n3tax

Thank you all for keeping this alive and also updating it regulary. cant wait for the new campaign maps, that what i mosted whised for. 

In addition to the community update, I'd also like to take this time to share some of my personal thoughts as we transition into year 4 of Skylords Reborn. 

3 years and 43 Community Updates in the books! Working on this yearly recap sure was a trip down memory lane with many "Did we really release that this year?". With so many moving parts and various things in development, things can start to blur a bit. Due to the nature of map making, this felt like a year in which we did a ton of work behind the scenes, but couldn't show off our hard work yet. I'm excited we can now finally start to reveal what the team has been working on.
I hope our monthly community updates still managed to show we are hard at work, and had enough to reveal for players to feel engaged with the project. In hindsight, there were some things that we probably announced too early, (for example the Lost Soul Rework) but with so many variables in our project (our team now has 50 volunteers!) that is bound to happen now and then. I am extremely proud of the work our team put out this year, and I can't wait for players to get their hands on our new campaign maps. 
Speaking of the team, we had a bunch of lovely people joining as volunteers! I am super grateful that 3 years in, we still have so many people with dedication and love for the project that they are willing to spend their free time on it. The following Skylords joined in 2023:
CrazyCockerell and Titan as Tech-artists
Piskr as Client Developer
Pierakor as Tool Developer
Lucas Ansei as Web Developer
Ultralord as Video Editor
Volin as Map Tester Coordinator
Damo and Hrdina Impéria as Map Designers
Kayrie as Map Artist. 
Discoheart and Noah.K as Audio Editor 
Vultagx and Linkz as Global Moderator
ElementG is currently in his trial period for Tech-artist

But it would be unfair to not also give a shout-out to the members who left the team during 2023: 
Katchau (developer) left the team
Nukie left the event department
Watermelon Lord, Nukie, Pfirsichkralle and Dallarian left the Moderator department

Thank you all for your work for the project!
Besides the team, I would like to give a personal shout out to Kapo and Dreamlord. You know Kapo from his CCC and Masters of the Forge series, but he does not get nearly enough credit for how much he does for the project and has always been a reliable friend, whether it be proofreading my documents, or getting a Rayman statue imported from another country. Dreamlord has been our favorite Banzaiii Lorrrd and I have been consistently impressed by not only his quality voice acting but his professionalism and willingness to help out, sometimes on short notice. Besides doing voice-overs for our trailers, you can also expect to hear him in our loading screen narrations for the new maps in 2024. I have high hopes for his voice-acting career, and I hope 2024 will be the breakthrough year for him! 
2023 was a year full of highs and lows. My girlfriend and I got our own apartment and a lovely cat named Lyra. At the same time I saw friends struggling with depression, break-ups, war and death of loved ones. The world can be a rough place, so please take care of yourself and each other. 
What was your highlight for 2023? And what are you most excited about for 2024? Would love to hear it in the comments!
Thank you so much for being a part of this lovely community. 

Greetings Skylords!
A new month; a new Community Update! It's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn!

 
• Skylord Reborn 3rd Anniversary

Happy New Year, everyone! We hope 2024 will be a wonderful year for every one of you! 
December 2023 marked the 3rd Anniversary of Skylords Reborn, and we are happy you are here to celebrate it with us!
In case you missed it, we hosted a special Anniversary Stream last Friday, which you can rewatch here. 

In this Community Update, we would like to take a look back at 2023, and share what 2024 has in store for Skylords Reborn. We have a lot to talk about, so let's get started!
 
• Looking back at 2023

Can you believe it's already been a year since we added cosmetics? Here is a quick summary of every patch we released in 2023. 
 
January 14th, 2023

Early in 2023, we released our 2nd Anniversary Patch. The patch contained three new cards; Sanctuary, a Tier 4 Nature spell to go along with our ongoing Pure Nature rework, Raven Archwalker, our first Legendary card, and Worldbreaker Gun Promo, the first Promo building in the game. 


This patch also introduced cosmetics; unlockable ways for Skylords to personalize their banner and avatar border. We also added 32 new achievements, many balance changes, and a ton of Quality of Life features; like a longer Marketplace option, more advanced filtering options including a handy in-game guide, and an import/export deck function.


February 27th, 2023

As with most major patches, our follow-up patch was a small one, containing some bugfixes, and the QoL option for players to re-roll the same quest multiple times. The minimum quest reward after re-rolls was changed to 50 BFP. 
 
April 8th, 2023

After our successful Halloween Event, we wanted to surprise Skylords with an Easter-themed event. While the map and general idea were received positively, we probably should not have attached a speedrun contest to it. Players expressed playing the map once was fun, but grinding the clunky Egg-push mechanic for the top time turned out to be a bit tedious. 

Regardless, completing the special map ''The Easter Tree" on any difficulty resulted in the completion of the newly added achievement "Bunny Brawler", which automatically rewarded Skylords with a new Easter-themed banner. We saw that banner equipped a lot around the holidays, so we are happy to see it being received so positively. 

This patch also contained some bugfixes, and a change to the friend list to display only online friends by default, a much requested change. 
 
May 19th - 2023

In May, we released another big content patch, called appropriately called Nature's Awakening. Alongside many Nature-themed changes, the patch also contained one new card: Sleetstorm.

The spotlight for this patch, however, was on the addition of the Nature faction to rPvE, joining Fire as the second Skylords-Reborn exclusive addition to the game mode. Hodron spend a lot of time balancing the faction and making it fun to play against, which you can read more about in our interview. The patch also contained many balance changes, mostly focusing on our Pure Nature rework. 

The patch also included many Quality of Life changes, including a single-player pause feature, key-down vs key-up interaction, the ability to copy text or import a deck from the in-game chat, and gold chests being openable in combat. Lastly, the patch also included our first part of our Gold rework, a few campaign map changes, and a rework of the community map section. 


This rework allows Skylords to have an easier time finding great community-made maps, by showing more information, and having featured maps for maps that are especially good or unique. We also had an event on two of those great community maps: An Expedition South and Lyrish Uprising. We would once again like to stress that every Skylords Reborn installation comes with a Map Editor, so feel free to add your creations to the list! 
 
July 25th - 2023

Sadly, the major content patch came alongside some annoying bugs, the most infamous being the lag in the Forge after playing for a while. The issue should be solved, though we still sometimes receive reports of similar behavior. If this is the case for you, please report it to our team to investigate. 
We also used this occasion to fix some inconsistencies in card descriptions and enabled playback for outdated replays. However, because replays are playbacks (instead of being a video), if cards were used that have since been changed, it can still result in not accurately reflecting the original gameplay. Regardless, it solved a major headache for our Event Department and Community Events to still be able to access replays if the game had been patched in a way that only effected a few cards that were not present in their replays. 
 
October 28th - 2023

For our Halloween patch, we added a new Pumpkin avatar for Skylords to unlock by playing the custom map Spooky Encounters once more during the Halloween season. The patch also contained one new card: the long awaited Soulstone. This card saw the longest development cycle yet, but we are very proud of how it turned out. 

There was one more thing for Skylords to unlock: we released a special Fire-themed Forge, locked behind an achievement we noticed not many players were participating in due to the old lackluster reward. We are happy to see an increase in the completion rate after adding the special Forge. 
Lastly, we also released a bunch of balance changes, bugfixes, and a batch of Quality of Life changes, like a higher deck-limit (500), a warning notification for queuing up with a low deck level for ranked (pointing towards the free PvP decks), and some improvements to comparing profiles. 

The Fire-themed Forge can be unlocked by completing the achievement "Never Thought of Him"
 
December - 2023 -> January 2024

Originally, our plan was to bring out a patch for our 3rd Anniversary in December. Sadly, we had to delay after crucial staff members became sick. Which brings us to...
 
• Looking ahead at 2024

We are kicking off 2024 with our first content patch, and today we are happy to announce the patch date:
January 26th - 2024

Our first content patch of 2024 will contain various previously announced features. You can expect to see the new card Lost Manabeast, our overhaul of the rPvE difficulty system, our Lost Souls Rework, balance changes, and quality of life features, like buttons in the Forge to pause, speed up and slowdown. While we are trying to include previously announced cards like Tectonic Shift and Bedrock, technical issues are plaguing their developments, so we can't make the promise they will be included yet. 
 
2024

While we are not able to provide a concrete roadmap for 2024, we are able to share some general information about what we have planned for the new year. We have spent a lot of 2023 working on map-content, and we are very excited to share what we have been working on! The following content can be expected further along in 2024: 
 
New Campaign Maps

2024 will see the release of some brand-new campaign maps! There are currently four maps in development, three 2-player maps, and one 1-player map. The first two maps you can expect will be Unexpected Visitors and Into the Jungle, which are part of our new Key of Ashia story campaign, filling in some of the questions the original campaign failed to answer. In Unexpected Visitors, you will face the Lost Souls to protect the last Amii tribe, while Into the Jungle tasks you with finding a new safe haven for them. We did a short live-play of Into the Jungle during our stream.

Unexpected Visitors will be the first new campaign map of Skylords Reborn.
 
New Cards

You can expect more new cards, including three for the Amii faction: Amii Golem, Amii Simulacrum and Amii Skydancer, bringing long-awaited higher tier units to the faction. We will reveal more about these new cards in the upcoming Community Updates. 
Besides new Amii cards, we also have a couple of other new cards in various stages of development. 
 
More voice-acting

Alongside voicing our new campaign-maps, we are also working on providing voices for both new and old cards alike. A teaser of the Amii Golem was already heard in the Amii-teaser above, but we also have talented people working on Burning Spears and other cards that patched without voice-lines. 

To navigate the players through the new campaign, we have also worked on a Frost Skylord named Gaeron, artwork made by our artist Tweeto. Gaeron was an Imperial Captain defending a Lyrish town. He is shortly mentioned in the original lore book in the game, and we thought he would be a fitting candidate to expand upon. We have found a great voice-actor to voice him during our search back in June.
 
Balance changes

We are always tweaking cards and looking for opportunities to make underplayed but cards with potential viable, and 2024 will be no different. Be sure to join our balance discord if you want to join the discussion and/or provide suggestions! A lot of the changes in SR are community suggestions, after all!
 
More Map Content

2024 will continue our vision of focusing on returning content. We are especially excited about Map Modifiers, special conditions that can be activated on campaign maps to provide new and exciting challenges. Modifiers that increase the defense of enemies, or cause them to explode once defeated, are simple examples that can already impact maps drastically. We plan to bundle these with a highlighted Map of the Day campaign map, resulting in additional rewards for Skylords facing the challenge. 

Example screenshot of Map Modifiers. Work in progress.

With new campaign maps, expanding on rPvE and Map Modifiers freshening up the original Campaign Maps, 2024 should be a good year for replayable content! 
 
• Events

Kicking off 2024 we also have a new event to enjoy!
 
• NEW - Amii Training Camp
While we eagerly wait for new Amii cards, let's find out if you fully master the excising ones! Play rPvE with only Amii Paladins and Amii Phantoms on Tier 2 and see how fast you can get! More information.
 
 • FIRST PHASE - PvP AI programming contest
We are gathering players for a new type of event. Get ready for an AI Programming Tournament, where the submitted programs will face off in an epic showdown to find the ultimate AI strategist! More information.
 
In between our monthly Community Updates, we host various events and tournaments, so be sure to keep a close eye on the in-game event tab and the forum calendar to stay informed and not miss out on any exciting events!
 
• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our other Event Organizers, @Metagross31or @Minashigo Hiko. We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. 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.
 
• Community Spotlight - Masters of the Forge

In this podcast-like series, Kapo interviews various staff members to discuss the project and personal stories about their interaction with BattleForge and Skylords Reborn. There are currently 10 episodes to watch:
• Episode 1: Dutchy, Lead Moderator - Watch now.
• Episode 2: Majora, Project Coordinator - Watch now.
• Episode 3: Volin, Testing Coordinator -  Watch now.
• Episode 4: RadicalX, Faction Designer - Watch now.
• Episode 5: Ult, Server Developer - Watch now.
• Episode 6: Ultralord, Video Editor - Watch now.
• Episode 7: Zyna & Ladadoos, Admins - Watch now.


• New: Episode 8: Maze, Web Developer - Watch now.
In this episode, Maze and Kapo talk about the moderation tool, different APIs, and of course in great detail about Maze' wonderful website, the Skylords Marketplace Journal (www.smj.cards)
 
• New: Episode 9: Windhunter, Lead Designer - Watch now.
In this episode, Windhunter and Kapo talk all about design, the priorities of picking what to change next, the state of the economy and loads of submitted questions from Fire-Frost to Deepdives, and what's upcoming in the next months and years. 
 
• New: Episode 10: Emmaerzeh & Hodron - Watch now.
This episode is all about the art of map-making, in all variations from campaign, rPvE and PvP-maps; with a highlight on how (community) mapmaking is done.
 
• Contribute

Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fueled by the passion and dedication of over 50 volunteers. We are always on the lookout for like-minded individuals. If you have a passion for gaming, programming, design, or marketing, we invite you to have a look at our open positions!


We are especially looking for an active and passionate outreach coordinator, helping us reach new Skylords by contacting streamers, influencers, media, and other potential parties. This role can make a drastic impact for Skylords Reborn! More information.
Please consider applying for this position; we would love to gather both new and old players alike in 2024 to check out our new campaign maps. We are also looking for someone who can help us with our newsletter. 
Don't have time to formally join the staff, but still would like to help out? Please check out this guide on how to support Skylords Reborn as a community member.
 
• In Conclusion

That's all for this Community Update! We appreciate you taking the time to read through it.
As is tradition, we're including a scratch code as a small token of our appreciation for your support.
The code will reward you with a General booster: LOOK-BACK-YEAR-2023
The code is valid until February 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update. 
We're always looking for ways to improve and value your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with us. We'll be back next month with more updates on our ongoing projects and upcoming features. You can also sign up to our e-mail newsletter here. 

Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update December 2023

Hello Skyladies, Skylords and other Skybeings,
Welcome to a Halloween-Season PvE event!


I remember, long was it ago,  
When I vanished, beneath earth's solemn throw.  
An Event Manager once, lively and grand,  
Whose absence turned into legend, across the land.
But now the Spooky Season calls my name,  
Awakening my spirit, rekindling my flame.  
A Lost Soul, rising from the earthly bed,  
With haunting ideas that fill the night with dread.
No longer gone, I’ve returned to my post,  
To host a Skylord Reborn's event, let's raise a ghostly toast.  
For this Halloween, let eerie magic unspool,  
A resurrection, from the land of the ghoul.
So come forth, brave warriors, if you dare,  
For this event promises a spine-chilling scare.  
I’m back to bring you ghoulish delight,  
Happy Haunting to all, and to all a frightful night!
 
Quick Overview:
Map                          - 1p rPvE Difficulty                   - 8 (Map of the Month) Date                          - 01.11 until 15.11  (23:59 UTC+2) Prizes                        - Boosters and the new card "Soulstone" Winner reveal           - On the 18th of November in this topic  
Goals and Restrictions:
You need to play the 1p rPvE map of the month on Difficulty 8 and achieve following three goals under two restrictions:
• Restriction 1: Your first and second orb are restricted to Frost and Shadows orbs only (this means also no double frost or double shadow start)
• Restriction 2: Once you are T2 (have your second orb available), you are only allowed to spawn Lost Soul units. This also means you are no longer allowed to play tier 1 units. This restriction does not apply to spells or buildings.
• Goal 1: Win the Map
• Goal 2: Open all Gold Chests
• Goal 3: Reach T4 without Amii Monument (The faster, the better)

 
FAQ:
I will update the FAQ below as questions are asked throughout the event. 

How can I participate?

Everyone with an ingame account can participate in the event, there is no need to sign up separately.
You just have to send in your best replay, including the player names and the time of map finish, to mHiko on Discord (minashigohiko) or the forum
(@Minashigo Hiko).
Replay name format - "mHiko_00h20m30s_.pmv"

You can send in your replays until 15.11 23:59 UTC+2.
You can find your replays here: Documents=>Battleforge=>replays


What's the Prize Pool?
The following prize pool will be adjusted according to the amount of participants.
All bfp prizes have been sponsored by @Vysnia
You can join the event multiple times, but only your fastest T4 time will be rewarded, and you can only enter the raffle once:
1st Place: 7 Lost Souls Boosters
2nd Place: 6 Lost Souls Boosters 
3rd Place: 6 Lost Souls Boosters 
4th Place: 3 Lost Souls Boosters + 1k BFP
5th Place: 3 Lost Souls Boosters + 1k BFP
6th Place: 3 Lost Souls Boosters + 1k BFP
7th Place: 3 Lost Souls Boosters + 1k BFP
8th Place: 3 Lost Souls Boosters + 1k BFP
9th-50% Place: 3 Lost Souls Boosters
Raffle
There are two Raffles:
• Raffle 1: we will raffle 10x General Boosters among players who did not win a prize or raffle yet (might scale with increasing participation)
• Raffle 2: The new card "Soulstone" will be raffled to half of the participating players (your placement doesn't matter for this)
 
When will the winners be announced?

The winners under top 5 will be announced via a comment in this topic on the 18th of November. Ultralord will also host a Twitch stream, where he will show the remaining 5 runs, a quiz and some interesting data from the event.
Stream: 24th of November at 19:00 (UTC+1)

Patch #400044 - 28 October 2023
🎃👻 Welcome to the Spoooooky Halloween Patch! 🦇🕷️
Skylords, gather 'round as the shadows lengthen and the nights grow cold! We're thrilled to present our ninth balance patch, teeming with delightful treats and perhaps a trick or two.
Dive deep into the abyss to discover a mysterious new card, unveil chilling new achievements that await the brave, and embrace the night as you light up the forge with a hauntingly beautiful new theme.
Happy Halloween in the Forge, Skylords!

