 2 general Booster
(They will be drawn at the end of the stream)
 

We will Stream the results of this Event on Wednesday, the 25th of May at 16:30 CEST

Thank you for participating.

Hi all,
as a huge fan of Thunder Wagons there's only one thing which keeps me from regularly using them: their way over the top ear-ripping volume while having your view centered on them. The constant sound their engine creates is such a turn-off and sucks all the fun out of this card.
So, my suggestion: reduce the engine sound by 50% (?) to bring it in line with other sound effects. Or are there other ways without turning off all sound effects?
Thanks!

Greetings Skylords!
Every three weeks, we give an update on the things going on behind the scenes of Skylords Reborn. Welcome to another Community Update!

• Nature Deep Dive

After Frost and Bandits, it is now time for a Deep Dive into one of the more popular factions among (new) players: Nature. In this Deep Dive we will look into the faction's strengths, weaknesses and upcoming changes. You can expect more incentive to play pure Nature, adjustments to the root network, important changes to cards like Abyssal Warder and Forest Elder and a sneak peek into two upcoming Nature cards. We are currently testing the changes, and you can expect most of these changes to hit the live server with our next content patch. 

We have also opened up multiple forum posts about the proposed changes. 
From the beginning of the project, community involvement has been, and continues to be, important to us. We have thus decided to institute a change in the structure of our balance discussions. Going forward, balance discussions will be transitioning from discord to the forums with the hope of facilitating better discussion and involving more people.
 
• Introducing Skylords Bounty: Seasonal Forge

We are aware there are quite a few players who want to contribute to Skylords Reborn, but don't have the time or motivation to fully apply as a team member. Today we introduce an alternative: Skylords Bounty! 

A Skylords Bounty is a task for the community to create something needed in one of the departments of Skylords Reborn. If your entry gets chosen, you can win a great prize; in this case a Promo Razorleaf! Even if your entry is not chosen, everyone who applies with a serious attempt will earn a participation reward.
For our first Skylords Bounty, we have selected the task to help us create the next Seasonal Forge. During our December update, we gave the Forge a snowy look. We are now looking to give the Forge a spring make-over. This is your chance to get your work into the game!

Please check out this forum post for more information and a short tutorial video on how to create a Forge. We hope we can count on your contributions! 
 
• Mana Wing Promo

It is time to reveal our latest promo! A few months ago players were able to vote for their favorite card to get the promo treatment, and Mana Wing was the clear winner. Joining Snapjaws, here is the second Skylords Reborn promo: 

A huge thanks to everyone involved. From artwork to model adjustments and special effects, multiple people spent weeks on getting everything just right. The wings have a shining glow, and as icing on the cake there are also golden dots when the unit is flying around. We are very proud of the result, and hope you will like it as well!
We will reveal how you can get your hands on this promo in the next community update, so stay tuned for that!
 
• Artwork

The artwork behind the promo was a team effort from three talented artists. The starting point was the Mana Wing wallpaper from ArtRhino. A great piece of art, but it shares the same colors as the original Mana Wing. To give it that promo feel it thus needed some changes. Our two artists, Spirit Alpha and Tweeto, then worked together to create a new look and color palette for our feathery friend.  


• Survey: Events

Once again, we would like some feedback on our events. What do you like about them? Which ones were your favorite? And most importantly: Why? 


We use this information to provide better events for you, so please take a few minutes to complete the survey. If you have never joined one of our events, please let us know in the survey why that is the case. Thanks a lot in advance!

• Tournaments / Events

You will now also be able to find the events on our Forum Calendar! We hope this will make it easier to keep track of them, and tease future events in advance! 

• NEW - PvP League - Register now
The PvP League has been a project long in the making, but sign-ups are finally open! 
The league will consist of small groups (divisions) of about 8 players who will fight each other, one opponent per week. A season ends when everyone played everyone in the group. Players should be roughly equal in skill level and can move up or down in groups depending on their results. This makes the league a perfect place to play PvP; both for new and experienced players! More information and sign-up.

• NEW - Official PvE Contest#5: They See Me Walkin', They Hatin' - Until 14.04.2022
For this challenge, we want to see you succeed in playing the map Convoy on Advanced difficulty while using pure colored decks.
Depending on what color deck you use, you will be able to get different rewards. If you want to increase the challenge, you can also try to tackle the map on your own or on expert difficulty for some bonus rewards. More information and sign-up. 