Achievement Updates
[New] Happy Halloween! Rewards: Halloween Pumpkin (Avatar) + 1x Lost Souls Booster
Win the PvE community map Spooky Encounters on expert difficulty during the Halloween season. (One week from Oct. 28th)
[Updated] Never Thought of Him
Now rewards a brand new Fire Forge theme in addition to the 100,000 gold. Reward is retroactive.
Corporate Downsizing
Added 2 additional levels to the achievement with 2 additional progressive avatars.
General Changes
The deck limit has been raised to 500 total decks, inclusive of PvP, Tutorial, and General decks. Please note: Performance issues may occur at higher deck counts. A warning for this will be displayed once you reach 100 decks. Players using a deck level below 100 will now receive a notification encouraging them to check out the free PvP decks. High-res textures are now used for "Flightblocking" objects. Completed goals in maps will now be stored in replay files. The "Seasonal" forge theme has been renamed to the "Featured" forge theme. The new Fire Forge will be the featured theme until the end of November 2023. The game's file system logic has been updated to use UTF-8 paths for enhanced support. This feature is experimental and may be rolled back if necessary. Profile comparison section has been improved with filters allowing sorting by achievement group, achievement type, and locked achievements.
General Fixes
The 'Show Upgrades' button has been repositioned, creating more space between it and the 'Create Game' button. The brown background issue that occurred when clicking on the leaderboard entry in 2 player scenarios has been fixed. Leaderboard filters no longer reload incorrectly after choosing the map from the dropdown. Flying units are now restricted from opening gold chests. This rectifies an issue introduced by a previous change. Issues related to entities like power wells, monuments, and walls not updating their position correctly when teleported via map scripts have been fixed. Achievement Fixes
The tooltip for the forge spring theme locked achievement now correctly displays (8 maps) instead of (10 maps). Corrected faulty achievement descriptions with missing placeholder values in the profile comparison section. Resolved issues with the type filter not functioning properly in the profile comparison section. Chat commands in the chat menu will remain visible when switching chat regions. Community Map Fixes
Removed misleading error messages that appeared after downloading a community map when joining an open game. Resolved issues related to rapidly switching between community map entries which affected the minimap load. Private maps will now be deleted after 3 hours as intended. Downloaded maps will now properly replace older map versions on the filesystem. The "Local" map type filter will from now on display all locally available community maps, including those downloaded and already on the server. Fixed the issue of daily quests not progressing when playing featured community maps. Rectified the error where maps were counted multiple times for the 'complete different featured community maps' achievement. Resolved inaccuracies in the text for hardcoded local community maps.  

New Cards
Soulstone  - 70p T1 Frost ()
You will find the upgrades for this card on the map Defending Hope.
A common complaint among players is that Frost lacks good shield spells and abilities for PvE before T4. This hole in Frost's design is real, and leads to other issues, such as a lack of teamplay oriented utility and army sustain in the early game. Soulstone, a Frost-like version of Fountain of Rebirth that grants ice shields, fills this gap. It is also the first card to make use of a new evolution mechanic we are adding to the game. Once the player reaches T2, Soulstone can be transformed into a stronger version of itself. This allows it to scale with the player, without being overpowered in T1. We hope players enjoy this new card and the many synergies it brings to Frost, and we cannot wait to see what you do with it.  

Card & NPC Balance Changes

Global Changes
Standardize Basic Class Types:
Added missing faction & affinity class tags to all player buildings. Fixed wrong affinity class type on dozens of units. Added missing class type to dozens of units and buildings.  While technically a balance change as it fixes several card inconsistencies, such as some affinities not working with the correct elemental crystal card, this change also improves the accuracy of the card filtering function.

Description Fixes:
  Cleaned up the descriptions of dozens of player cards and NPCs for improved clarity in each language.     Introduced a new standard description for rage on all cards with the ability. Bug Fixes:
Shrine of Martyrs: Fixed a bug preventing alive units from being affected by a shrine if they had already been affected and the current one was destroyed. Sun Reaver: Fixed various faulty interactions with linked fire.
PvE Balance Changes
 Earthen Gift:
1. Charges: 8 ➜ 12
 Frontier Keep:
1. Power cost: 250p ➜ 125p
In truth, we have little idea how strong Frontier Keep is as a card, merely that it is overpriced for its current effect. As such, we are cutting its price in half and seeing what happens. 
 Grinder(r):
1. Infused Provoke (r): The damage buff is now stackable with external effects. 
Grinder's built-in damage buff after using provoke will now stack with effects like Earthen Gift(r) and Wheel of Gifts. 
 Mindweaver:
1. Fixed a bug where the population cap would be permanently increased beyond the 120 limit if a controlled unit died.
2. Edict of Command range: 30m ➜ 40m
3. Added a 40m radius indicator for Edict of Command on card play-out.
 Parasite Swarm:
1. Can now takeover T3 units on upgrade 2 instead of upgrade 3. 
Make Parasite Swarm more accessible to new players by reducing the total gold investment to reach T3 takeovers. 
 Sleet Storm:
1. Radius: 15m ➜ 20m
2. Spell delay: 5 seconds ➜ 4 seconds
Sleet Storm released below the power level we wanted for the card. We have increased the effect radius and decreased the time it takes for the root and gravity surge effects to activate to ensure the player can ensnare faster moving L and XL-units more consistently. 
 Stone Launcher:
1. Orb cost: 1 Frost, 1 Nature, 1 Neutral ➜ 1 Frost, 1 Nature, 1 Hybrid
2. Power cost: 70p ➜ 100p
3. Life points: 1700 ➜ 2200
4. Rock shot
   A. Splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
   B. Now damages both air and ground units
5. Pulldown power cost: 80 / 80 / 75 / 70p ➜ 50 / 50 / 45 / 40p
Stone Launcher is now a normal tower. We think that T3+ AA-only towers are largely a bad design, and, on top of that, we needed a normal T3 Stonekin tower for our upcoming card Bedrock to be able to summon and Tectonic Shift to teleport.
 Stronghold:
1. Power cost: 150p ➜ 200p
2. Displayed attack value: 2850 dp20 ➜ 4950 dp20
3. Life points: 3600 ➜ 4500
4. Cannon Turrets: 
   A. Splash radius: 5m ➜ 10m
   B. Turret firing arc: Allow up to 3 turrets to attack a target at a time.
   C. Damage: 74 damage, up to 110 in total ➜ 164 damage, up to 246 in total
5. Bombardment:
   A. Now an active ability
   B. New description: Activate to shoot a mortar shell that deals 800 damage to enemies in a 15m radius around its target, up to 3200 in total. Knocks back small, medium, and large units. Has a range of 40m. Reusable every 30 seconds.
6. New passive, "To the Last!" 
   A. Description: If the fortress has equal to or less than 3000 life points left it will deal 25% more damage and take 25% less damage. If the fortress has equal or less than 1500 life points left it will deal 50% more damage and take 50% less damage.
7. New passive, "Slowed Construction:" Construction time is increased by 50%.
Stronghold has been reworked from the ground up and is finally worthy of being an Ultra-rare card. We encourage players to experience the card for themselves and we hope that we have done the card sufficient justice so that it will live up to its name and model. 
NPC Balance Changes
[ Existing NPC Changes ]
The changes discussed in this section pertain to the non-player versions of these entities which players encounter in campaign and random PvE.
 Flame Crystal:
1. Can now be frozen and disintegrated.
 Howling Shrine (rPvE variant):
1. Root Network connection radius: 25m ➜ 40m
 Mindweaver (rPvE variant):
1. Added small and medium knockback.
2. Splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
 Nature Random PvE Boss Units:
1. Removed the "Nature" class to prevent unintended interactions with player cards (such as Protector's Seal)
2. Boss Tier: T5 ➜ T4
 Primal Defender (rPvE variant):
1. Orb cost: 3 Nature ➜ 2 Nature
2. Power cost: 150p ➜ 100p 
Now able to be overtaken by both affinities of Matter Mastery.
 Root Network Units (Nature rPvE Variants):
1. Fixed an issue where Treespirit, Thornbark, and Guardian of Nature would not aggro against flying units.
2. Increased ranged at which these units root to attack enemies from 20m to 28m.  
 Root Nexus:
1. No longer provides 2 support. 
2. Removed from Nature rPvE and replaced by the new Earth Crystal.
 Stranglehold:
1. Tower range: 30m ➜ 40m
[ New NPCs ]
These new NPCs are available to map makers to use for community maps. 
New NPC Units:
   1. Pest Creepers: A permanent version of the nature affinity Pest Creepers spawned by Sunken Temple. 
   2. Earth Crystal: Provides 2 support to root network entities within a 20m radius, replaces Root Nexus in Nature rPvE. 
   3. Fortress of Nature: Boss variant of Howling Shrine with 50m range.
   4. Bramblethorn: New Nature variant of Stonekin Rockstorm which roots on-hit. 
   5. Amii Phantom: Ranged-only with swift. 
 

Hello Skylords, Skyladies, and other Skybeings; Welcome to CCC #12 – the twelfth Crappy Community Contest!
 

THE CONTEST HAS ENDED.
If you want to check out the winners, CLICK HERE. If you are just here to grab the code, there you go: CCC1-2BYE-TOTH-EONE
 
 
What are “Crappy Community Contests”?
CCC's are meant to be small-scale contests with weird challenges, hopefully luring you away from well-trodden paths. They are small-scale on the organizers side too: usually there will be no stream, video, or event announcing the winners. What's special about these contests is a participation prize for the whole Skylords community.

What, when, where, how?
Say Goodbye To One

The famous difficulty rPvE 1 will leave us soon.

This challenge is to win the current
1-player rPvE difficulty 1 Map of the Month
in the fastest time without using Fire orbs.

As the very first Crappy Community Contest, we had a rPvE 1 challenge, which was a lot of fun... and many, many people asked when I will do this again - but usually repeating something isn't that appealing. Unless it's the last chance to do so! As you may have noticed, the July Community Update announced that some of the difficulties will be changed to create a smoother scale, and along those lines difficulty 1 will be removed. (see picture).
But this time, to mix things up, the use of Fire orbs is banned. (This is totally because It's hot outside, not because Fire dominated the CCC#1. 🔥)

 
How to enter:
Battleforge automatically saves a replay file of the last match you play, named autosave.pmv.  After playing the map, rename this file, so it doesn't get overwritten. You can find your replays here: Documents => Battleforge => replays.

The contest has started with the release of this post – submit your replay through Discord (DM to Kapo#0116) or the Skylords Forum (DM to @Kapo) until 31.08.2023 23:59 CET  (= 11 days time total). You can submit multiple times, but only your last entry will count. Please note that any submitted replays may be posted here in the forums.

To lessen my workload, please rename your replay to the following format: CCC12_<your-time>_<your-name>.pmv  (e.g. CCC12_02_11.23_Kapo.pmv)
 

 
What's the prize pool?
Since this is not just a crappy contest, but a Crappy Community Contest, you may help with your participation to earn a prize for the whole community. If we reach more than 25 participants (unique players, not entries), we will unlock a Mini-Booster code for the entire Skylords community. If more than 40 participants enter, the code will be upgraded to a Booster instead of a Mini-Booster. So tell your fellow Skylords to try this challenge – it's an occasion to try something completely new, and it raises our chances to hand out a code for everybody. 
Of course, the top ranking Skylords will get prizes too, sponsored by myself, the Community and the Skylords Reborn Team:
1st place               5 General Boosters + Promo Swamp Drake + Lost Warlord (B) + Mana Wing
2nd place             4 General Boosters  + Harvester + Lost Warlord (B) 
3rd place              3 General Boosters + Spitfire + Lost Warlord (B)
4th place              2 General Boosters + Shadow Worm + Lost Warlord (B)
5th place              1 General Booster + Wrathgazer + Lost Warlord (R)
6th place              Shadow Worm + Gravity Surge (P) + Mana Wing
7th place              Wrathgazer + Evocators Woe (P) + Worldbreaker Gun
8th place              Tortugun (B) + Giant Slayer + Brannoc
9th place              Tortugun (R) + Shadow Mage + Juggernaut
10th place            Nox Carrier (P) + Fallen Skyelf +Shrine of Martyrs
11th place            Fire Worm + Corsair (G) + Ravenheart
12th place            Cultist Master + Lost Grigori (P) + Ice Tornado
13th place            Soul Splicer (G) + Crystal Fiend (G) + Mortar Tower
14th place            Ward of the North + Mark of the Keeper
15th place            Mind Control + Lost Banestone (B)
Newcomer Challenge:  The fastest player of Bronze or Silver Rank will receive a Promo Snapjaw.
Secret Achievements:  You have a chance for bonus-prizes - the achievement name may or may not give a hint on what to do:
"Overload" - 1x Nox Trooper "Better safe than sorry" - 1x Defenders "Cheater" - 1x Easter Egg For participation, there is a random chance to win one of the following prizes out of a large pool:
Random Draws          5x1 General Booster, Enlightenment, Infect, Cluster Explosion (R), Avatar of Frost, Shadow Worm (x2), Harvester, Wrathgazer (x2), Lost Warlord (B) (x2), Lord Warlord (R), Nox Carrier (P), Nox Carrier (R) (x3), Evocators Woe (P), Gravity Surge (P), Tortugun (B), Tortugun (R), Raven Archwalker, Mana Wing, Colossus, Bloodhorn (P), Matter Mastery (G), Motivate, War Eagle, Lifestream, Sanctuary (B), Giant Slayer, Shrine of Martyrs, Revenge, Nightshade Plant (P), Mark of the Keeper, Mountain Rowdy (B), Mind Control (x2), Aura of Corruption, Rocket Tower, Ashbone Pyro, Shadow Mage (x2), Shrine of Greed, Soul Splicer (G), Twilight Pestilence (R)

Sponsors
If one or more mighty Skylord(s) decides to sponsor this event, please contact me - community contest prizes are meant to be from the community, for the community. I would be more than happy to beef up or even expand the prize pool to more ranks, add additional random draws, add cards for newcomers, set special bounties or any other upgrades to the prize pool you can think of. 
The following prizes have been sponsored so far:
Skylords Team          General Boosters (x20), Community Booster Code
@Kapo                  Promo Swamp Drake, Enlightenment, Infect, Cluster Explosion (R), Avatar of Frost, Lost Banestone (B)
@Ultralord            Spitfire
@ElementG           Shadow Worm (x4), Wrathgazer (x3), Harvester (x2), Shadow Mage
@Trando               Lost Warlord (B) (x6), Lost Warlord (R) (x2), Nox Carrier (P) (x2), Nox Carrier (R) (x2), Evocators Woe (P) (x2), Gravity Surge (P) (x2), Tortugun (B) (x2), Tortugun (R) (x2)
@RadicalX            Shadow Mage, Mortar Tower, Motivate, Cultist Master, Giant Slayer, Soul Splicer (G), Fire Worm, Rocket Tower, Ward of the North, Mountain Rowdy (B), War Eagle, Colossus, Shrine of Martyrs, Mind Control, Lifestream, Sanctuary (B), Nightshade Plant (P), Twilight Pestilence (R), Corsair (G), Lost Grigori (P), Bloodhorn (P), Matter Mastery (G), Crystal Fiend (G)
@Bonobobobo      Soul Splicer (G), Nox Carrier (R), Shrine of Greed, Fallen Skyelf, Shadow Mage, Ashbone Pyro, Juggernaut, Aura of Corruption, Mind Control (x2), Mana Wing, Ice Tornado, Mark of the Keeper (x2), Worldbreaker Gun, Revenge, Shrine of Martyrs, Ravenheart, Brannoc, Raven Archwalker
@Dragonclaw       Nox Trooper(s), Easter Egg(s), Defenders
@Majora              Mana Wing (x2)
Thanks to the sponsors that support the contest! ❤️
 
Conclusion
I think the removal of some rPvE difficulty is well-warranted, but before it goes, let's have some fun with it. Good luck to all of you, and look forward to the strategies that appear!
Kapo
     
Future Events – get involved!
If you are interested in helping with these (or better) kinds of events for the community, or want to host one yourself, don't be afraid and simply reach out! Contact our Event Manager @Metagross31 or @Minashigo Hiko on the forums or discord. They are happy to assist you with upcoming events and with sponsoring your prize pool!
If you especially like this small-scale-format, and you have an idea for it, you may also contact me directly to discuss your idea and host your own Crappy Community Contest.

Map & NPC Changes

[ NPC Balance Changes ]
 Lost Reaver:
1. Reclassify Lost Reaver as a melee-unit instead of a ranged-unit.
Players are likely familiar with the fact that a Lost Reaver will spawn its Lost Crawlers and then stand off to the side while it and its allies are slaughtered. This has now been fixed. Lost Reaver will use its ability and move towards and engage enemies in melee combat. This should constitute a slight buff to the unit's strength as an enemy.
 Lost Wanderer (shield variant):
1. Ice Shield duration: Infinite ➜ 20 seconds
2. Targets: All available targets in a 20m radius ➜ 5 closest units in a 20m radius
3. New passive effect: The duration of friendly Ice Shields is extended indefinitely within a 20m radius around Lost Wanderer.
These changes aim to make the unit more fair through changing Lost Wanderer's Ice Shields to only be conditionally permanent and to have an upper limit on the number of allies that can be shielded at a time. This should enable more counter play on the player's end, as a player can now focus on Lost Wanderers to give the Ice Shields the possibility of wearing off.
 Twilight Evil Eye:
1. Remove passive Pain Link damage reflection ability
Twilight Evil Eye possessed the same Pain Link ability as the player version of Wrathgazer. Pain Link is only supposed to work on Evil Eye's allies, but there is a common bug with the ability which causes it to frequently enemies as well. This would lead to situations where a player would kill their own units by killing an Evil Eye, an issue which disproportionally affected melee unit compositions due to Pain Link's small radius. While this therefore constitutes a buff to players in niche situations, the removal of Pain Link will also make late game Twilight camps more durable by no longer distributing additional damage to Evil Eye's allies.
 Twilight Leech (Siege of Hope Mini-boss):
1. Enemies affected by the unit's teleport ability now have a 10-second immunity to further teleports to prevent infinite teleport ping-ponging of units around camps.
 Twilight Minions:
1. New passive ability: Increase damage of Twilight Minions by +20% for each friendly Twilight Minion nearby.
While Twilight Minions currently claim they deal more damage based on nearby allies, this is not actually true. We are therefore adding such an ability which scales based only on other nearby friendly Twilight Minions. The current numbers and effect are relatively small as we want to ensure we do not potentially over buff the unit in early campaign scenarios.
 Twilight Willsapper:
1. Rework Willsapper's auto-cast paralyze substantially.
   A. Every 4 seconds, up to 2 hostile units within a 40m radius will be paralyzed for 11 seconds upon inhaling it. After the effect wears off, targets are immune against Paralyze for a short time.
   B. Recast timer: 4 seconds
   C. Targets: Closest 2 hostile units not currently paralyzed or immune.
   D. Duration: 11 seconds
   E. Range: 40m
   F. Immunity: 5 seconds
Up to 6 units can now be paralyzed by Willzapper at once, each for 11 seconds. They then have a very short (5 second) immunity period. The effect targets the closest non-paralyzed hostile units because otherwise it would permanently target the 2 closest units and be ineffective. Willsapper should no longer paralyze enemies after its death, and enemies will now have a short window to respond before being re-paralyzed. This is in contrast to the previous implementation, which allowed Willsapper to permanently paralyze up to 5 enemy units at once. We hope these changes will make this iconic enemy building more fair while still providing a substantial challenge when facing the Twilight faction.
 The Red King (Empire Boss):
1. Now casts an Amok ability periodically, causing enemies to attack each other in a large radius around him.
 Bandit Lord (rPvE Boss):
1. Change Name: Bandit Lord ➜ Banzai Lord
2. Add boss immunity
3. Life points: 7000 ➜ 20000
4. New ability, "Bird Calling":
   A. Spawns Banzai Birds, identical to U3 player tainted affinity.
   B. Casts every 10 seconds
5. Add “Flesh Feast” ability from Overlord to description
It is well known that Bandits are the easiest enemies in rPvE by a good margin. One contributing factor to this is that the Bandit Lord enemy is counted as a boss when generating rPvE matches, despite being no more than a slightly beefier and reskinned Overlord. We have decided to change this mini-boss into a real boss, akin to the player and campaign versions of Banzai Lord. This boss will both regenerate life points based on nearby corpses and spawn powerful Banzai Birds to destroy the armies of players. We hope players enjoy this first step towards making Bandits a more fearsome and interesting faction to fight in rPvE. 
 Lost Crawler (Lost Souls rPvE)
1. The non-shielding variants of Lost Wanderer have been replaced by Lost Crawlers in the Lost Souls preset in random PvE.
These are M-sized units that explode on death, which many players have seen before in our Halloween event map Spooky Encounters. This should present a slight increase in the difficulty of early game Lost Souls compared to similar situations prior to the patch. 