• FINISHED -  Official 1 Player  rPvE Contest#3 The Minimalistic Firewatch
This event was very popular; we received exactly 120 different replays! In this event, people had to beat the map of the month on difficulty 7 but with an interesting twist: use as few cards as possible! Check out the results here. 

• 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

Welcome aodpi! He's our new Tool Developer. He will create and improve various tools which aim to optimize the user experience and also speed up the internal development process. He is currently helping out with our new updater. 
We also have a new webdeveloper: nkmol! He is mostly helping back-end wise for the web interface. Welcome, and thank you for your contribution!
We are always looking for more help and support for the project. Please look over our open positions and apply if you see a role you like! We have multiple positions open, from development to audio or visual editors.  
 
• In Conclusion

And that's it for this Community Update, thanks for reading! 
As is tradition, this community update comes with a scratch code. 
The code will reward you with a nature-booster: DEEP-DIVE-MANA-WING

The code is valid until April 23rd, when we will bring you another 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 #20
Nature_Deep_Dive.pdf
 

Greetings! Since the 5-power nerf to shadow mage, we have been watching closely the PvP meta to determine if further balancing is required. Unfortunately, we have decided NOT to reverse the power cost of shadow mage. Instead, we will further double it, to a power cost of 110. This opens up a large rework concept I want to present you today. Eirias was so nice to make a short video showcasing all changes to give you a proper impression about what you can expect here. 
Here is a short summary: To compensate for this major change, we are adding three new abilities.
1. Teleport. This is a buff aimed at PvE usecase, to potentially replace nether warp. In PvP, nether warp is still necessary for quick defense, and nether warp will remain a staple of speedrunning decks. However, we felt that regular PvE usage would benefit from a large buff to offset the new power cost.
2. Time stop. This is a new cc ability for shadow mage, which is similar to knight of chaos, except that time stop also affects buildings and prevents units from moving. Time stop is particularly targeted to nerf to oppressive stonekin tower play. New tools for other factions will roll out in the coming months.
3. Death mark. This ability is used for the shadow mage to enable favorable trades, especially against targets that run away. It is also an indirect nerf to the currently-oppressive frost t3s, which cannot simply disenchant to get rid of death mark. Finally, we are pleased to announce that shadow mage will also be our next promo. Although there has been contention that a promo shadow mage would break the game's balance, we felt that it would be an interesting tradeoff to allow a player to have access to twice as many shadow mage charges, at the cost of losing a t3 slot.
We also felt that we should honor the original developers' intentions, which was to offer shadow mage as the next promo card. If you want to see any of these exciting new abilities in action, check out Eirias's video! There is also a booster code hidden in the description.

May I introduce, the strongest spell in the game:

May I introduce, the strongest spell in the game:

May I introduce, the strongest spell in the game:

Thank you very much for your feedback on my Twilight Slaver video. 🥰
Since the video to my surprise has been received extremely positive Ive got something for you.😈
 
Hittimo asked me if I can do it again and I had to answer him that this was not an intended move BUT nevertheless I have in fact created another video of a similar situation in the past.
Same map - other side. Here you go.
 
Greets,
Y.W.W.W.M.
 
 
P.S.
I have created a new topic, because it is also a new video and after all we want to fill the media section with content as well. 😉

Hey Skylords,
just want to share with you my encounter with Twilight Slaver. 🤗
 
Hope that you like these small clip cause there is more to come in the future 😉
 
Sincerly,
Y.W.W.W.M.

Greetings Skylords!
Every three weeks, we give an update on the things going on behind the scenes of Skylords Reborn. Welcome to another Community Update!

• New Card Reveal: Transcendence

We are hard at work on our new content patch, which will come with balance changes for both PvE and PvP, bugfixes, QoL features and new cards! Stay tuned for more information on the features and release date.   
We are excited to reveal one of the upcoming new cards today; the first Amii spell Transcendence!

Transcendence is a tier 4 spell for Nature/Shadow. Upgrading the card reduces its cooldown and increases its duration, the values noted here are for U3. It will be a rare and won't have an affinity. 

This new Amii spell has a different effect, depending on if you cast it on an enemy or own unit:
Kenosis
Target own unit takes 100% more damage and deals 75% less damage. Friendly units within a 25m radius around it deal 50% more damage and benefit 50% more from any regenerating ability. Lasts for 20 seconds. Reusable every 30 seconds.
 