[ Systematic Changes ]
Spring Forge has been added to the game. Available via an achievement to win several featured community maps. Random PvE factions have had their probabilities redistributed to account for the addition of Nature rPvE [ General Fixes]
Removed a broken variant of Portal Nexus from the map editor. Battlegrounds: Fixed a typo in the lobby setup screen in English. The Treasure Fleet: Improved localization of the goals to be more consistent: Properly translate "first" to "erste" rather than "nächste" in German. Always lowercase "chariot" in French. Always end goals with a period in Russian. The Guns of Lyr: Fixed a typo in the goal (F) description to find and slay all remaining enemies in English. Slave Master / Mo: Capitalized the gameplay term "Health" for usage in the goal "Mo's Health" for consistency.
[ Campaign Map Changes ]
 Behind Enemy Lines:
1. Auto-destroy top left wall if 50% of barrier modules are already destroyed.
2. Added a Flightblocking / Vision Block to the top left base to prevent the Twilight Dragon from aggroing onto units at the player's T2/T3 location.
3. Line of Sight improvements along the bottom middle Twilight Disciple path.
Blight:
1. Fixed a line of sight issue at the top right starting position, which prevented ranged units from attacking enemies without closing to almost melee range.
2. Added two new bridges connecting the left and right sections of the map on both the top and the bottom.
3. Updated minimap to reflect changes and to be more accurate in general.

 
 Convoy:
1. Command Walker spawn frequency (delay between the spawns of two Walkers) on expert difficulty: 120 seconds ➜ 180 seconds
2. Amii Spell Device effects:
   A. "Area Freeze" (Coldsnap):
      - Maximum number of targets: 7 ➜ 12
      - Fixed description to display correct info, improved the spell preview, and displayed maximum spell range while selecting target area.
   B. "Healing Radiance" (Ray of Light) maximum healing: 3600 ➜ 4400 life points
   C. "Meteor Shower" (Inferno)
      - Scatter radius of meteor impact area: 20 ➜ 15m radius
      - Fixed description to display correct info, improved the spell preview, and displayed maximum spell range while selecting target area.
Convoy on expert difficulty has an 18% successful completion rate, the lowest of any campaign map in the game by far. Part of this is the map's seemingly infinite scaling potential, where attack waves progressively get harder and harder, even very late into the game. Part of this is the unique mechanics of the map, which often confuse players. And part of this is that success or failure on this map, when not cheesing it with Rifle Cultists, Voodoo Shack, or Enlightenment, is RNG. A player can do identical actions from one game to the next, with one playthrough succeeding and the next failing. It all depends on how many units the Command Walker gets attacked by on its way north and how many of these units it fails to kill due to poor target selection. In several test runs, we found that the number of units which congregate to attack the Command Walker, while it itself is attacking the Power Shrine, can range from 7 to 13 without any player intervention. Enemy groups at the lower end of the range are beatable using only the map's mechanics, while enemy groups at the upper end of the range more can kill the Walker, which often led to failure even when the players executed perfectly.
Winning or losing a map due to the target selection of an AI controlled unit is not acceptable. If two players execute well, they should not lose because the map's core mechanic is poorly designed and poorly balanced. To fix this issue, we are increasing the time between Command Walker spawns by 30 seconds. This will increase the total available time for players to prepare by approximately a minute without effecting other portions of the map. We are also strongly buffing the spell effects available to the player when they capture nodes and gather Stonekin spell charges. The Coldsnap effect has had its target count increased to 12, allowing it to freeze all enemies around the Walker in the vast majority of cases, even if the Command Walker has the worst possible target selection. The Ray of Light effect has been buffed by 22%, while the Inferno effect's tightened scatter radius will allow the player to pick off priority targets with increased reliability. Overall, the goal is that a team which has captured and successfully defended 2 nodes, while also having gathered 20 Stonekin charges by the time the 3rd Walker reaches the Power Shrine, should be able to win the Command Walker mini-game with 100% reliability as long as they use the Amii Spell Device somewhat competently. 
 Nightmare Shard:
1. Replace the Twilight Deathglider spawned at the "Shadow Camp" on expert difficulty with Twilight Mindbenders.
Most veteran players approach this map by immediately rushing the spawn buildings of the Shadow Camps on both sides with either Nomad + Eruption or Mana Wings. They do this because it prevents the spawn of several camp defenders, the most notable of which is the Twilight Deathglider. Twilight Deathgliders have an AoE knockback of S and M-units. Additionally, the pathway into the Shadow Camp is incredibly narrow, meaning that a single Twilight Deathglider can, and often does, permanently CC an infinite amount of player units on this map. By changing this singular unit, we allow players to play the map in the normal way without facing an enemy that single-handedly counters every non-Fire faction at T1. At the same time, we do nothing to change the map for veterans and speedrunners.
Nightmare's End:
1. Decreased the pond size at the starting location on the left side of the map (see minimap image), allowing for enough space to build a second tower defending the southern wall.
2. Decreased blocking on the right side of the map (see minimap image).
3. Updated Minimap to reflect changes and to be more accurate in general.

 Sunbridge:
1. Fixed several terrain and water visual issues.
2. Moved the single Power Well on the right side down a bit.
3. Moved the 3 Power Wells and Monument on the right side down a bit.
4. Slightly improved blocking to allow better spawning of units at wells near terrain.
Minor quality of life improvements. The changes to the Wells and Monument on the right side of the map should hopefully prevent the player from aggroing the next camp simply by claiming the Wells and Monument. 

Greetings Skylords!
A new month; a new Community Update! It's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn!

• Patch Date Announcement - 19th of May
Exciting news! Our next content patch is almost ready for release. We are currently hard at work to finalize its content, and are ready to announce a patch date. Our spring patch is planned for a release on the 19th of May. 
We have a lot of exciting things in the works in various stages of development, some of which you will see in later patches. While we highlighted some upcoming Lost Souls changes in last month's community update, we are still working to resolve some issues before we can confirm their inclusion in this patch. We appreciate your patience and want to assure you that if these changes are not ready for the spring patch, they will be included in a later one.
As we get closer to the patch's release, we will provide more details about the content in the patch notes. In the meantime, we are pleased to share that the Nature faction will be introduced to the game as a new enemy for rPvE.
 
• A look at Nature rPvE
On December 18th, 2021, we introduced the Fire faction as a formidable new enemy to be faced in rPvE. We're thrilled to announce that the Nature faction is now ready to be added to the ranks, In celebration of this occasion, we sat down with Hodron to give us some insights into its development.

 
Let's start with introductions, for those who do not know you, what is your role on the Skylords Reborn team?
Hey, I am Hodron, I am part of the map department of the Skylords Reborn Team. I have mostly worked on the Fire rPvE set before Nature, which has been a quite monumental task in both cases.
 
How long have you been working on Nature rPvE?
In early 2022, after the release of the Fire rPvE faction, we had a poll to decide what the next faction would be; Nature or Frost. The overwhelming majority voted for Nature, and we started working on it around February 2022. If I had to estimate the time I was actively working on the faction, I would say about a year due to some pauses during development.
 
How do you start designing a new rRvE faction?
First of all, I think of all the Nature cards in the game and then imagine the AI using their abilities like the Fire units are already. Terrifying thought, am I right? Our very brave map testers can probably still remember the horrors of some early testing versions of Nature rPvE. The camps were stacked with healing and damage reduction while constantly paralyzing the player, almost like a horde of Twilight Willzappers. For the first few rounds of testing, we never actually won a match on difficulty 9, not even close. From there the process turns to cutting and / or improving the units, buildings, and camps until a good mix across all difficulties is found.
What about units?
Nature units were proving to be problematic in their original state because they are supposed to give the player a varied box of tools, but they cost energy to balance this. For example, Deep One: The ability to move player units into a camp and root them in place was immensely frustrating to play against, especially when multiple of these fellas were in one camp or attack wave. Swamp Drake also went through multiple iterations; first having the Sleep ability, then being like a Bandit Windhunter and lastly now only being a stat unit. 
 
Are there more units that act completely different compared to their card counterparts?
Of course, there are some units that differ quite a bit from their card version, either because of balance or because of how some card abilities would be wasted on the AI. Some examples include the Timeshifter Spirit which does not have his anti-magic field but can instead
 
While adding the Fire faction, we had the challenge of a faction that does not really have access to CC, resulting in a more glass cannon approach for the faction. Did you have a specific theme in mind for the Nature faction?
So I knew that the core of the nature faction would be healing and crowd control. But I also wanted to let the Root Network shine a bit. Then there were the more problematic things like Parasite Swarm, Mind Weaver and Mind Control, which we played around with for a while. However, it was simply not fun to play against enemies that took away too many of your units, even though it made for some hilarious scenarios, in which first timers got half of their army stolen, the other half eliminated and then after regaining control, also losing the other half.
 
So a focus on mindcontrol did not work out, were you able to find alternatives?
I think the mix of paralyze and root the faction now has, while also using the root network to some extent, will provide a unique experience.
 
What about buildings, can you tell us something about those?
Nature buildings were in a weird spot, some were completely overpowered against some frequent player strategies like early Strangleholds, while others were quite underwhelming like the Primal Defender. Because AI units only root while in combat, they are unable to provide support, and buildings that depend on the root network may fluctuate greatly in difficulty based on the amount of support a camp can generate. In the end, buildings are one thing that I did not want the focus to be on, so they are maybe even a little boring compared to the units.
 
What would you say is unique about facing the Nature faction, compared to the other factions?
Nature introduces a completly new mechanic which amps up their late game and can thus break the mold of later camps feeling all the same.
 
You mentioned our brave map testers, can you tell us something about balancing?
I think we almost exclusively had to nerf units after their initial inception, which were mostly just a carbon copy of the player card with their abilities set to automatically be used. Which really goes to show how strong crowd control and healing in a faction can be, even if they have only slightly above average damage. As mentioned before, we had to nerf quite a bit before we could actually win a match on difficulty 9 with quite experienced players and exclusive S-tier decks. Through playing a lot we found the parts that were annoying or outright destroying the flow, which we then tried to smooth out.
 
How difficult do you think rPvE is compared to the other factions?
I was aiming for this faction to be around the difficulty level of Twilight due to the depths of the mechanics that Nature uses. You will have to focus targets or their healing will overwhelm you while you are paralyzed, but there is room for outplaying that.
 
What was the thing you enjoyed most about designing the faction?
Designing the boss units was very enjoyable, as it had been the case for Fire. I also had a lot of fun just looking at camps and watching their mechanics interact with each other.
 
What was the biggest challenge while developing the faction?
A big challenge was to make units distinct, by which I mean to give each unit traits by which each player could gauge their threat level to their deck and playstyle. In the beginning, almost all units were tanky and had a lot of damage or had damage and some form of crowd control. We had to shift stats to make damage dealers less tanky, make crowd control units deal less damage and tanks have shorter range on their crowd control abilities.
 
Fire rPvE introduced some fun and fan favourite bosses. Will we see new boss units for Nature as well?
Yes, absolutely! The nature faction will ship with a set of nine new boss units. I really like how the low tier boss units based on the Burrower which is spitting acid all over the place and the Timeshifter Spirit which summons hordes of poisoned creepers turned out. But there are of course some threatening late game bosses.
 
Will we see rPvE Frost or Shadow next?
After working on rPvE for quite some time now, I really want to shift focus to campaign maps for a while, as that is also a huge part of the game that I and many others enjoy.
 
Is there anything else you'd like to share with our players?
Thank you for being so loyal to such an old game. I hope you enjoy this new faction once it is released and see you in the forge.
 


A big thanks to Hodron and our map testers for pouring so much love and time into the development of this new rPvE faction. We hope you look forward to facing them! 
 
• Easter Event Recap
We are glad to share our Easter Event was a huge success, with nearly 700 of you unlocking the new special Easter banner. Although the banner is no longer obtainable, you can still find the map in the Community Map section by searching for "The Easter Tree" if you wish to play it.
We hope you enjoyed all the effort that was put into the special map. While we always try to carefully balance our time investment into special events like this. We would love to hear some feedback. Would you like to see more events like the Easter and Halloween ones, where we modify a familiar map to suit the holiday theme?
We noticed that not many of you participated in the speedrun competition for the map, and we would like to know why. Your feedback is very valuable to us, so please leave us a message below.
 
• Event: Through Ice and Flames
While you are waiting for our new patch, be sure to check out the community event Through Ice and Flames. This event takes place on two great community maps, created by @Damo and @Hrdina_Imperia. Check out the trailer below, and go here for more information.
The event lasts till the 14th of May, though the maps will still be playable after. 

In between our monthly Community Updates, we host various events and tournaments, so be sure to keep a close eye on the in-game event tab and the forum calendar to stay informed and not miss out on any exciting events!

• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event yourself? Please reach out to our Event Organizers, @Metagross31, @Minashigo Hiko, or @nukie! We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. 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
Katchau has recently departed from the team. We greatly appreciate his contributions, especially his development of the search card in market feature. We wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

That being said, we are happy to announce three new community members formally joined our team last month!
We have a new developer in Piskr, who will start out with a focus on Client Development. He is currently working on improving the player right click menu, including a way to improve importing decks. 

Known in the community for his streams and beautiful artwork, Ultralord has joined the team as our first Video Editor.
Another well known community member with terrible luck in opening promo's from boosters, Volin, has joined the team to help us out with coordinating Map Testing. 
Volin and Ultralord also worked together to give us the Lost Souls overview video from last month.

Welcome everyone, and we are looking forward to your contributions! 
 
• Contribute
Interested in joining the team yourself? Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fuelled by the passion and dedication of over 30 volunteers. We are always on the lookout for like-minded individuals. If you have a passion for gaming, programming, design, or marketing, we invite you to take a look at our open positions!
 

 
• In Conclusion
That's all for this Community Update! We appreciate you taking the time to read through it.
As is tradition, we're including a scratch code as a small token of our appreciation for your support.
The code will reward you with a General booster: 19TH-MAYN-EXTP-ATCH
The code is valid until June 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update. 
We're always looking for ways to improve and value your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with us. We'll be back next month with more updates on our ongoing projects and upcoming features. You can also sign-up to our e-mail newsletter here. 

Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update April 2023

Happy new year, Skylords!
A new year; a new Community Update! It's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn!

• 2nd Anniversary Stream

The 18th of December marked the 2nd Anniversary of Skylords Reborn! Two years ago, after many years of internal development and open stress tests, BattleForge was playable once again. We are very grateful for all your continued enthusiasm and support! 
On the anniversary, we hosted a celebration stream. If you missed it, you can view it on our YouTube channel. We will also cover most of the announcements in this Community Update.
Please note: The Anniversary Card Creation Contest ends today. If you want to participate, do so now! 
 



• Upcoming Content Patch

Sadly, our upcoming Content Patch which was planned for December didn't make it in time. The combination of many things to review (including our new feature Cosmetics) and the busy holidays proved to be a bit too ambitious. 
Since the upcoming patch will break replays due to the many balance changes deployed alongside it, we know it's far from ideal for events to not have a set patch date. We are doing our best to release the patch as soon as possible in early January, but sadly can't lock in a concrete date yet.
Please keep an eye on the Discord and the forum for more information in the coming days. 


• Upcoming Feature: Cosmetics

For our first anniversary patch, we had Reforging as our big new feature, focusing on improving the economy. 
For our second anniversary, Cosmetics will be introduced as a way to provide more challenges and collectibles. 
Players will be able to collect new borders, banners and titles, further customizing their experience. Here is a look at the new borders:  
 

 
Borders are the part of your profile that surround your character portrait. With the patch release, there will be two borders to choose from for each of the different elements/factions in the game. The first border is a simple but clean colour scheme, where the second level expands on the theme of the faction a bit more, like more vines for Nature or infestation for Twilight. 
Borders can be combined with Banners, here is an example: 
 

 
Banners, borders, and profile pictures can be freely combined to make unique combinations. There will also be new titles to unlock. An example of a title can be seen in the picture, above the name, in this case "Game Master". 
Your cosmetics will show up in the lobby, and when hovering over players in the chat list.   
 

 
Those new banners, borders, titles (and a few new profile pictures), are tied to new Achievements, which provide a variety of new challenges. Some will be rewarded simply by playing games with your favourite action, while others might ask you to complete the campaign using only cards from the Twilight Edition. 
We hope you are looking forward to a bunch of new challenges to explore, and new bling to show off! 
 
• Upcoming New Promo: Worldbreaker Gun

While our new cards Sanctuary and Raven Walker had already been announced in previous Community Updates, we had one more surprise in store in our stream: our next promo card and the first promo building: Worldbreaker Gun! 

In this year's feedback survey, people let us know loud and clear they would like to see buildings get the promo treatment. The newly buffed Worldbreaker Gun felt like the perfect candidate for being the very first promo building. 

You will be able to unlock this new promo by completing the upcoming achievement Urban Planner.

-- Please note: this achievement is not yet live! --
Urban Planner
Win the 2-player scenario The Sunbridge and the 1-player scenarios Mo and Ocean on expert difficulty, with all players in your team playing only building and spell cards
-- Please note: this achievement is not yet live! --
As with Mana Wing Promo, the promo will not drop from boosters, but will be tradeable. If you don't want to do the challenge yourself, you can buy the card on the market, or trade it with other players. 
 
• Advanced Filtering

We greatly expanded the search function in both the inventory and marketplace during the time of our first anniversary, which was probably overlooked by a lot of players in the new-patch-hype. Our developer Kubik wrote an in depth document about the way the new (and old) function worked, with handy shortcuts to find just the cards you need. 
But even the players who were aware of the new tools at their disposal, had a hard time remembering the search commands. Our UI designer Ult and Skylord of Honour Kapo worked together to provide a handy new ingame tooltip that should make searching for cards a lot easier for everyone. 
 

 
• Future Development Focus

We spend the last two years on improving and balancing many, many cards. We currently feel the balance of the game, while not perfect, is in the best place it has ever been. The campaign and rPvE are playable with every faction right now, and while PvE changes will continue, we intend a major pivot next patch cycle to map/game content with many of our balance developers and team members. 
This means we will put more focus on providing more map-based content, like our alternative Halloween map Spooky Encounters, the upcoming Nature rPvE faction, Defensive rPvE, tweaks to the difficulty levels of rPvE and new campaign maps. Basically, we want to focus on creating content that will lure back old players, and invite new ones in. 
This has proven challenging. While every player automatically has access to the map editor, map making is a long and patient process. We are very aware people are looking forward to new campaign maps, but their design is a huge undertaking, and due to the volunteer nature of the project, mapmakers don't always stick it out till the end. 
If you want to help out in the map department, please take a look at our open positions:
• Map Designer
• Map Developer
• Map Artist
We are also looking for an Audio Editor to help us with processing voice acting takes. Want to help out in another area? Check out our open positions.

 
• Tournaments / Events

Since Community Updates are posted on a monthly schedule, events might come and go in between them. Be sure to keep a close eye on the ingame event-tab and the forum calendar to not miss any events! 

• CLOSING SOON – Official Card Design Contest - UNTIL 01.01.2023 23:59 CET
A contest like this has often been suggested: create your own card! Entries will be judged by a jury of Designers and there are tiered prizes, including boosters and promos. Maybe your design will even make it into the game! Today is the last day to join: More information.

• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event yourself? Please reach out to our Event Organizer, Metagross! We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. 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.

• Newsletter

While we do our best to make it easy to follow Skylords Reborn by providing monthly news through these Community Updates, we are limited to the Forum and our Social Media channels to reach you. You can now sign up to our newsletter, which we will use to give you a heads-up about a new patch release or Community Update. Don't worry, we hate spam as much as you do and won't use your data in any other way. 

 If you provided your e-mail during our summer survey to stay up to date, you are automatically subscribed. 
 
• 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 General-booster: HAPP-YNEW-YEAR-2023

The code is valid until February 1st, 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 #30

Hello Skylords, Skyladies and other Skybeings.
Welcome to the seventh official PvE event!
It has been a while since the last official event, especially a multiplayer event, but we still hope you will have a lot of fun with this event!


Quick overview:

What kind of event will it be?

PvE - Advanced - Bad Harvest with a point system
For this challenge, we want to see you succeed in playing the map Bad Harvest, while accomplishing several goals of varying difficulty.
The more objectives your team accomplishes, the more points you get, which will lead to greater rewards!
Additionally, the teams with the highest number of points will receive some extra rewards.
But there is more! Similar to the beloved Crappy Community Contests, there will be something the entire community will work towards. Once the combined points of all submitted runs surpasses a certain threshold, the prizes for everyone will be increased.

So gather a team, polish your strategy and go for the Highscore!


How can I participate?

Everyone with an ingame account can participate in the event - there is no need to sign up separately.
You just have to send in your best replay, including the player names, the time of the replay and what objectives you accomplished. [Note: Your entry has to be a victory]
For example:
Low points:        A, C, D; Total:     700
Mid points:         K, L, P; Total:   1500
High points:              all; Total:   3800
Penalty points:          W; Total: -1000
Total points:                                5000

You can send in your replays until the 02.12.2022. 

Please note:
You are allowed to compete with multiple teams, but only your highest score will determine the rewards you win, meaning you can only get rewards for one submission. You are allowed to compete with a team of less than 4 people, or even alone.
You can find your replays here: Documents=>Battleforge=>replays


What are the objectives?

This event will have a point system: points will be rewarded by completing the following objectives. The goal is to get as many points as possible!
You don't have to complete them all, but of course you should aim for as many points as you can in a single run.
It is important, however, that your final score from objectives is greater than zero. Runs with a negative score do not qualify.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Low points:

A: Sharing is caring: 200p
Have at least two different players build the orbs and power wells next to the gold wagon. (One orb and 4 wells per player)
B: Preparing the Turkey: 200p (+100p if the unit used is a Beast-unit)
Fly 3 laps around the small peninsula below the first guild cannon using any flying unit. (See FAQ for a screenshot)
C: Saving the harvest: 200p
Don't let the gold chest next to the gold wagon get destroyed.
D: Saving the tractor: 300p
Don't let the gold wagon take any damage.
E: Fire Mastery: 300p
Have at least one player in your team play a pure fire deck.
F: Shadow Mastery: 300p
Have at least one player in your team play a pure shadow deck.
G: Frost Mastery: 300p
Have at least one player in your team play a pure frost deck.
H: Nature Mastery: 300p
Have at least one player in your team play a pure nature deck.
I: Make love, not war: 400p
Take out all the guild cannons on the map.
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Maximum low points:    2600
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Medium points:

J: Saving the farmers: 400p
Don't let any of the human defenders in-between the walls around the gold wagon die.
K: No grain left behind: 400p
Completely destroy all enemy walls.
L: Only pick the ripe ones: 400p
Do not kill any Bandit Master Healers.
M: Beware of the Tractor: 400p
Run over at least 5 squads of small units with a Thunder Wagon with activated RAMPAGE ability.
N: Getting the harvest home safely: 600p
Do not lose any of the prebuilt Defense Towers in the starting camp.
O: Don't step onto the fields: 700p
Have no player cross the wall in front of the top right Stonekin camp. (See FAQ for a screenshot)
P: Beyond the trodden path: 700p
Have no player cross the line above the camp with the second Stonekin lord. (See FAQ for a screenshot)
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Maximum medium points:    3600
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High points:

Q: Beware of ergot!: 800p
As a team, do not own more than 5 orbs and 15 power wells in the starting camp at the same time.
R: The real deal:  1000p
Play the map on Expert difficulty instead of advanced.
S: Keeping the barn open: 1000p
Do not build any walls.
T: Hurry, before the rain comes: 1000p
Destroy 12 bandit tents within 30 seconds.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maximum high points:    3800
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maximum Total points:    10000
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Penalty points:
U: Caring too much: -1000p
Have a player control three or more different monuments in the starting base at the same time.
V: That's not a ... tractor!:  -1000p
Play out Amii Monument.
W: Wait! This isn't the Harvest Festival!: -1000p
Play out Church of Negation.
X: Halloween is already over: -1000p
Play out Necrofury or Mutating Frenzy.
Y: Rounding up the crops: -1000p
Play out two or more overlapping instances of Aura of Corruption at the same time.
Z: Your time has not yet come: -1000p
Play out Santa Claus.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total penalty points:    -6000
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* Check the FAQ for clarifications.
Since those are a lot of objectives, we prepared a spreadsheet, which you can use to keep track of the objectives you want to complete and which player should complete them. You can find this spreadsheet here. Since this is a public spreadsheet, we recommend creating your own copy of it to not interfere with others.
Time Score:
There will also be points awarded for time. The faster you finish the map, the more points you will get with a maximum of 1500p.
There are no preset time windows that determine your time score, instead your time is compared to all entries.
This means that every second counts when it comes to your time score!
However, you can not lose any points by having a slow time. So it is up to you to decide whether you want to go for as many objectives as possible or if you want to leave some out in the hope of getting a better time.
You do not have to calculate the time score yourself, we will calculate the time score for every entry.
For a detailed explanation on how the time score is calculated, see the FAQ below.
 
FAQ     
In order to reduce confusion about the objectives, we have precompiled a list of questions you might have and answered them beforehand.
If you have any questions about one of the objectives, please check this FAQ first.
If your question is not yet answered in the FAQ, feel free to ask in this thread. That way it can be clarified and added to the FAQ.
Questions about specific objectives:
Calculation of the time score:






Sounds fun! What's the prize pool?

In contrast to past events, this event is less about how you fared in comparison to everyone else and more about how many points you collected overall. Thus, your reward will be directly based on your final score, including your time score. Note, that all rewards listed here are per player.
1000-2499 points: 100 BFP
2500-3749 points: 1 Mini Booster
3750-4999 points: 1 Mini Booster + 100 BFP
5000-5999 points: 1 General Booster
6000-6999 points: 2 General Boosters
7000-7999 points: 3 General Boosters
8000-8999 points: 5 General Boosters
9000-9999 points: 8 General Boosters
      10000+ points: 8 Boosters of your choice + 1 BFP per point beyond 10000
Additionally, the team with the highest total score will be rewarded a promo Harvester (1 per Player).
Furthermore, if the combined score (without time score) of all participating teams surpasses 75.000 points, all prizes will be increased by 50%!

How will the winners be presented?

This is yet to be determined. We will keep you updated about this.




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 a PM on the forum, or direct message via Discord (Metagross31#1103).
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, and 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
 

Welcome to the Official Halloween Event!

The Lost Souls have altered the timeline again - instead of encountering Twilight, Rogan Kayle finds himself facing very different horrors. Enjoy a spooky experience, celebrate Halloween and the release of the new card “Evil Eye” with us!    
 
Everything you need to know:
Map                 - Spooky Encounters (Community Map) Difficulty          - Expert Date                 - 28.10.2022 - 02.11.2022 Restrictions      - None Goals                - Win the map on Expert difficulty Prizes               - Either 1 Evil Eye (upcoming new card) or 1 Twilight Booster Replays            - Send through DM on Discord (Kapo#0116) or PM on the forum (@Kapo).
  Send in your replay, renamed to Halloween and your ingame name – for example: “Halloween_MyName.pmv” until the 2nd of November 2022, 23:59 CET. 

At the end of the event, we may make a compilation of interesting and/or funny replays/screenshots – by participating, you automatically agree to be included in that.

How To Play
Go to the Community Map section and select the Event map named Spooky Encounters / Gruselige Begegnungen / Rencontre avec les Perdus / Жуткие Стычки. Complete the map on expert and send me your replay.

How to access the map:
How to get your replay:

Prize pool
For this event, everybody will get a prize – you have a 50:50 chance to either get your hands on the upcoming new card Twilight Evil Eye or a Twilight Booster. There is no restriction on how many prizes we dish out, half of the players will get an Evil Eye, the others will receive the Booster, determined by a roll of the die. Please note that you can only enter once with one winning replay. Prizes will be sent out manually after the event ends. 
          

We are looking forward to your replays! If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.

Last but not least, a big shoutout to those who helped with this Event: @LEBOVIN, @Dallarian, @Majora, @R4bitF00t, @Metagross31, @CrazyCockerell, @SpiritAlpha and our map testers!


Best regards,
Skylords Reborn Team

Map Balance Changes

PvE Map Changes
Bad Harvest, Defending Hope, & The Soultree: Replaced player variant of Defense Tower with NPC variant.
All player variants of cards on campaign maps are being swapped out for NPC variants to prevent balance changes to player cards affecting the cards used by NPCs in campaign and random PVE maps. Crusade: Players should be able to fulfil the victory condition immediately now when both paths are cleared early.
Speedrunners can now compete for top times without having to wait a fixed period of time, therefore removing the existing set minimum time on Crusade. Defending Hope: Rogan will now also move if a player's building is in the vicinity.
This will allow the achievement "A City Strongly Compact" to be completed entirely with building cards.  Mo: Change blocking at the cliff next to the Command Walker to no longer allow units to walk through the cliff.
Raven's End: 2 Stonekin units; 1 in the center and 1 in the camp in the right side, are no longer assigned to the Bandits.
The Dwarven Riddle: The 2 inner monuments that were added in Patch 400033 will now be observable in the fog of war like the other inner monuments.
The Insane God: Replaced a Twilight Horror with a Twilight Devastator on expert difficulty at Position 1's Tier 3 location and added an additional Slaver to the camp on all difficulties. Replaced all 4 player variant Living Towers with a custom NPC variant. Increased script trigger range around temples to prevent the player from entering the center undetected. Player controlled Urzach's Seeker (transformed Priest) now have the Burrower Acid Spit active ability.
Slight change to The Insane God to continue to allow use of Nightguard on the map. The addition of a new Slaver to the camp ensures that Position 1's T3 remains similar in difficulty to capture as before for non-Nightguard or Parasite Swarm users. Fixed a bug that allowed a player to sneak into the center without triggering the defense conditions, as well as gave the transformed Priest of Urzach an active ability to make it more worthwhile to engage in the Priest mini-game for the player. The NPC version will not use the Acid Spit ability.  Titans: Replaced 3 Fathom Lords in the Northern camps of Position 4 with Custom Deep Ones (1650 damage, 1650 life points). Expert difficulty only.
Position 4 is one of the hardest positions on a multiplayer expert map and most players get through it by using Nightguards. This change allows the player to continue using Nightguards, but since Deep Ones are weaker than Fathom Lords, it will increase the difficulty of the map when using this strategy. At the same time, it will minorly decrease the difficulty of Position 4 for non-Nightguard strategies. 
Bugfixes
Emberstrike, Tempest, and Fire Worm now properly ignore the 50% damage reduction of dazed units, as their passives suggest. Amii Paladins and Amii Phantom no longer have the "human" class. They now properly only have the "Amii" class. The Tunneling ability of Burrower and Drones no longer grants paralyze immunity during the cast time of the ability. The overkill splash damage bug has been fixed on the following cards: Banzai Lord (p)'s Banzai Birds, Comet Catcher, Death Ray, Fire Dragon, Gemeye, Giant Wyrm, Skycatcher, Rifle Cultist's Dark Grenade, and Worldbreaker Gun. This should constitute a minor buff for each of these cards. Fixed several instances of Revenants' displayed damage being misaligned with the regular unit. Mountain Rowdy's Tainted Ice Block no longer affects flying units on U0-U2. Missing Twilight class was added to the Twilight bug summoned by Twilight Curse. Vulcan now specifies it can only target ground units. Fixed a bug, that caused newly uploaded maps to show an error message as their map name. Fixed a bug that allowed units to clip through terrain with buildings.  Fixed a bug that prevented the use of Twilight Transformation when switching to the other side in the Forge. Community maps should no longer claim to be 2-player maps when they are actually 1-player maps. 

Card Balance Changes

Global Balance Changes
Changes to PvE Unit Orb & Power Costs: more details can be found here: Changes to PvE Unit Orb & Power Costs
   - Additionally, the general mind control immunity on the PvE versions of Bandit Windhunter, Twilight Deathglider, and all Lost Souls units and buildings has been removed.
Each NPC unit in both campaign and random PvE maps has orb and power costs just like player units, which might come as a surprise to players used to using Nightguard and Parasite Swarm to takeover nearly any unit in the game. This is because there has been a longstanding bug, going back to the game's release, where units which are spawned in via map script did not have properly assigned orb and power costs. The original developers knew about this bug, but they do not appear to have known how to fix it. By the time Empire and the Lost Souls RPvE faction were added to the game, the original developers decided to add a universal immunity to mind control to the entire Lost Souls faction to prevent further abuses of the mind control mechanic. They also added total immunity to Windhunter and Death Glider.
The bug in question has now been fixed and as part of this fix we have gone through and updated the power and orb costs of every unit in the game. The goal of this rework was to create situations where mind control is still useful, and indeed powerful, while tampering down the current situation where mind control units, especially Nightguard, trivialize a map and thus become the universally proscribed solution to nearly any difficult situation. As part of these changes, we are also making several changes to current campaign maps, which we already started last patch with the changes to Nightmare Shard, Nightmare's End, and Behind Enemy Lines. All map changes can be found in the Map Balance Changes section in the next post.
S-unit population count: decreased from 6 ➜ 4
Total root network support cap: 10 maximum support within a network ➜ infinite amount of support possible
Twilight Transformation duration: decreased from 2 seconds ➜ 1.2 seconds
Increased turn speeds of several units: 
   - Gladiatrix, Ice Guardian, Knight of Chaos, Lightblade, Mauler, Mountain Rowdy, Rogan Kayle, Shadow Insect, Slaver, Treespirit, Viridya's Treespirit, Twilight Brute, Warlock, and Wrecker.
Lost Spellbreaker (NPC Unit): 
   - No longer casts Disenchant on-hit, still makes affected units immune to further buffs.
   - Now makes affected units unable to use their special abilities.
Lost Spellbreaker has been a perpetual headache for us as a balance team because she hard counters some factions while barely affecting others. Every single mechanic we add to the game must face the question of how it interacts with Spellbreaker. If Spellbreaker does remove it, the question then becomes if that faction can still function, particularly against the already difficult Lost Souls faction. At the same time, we want to keep Spellbreaker as a major debuff unit. As such, we decided to remove Spellbreaker's Disenchant ability while leaving the immunity to further buffs and adding on an ability silence. This change should allow players to preemptively apply buffs to their units as a way to counter Lost Spellbreaker. Our hope is that Lost Spellbreaker will remain an annoyance and a priority target, without single-handedly countering entire deck archetypes. 
Hybrid Orb requirements have been added: A Hybrid Orb allows you to meet its requirements with one of its two colors. For example, a  card can be played with either  or . Hybrid Orbs can be found on our Twilight Slayers, Twilight Hag, Treefiend, Nightshade Plant and Deepfang. 