Tyranny
Target enemy unit deals 100% more damage and takes 75% less damage. Enemy units within a 25m radius around it deal 25% less damage and benefit 50% less from any regenerating ability. Lasts for 20 seconds. Reusable every 30 seconds.
 
The effect of Transcendence expires if the target of the spell dies. This results in a spell that provides a powerful buff or debuff as long as you keep its target alive, rewarding careful management of the fight. 
Please note: We are still testing the card. While we are generally happy about it and feel comfortable revealing it, numbers and effects might still change before release. 
 
• Artwork

Once again the artwork has been created by our artist Tweeto. It went through multiple iterations and we are very happy with the result! 

The artwork is actually based on the Altar of Chaos wallpaper from Nano.
Here you can see an early concept:

 
• We Need Your Help

We hate to sound like a broken record, but there are currently multiple positions open that greatly delay or prevent further development of Skylords Reborn. Please take a look at our open positions to see where you can help. Below are three positions highlighted. 
 
• Open Position - Audio Editor
We would love to continue adding voice lines for more cards and narration for new maps. As an Audio Editor, you will be responsible for selecting and extracting the best takes, doing post-production and making sure the overall quality is high enough to be implemented into the game. If you have more skills, you will also be able to design new sounds for the game as Audio Producer. Read more and apply.
 
• Open Position - Community Manager
As a community manager, you are responsible with aiding the communication to and from the community. You will work closely with the Project Coordinator (previously Community Manager) to communicate staff and project decisions to the community through, for example, The Community Updates and self-written announcements. Furthermore, you will act as a contact person for the community to share project feedback and suggestions, and are expected to keep the staff informed and be up-to-date with the state of the community. Read more and apply.
 
• Open Position - Game Client Developer
As a game client developer, you are responsible to maintain and develop the game client. This mostly includes add new pre-game features (content outside of matches, so no game mechanics) through .pak files used by the game. You will be responsible to create and design in-game interfaces for new features, add networking support for new features that require it, solve bugs etc. using LUA, XML and little bit of Rust. BattleForge uses LUA and XML in their .pak files, which are loaded by the client. Communication with the server happens through a proxy written in Rust. Read more and apply.
 
• New Legends (Lore)

We hope most of you are aware of the Chronicle book, that can be selected on the top menu. The tabs [World], [Plot] and [Legends] contain interesting story points and lore that explore the world of Nyn. Every campaign map has an epilogue, and quite a few important story points happen outside the actual game.

While you are browsing through the Chronicle book, be sure to take a look at the Skylords Reborn feature [Cosmetics], that was added to the game during our anniversary patch! We noticed a lot of people overlooked this feature when it was released. 

 
With the help of the community on our Lore Discord, we are expanding on the lore by adding new Legends pages for various units. Below is an example of the upcoming Legends page for Snapjaws, written by Metauriel. You can expect more of these lore entries for other units to be added into the game with our next content patch. We hope you look forward to them!

"Like the entirety of these catacombs, the grand chamber reeked of death. On the far side stood a tall, obsidian statue that radiated an aura of fear and awe. Wings sprouted from its back, no less than six horns from its head, and it was wreathed in clouds of smoke that almost concealed the bones littering the floor around it. Stepping into the room, I crouched to investigate the bones. They were diluted by some dark substance. It wasn’t blood, for when I touched it, I could feel it sap my strength. That was when I heard them. No voices, but a cackling and murmuring of a hundred jaws, shifting all around me. I raised my lantern, and that was when I saw them. Hundreds of eyes glinting in the flickering light. Thousands of teeth, dribbling darkness. A swarm of floating creatures, trailing smoke, gasping for their meal."
- Journals of a Witchhunter, pt. 6
 


• Tournaments / Events

• NEW - Official 1 Player  rPvE Contest#3 The Minimalistic Firewatch - Difficulty 7 - Until 17th March 2022
An exciting new event for all kind of players! In this event you have to beat the map of the month on difficulty 7 but with an interesting twist: use as few cards as possible! There are multiple leagues so you can choose your difficulty level, ranging from 15 cards to only 3. More information and sign-up.
 