PvE Balance Changes
While changes are split here between PvE and PvP sections, many of the changes, such as Deep One, Nightshade Plant, and Twilight Creeper, 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 ]
 Decomposer:
   - Now only works on own units
Decomposer has been a controversial card for a long time. When usable on friendly units, Decomposer allows players to transfer power between themselves. Practically speaking, this means that Decomposer turns previously multiplayer maps into effectively single-player maps, where one player can gain power far in excess of what should be possible at a given time, even if all Power Wells were given to one player. For this reason, it is a mainstay of speedruns and goldfarming alike, to the point of choking out other potential strategies. Decomposer also stands in direct violation of our fundamental design principle that power should only be generated via Power Wells. While violations of design principles are possible to justify via card restrictions such as high power cost, tier, or orb restrictions, the power generation principle is the most fundamental of all principles and Decomposer is able to violate it as a Tier 1 Shadow card. 
There is an additional consideration which is often forgotten in discussions on this topic, and that is the experience of the player feeding the Decomposer, usually called a "feeder." While there can be no doubt that many Decomposer-based speedruns, including the existing record on Bad Harvest, are matters of strategic brilliance in terms of planning, the same is not true in terms of execution for the majority of the players in the speedrun. While feeders do contribute in a minor sense, the runner does the overwhelming majority of the actions in the run and it truly succeeds or fails based on the skill of the runner. In more casual settings, this often becomes even worse, with the feeder doing close to nothing. Decomposer transforms the feeder from a teammate into little more than a spectator. The feeder is a mere battery powering the runner, a resource to be used instead of a person with whom you play alongside. Feeding makes for a gameplay experience where teammates give up almost all of their agency. It is not engaging, and we should not be creating a situation where the player must chose between efficiency and an engaging experience. 
The continuing preservation of this kind of gameplay has done great harm to new player retention. For that reason alone we should have made this change a long time ago. In fact, we have planned this change for nearly 18 months, yet have repeatedly delayed it in hopes of releasing a Decomposer-like mode simultaneously with the nerf for players who enjoy the mechanic and who wish to opt-in, even without rewards. This optional Map Modifiers game mode is something we are still desirous of completing eventually, but as we announced in Community Update #25, without further developers we can only commit to releasing card balancing changes for the foreseeable future. Given the many factors surrounding Decomposer and the strong negative impact it creates on the game experience of many players, we have decided to finally go through and change the card to no longer allow it to transfer power between players. 
[ Tier 2 ]
 Parasite Swarm:
   - Takeover limit: 150 power cost ➜ maximum of 175 power cost
Allows us to make some units able to be transformed by Twilight Curse and taken over by Parasite Swarm, while remaining out of reach of Nightguard.
[ Tier 3 ]
 Corsair:
   - Inspirational Call: deal 50% more damage ➜ 60% more damage
Corsair was previously changed to work not just on human units, but all Bandit units. This helped a lot, but the card itself as well as Bandit's T3 is still somewhat lacking. We are giving a slight boost to its aura to help encourage more Bandit-based unit compositions. 
 Frenetic Assault:
   - General Changes: 
      - Power cost: 80 ➜ 90p
      - Initial Amok effect duration: 20s ➜ 15s
   - Frenetic is now a two-stage effect:
      - Stage 1: Bewitches the targeted hostile target attracting the aggression of up to 7 of its allied units within a 20m radius for 15 seconds.
      - Stage 2: If the target dies within 10 seconds, up to 10 of its allied units within a 20m radius are bewitched for 10 seconds.
   - Affinity swap: Gifted Aggression (g) ➜ Infused Aggression (r)
      - Infused Aggression(r): No longer slows or prevents healing, change description to clarify it can be used on buildings and units. 
Frenetic Assault is potentially the strongest card in the game. It is also the strongest crowd control spell, has no downside, and has no death effect. While not necessarily wrong, it is a bit odd for such a card to exist in Shadow. All in all, it is more a Bandit card than a Shadow card. We as a balance team have endeavored to nerf the card from an S+ tier to an A tier card, while also giving it mechanics to make it feel like a Shadow card. 
Frenetic now has two stages. The first stage affects 7 targets for 15 seconds. The second stage, which triggers off the death of the initial target within 10 seconds, affects 10 targets for 10 seconds. This gives Frenetic a total possible duration of 20 seconds if used perfectly with up to 17 total affected enemies. It should remain one of the strongest spells in the game, without being so good as to single-handedly carry entire archetypes. 
 Healing Gardens:
   - Ritual of Recovery duration: 30 seconds ➜ 45 seconds
Healing Gardens' increased rejuvenation effect is strong, but its short duration requires two Gardens to be built simultaneously. This can significantly slow down deck archetypes dependent on the effect, so we are increasing Ritual of Recovery's duration to allow the player to utilize just one instance of Healing Gardens with the downside of a slight effect downtime. Additionally, the lack of regular activation is a common problem among all active global effects in casual play. This should help to alleviate that problem by making it so that when the effect is actually activated, it stays up for longer. 
 Ice Age:
   - Now allows multiple instances of the spell to be active at the same time.
Ice Age previously had anti-synergy with itself, such that multiple Pure Frost players could not cast it simultaneously. Given that this is not an issue with healing sustain options, we decided to remove this restriction.
 Sandstorm:
   - Power cost: 160p ➜ 140p
   - Ability radius: 10m ➜ 12m
We previously gave Sandstorm two large buffs, a 70p cost reduction and the addition of L-knockback on the blue affinity. Even with these changes, Sandstorm remains an uncompelling option. As such, we are further reducing the power to 140p while increasing the radius of the tornado, which should allow the player to more easily crowd control priority targets. 
 Twilight Creeper:
   - Tainted / Infused Spit, total targets: 3 ➜ 8
   - Infused Spit(r) debuff: 30% less damage ➜ 40% less damage
Small buff to Twilight Creeper's debuff and a large buff to total target count, allowing Creeper to debuff substantially more enemies in a camp.
 Wrathgazer:
   - Disintegrating Gaze: May only disintegrate units ➜ May only disintegrate units and buildings.
   - Pain Link: 100% damage distributed ➜ 50% damage distributed.
Wrathgazer's Pain Link distributes damage before Resilient is applied. This means that as-is, 100% of damage is done to surrounding units and 50% also to Wrathgazer (assuming non-piercing damage). The total damage is thus multiplied by 50% assuming there are any allies in range. With the changed numbers, 50% of damage is now done to Wrathgazer and 50% to surrounding units. This should make Wrathgazer usable in an army without being an active detriment. Additionally, only being able to target units severely restricts Wrathgazer's usability. To remedy this, we are adding the ability to disintegrate buildings as well, allowing Wrathgazer to be more useful offensively. Note, this change does not allow wall segments, Power Wells, or Monuments to be disintegrated. Wrathgazer will also be unable to disintegrate spawn buildings, as this causes a bug where the spawn building, despite being destroyed, begins phantom spawning waves of enemies. 
[ Tier 4 ]
 Altar of Chaos:
   - Enable overkill splash damage bug fix. 
   - Mass Destruction Nether Bomb life points: 4000 ➜ 4500
Nether Bomb will no longer lose damage when overkilling enemies, constituting a minor buff for unfed bombs and a major buff for fed bombs. Additionally, the small increase in bomb life points is intended to synergize with Lost Spirit Ship's recycle ability. One bomb will now provide enough life points for 3 Lost Spirit Ship Crystals. 
 Batariel:
   - Damage: 4400 ➜ 5600
   - Purgatory's damage is no longer affected by damage modifiers, including buffs on Batariel itself and debuffs on enemies. 
   - Stage 1 Activation Threshold: 1000(r) and 1250(p) ➜ 1200 damage (both affinities)
   - Damage/Effect per Stage Batariel (p):
      (a) Stage 1: 100 dmg ➜ 100 dmg + 25% increased enemy damage taken
      (b) Stage 2: 100dmg + 35% increased damage taken ➜ 100dmg + 50% increased enemy damage taken
      (c) Stage 3: 100dmg + 75% increased damage taken ➜ 100dmg + 100% increased enemy damage taken
   - Squad damage: Only damages a squad once instead of each member individually.
   - Gates of Hell power cost: 150p ➜ 120p
It would be uncontroversial to say that Batariel and the deck that surrounds it is the strongest deck in the game. The question has never been the strength of Batariel, but what to do with it. Some do not want it changed at all. Among those in favor of nerfs, many people have suggested nerfing Batariel itself, others Enlightenment, others Frenetic Assault, still others Unholy Hero as the main source of the problem to bring Batariel from S++ tier to closer to S or A+ tier. After much discussion among all segments of the playerbase, and especially with some of the game's top players, we have come to the determination that we cannot successfully balance Batariel unless we also nerf Unholy Hero or at least decouple it from Batariel. At the same time, we cannot directly nerf Unholy Hero without affecting a large portion of decks that are otherwise balanced. Frenetic Assault, while very powerful in combination with Batariel, is also overpowered in its own right. In the end, we have settled on nerfing both Batariel and Frenetic Assault while decoupling it from Unholy Hero.
Batariel's damage aura no longer benefits from any buffs on Batariel or debuffs on enemies, including Batariel(p)'s own armor shredding aura. With this drastic step taken, we have also increased Batariel's base damage significantly, along with adjustments to its stage 1 activation threshold. Batariel can now activate stage 1 in 2 attacks against XL-units and in 3 attacks against non-XL units. A Batariel buffed with Unholy Hero can now also one-shot a small spawn building, while the base damage buff helps Batariel substantially when fighting bosses. The cost reduction to Gates of Hell allows the player to quickly and efficiently activate Batariel's stage 3 in a single ability. Overall, our tests have shown that while Batariel is slower than before, the Enlightenment-Batariel deck remains intact as a top tier deck for both skilled and casual play. 
The bigger issue in balancing Batariel came from the purple affinity regularly used in Pure Fire decks. In the current meta, Pure Fire typically uses a mix of both affinities, with the purple affinity amplifying the already substantial damage of the red affinity to even greater heights. With the changes to Batariel's aura, this damage amplification is no longer possible. As such, we had to get creative in keeping the Pure Fire deck viable. Alongside these changes, we have also buffed other Fire cards such as Bloodthirst, Magma Fiend, and Fire Sphere. The changes to Bloodthirst help make a Batariel(p) + Fire Dragon deck much more viable and significantly more durable. We increased the synergy between Batariel and Fire Dragon by making the purple affinity increase the damage taken by enemies even further. When Batariel(p) and Fire Dragons are both fully enraged with Bloodthirst, Fire Dragons deal 30,000 damage per 20 seconds. We also increased the speed of Magma Fiend to open up the option of using it with other Fire cards. Finally, the changes to Fire Sphere have proven much more substantial than initially anticipated. A perfectly executed Fire Sphere (remember it has a 10 second wind-up period) that combos with a stage 3 Batariel(p) can one shot an entire camp. All in all, while Pure Fire will prove to be much different after the changes, it increasingly has a playstyle that feels all its own.
 Bloodthirst:
   - Power cost: 160p ➜ 140p
   - Unit count: 7 total targets ➜ 8 total targets
   - Duration: 20 seconds ➜ 25 seconds
   - Healing: 175 life points per second ➜ 200 life points per second
   - Damage buff: 20% more damage ➜ 40% more damage
Our initial testing for the last round of changes showed Bloodthirst far overperforming its intended power level. Unfortunately, the new Bloodthirst received a double nerf upon release when we not only reduced its healing, but we also removed its ability to heal stack. Since then, it has performed below what is appropriate for a card of its requirements and its weak state is keeping Fire archetypes from achieving their true potential. We have buffed up nearly all aspects of the spell.
 Cluster Explosion(p)
   - Initial radius: 20m ➜ 25m
Equalizing initial radii of both affinities to be 25m.
 Coat of Protection(b)
   - Increased Ice Shield total cap, which can be strengthened to absorb from to 2500 damage ➜ 3000.
The purple affinity of Coat of Protection has by and large been the better of the two affinities. Additionally, the current cap makes using the blue affinity of Ice Age with the blue affinity of CoP quite inefficient. This change rectifies that issue.
 Fire Sphere
   - Damage maximum: 8000 ➜ 10000 in total
   - Spell radius: 15m ➜ 25m (visual FX already appeared to be 25m)
   - Knockback: Small, medium, and large units ➜ Knocks back all unit sizes in the area (regardless of whether they are damaged or not).
Fire Sphere is not a good card. It also lacks identity due to how good its competitors are in its own faction. While thinking about the card, we realized it could keep its boss killing identity while providing 3 Fire+ decks with a thematically appropriate CC effect in knock back. By changing the way its knock back applies and increasing its effect radius to match its existing visual effect, we allow the Fire player to potentially knock back an entire camp. The changes to its splash damage last patch also mean that it no longer loses damage when overkilling an enemy. Our tests have found that a perfectly timed Fire Sphere combined with a fully enraged Batariel give Pure Fire the ability to fully wipe camps in both RPvE 9+ and expert campaign maps. 
 Fire Worm:   
   - Power cost: 210p ➜ 200p
   - Charges: 4 ➜ 8
   - Attack range: 30m ➜ 40m
Fire Worm is not a bad card per se, but it lacks a firm identity and a reason to choose it over other options. Its stats are also not great, having only 2640 life points, lower than several T3 units, with a real attack value of only 4000 despite its claim to deal 4800 damage. Thinking about Fire Worm more, we have decided to move it into the role of a disposable sniper unit. The longer range helps it to survive longer and pick out priority targets without placing itself in danger. Fire Worm will be the first and only XL-unit to have 8 charges. This, along with the lower cost, will allow the player to spam them out quickly, allowing them to function as skirmisher like units without having to fear losing a precious charge on an XL-unit. 
 Grove Spirit:   
   - Healing Song healing capacity: 5000 life points ➜ 5500 life points
Minor correction to allow Grove Spirit to actually heal as much as she claims. 
 Ice Tornado:   
   - Power cost: 145p ➜ 140p
 Jorne:   
   - Wrecking Hammer radius: 20m ➜ 25m
   - Wrecking Hammer damage total: 6600 in total ➜ 8800 in total
Minor buff to Jorne and the accompanying legendary deck. This should make Jorne's anti-building ability easier to hit on multiple targets and more worth the power investment.
 Lifestream: 
   - Life Link: 20% of absorbed damage transferred ➜ 30% of absorbed damage transferred
After the recent buffs, Lifestream is in a good place but is slightly too strong. We as a team do not want to encourage strategies which can functionally create invincible armies, particularly not in a faction with already strong sustain options. As such, we are slightly toning down Lifestream by making it take more damage. This should make the downside real, with the possibility of killing the Lifestream if the player does not pay close enough attention.
 Lost Dragon: 
   - Damage: 335, up to 502 in total (3000 dp20) ➜ 416, up to 624 total (3715 dp20)
   - Life points: 3780 ➜ 4080
Lost Dragon card is very weak for its requirements, even with its very strong passive debuffs. Given it is a support unit, we considered placing more of its power budget into its debuff effects, but after consideration determined that the current debuffs are already sufficiently strong and well-designed. Lost Dragons stats are just too low. As such, we decided on a ~23% damage buff and ~8% life point buff. We wanted to preserve the existing trait of Lost Souls units, where life points are generally higher than damage. 
 Magma Fiend: 
   - Burning Liquid cost: 100p ➜ 50p
   - Movement Speed: 4.8 m/s (run) + 2.4 m/s (walk) ➜ 6.4 m/s (run) + 4.8 m/s (walk)
Burning Liquids is a decent ability, but like many abilities in the game it is overpriced. We are reducing its cost to align the price more closely with the effect produced. Additionally, we are increasing Magma Fiend's movement speed from slow to normal XL. We think that slow speeds should fit the unit in terms of balance, theme, or both. In the case of Magma Fiend, there is neither a thematic nor a balance reason for its currently slow speed, so we changed it.
 Noxious Cloud: 
   - Power cost: 250p ➜ 230p
   - Initial damage: 13 (3750 total) ➜ 24 damage every second (5640 total)
   - Time between damage increase: 2 seconds ➜ 3 seconds
Noxious Cloud is one of the most expensive spells in the game. While theoretically having a large potential total damage of 37,500, this rarely occurs as it requires all 10 initial targets to both live for the full duration and to remain inside the area for 37 seconds in total. In practice, even the Tier 3 Thunderstorm is usually better. Even in perfect situations, Noxious Cloud is heavily outcompeted by rival options such as Plague and Cluster Explosion. We wanted to buff Noxious Cloud without turning it into a copy of these other spells. As such, it continues to only affect units and we kept the total spell duration at 37 seconds. This is similar to the other Nature damage spell, such as Thunderstorm and Parasite, which have long durations and are only capable of damaging units. The new Noxious Cloud should kill most XL-units that remain within its effect for the full duration, while also cleaning up more S and M-units units due to its higher base damage. It also remains expensive, as Nature's faction identity is centered around unit-based damage, not damage dealing spells. 
 Plague: 
   - Power cost: 150p ➜ 170p
   - Parasite duration: 15 seconds ➜ 10 seconds
Despite toning down the new Plague before release, it remains one of the strongest spells in the game and is capable of single-handedly clearing camps, any respawns, and even bosses. We have decided to increase its cost to reduce power efficiency and reduce parasite duration. This reduces each parasite's single-target damage from 1500 to 1000, while making it harder to proc the secondary parasites due to reduced duration. The reduced duration also nerfs the powerful non-immunity applying ranged silence. Overall, this should mean Plague is no longer a cast and forget spell; players will need to encourage the initial parasites to proc themselves if they want to make get full use out of the spell. 
 Primeval Watcher:
   - Orb cost: 2 Nature, 2 Neutral ➜ 3 Nature, 1 Neutral
   - Damage: 600 / 288 / 192 / 127 / 84 (6550 dp20) ➜  660 / 330 / 220 / 165 / 132 (7220 dp20)
   - Life points: 4650 ➜ 4850
   - Stasis Field:
      - Targets: 7 enemies ➜ 9 enemies
      - Ability cost: 0p ➜ 25p
   - New passive, "Siege": Deals 50% more damage against structures.
Primeval Watcher is Pure Nature's primarily damage dealer. As such, Pure Nature's viability as an army-centric faction rises and falls based on Primeval's performance. We have wanted to increase Primeval's stats, but its current orb requirements limited our options as it would have mainly buffed Primeval Watcher in non-Pure Nature decks. Due to this, we have decided to increase its orb requirements to 3 Nature orbs to make room for more substantial stat buffs. Additionally, given that Primeval Watcher is one of Nature's only ways to kill buildings, particularly in the back of a camp, we have given it Siege to aid in this role.
 Skycatcher:
   - Damage 520, up to 780 in total (4660 dp20) ➜ 600, up to 800 in total (5000 dp20)
   - Fixed bug where killing the initial unit would reduce all splash damage to 0.
   - Twilight Infection power cost: 50p ➜ 0p
   - Twilight Infection cooldown: 20 sec ➜ 3 sec
Slight buff to Skycatcher to allow it to better perform its role as a backline attacker. The changes to Twilight Infection will allow Skycatcher to quickly transform a T2 or T3 army into a T4 army. 
 Transcendence:
   - Radius: 25m ➜ 30m
   - Kenosis, healing buff: 50% ➜ 75% more healing
   - Tyranny:
      - Healing debuff: 50% ➜ 75% less healing
      - Damage debuff: 25% ➜ 40% less damage
We are happy with Transcendence in concept but not in practice. The stats it released with have proven too low for it to be a compelling option in decks that might otherwise want to make use of it. We are buffing up its buffs and debuffs and increasing its radius to make it easier to use in chaotic T4 fights.
[ Tower Changes ]
It is the general principle of the faction design team not to change abilities or introduce complex mechanics needlessly. Cards should generally perform a single function and perform that function well. A lot of the buildings in the game are already well-designed but lack sufficient stats or possess too strict of requirements. As such, we have opted wherever possible to introduce simple changes to bring the tower to the appropriate power level. If you would like to learn more about our thought process behind the tower changes, please head to Skylords Reborn Documents to read our design Deep Dive on Towers, as well as other design documents. 
 Artillery:
   - Orb requirements: 2 Fire, 2 Shadow ➜ 1 Fire, 1 Shadow, 2 Neutral
   - Power cost: 190p ➜ 150p
 Deepgorge:
   - Power cost: 225p ➜ 200p
   - Damage: 480, up to 720 in total (3000 dp20) ➜ 675, up to 1015 in total (3760 dp20)
   - Cold Clutch freeze radius: 20m ➜ 25m
 Frost Crystal:
   - Power cost: 70p ➜ 60p
   - Damage: 72, up to 110 in total (728 dp20) ➜ 92, up to 138 in total (920 dp20)
   - Frost Wave freeze radius: 20m ➜ 25m
 Hammerfall:
   - Power cost: 150p ➜ 130p
Hatecaster:
   - Orb costs: 2 Fire, 2 Nature ➜ 1 Fire, 1 Nature, 2 Neutral
 Howling Shrine:
   - Life points: 3160 ➜ 4260
   - Linked Fire support: 1 support ➜ 4 support provided while out of combat
 Living Tower:
   - Splash radius: 5m ➜ 10m
 Mindweaver:
   - Splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
   - Damage: 250, up to 375 in total (1900 dp20) ➜ 290, up to 435 in total (2200 dp20)
 Necroblaster:
   - Splash radius: 10m ➜ 12m
   - Corpse cost per shot: 500 life points ➜ 825 life points
   - Maximum corpses storable: 4500 ➜ 6600 life points
   - Corpse gathering radius: 33m ➜ 40m
 Primal Defender:
   - Cloudstrike damage: 220 ➜ 225 per hit
 Rioter's Retreat,
   - Splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
 Stone Hurler,
   - Splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
 Time Vortex: 
   - Life points: 2820 ➜ 1830
   - Splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
 Tower of Flames:
   - Damage: 216, up to 324 in total (2160 dp20) ➜ 266, up to 399 in total (2660 dp20)
   - Splash Radius: 5m ➜ 10m
Twilight Bombard:
   - Splash radius: 10m ➜ 15m
Volcano:
   - Orb cost: 3 Fire, 1 Neutral ➜ 2 Fire, 2 Neutral
   - Gifted Eruption(g):
      - Self regeneration: 150 ➜ 200 life points per second
      - Regeneration duration: 5 sec ➜ 10 sec
[ Miscellaneous Changes ]
 - Mind controlled units can no longer be targeted by revive effects.
 - NoClaim and NoCardPlay have been removed from the effects list of The Incredible Mo and Dryad(g) as neither are debuffs nor weakening effects. This means that these two cards will no longer prevent the removal of ground presence or the removal of the ability to claim walls, Power Wells, and Monuments. 
 - The temporary immunity to revive effects on units recently resurrected by Promise of Life is now displayed as an effect. 
 - Viridya / Ravenheart: Now spawn summoned units one at a time, no longer requiring the player to kill one unit to spawn a third unit.
 - Changed several more units with unbound power costs to show 0 power as the power cost when hovering over them in-game.
 - The following units have had their class changed from Beast to Primordial: Deepcoil Worm, Deep One, Fathom Lord, Fire Worm, Magma Fiend, Shadow Worm, and Twilight Horror
 - The ability "Accelerated Construction" has been renamed to "Fast Construction" to conserve space on cards.
 - Added visual effect for Dying Breed on air units.
 - Magma Spore now properly shows it is Swift.
 - Portal Nexus's Explosive Death now has a range preview when hovered over. 
 - Viridya and promo Viridya's Treespirits have been renamed to Viridya's Treespirits.
 - The Bandit random PvE boss Equestrian Twins debuff duration has been decreased from infinite to 30 seconds.