• FINISHED - CCC #3 - You think this game looks good? 
CCC#3 offered a competition of a totally different kind. This time Kapo moved away from speedrunning, away from maps, even away from playing. For this contest you had to share the best screenshot you could create. As with all CCC, the number of participants unlocked a reward for the whole community, so be sure to grab your mini-booster scratch code if you haven't already! The winners will be revealed soon.

• 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

Cocofang and Xanatoss have joined the team as balance developers. They will help us with implementing PvE and PvP changes, as well as adding new cards into the game. We are very glad to have them, since this is an area of game development that greatly benefits from more help. If you are interested in joining them and help speed up our progress, please click here.
 
• In Conclusion

And that's it for this Community Update, thanks for reading! 
As is tradition, this community update comes with a scratch code. 
The code will reward you with a mini-booster: AMII-CARD-HYPE-TIME
The code is valid until April 2nd, when we will bring you another 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 #19

Hello again Skylords, Skyladies and other Skybeings; The jury had its say, and it's time to announce the winners!

But first, I’d like to thank everyone for making the Crappy Community Contest #3 happen – no matter in what way: participation, sponsoring prizes, spreading the word or helping me to organize it. Of course, a special thanks goes to the two Jurors who carried the burden of deciding with me: @CrazyCockerell (as representative of the Art Critique Team) and @Minashigo Hiko (as representative of the Skylords Team).

Before revealing the winners, please remember that all art is subjective, so I want to present to you a gallery of all entries, so you can see all the entries for yourself: <CLICK HERE>
 
 
I'll proudly present to you the Winner of CCC #3:

Congratulations to Dutchy, winning a Juggernaut Promo, a Frost Booster, and a Rogan Kayle!

The following Skylords made it into the Gold Tier: (sorted alphabetically)
Dallarian               Frost Booster, Battleship
Evilkasi                  Nature Booster, Deepcoil Worm
Fero_lol                 Nature Booster, Forest Elder (P)
General_Thugdil    Lost Booster, Winter Witch, Fallen Skyelf, Lost Vigil G
Heretic                  Stonekin Booster, Mo
Little_Ducky          Frost Booster, Frost Mage (x2)
SirDawill91            Frost Booster, Dreadnought
THE_BIG_WET        Nature Booster, Worldbreaker Gun
Ultralord               Frost Booster, Frost Shard
Velanir                  Bandit Booster, Banzai Lord P
The following Skylords made it into the Silver Tier: (sorted alphabetically)
DarkDragon      Overlord
Lans                 Abomination P
Midra               Fire Worm
Sylar                 Battleship
Volin                Corsair P
As some winners may notice, prices received depend on the units depicted on the entry.
 
Winners of the Random Draws:
Draw 1      Omnilisk924        Infect
Draw 2      DarkDragon        Mountaineer
Draw 3      Arenguros           Disenchant (G)
Draw 4      Shirokami            Forest Elder (P)
Draw 5      Dolewan             Battleship
Draw 6      Wanky                Banzai Lord (P)
Draw 7      PeterPanda         Mine
Draw 8      Kserske               Deepcoil Worm
Draw 9      Reverend830      Enlightenment

I will send you the prizes as soon as possible through ingame mail. 
 
In conclusion
Thanks again to all who helped to make this happen. I am still searching for new CCC ideas, so if you got any, please drop me a direct message here: @Kapo
If you have a crappy idea for future CCC's you may share and discuss that with me, maybe you can host your own Crappy Contest! Feel free to contact me anytime. If you want to discuss or host a non-crappy contest, contact our Event Managers, Hiko and/or Metagross. They are super supportive and will help you to organize your event!

Hope you enjoyed the contest, I see you in the Forge!
Kapo

Hello Skylords, Skyladies and other Skybeings.
Welcome to the third official rPvE event!
We hope you will have a lot of fun with this event!

What kind of event will it be?
rPvE/Battlegrounds singleplayer - Map of the Month - Difficulty 7
For this challenge, we want to test your deck building skills. A deck normally consists of 20 cards. We decided that we should go back to the beginning, back to where it all began: The Tutorial deck! However, it would not be fun if everyone played the same deck, so we gave it a little spin. In previous rPvE events there were restrictions on colour or ground presence, this time there will be a slot restriction. This event is not entirely based on speed tough, so read on to find out how you can succeed in this event!


When will it start?
We will be accepting entries starting today.
The event will run for about two weeks, specifically until 17.03.2022 23:59 CET.
You can send your replays through DM to me on Discord (Metagross31#1103) or through a PM to me on the forum (@Metagross31).