PvP Balance Changes
 [ New Card Design Spotlight  - Twilight Crawler ]
Twilight Crawlers will be a new addition to Twilight decks in T2 and widen the pool of potential transformation targets. They will be a Twilight oriented replacement for Scythe Fiends with the upsides of lower costs and an increased durability against ranged units and spells, creating synergy with healing effects like Ravage. Their transformation ability grants a faster animation, leading to a lowered risk of getting interrupted in PvP scenarios. With fast movement, they will add more versatility to the Fire Nature T2 and even more so when opting for a Twilight unit deck.
 [ New Card Design Spotlight  - Tranquility ]
We are happy to add a second spell to the Amii faction. Tranquility was designed as a flexible T2 support spell, emphasizing Amii's current PvP identity with a strong early game oriented around low energy trading. As the majority of units accessible by Shadow Nature are very cheap, the existing single target buffs from shadow splashes exceed the unit cost, makes buffing units less efficient compared to playing a second unit most of the time. The Foreboding Whispers effect should add more counterplay when facing buffed single units, which opt into focusing down Power Wells. Beside Nightguard, who has been nerfed recently, Amii lacks direct counters for L/XL units, making them slow to take down key targets. As the spell scales fairly well into higher tiers, it might also see play in late game battles, as well as PvE scenarios.
[ Twilight Rework ]
 Twilight Transformation:
The Twilight Transformation mechanic has been perceived as disappointing by most of our players. The existing aura effects were not cost efficient, and the upside of creating strong units with reduced bound power was overshadowed by Breeding Grounds. On top of that, the transformation mechanic was very clunky. A two second channel time made it difficult to use the ability in the midst of battle. A unit would risk taking a large chunk of unnecessary damage during channel time, or even have its transformation canceled by crowd control. As we have wanted to buff Twilight Transformation effects across the board, the clunky nature of this ability needed to be addressed first. To achieve this goal, we reduced the channel time of all Twilight Transformations. To address the issue of weak transformation effects, we will buff up existing ones while also adding several new mechanics, rewarding players for engaging in smart transformations. We intend to keep working on the Twilight archetype into the future, including focusing on more PvE centric changes following the same design approach seen here. This should ideally solidify the transformation ability as a powerful mechanic and make Twilight as a faction more rewarding and fun to play overall.
 Slaver:
   - Power cost: 75p ➜ 70p
   - Blowout:
      - Now also damages air units
      - Now also triggers after transformation
   -. Infused Blowout(r):
      - Max damage: 450 ➜ 900 total damage
      - Now knocks back S-units
   - Tainted Blowout(p):
      - Max damage: 350 ➜ 810 total damage
      - Now knocks back S and M-units
Slaver was outclassed by other L-counter options in Fire Nature decks. As we want to allow more options for Twilight oriented decks, the high slot investment for its various units needs to offer more value in return. With the listed changes, we want to allow Slaver to compete with other L-counter options and also add more room for creative usage of the blowout ability. Channeling a transformation or killing the unit by yourself to get extra burst damage in critical situations should create interesting gameplay options, especially since it has an in-built L-counter bonus that gets applied even after the unit dies.
 Twilight Brute:
   - New passive, "Bloodlust": If the unit is transformed, it will incite friendly units within a 20m radius to restore 25% of their damage dealt as life points. Lasts for 20 seconds.
Based on its stats, Twilight Brute has been a viable option to Fire Nature decks in the past. Its playrate was strictly limited due to deck slot issues though, as the unit was good at defending against key units like Bandit Stalker or Scythe Fiends, but didn’t add much pressure during counter-attacks compared to other M counter options like Skyfire Drake. To raise the incentive of playing him in Twilight decks, we will add a new Transformation effect, that can enable strong counterattacks after a successful defense. We will keep an eye on him to see if he can find his place in Twilight decks moving forward. We might also adjust his Burstout ability in the near future, which was not touched this patch cycle for workload reasons.
 Twilight Minions:
   - Gifted / Infused Incentive radius: 20m ➜ 25m
   - Gifted Incentive(g): Now also affects Fire and Nature units
   - Infused Incentive(r) damage buff: 50% ➜ 65%  
Twilight Minions fill the role of a main M-counter regardless of whether you want to pursue the current Fire Nature style or move towards a Twilight oriented deck. We want to make sure the transformations are a little more useful for both of these decks.
 Vileblood:
   - Gifted / Infused Liquids, radius: 15m ➜ 18m
   - Gifted Liquids(g) healing: 200 ➜ 250 life points per wave
   - Infused Liquids(r):
      - Damage: 100, up to 330 in total ➜ 130, up to 520 in total
      - Now knocks back S and M-unit
      - No longer damages structures
We are buffing the Vileblood transformation towards unit damage instead of cheesing for a guaranteed 600 damage on power wells. With the newly added knockback, it should be fairly useful to punish stacked melee counter units. Also buffing the green affinity a little bit to keep up in value.
 Mutating Maniac:
   - Removed "Hex" passive ability (both affinities).
   - New passive, "Infused Fervor"(r):
      - If the unit is transformed, it will incite friendly Twilight units within a 20m radius to move 40% faster. Additionally, they will deal 50% more damage. Lasts for 15 seconds. 
   - New passive, "Gifted Fervor"(g):
      - If the unit is transformed, it will incite friendly Twilight units within a 20m radius to move 40% faster. Additionally, they will be immune to all major debuffs. Lasts for 15 seconds. 
Since its previous changes, Mutating Maniac started performing fairly well in multiple decks. That said, the transformation ability remained fairly underwhelming. The effect was both very weak and there was no unit worth transforming into. Since moving Nightshade Plant to T3 will change the second part, we are remedying the first issue by replacing the current transformation effect with a more powerful one. If utilized correctly, this should make transforming worthwhile despite the significant power investment.
 Nightshade Plant:
   - Orb cost: 2 Nature, 2 Fire (T4) ➜ 1 Nature, 1 Fire, 1 Hybrid (T3) 
   - Damage: 6380 ➜ 4100
   - Life points: 5800 ➜ 3400
   - New passive, "Siege": Deals 50% more damage against structures.
   - New passive "Adept Mutation": Reduced transformation cost 208p ➜ 180p 
   - Tainted Tendrils, damage: 50 per sec ➜ 20 per sec
Nightshade Plant has been highly redundant in PvE due to being outclassed by Abomination. As the card's design doesn't enable a different playstyle for Twilight decks, we have decided to rework it into a T3 unit that is most efficient when being summoned through transformation. This should add more depth to the Twilight archetype in both PvP and PvE. In PvP, Fire Nature often doesn't have the option of playing more than 2 or 3 cards in T3. This led to late game issues against more defensive oriented decks. Closing out leads was often quite a tough task outside the top echelons of play. Adding a strong game finisher will help the faction to compete to a certain extent. Decks including various Twilight units from earlier game stages will have more strategic options to utilize the card through different transformation effects. Twilight Minions will provide a very cheap summoning, Twilight Crawlers can quickly move to desired locations before transforming, and Mutating Maniac will provide the most powerful transformation buff and unit synergy.
[ Bandit Touch-up ]
Bandits has been in a very strong position ever since the release of its new cards, especially in lower ELOs. As a result, we will tweak it from both ends by slightly nerfing Bandit Minefield and Bandit Stalker, while also buffing some of its most favorable matchups with Pure Nature and Fire Nature. We received a lot of feedback mainly regarding the Bandit Minefield being perceived as fairly oppressive and will closely observe whether this continues to be the case after this set of changes.
 Bandit Minefield:
   - Cooldown: 25 seconds ➜ 30 seconds
Bandit Minefield has been extremely popular since its release. We noticed the spell is getting spammed a lot, as it ensures great trades in almost any state of the game. Microing around the spell and punishing a player during its cooldown is supposed to be this spells intended counterplay. This downside demands a good understanding of matchup from the opponent's side as well as a solid level of execution, making the card even more efficient in lower ELOs. As we want to add more possibilities to play around the spell, we will increase its cooldown. This should open up bigger time windows to attack a Bandit player, who used the spell too recklessly. With reduced power on the Bandit Stalker, see below, there also should be more room to make use of beast creatures that can avoid the mines more consistently due to their mobility.
 Bandit Stalker(g):
   - Damage against Beasts: 100% more damage ➜ 80% more damage
Bandit Stalker received a powerful buff in the past to help Bandits deal with a lot of the beast units, against which the faction used to struggle. With new powerful cards added to the faction, Bandits has become a bit too good against beast reliant decks. As a result, we decided to reduce the beast bonus damage on the green affinity of Bandit Stalker, providing players with the opportunity to snowball a lead against Bandits without getting shut down by this powerful counter unit.
 Bandit Lancer:
   - Branding targeting range: 5m ➜ 8m
   - Added a targeting range preview to Branding when hovered over.
QoL changes which will make the ability smoother to use.
[ Miscellaneous Changes ]
 Deep One:
   - Life points: 1450 ➜ 1500
   - Gifted Catch root immunity duration: 20 seconds ➜ 10 seconds
   - Species class: Beast ➜ Primordial
Pure Nature did not perform to the level we had hoped after its small rework. While we do think it was the right move to reduce Deep One’s health pool, we went a little too far. Pure Nature started struggling to break through strong Frost Splash defenses. We will revert some parts of the health nerfs and also reduce the CC immunity duration applied by gifted catch, which had a much longer duration compared to the usual cc abilities. Outside of that, the Nature versus Bandits matchup has been perceived as fairly oppressive amongst most players that gave us feedback. Deep One will move from Beast to the new Primordial class to make sure it is not getting hard countered by units like Bandit Stalker in the future. With more freedom to use its various units in skirmishes, Nature should also gain more room to play around Bandit Minefield. The spell strongly punishes any misplacement of Ghostspears or Spirit Hunters, which were the only viable trading units in this matchup, assuming a normal nature deck build was being played.
 Emberstrike:
   - Fire Lance can no longer damage Monuments and Power Wells.
Small change to alleviate issues regarding the card in 2vs2 in order to keep games enjoyable without affecting any PvE unit interactions.
 Icefang Raptor:
   - Infused Reserve(r): 30% ➜ 35% of damage reflected to melee attackers
   - Blessed Reserve(b): 25% ➜ 30% damage reduction
With the addition of Amii Paladins and buffs to cards like Twilight Minions or Ghostspears, the impact of small sized medium counters has increased overall. As a result, Icefang Raptor has fallen a bit behind. Its issues are amplified by the bonus counter passives of some S-units it is supposed to fight against, such as Stone Shards or Bandit Spearmen. Adding more power to the unit's passive should balance this out and push the unit further towards decks that can provide appropriate support in the first place.
 Mumbo Jumbo:
   - Debuff (both affinities): 20% ➜ 25%
Adding a bit of power to Mumbo Jumbo as the spell is fairly difficult to use. The buffs should enable a small extra reward for nature players opting into a large T1 without altering the potentially unhealthy interactions around its spawn presence denial.
 Warden's Sigil
   - New passive, "Fast Construction": Construction time is reduced by 50%
   - Cooldown: 20 seconds ➜ 15 seconds
Frost T1 has struggled a lot against early T2 attacks centered around Nightcrawlers and Burrowers. These units were capable of ignoring any counters entirely by focusing down structures. This inherent weakness often pushed players in the direction of playing frost very aggressively instead of methodically securing map control and power leads over time. These changes to Warden's Sigil should add more options for Frost to keep power wells alive without altering its capabilities in unit trading. While Warden's Sigil will be able to help a player get through the early game more consistently, it will be at the cost of fewer card slots for higher tier options. Since we did not want to support forward siege building strategies, the ability to attach on buildings under construction will only remain on the green affinity (this already got added in the last patch).

Greetings Skylords!
A new month; a new Community Update! It's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn!

• Survey Results

Once more, a big thank you to everyone who provided feedback in our 2022 Survey. 2.227 of you provided feedback regarding various topics, from general opinions regarding the project, to balance and upcoming features. We have collected the answers and provided them in a short presentation. 


• Upcoming Patch 

Last month we promised more information about our upcoming new content patch. We are almost ready to bring you a new patch that will include a ton of balance changes, map changes, bug fixes and new cards! While we sadly can't give you a concrete date on the patch yet, we are aiming for a release around mid-September. We are also planning to release some additional achievements in a small follow-up patch soon after. 
As for the upcoming content patch; we have added new Transformation effects to T2 and T3 Twilight cards, aimed at making Twilight's Transformation ability worth using. We have also made substantial changes to Fire T4 cards, while continuing our work on Nature. At the same time, we are making some much-needed changes for the health and future of the game. This patch will implement changes to Batariel, Decomposer, Frenetic Assault and mindcontrol-effects like Nightguard and Parasite Swarm. These cards have been the topic of many heated discussions over the years, which is why we would like to take some time to explain why we are making these changes. 
 
• Why Nerf Cards?

It has been the conscious choice of the Skylords Reborn Team since we began balancing the game nearly 2 years ago to avoid any PvE specific nerfs. The reasoning was twofold:
(1) Nerfs feel bad and continued nerfs of popular cards can be demoralizing to players, and
(2) There did not exist a sufficient number of strategies such that nerfing top performers would actually lead to more diverse gameplay. The top performing strategies were sometimes the only viable strategies in the game, and removing them would have just lead to an ever decreasing set of viable archetypes. 
Instead of nerfing cards, we in the faction design and balancing team have endeavored to create an increasingly large set of viable strategies, both between and within factions. Within factions, Bandits has been our greatest success, with several top tier Bandit deck archetypes being viable across all maps and game modes. Across factions, we have also steadily been succeeding in our original goal. Pure Frost and Pure Fire do not have as much intra-faction deck diversity as something like Bandits, but both do have viable archetypes capable of succeeding at all levels of play. Slowly, but steadily, we have also been working towards this same goal with Pure Nature, Pure Shadow, and their non-pure derivatives such as Shadow's Death Ray archetype. In the next few patch cycles we are hoping to touch the Stonekin, Lost Souls, and Twilight factions as well, simultaneously adding new unique strategies while also fleshing out their existing viable archetypes. All in all, we think we have come a very long way in creating both fun and viable strategies for the majority of factions, and we will labor every patch to continue this work. 
Unfortunately, despite the work that has been done, there is still a perception among much of the playerbase that decks like Pure Frost are not strong, despite Pure Frost being viable against all factions even in RPvE 10. This is because, with the exception of the addition of Banzai Lord and Plague, the top decks have remained nearly identical from release until now. This is unsurprising. In T4, Batariel-Enlightenment and Bloodhorn decks are so strong that if we attempted to make all archetypes compete with them, we would thereby trivialize the game through power creep. In T1, we have made substantial changes to ensure that every faction has a viable opening for all maps and game modes, but by and large a majority of players still progress through the campaign using Nightguard in at least a plurality if not a majority of maps. This situation of having a large set of viable playstyles but a few select ones that outshine all others, creates the impression that Skylords Reborn lacks gameplay diversity and leads to players defaulting to the same few decks over and over again. This is not a recipe for long term success. Even after the most recent patch, you can still see messages in global chat to the effect of "I wish there were other strategies than Batariel or Nightguard." There are many more strategies, it is just that some strategies are so strong that everything else seems paltry in comparison. 
Given the current state of the game, we as a balancing team have determined that it is finally time to nerf some of the game's top performers and that by doing so we will actually be expanding the set of strategies players view as viable, thereby hopefully leading to increased in-game deck diversity. Yet, our goal is not to remove the existing top strategies from the game. We want them to remain top strategies, but to be closer to the strength of other archetypes which have proven themselves to be viable alternatives. We are truly convinced this is the best course of action for the long term health of Skylords Reborn. The other options are increasing the strength of all cards to the level of these very few cards, thereby trivializing existing content, or accepting a perpetually stagnate meta where the same few strategies continue to dominate forever. 
As a final note, we want to assuage any fears that we will be going through and nerfing any and every strong card in the game. We are convinced that there are less than 10 total cards problematic enough to justify large changes. Balancing is more music than algebra. There is a band of viability within which cards sit. It is okay if some cards are better than other ones, as long as those cards are neither too powerful nor too weak. As long as a strategy is not so dominant across multiple game modes that it warps the game around itself and adversely affects the playerbase's perception of what is acceptably strong, we can and will happily turn a blind eye to it and allow it to continue unchanged. 
Our upcoming patch notes will dive into what exactly will be changed about these cards. These will be posted alongside the patch release.

• New Card Reveal: Tranquility

The results from our feedback survey shows you really like new cards, so we are excited to reveal our new Amii spell: Tranquility!

This card holds the record for longest development cycle, going all the way back to November 2021. Having changed names, effects, art and visuals multiple times during its long process since then. We are very happy with the end result though, and we hope you look forward to playing it.
Please note: We are still testing the card. While we are generally happy about it, numbers and effects might still change before release.
Let's break down the card: 

Tranquility is a tier 2 spell for Nature/Shadow. Upgrading the card increases its effect and reduces its Power Cost. It will be a rare and won't have an affinity. As with the card Transcendence, the effect of this new Amii spell changes depending on if you cast it on an enemy or friendly unit:
 
Soothing Whispers
Empowers a friendly unit to fight more joyfully. Target friendly unit will deal 20/30/30/30% more damage and regenerate 50 life points every 2 seconds if the unit deals at least 80 damage every 5 seconds. Lasts 20 seconds. Reusable every 25 seconds.

Foreboding Whispers
Weakens an enemy unit and makes it unable to fight. Target hostile unit cannot attack or use special abilities and takes 20/20/30/30% more damage for 10 seconds. Reusable every 25 seconds.
 
Tranquility offers Skylords a flexible early game Amii spell that can be used in both PvE and PvP.
For its buff/debuff visual, we have created a completely new flower model, another milestone in our development for Skylords Reborn! 

 
• Phone Wallpaper

The artwork for Tranquility was created by Tweeto, and went through many iterations (as tends to happen with our team full of perfectionists). The final artwork goes beyond the size of what we can show on a card, which is why we decided to release the full artwork as a Phone Wallpaper. We hope you like it!  

• Skylords Reborn Instagram


Want to see more art, exclusive content and giveaways? Be sure to follow us on our new Instagram! Rumors say you might even catch a glimpse of a new and not yet revealed card in the upcoming days! Follow us now to join our upcoming giveaway for a chance to win some Twilight boosters.
 
• Tournaments / Events

Now that the Community Updates moved to a monthly schedule, events might come and go in between Community Updates. Be sure to keep a close eye on the ingame event-tab and the forum calendar to not miss any events! 

• NEW - Community PvE League Season 1
In this Community-hosted PvE league, you will compete against other players of similar abilities and ranks in a series of challenges, consisting of campaign, community and rPVE maps. There are exciting prizes to be won, so be sure to click here for more information! 

• NEW- Crappy Community Contest #8
The contest-idea-contest (CCC#7) has brought some excellent ideas to light, and the yet unannounced winner will be presented tomorrow as a new contest. As always, if enough Skylords participate, there will be a booster code as prize for the whole community!

• FINISHED - Community event #4: Onslaught on the Ground
Can you finish King of the Giants Solo under 13 minutes - without using flying units? The winner of 'Onslaught on the Ground' was able to pull this off, check out his replay here.
 
• FINISHED - Battle of Tactics #1: Your actions count
How many clicks do you need to finish Encounters with Twilight? See a super-cut of how the participants tried to be as efficient as possible: watch the video. 


• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event yourself? Please reach out to our Event Organizer Metagross! We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. 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 

A lot has happened in the team behind Skylords Reborn in the past month. 
Sadly nkmol, who worked with Freund and Maze on the web-interface, has left the team due to personal circumstances. We are grateful for his work and wish him all the best.
Luckily, we also have some good news to share! 

Ult has recently joined the team as a client and server developer. He has been working on something exciting we can't wait to show you on in a future community update! 
Katchau also joined the team as a client developer. He will be helping out in adding new features into the game that were previously blocked due to a lack of UI developers.  
Lebovim (one of our Skylords of Honor) has done a ton for the project already, but always worked alongside the team, not in it. He has now formally joined the team, and will be helping out with implementing map and card changes, among other things. 
Maxxxel is also new to the team and working on creating tools and workflows capable of editing and adding new 3D models. We hope we will be able to add new models to the game at some point, but no promises yet. 
Lastly, Dallarian will move from a Global Moderator role into the Map Department. Our survey showed loud and clear that you want more campaign maps, so he is currently exploring the map editor to make that happen.
Welcome, and we are grateful for all of you who spend their free time helping out with Skylords Reborn! 

• Contribute to the Project

As always, we hope you will also consider helping out the project. Please take a look at all our open positions on how you can do so. 
We have also opened the position of Global Moderator, and are currently in need of more Russian Translators.

 
• 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 Amii-booster: REAL-SOON-THIS-TIME

The code is valid until October 1st, 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 #26

Hello again Skylords, Skyladies and other Skybeings; the jury had its say, and it's time to announce the winners!
First of all, I’d like to thank everyone for making the Crappy Community Contest #7 happen – no matter in what way: developing the idea, making and helping with the map, participation, sponsoring prizes, spreading the word or helping me to organize it. Of course, a special thanks goes to the two other Jurors who carried together with me the burden of deciding the winners, namely @Dutchy and @Prajoss.
In total, I have received 61 entries from 38 different Skylords that were presented in anonymous form to the judges. Thanks to the Skylords Team for sponsoring the code: CCC7-IDEA-SWEL-COME
Before revealing the winners, please remember that judging is always in part a subjective process - on some entries the Jurors themselves had vastly different opinions, so you might find some entries outside the winning tiers are still very interesting. So if you are interested to judge for yourself, here is the content of all entries:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Mg0yjanpOF_fDM90u82WUD6sqRAfSvQigssQBpwkNHY/edit?usp=sharing
Jury duty is quite the unrewarding job, it is quite normal to disagree on criteria and thresholds, so please don't send Rifle Cultists towards their orbs.
 

 
Here are the Winners of the CCC #7:
The idea of the following Skylords made it into the Gold Tier, winning them two Boosters: (sorted alphabetically)
@Donaar
@erkserkserks
@itap
@Sucks
@Ultralord
The idea(s) of the following Skylords made it into the Silver Tier, winning them one Booster: (sorted alphabetically)
@CrazyCockerell
@DuzaBF
@FrozenSins
@itap (2 times)
@Kociula
@Majora
@Metagross31
@Metanolo
@Oumuamua
@Trando
@wanky (2 times)
@Zizizi

Furthermore, the Winner of the Secret Special Prize will be the entry that has been chosen to become Crappy Community Contest #8, so the Promo Mana Wing will be handed out in confidentiality and revealed at the start of CCC#8. The winner of the Weird Special Price (Juice Tanks) is the entry with the longest word count that has not been selected for Gold or Silver Tier.
 
Winners of the Random Draws
The dice gods have determined the fate of the following cards:
Draw 1                       Lyrish Knight Promo      Caeser2000
Draw 2                       Rogan Kayle Promo       Majora
Draw 3                       Avatar of Frost               FrozenSins
Draw 4                       Abyssal Warder (R)         Arenguros
Draw 5                       Gravity Surge (B)            Rapzak
Draw 6                       Santa Claus                    Fortte
Draw 7                       Santa Claus                    Zizizi
Draw 8                       Easter Egg                     Sirydawill91
Draw 9                       Disenchant (P)               erks
Draw 10                     Disenchant (P)               Ultralord
Draw 11                     Inferno (x2)                   Bozzah
Draw 12                     Wildfire (x3)                   Kociula
Draw 13                     Frenetic (G) (x4)             Dallarian
Draw 14                     Hurricane (x3)               Katchau
Draw 15                     Parasite (x3)                  Lebovin
Draw 16                     Revenge (x3)                 WaterMelonLord
Draw 17                     Motivate (x5)                Fernfalej

Some prizes have already been sent out, the rest will follow as soon as possible. Additionally, the Newcomers have received an assortment of eight cards each from the Newcomer Card Pool.
 
In conclusion
Again, I'd like to thank again all those who helped with this event, especially the jurors for spending time to vote and discuss the entries.

As already experienced on CCC#3, non-gameplay events see less activity - but I'm happy that this CCC with 38 participants did quite nicely in comparison. CCC#8 has already been selected from the Gold/Silver tier and should provide a fun experience for a broader audience again.

Of course, I'd like to thank the generous sponsors for all the prizes they gave: @Lightbarrier, @Donaar, @gam3over, @Sucks, @DantheManager and the Skylords Reborn Team.

If you have a crappy idea for future CCC's you may share and discuss that with me, maybe I host your idea, or 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 @Minashigo Hiko and/or @Metagross31. They are super supportive and will help you to organize your event!

I am really hyped for that video! 
 

Greetings Skylords!

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

• Patch Release

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

• New Cards

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

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


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


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



• New Promo Card: Mana Wing

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


• New Achievements

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

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

[ Beginner Achievements ]

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

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

• Map Changes

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


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


• PvP changes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• rPvE Fire Balance Changes

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

 
• Balance Changes

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

• Tournaments / Events

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

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

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

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

• Team Changes

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

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

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

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

• In Conclusion

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

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

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

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

Dear Skylords and Cute Beings,
The event is finished, and all the results have been summarised.
There were 44 participants, 43 players participated on Advanced difficulty and 6 on Expert difficulty.
 
The following video summarises best runs:
 
Average fast run
 
Here are the most mighty Skylords from Lyrish Reaches:
1st place         10:26   Mocaak
2nd place       11:18    Treim
3rd place        12:04   Dutchy
4th place        12:21   Ruaga
5th place        12:34   Wanky
6th place        12:59   Tiksu
7th place        14:07   Dagror
8th place        14:17   SylarXXI
9th place        14:18   Donaar
10th place      14:44   Kserske
11th place      15:46   Awot
12th place      15:51   scr3x
13th place      16:16   PeterPanda
14th place      16:23   Epsilon
15th place      19:52   StuWho
16th place      20:30   Tiberium
17th place      20:58   2weak2slow
18th place      21:10   bulldozeroseven
19th place      21:26   Maert
20th place      21:37   Hrdina_Imperia
 
Those Skylords completed bonus challenge on Expert difficulty:
1st place         12:12   Pritstift
2nd place        23:44  Awot
 
Those are best among the less experienced Skylords, they all receive Dallarian's Frost starter pack:

Mighty   Awot
Mighty   StuWho
Mighty   bulldozeroseven
Mighty   Maert
Mighty   Hrdina_Imperia
Mighty   DemonRJ
Mighty   Ultralord
Mighty   puderquaste
Mighty   DoTheJingle
Mighty   Lans
 
Mysterious reward is awarded to two Skylords, who completed the map with slowest time.
Your input was as important as others'. Thanks to you People of Lyr are safe.
Names are not given to ensure your anonimity, if you wish so, you may reveal yourself.
 
All the rewards should be sent.
 
Full list of Advanced results:
 
Full list of Expert results:
 
Thank you very much for playing my map and participating in the event.

Greetings Skylords!

It's been three weeks since our last community update so it's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn.
This update is kind of a Bandits-Special, with new card reveals, a Deep Dive for the faction and insight in the process of adding a new PvP card. Let's get started!

Anniversary Stream Announcement
Mark your calendars because we have some celebrating to do! On December 18th, Skylords Reborn reaches its 1-year anniversary. It has been a wild ride; from resurrecting the game to a playable state, to actively developing new features and even brand new cards. 
Join us for a special anniversary stream on December 17th with news, card reveals, give-aways and more, celebrating the past, present and future of Skylords Reborn! More details will be shared in the coming weeks. We hope to see you there!

New Card Reveal
Please note: We are still testing the card. While we are generally happy about it and feel comfortable revealing it, its numbers and effects might still change. We hope to release this card before the end of the year and will share more information at a later date. 
Today we are excited to reveal a card that might see play in both PvP and PvE, and solve some of the problems Bandits have in PvP. 
            


Bandit Minefield is a tier 2 Spell for Fire/Shadow. Upgrading the card reduces its cooldown (up to 10 seconds) and powercost (80 to 70). It will be a rare and won't have an affinity. Here is how the card works:
Creates 4 clusters of mines in a line of 20m. If a hostile ground unit gets as close as 10m to a cluster, its mines will detonate in 6 bursting waves. Each wave deals 100 damage to hostile units and 25 damage to buildings in a 15m radius, up to 300 in total. If no enemy approaches a cluster within 10 seconds, its mines will disappear again. Affects ground targets only. Cannot damage wall segments, Power Wells or Monuments. Cannot be placed nearby hostile units or structures, excluding walls. Knocks back small units. Reusable every 35/35/35/25 seconds.
Bandit Minefield requires the selection of source and target location. Mines will be placed in a straight line in the direction you choose. 
 
Design and expected use
Because this is our first new card that will see play in the PvP-meta, we asked our designer RadicalX to share some insights about the design process of the card. We cover why the card was created, what role it has in the meta and how it was changed during testing. Bandits has been one of the weaker factions in PvP, so we are very excited to see how this new tool will help them out. 
Bandit_Minefield_Design_Choices.pdf
 
Affinity and Rarity
A quick word about this cards rarity and lack of affinity. Affinities were added to every expansion of BattleForge, mostly as a way to increase the number of cards in each expansion. While there are some cards where the different affinities result in interesting choices, there are also a lot of cards that struggle under this design restriction. The Skylord Reborn team decided that going forward, we will add affinities where they feel right, but leave them out when we can't add a meaningful difference between them, or adding them would undermine what the card is supposed to do. 
As for the rarity, we actually wrote a document about rarity, and according to those guidelines, Bandit Minefield will be a rare. It is worth noting that Bandit Minefield will be added to the free PvP-bandit deck. We expect this card to be crucial in the PvP scene, and find it important that everyone who wants to play PvP can do so without grinding for cards or upgrades first. 

Artwork
The artwork has been designed by our talented artist Tweeto, and we thought it would be cool to share some sketches to show you the progress. 

As always, a lot of time and changes went into this artwork. A big thanks to Tweeto for constantly accepting feedback and improving the artwork. We are really happy with the final result, and hope you are too! 
 
Vote for Cardnames
Just like with Coat of Protection and Wasteland Wing, we need your suggestions for the final cardname. During testing we came up with the cardname ''Bandit Minefield" and ''Treacherous Path" as the effect name. However, part of our promise to our Patrons is to let them help with naming new cards based on suggestions from the community. For this, we will need your help!
Please reply in the comments below what you feel is the perfect cardname for this card and how you would name the ability.  
Example:
Name: Bandit Minefield
Ability: Treacherous Path
Please only suggest one name. We will collect all the suggestions and let our Avatar-of-Frost-tier (and higher) Patrons vote for the final name, starting next week. 
 

Bandit Deep Dive
Back in July we shared our Deep Dive into Frost; an exploration into what makes the faction tick and how we planned to tackle the issues Pure Frost struggled with. We have since then shifted our focus away from the frosty Lyrish Reaches and moved on to the scorching Southern Wastes; attached you will find the Bandits Deep Dive!
In this document we will be exploring the Bandits-faction in detail, including upcoming changes and even a tease of another new card! It is our goal with documents such as these to give our players a glimpse into how we think about factions and where we are planning to take the game.
Bandits_Deep_Dive.pdf
Upcoming Tournaments & Events
NEW: Official PvE Contest#4 Winter is coming - Until 17.12.2021
For this challenge, we want to see you succeed in playing the map Guns of Lyr, while accomplishing several winter and Christmas themed objectives. This event has a point system and boosters for the top performers. Check out the rules and how to apply here and have fun!

FINISHED: Official PvE Contest#3 Skylords Raid
Our 3th PvE contest has concluded, thanks to everyone who participated! Originally the idea was to have a stream, but because we are already streaming for our anniversary and most of the runs used the same tactics, the winners will instead be announced through a youtube video in the near-future. We also saw a lot less participants in this style of contest, so we will try to stay away from multiple-map contests in the future.
 
• Host your own event / tournament
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our Event Organisers Hiko 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. 
 
New Team Members / Open Positions
We are very happy to announce a new addition to our team: RookieN has joined the team as a Map Designer / Map Developer / Map Artist! You can expect great things from him, and we hope to be able to share them soon. 
We also added another Event Manager to the team; Metagross will work together with our other Event Manager Hiko to provide you with a steady stream of contests and tournaments. His community contest on King's Ridge was a success, so we are happy to officially welcome him to the team. 
At the same time we are sad to see Kerkk leave the team as a Web Developer. He unfortunately does not have enough time to help us out anymore. We would like to thank him for his time and all he did for Skylords Reborn! 
Last Community Update we posted our cry for help for Balance Developers, and we are very grateful for the response. We hope to add new Balance Developers to the team soon, who will help us implement new cards and balance changes. We did experience some delays because of the lack of staff for quite a while now, but we hope this will improve with new members being added to the team. This is always an area that we need help with, so if you are still interested, please let us know. 
There are still some other areas we would like additional help to expand and grow Skylords Reborn. If you want to help, we would love to have you on our team. Below we have highlighted some roles, but you can find more information, desired traits and all our open positions here. If you are unsure if you qualify, please reach out and have a talk! 
 
NEW: Open Position - Video Editor
As a video editor you are responsible for creating exciting video content for Skylords Reborn. This can range from short card reveal videos to exciting trailers and cutting up Twitch-stream content for highlight videos on our Youtube channel. If you have any experience with audio post production, you can also help us out with the process of adding new voice-lines and sound effects into the game. More Information.

Open Position - Artist
While we absolutely love Tweeto's output, one artist can only do so much. As an artist you are responsible to create the visuals required for new content. This is a broad position and there are many areas where you could help in, depending on your skills and interests. Think of loading screen artwork for new maps, card artwork for new cards, visual UI elements for new features that involve adding UI to the game, banners for events/tournaments/community challenges/large game updates etc. More Information.

Open Position - Marketeer / Outreach Coordinator
As a Marketeer / Outreach Coordinator you are responsible to spread the word and create awareness about Skylords Reborn and to attract veteran and new players alike. This includes actively researching and reaching out to potentially interested streamers, youtubers, Discord channels, game magazines, among others. You will be responsible for the communication to and from interested parties and for any promotion deals (for example involving scratch codes). Please note that Skylords Reborn cannot do any paid promotions. More Information.