How can I participate?
You just have to send in your replay with which you want to participate, including the player name, the number of cards used and your reached time.

For example: "Metagross31_10cards_time_00h20m30s"

You can send in your replays until the 17.03.2022.
You can find your replays here: Documents=>Battleforge=>replays

Please note:
You are allowed to send in different replays, but only your fastest replay per league will be counted. You can submit replays to multiple leagues, but you can not be drafted for a random draw in a lower league, if you already won something in a higher league.
Your entry has to be a victory!


What is the objective?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The goal is to beat the current singleplayer rPvE map of the month with a deck consisting of as little cards as possible. Depending on the number of cards used, your replay will be part of one of the following leagues:
Rookie League - Up to 15 cards
Advanced League - Up to 10 cards
Iron League - Up to 7 cards
Master League - Up to 5 cards
Insanity League - Up to 3 cards



Sounds fun! What's the prize pool?
There are different prize pools for the different leagues, with the "higher" leagues having bigger rewards. Also, you not only get rewards for having the fastest run, but there are also some rewards for competing, which get distributed between the people in a certain league. Additionally, the fastest time in each league gets an additional reward. In the lower leagues, these rewards will only be given out to people below a certain rank.
Rookie League:
1 general booster for 1/3 of submissions in this league (33.3%), distributed randomly
3 general boosters for the fastest run in this league (Maximum rank to get this reward: Strategist (6) or lower)
Advanced League:
1 general booster for 1/2 of submissions in this league (50%), distributed randomly
4 general boosters for the fastest run in this league (Maximum rank: Lord (9) or lower)
Iron League:
1 general booster for 3/4 of submissions in this league (75%), distributed randomly
4 fire/frost boosters for the fastest run in this league (Maximum rank: Skylord (12) or lower)
Master League:
1 general booster for every submission in this league
6 general boosters for the fastest run in this league (No maximum rank)
Insanity League:
1 general booster + 150 bfp for every submission in this league
8 general boosters for the fastest run in this league (No maximum rank)
5 general boosters for the 2nd fastest run in this league
3 general boosters for the 3rd fastest run in this league
1 general booster for the 4th and 5th fastest runs in this league

Additionally, there will be a reward of a non-promo Ultra rare card of your choice for the three fastest runs across all leagues.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                                                                                    
In conclusion
This event focuses on your deck building skills, flexibility and speed on this month's rPvE 1p map.

To summarize the event in simple steps:
- Choose which league(s) you want to participate in.
- Build your deck according to the restrictions
- Come up with a strategy for your run.
- Beat the current map of the month, difficulty 7 while being as fast as possible.
Satisfied? Send the replay to me! (Metagross31#1103 on Discord or via PM in the forums @Metagross31).

When will we stream ?
We will announce the winners on stream.
Date: 19th of March, 2022 6pm CET



Future events
If you are interested in helping with these kinds of events for the community, or want to host one yourself, don't be afraid and simply reach out!
Send me or @Minashigo Hiko a PM on the forum, or direct message via Discord (Metagross31#1103, Minashigo Hiko#1126).
We are happy to assist you with upcoming events and with sponsoring your prize pool!
We hope you have a lot of fun with this event. We are looking forward to seeing all your replays!
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.
Best regards,
Skylords Reborn Team

A few thoughts:

(1) The rules and insights highlighted in this document should be regarded as general guidelines. If this is true of our Design Philosophy principles, which are the most fundamental (primary) design principles in the game, then it is even more true for the secondary and tertiary design principles outlined in this document. As such, we don't few these as strict rules which we cannot break while designing towers moving forward, but as guide posts to help us not loss our way. On this topic, I think it is worthwhile for us to note why we write and release these documents. I see three principle reasons.
We write these documents as a way to force ourselves as designers to slow down and consider all the factors at play. By working through the fundamentals of the game itself, a faction, or a class of card, we create a solid base of understanding which will serve as our guide posts going forward. Overall, this leads to more harmonious and less haphazard changes.  We write these documents for other people in the community who like to think about the game in a deeper way. These players also directly help us by questioning, critiquing, and adding to our own understanding of the topic. So these documents act as a focusing lens which helps the community to channel their thoughts and suggestions in the same direction as the balance team, leading to more productive suggestions overall.  Finally, we write these documents to give a heads-up to the community about what is coming next and to both gauge and generate excitement in a given topic. (2) We are and have been attempting to be as transparent as possible as a team. The mistakes we make are far more often mistakes of forgetfulness than of anything else. As such, I don't appreciate the insinuation that we are obscuring our thinking on the subject in an attempt to paper over the fact that we plan on nerfing a large amount of towers. This simply is not true. Two towers are currently slated for eventual nerfs, Necroblaster and Time Vortex, both of which are far outside the acceptable range compared to other viable towers. In both cases the nerfs will be relatively minor, more corpses for Necroblaster and less life points for Time Vortex. The rest of the intended changes will be buffs. I do think that we could have phrased things in a more positive light in our emboldened statements, but I also think the current phrasing does correctly convey the general idea we intended to communicate.
(3) I think you have correctly identified a lacuna, or missing part, in the document, namely the distinction between damage-oriented and crowd control oriented towers. On this subject your thoughts on Rocket Tower are especially appreciated and I think raise several good points. We can discuss this particular topic more in the balancing discord where I opened a channel on this topic per your request. On the particular remark in the document about Fire T1 towers, that statement was a direct result of our playtesting for DRPvE, where Fire T1 is far and away the worst faction and a lot of this has to do with lacking a damage tower in T1. I do agree in a general sense with your analysis that Shadow + Frost tend to have damage towers, Nature tends towards support towers, and Fire in early tiers tends towards knockback towers, though this changes by T3 where Tower of Flames has no built-in crowd control.
(4) As you can see right below the Deep Dive, we have recently gained the ability to resize buildings. We will be adjusting several NPC and player buildings to more correctly fit their model size. We will also be able to adjust building size as a balancing consideration, if we think that is appropriate.

Greetings Skylords!
Every three weeks, we give an update on the things going on behind the scenes of Skylords Reborn. Welcome to another Community Update!

• Small Patch
We are hard at work on our new content patch, which will still take quite a while. However, we plan to release a small patch this weekend including some small features and bug fixes. We have also added a much requested feature: you will now be notified when a friend comes online. 
Below, you can read about two highlighted changes from this patch. The patch also includes various bugfixes, for example being able to queue into yourself in PvP.
 
• Adjustments to the booster images
During our anniversary patch, we noticed that the booster images in the game had plenty of issues. First of all, the ratios are all over the place, with some boosters being tall, where others are wide. Additionally, the positioning angles and BattleForge logo placement is not consistent and some images had shadows where others didn't. We gave them some touchups and have added new images for the boosters. 
Old booster packaging:

New booster packaging:

 
• Winter Forge
While the holidays are over, winter is still here. We thought it would be fun to give the Forge a different look during winter, spring, summer and autumn, so we have updated it to a snowy theme! For the spring, summer and autumn Forges we plan to include the Community, so stay tuned for that!
In a previous patch, we added powerwells and monuments into the forge for testing. We are curious to hear if you enjoy changes like this, even if they are purely cosmetic. 

Is the new look too cold for your taste? Feel free to swap it back to the neutral forge with the new slider on the top right.
 
• Current State of the Economy & Reforging
On the 18th of December we released both Reforging and a 100BFP booster discount. As expected, this heavily impacted the economy of Skylords Reborn. Now that the dust has settled and the booster discount has expired, we can slowly start looking at the state of the economy. Windhunter has shared some statistics and thoughts on this topic.  
"The market trends pre-update (not shown here) were that Common cards were largely worthless, Uncommon cards were following the same trend, Rare cards were steadily decreasing in price (even among sought after cards such as Overlord, Bloodhorn, and Amii Monument), and desirable Ultra-rare and promo cards were increasingly inflating. This was because Ultra-rare and promo cards were the only remaining sources of value left in the economy. Reforging changed this by condensing the total price range of the market and by giving each card in the game a base level of value." 
You can read the whole post and check the stats for yourself here. 
 
• Deep Dive: Towers
As we continue to work towards the release of DRPvE, a topic of much discussion has been the current state of towers in the game. While some towers over perform, most are not worth a deckslot.
In this Deep Dive, we take a look at the different kinds of towers in Skylords Reborn, their strengths and weaknesses, and how we plan to make changes to them in the future. Please note we are still in the early stages of our tower rebalance; ideas are not final and these changes will take quite a while to implement once they are finalized. Either way, we hope you enjoy this insight into our current philosophy regarding Towers in Skylords Reborn, and that it provides you with the necessary information to join the discussion in our balance discord.
DeepDive_Towers.pdf
The next design document you can expect will be our in progress Nature Deep Dive. You can find all our Deep Dives and other documents here.
 
• Changing the size of buildings
While working on the above topic, we came across a new possibility for the game: resizing towers. We are now able to change the size of a building (visual and collision-shape-wise), which will be very relevant for cards like Rocket Tower, that take up way more space than you would expect from its model. This will be another helpful tool in adding some QoL changes to Skylords Reborn! 
Please note: the image below is an example, there are currently no concrete changes to Tunnel planned. 


• Art Timelapse
With our anniversary patch, it was revealed that the artwork of the new bandit cards combine into a single art piece: the new Bandit loading screen. If you are a frequent reader of the community updates, you have seen the work that went into each different new bandit cards over the last few months, including sketches of early iterations. However, if you are interested in more behind the scenes, we have a nice treat for you. Tweeto has actually recorded his design process, and we created a time-lapse video showing all the steps that went into this latest art piece. Did you know Bandit Sniper is actually standing on a dead Burrower? Find out everything that was added (and removed) in the video here. 
Big thanks to Tweeto for his hard work and jabbyay for helping to create this video. Tweeto is already hard at work on the next art piece, which we will show off in a later community update. Like this kind of content? Please be sure to let us know!
 
 
• Advanced Filtering
We would like to take a quick moment to thank everyone for taking our survey about your use of advanced filtering. We are working on a full documentation for the filters that are currently available in the game. If you don't want to wait for that, you can find a Work in Progress version in the game files under BattleForge/docs/advanced_filtering.txt once the patch hits. 
We have also added a few new filters and a lot of alternative words for current filters. 
 
• Tournaments & Events
• NEW - Toggy's Tome Tournament - 30.01.2022
It's time for another Tome Tournament! In Tome you play 1vs1 PvP but with a twist; your deck is build right before the tournament from the content of a number of boosters. This results in wacky decks and a very different PvP experience, so be sure to check it out. The tournament will be streamed live, check out the full rules and sign-up here. 

• NEW - CCC #2 The Besieged Forge - UNTIL 05.02.2022
Kapo has started another Crappy Community Contest! Participating in it will result in a reward for the entire community, so be sure to check it out. In this contest, players are playing on a new map created specifically for this contest! Check out the full rules here. 

• ALMOST ENDING - Official 2p rPvE Contest#2: The Bandit alliance UNTIL 31.01.2022
You only have a few days left to compete in this event! For this challenge, we want to see your adaptability in unique situations.
We are looking for the fastest time with only one rule: each player may only spawn one single unit with ground presence through the whole run!

• COMING SOON – Community 1p PvE Contest – early February
Hope you didn’t hide your warm clothes yet! To celebrate the end of winter, we will pay a visit to another Frost themed map. This time the challenge will be for a single Skylord, so bring your best deck and face the unknown. All the details should be published next week, stay tuned.

• Host your own event/tournament
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. 
 

 
• We need your help!
Now that we are able to implement voicelines and audio into the game (thanks to some great voiceactors helping us out!), we are looking for someone to help us with audio post-production and quality control. Unfortunately we currently do not have enough volunteers to continue implementing any further voicelines and sound effects into the game.
• Open Position: Audio Editor
We would love to continue adding voicelines for more cards and narration for new maps. As an Audio Editor, you will be responsible for selecting and extracting the best takes, doing post-production and making sure the overall quality is high enough to be implemented into the game. If you have more skills, you will also be able to design new sounds for the game as Audio Producer. Click here to read more and apply.
 
• Team changes
We are excited to finally add a marketeer/outreach coordinator to our team! Runeseeker will help us out with promoting the project and attracting new and old players alike. We appreciate the help and are happy to have him on our team! 
We also have various potential team members doing their trial tasks. In the near future we hope to add more balance developers, moderators and an artist. 
 
• In Conclusion
And that's it for this Community Update, thanks for reading! 
As is tradition, this community update comes with a scratch code. 
The code will reward you with a mini-booster: COMM-UNIT-YNEW-S18B
The code is valid till February 19th, when we will bring you another 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 #17

You could also enlighten one or two shrines of war, even resource boosters maybe