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-S15B
The code is valid till December 25th.
We will update you again on December 18th, during our 1-year anniversary! The next community update will probably stick to the 3 week schedule, meaning it will be posted on the 25th. 
As always, we are open to feedback so please let us know! 
Archive
Community Update #12
Community Update #13
Community Update #14

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




What kind of event will it be?

PvE - Advanced - Guns of Lyr with a point system
For this challenge, we want to see you succeed in playing the map Guns of Lyr, while accomplishing several winter and christmas themed objectives.
The more objectives you accomplish, the more points you get. The team with the highest number of points wins the contest!
But there is more! You also get points for speed! The faster you finish the map, the more extra points you get.
Thus, you will need to find the right balance between objectives and time and choose your strategy accordingly.

So gather a team, polish your strategy and go for the Highscore!


When will it start?

We will be accepting entries starting today.
The event will run for a bit more than 2 weeks, to be specific: 17.12.2021 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.
We will announce the winners on stream on the 2nd of January, 6pm CET.


How can I participate?

Everyone with an ingame account can participate in the event - there is no need to sign up separately.
You just have to send in your best replay, including the player names, the time of the replay and what objectives you accomplished. [Note: Your entry has to be a victory]
For example: If your team reached a time of 17:23.6, name your replay the following way:

"Hiko_Majora_Zyna_Metagross31_17:23.6.pmv"

Additionally, send me a list of all objectives. For example:
Low points:        A, C, D; Total: 900
Mid points:             K, L; Total: 1200
High points:             all; Total: 4000
Penalty points:           S; Total: -1200
Total points:                             4900

You can send in your replays until the 17.12.2021. 

Please note:
You are allowed to compete with multiple teams, but only your highest score will determine the rewards you win, meaning you can only get rewards for one submission. You are allowed to compete with a team of less than 4 people or even alone.
You can find your replays here: Documents=>Battleforge=>replays


What are the objectives?

This event will have a point system: points will be rewarded by completing the following objectives. The goal is to get as many points as possible!
You don't have to complete them all, but of course you should aim for as many points as you can in a single run.
It is important however, that your final score from objectives is greater than zero. Runs with a negative score do not qualify.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Low points:

A:   HoHoHo!: 200p
Have one player play out Santa Claus*

B:   You are not alone: 200p
Have one player build a Stronghold next to Rogan's Castle*

C :  We are many!: 300p
Have all players from your team build a Stronghold next to Rogan's Castle*

D :  Santa's little helper: 400p
Have Rogan Kayle (Player's card) within a 25m radius of Santa all the time*

E:   The Ghost of Christmas Past: 400p
As a team, play at least five different frost cards from the twilight edition*

F:   The Ghost of Christmas Present: 400p
Play at least one frost card, that has been buffed by the Skylords Reborn team (See below for a list of cards)*

G:   The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come: 400p
Play at least one frost card, that has proposed buffs for the future (See below for a list of cards)*
H:   Presents for the Kobolds: 400p
Use one of Santa's gifts next to one of the Kobold Engineers*
I:    Presents for the King: 400p
Use one of Santa's gifts next to Rogan's castle
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maximum low points:    3100
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Medium points:

J:   Boxing day: 400p
Open all gold chests

K:   Presents for your neighbors: 600p
Use one of Santa's gifts next to one of the big twilight manifestations, before they get destroyed*

L: Sitting at the fireplace: 600p
Have a unit sit in front of the top fire trap for 3 minutes without dying or walking away*

M:   Coming down the chimney: 600p
Completely destroy all four enemy walls

N:   First the dinner, then the presents: 600p
Destroy all minor twilight infestation camps before destroying the final manifestations*

O:   A time for modesty: 800p
As a team, do not control more than 10 orbs at the same time*

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maximum medium points:    3600
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

High points:

P:   The real deal:  1000p
Play the map on Expert difficulty instead of advanced

Q:   Frosty times:  250p per player, maximum of 1000p
Play a pure frost deck*

R :   Christmas Peace:  1500p  (2000p if combined with objective P)
Do not kill any enemy units until the final wave spawns*
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maximum high points:    4000
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maximum Total points:    10700
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Penalty points:

S:   That's not a Christmas tree!:  -1200p
Using Amii Monument

T:   Taking your siblings' presents: -1500p
Using Decomposer

U:  Got the wrong present: -1000p
Destroying your starting orb*

V:  Broken Chimney: -1000p
One of the Kobold Engineers dies*

W:   Blocking the way for Santa: -1500p
Construct buildings past the flames near the map border in the top left or bottom right corner*

X:   Christmas is over: -1500p
Santa dies

Y:   Wrong season, wrong event: -1000p
Play out easter Egg
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total penalty points:    -8700
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* Check the FAQ for clarifications.
Time Score:
There will also be points awarded for time. The faster you finish the map, the more points you will get with a maximum of 1500p.
There are no preset timewindows that determine your time score, instead your time is compared to all entries.
This means that every second counts when it comes to your time score!
However, you can not lose any points by having a slow time. So it is up to you to decide whether you want to go for as many objectives as possible or if you want to leave some out in the hope of getting a better time.
You do not have to calculate the time score yourself, we will calculate the time score for every entry.
For a detailed explanation on how the time score is calculated, see the FAQ below.
 
FAQ     
In order to reduce confusion about the objectives, we have precompiled a list of questions you might have and answered them beforehand.
If you have any questions about one of the objectives, please check this FAQ first.
If your question is not yet answered in the FAQ, feel free to ask the question in this thread. That way it can be clarified and added to the FAQ.
List of previously buffed frost cards:

List of frost cards with proposed buffs:

Questions about specific objectives:
Calculation of the time score:






Sounds fun! What's the prize pool?

The following prize pool will be adjusted according to the amount of participants.
If more than 20 teams submit a run, you can still expect the top 50% of runs to win something.

The prices are per person. If you compete with multiple teams, only your highest place will be rewarded :
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1st place                          7 Frost and 5 general Booster packs
2nd place                         6 Frost and 3 general Booster packs
3rd place                          5 Frost and 2 general Booster packs
4th-8th place                   2 Frost and 2 general Booster packs
9th-10th place                 1 Frost and 1 general Booster pack

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
One more extra bounty... - CLAIMED
There is one more extra bounty to claim!
The first team, which sends me a replay in which they complete the objective R: Christmas Peace on any difficulty will get an additional reward of 3 general boosters.
Note, that the replay, you submit for the extra bounty does not have to be counted for the actual run, you can still submit a different replay with a different time and score as your final submission.
The extra bounty has already been claimed!
You can no longer get the reward for being the first to pull it of, but you can still get the points for your run
                                                   
In conclusion

This event focuses on your speed, teamwork and flexibility on these different PvE maps.

To summarize the event in simple steps:
Look for a team. You can either do this below this topic, on Discord or Ingame. Come up with a strategy for your run. Try to complete the objectives while being as fast as possible. Make sure your score is greater than zero. Calculate your score and determine your final time.
Satisfied? Send the replay to me! (Metagross31#1103 on Discord) or PM your best replay to me (in the forum).
When will we stream?

We will announce the winners on stream.
Date: 2nd of January, 6pm CET




Future events
If you are interested in helping with these kind 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

Greetings Skylords!

It's been three weeks since our last community update so it's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn!
 

As we mentioned in an earlier community update, new cards are in development. Last time we showed you our first new card: Coat of Protection. We are very excited to show you the second one today! 
New Card Reveal:
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. We hope to release this card before the end of the year and will share more information at a later date. 
 
Joining Windhunters in the sky, Wasteland Wing is an extremely strong tier 4 dragon. With strong stats combined with Life Steal, this new tool will be a great incentive for playing Bandits. It will be uncommon and come in two affinities, each having a different effect for its Cleanse ability. Let's break down the card.
Breath of Embers
Every 3 seconds, unit spews fiery sand out that deals 630/660/690/720 damage to enemies in a 35m radius around its target, up to 945/990/1035/1080 in total. Knocks back small and medium units.
 
Infused Cleanse (Fire-affinity only)
Cost: 110 Power - Cast Range: 30m
Activate to immediately remove all debuffs from up to 5 friendly units in a 15m radius. Will also revert all status effects like Freeze or Paralyze. Additionally, affected units deal 100% increased siege damage for 10 seconds. Reusable every 30 seconds
Tainted Cleanse (Shadow-affinity only)
Cost: 110 Power -  Cast Range: 30m
Activate to immediately remove all debuffs from all units in a 15m radius. Will also revert all status effects like Freeze or Paralyze. Additionally, affected units will be immune to all major debuffs for 10 seconds. Reusable every 30 seconds.
Life Stealer
15% of the damage dealt by the unit will be added to its life points.
 

Wasteland Wing is a Pure Bandits alternative to Tortugun for those players who enjoy the Bandits playstyle and aesthetics but who do not want to interact with Tortugun's unique hunger mechanics. With an area-of-effect disenchant ability it will enable the typical Bandits playstyle of hard to pin down agents of destruction.
Artwork Reveal:
The artwork (and ability icon) has been designed by our talented artist Tweeto, and we gladly show it off in all its glory:

Just like with Coat of Protection, a lot of time and changes went into this artwork. We thought it would be cool to show you some sketches to show the progress. A big thanks to Tweeto for constantly accepting feedback and improving the artwork. We are really happy with the final result, and hope you are too! 

 
Vote for Cardnames
Just like with Coat of Protection, we need your suggestions for the final cardname. During testing we came up with the cardname ''Wasteland Wing'', and abilities named ''Infused Cleanse'' and ''Tainted Cleanse''. However, part of our promise to our Patreons is to let them help with naming new cards based on suggestions from the community. For this, we will need your help!
Please reply in the comments below what you feel is the perfect cardname for this card, and how you would name the ability. Please note that Infused and Tainted are part of the affinity name, and will not be changed. 

Example:
Name: Wasteland Wing
Ability: Tainted/Infused Cleanse
Please only suggest one name. We will collect all the suggestions and let our Avatar-of-Frost-tier (and higher) patreons vote for the final name. 
 
Voice-actors Update 
Last Community Update we opened up applications for voice-acting the new cards. We are very happy with the results, and want to thank everyone for taking the time and effort to apply! We have made a selection of fitting voice-actors and will now work with them for the final script. If you applied but did not get a reply to your e-mail, please reach out to me. 
We hope you are looking forward to them bringing the new cards alive!
 
Updated 2vs2 Maps (test server)
We have released new versions of the PvP 2vs2 maps to the test server. Now we need your help to test them! Please go on the test server and try out these maps and share your feedback with us. The sooner we have good feedback, the sooner we can bring them to the live server (and create observer versions!). Toggy mentioned multiple times already that he will host another 2vs2 tournament if we have observer maps, so if you enjoy 2vs2, please test them out! 
You can find the latest list of map changes on the Wiki.
 
Promo Vote Results
As mentioned in our last community update, we plan to add a new promo to the game. The vote was locked behind Juggernaut-tier patreon, but we got permission to make it a community vote instead! Even though Sunderer was ahead on our Facebook poll, after collecting all the votes we have a clear winner: the next promo to be added to the game will be Mana Wing. 
We received both negative and positive feedback about our plans to add new promo cards. While some people were hyped about the upcoming new content, some felt the choice of promos was unfair, and others said more than one promo card should be added. We would like to remind you again that we are restricted in both time-resources and fitting artwork. We want to add cool stuff, but everything we do, no matter how small, will take time away from other areas. Currently our top priority is getting the new cards to you as soon as possible. We are always open for feedback, but please keep this in mind when voicing your opinions.
We will share the final look and how you will be able to collect the new promo in a later update.

Tournaments & Events
NEW: Skylords Open - 14.11.2021
The Skylords Open return! It's been a while since the last edition, so let's see if the players from the last Rookie tournament have made it to the top ranks since then and if someone has what it takes to take the top spot from RadicalX! Join Toggy on Sunday or watch the action on stream! Find all the information here. 

NEW: Official PvE Contest#3 Skylords Raid - Until 27.11.2021
We hope you didn't have a fallout with your team after the rPvE contest, because you will need a team for our latest event! For this event, show your skills on not one, but three different maps! There are prizes for just participation, so check out the rules and how to apply and have fun!

FINISHED: Official 4p rPvE Contest#1 The Bandit Hunt
Our rPvE contest has concluded! We hope you had a lot of fun, and we were glad to see some new players trying on rPvE. We will definitely do this kind of event again, so keep an eye out for that. The winners were announced on Twitch, which you can rewatch here. A big thanks to Volin for helping us with this event! 


• Host your own event / tournament
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our Event Organizer Hiko 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. 
 
New Team Members / Open Positions
We have added two new global mods to the team; a warm welcome to Lontzek and Parity! Together with the rest of the mod-team they will make sure everything is running smooth. 

We are also happy to add Progamer001 to our team. If you are active on our discord, you might have seen some of his alternative color schemes for units and buildings. He will help us with creating bosses for our rPvE modes and help out with our new cards. 

We are in dire need of Balance Developers! 
As mentioned in our last Community Update, we are in dire need of Balance Developers. If we do not get new members, we will not be able to release new cards in the future. Balancing will also have to be put on hold and/or drastically reduced. 
If you want to help, we would love to have you on our team. Below are two roles highlighted, but you can find more information, desired traits and all our open positions here. If you are unsure if you qualify, please reach out and have a talk! 

Open Position - Balance Developer
As a balance developer you are responsible to implement design changes to in-game cards using our internal balancing tool. In other words, you are responsible to implement new cards and changes to existing cards. These implementation requests can come from balance updates and content patches from our Faction Designers but also from the official Skylords Reborn map making team (for example, new bosses for a new map). An integral part of this role is learning our internal balancing tool, as that is the tool that allows us to perform all these changes. You are by no means required to have any programming experience. More information.
Open Position - Map Artist
As a map artist you are responsible to polish the aesthetics of a map. This includes texture the map, add decorations and add different effects and sounds. In other words, responsible for making the map look and feel good. More Information.
 

In Conclusion
We hope you liked this Community Update, thanks for reading! 
As is tradition, this community update comes with a scratch code. But this time you get to choose!
One code will reward you with a mini-booster, the other will give you 100BFP. 

Once you select one, the other one will be blocked. Choose wisely!
100 bfp: COMM-UNIT-YNEW-S14P
Mini booster: COMM-UNIT-YNEW-S14B
The code is valid till December 3rd.
We will update you again on December 4th. We will reveal another new card, so you don't want to miss it!
As always, we are open to feedback so please let us know! 
Archive
Community Update #11
Community Update #12
Community Update #13

Dear Skylords, Skyladies, and other skyfolk,
As you may know I've been here a long, long time. 12 years ago on the official forums, and pretty much ever since this project started. Over those years a lot has changed, for better and for worse. Both myself and some of the veterans around here have seen the game and its dev team rise and fall more often than we'd all like to admit, but we prevailed and we held on to Nyn and the wonders of this unique RTS/TCG hybrid. BattleForge has always been a great passion of mine, as a player and as a developer.
But times change, and life changes, and as Skylords Reborn grew to the size and state that it is now, my own time had to be more and more divided. Graduation, running a full-time job, major changes in my personal life and thought processes, and the ongoing pandemic have greatly jumbled up my day-to-day life, my mind, and my available time and energy. This has had quite an impact on how well I can contribute to this project right now, and so I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't feel appropriate to be a part of the SR team for as little work as I'm able to get myself to contribute. 
It's with a heavy heart I'm saying I am, on my own accord, stepping down from the SR team for the time being, but I feel that it's necessary. This is purely personal and has nothing to do with the current team, community, or the game itself; after all, we've accomplished so much, all of us! Thanks to all of you we've actually succeeded in what many thought to be utterly impossible; to revive an entire game purely out of passion, figuring out its inner workings, and altering it to make it a 100% free, enjoyable, non-profit game to keep enjoying despite the studio having long been disbanded. I've had the pleasure of working with an already fantastic community and team on a passion project others would dream of, and over time the team's grown so much.
It's been fantastic working on Skylords for so long and the game and project still are very dear to me. Throughout the years I've learnt tremendously much and have helped to keep things afloat in both bright and darker times for the project; it's been a rollercoaster for all of us. But we got there! We got to a fantastic release and have a whole revitalised and excited team ready to support all of you for a long time to come! This project is now in better hands than I could ever have anticipated, and I am happy and confident to leave Skylords Reborn to some of the most capable people I've had the pleasure of meeting.
I'll be stepping down after having been a long-time admin, CM, moderator and designer, and though I will keep providing some advice and help in the background, I will stop being a dev and remain a player. Perhaps I'll return if my personal life allows for it in the future, but as of right now I simply don't think I can contribute enough. 
It's been an absolute honour being a part of BattleForge's development throughout well over a decade, and I want to thank everybody for their continued work, support and belief in the amazing things we've ended up accomplishing. That includes you, no matter how long you're here or if you even know me. We did it! I'm still so proud of all of us, and I am happy to know the project's in great hands. Keep up the amazing work and let the hype train rage ever onward.
Thanks for everything, until next time, and may the Forge be ever with you!
~MrXLink

Hi Guys, 
I played a few rounds of Blight the last couple of weeks and i wanted to at least start this guide while some of my replays are still watchable. Since I'm stupid I forgot to safe half the replays I played so far, but this guide will be updated by me whenever I produce a decent replay I'd like to share.
 
So for a start I recommand the Blight-Tutorial done by Dallarian (thank you sir!) here which has some theoretical explanation and graphics which i would have been way too lazy to do myself.
For further ado, heres the Blight-Tutorial by Treim/Wanky/Pritstift/Lebovin (insert Link here x) which has a good amount of general information aswell and even shows some shadow phoenix tactics + the infamous Batariel-rush at bottom left position.

All replays I upload here show complete clears in time, no defending and no shinanigans with phoenix or amii-monument.
Sometimes (as pointed out by Anske) I use a splash on t3 for "pure" decks, since I'm missing those super expensive xl units like Juggernaut/Spitfire in fire. 
When I get those cards at some time I'll maybe update those replays (but i recommand splitting on t3 anyway, since pure fire is BAD, here, I said it.)

Feel free to contribute replays I did not cover so far
 
So here are the replays:

Disclaimer: some of the replays are not functionable anymore, but you can restore them following guides spread among the forums, this is what i found fastest:
Top right position (pos 1):
TopRightStonekin.pmvTopRightShadowNature.pmvTopRightPureShadow.pmvTopRightPureFire.pmvTopRightFrostT1.pmvTopRightBandits.pmvTopRightFireFrost.pmvTopRightNatureFire.pmvTopRightShadowFrost.pmv
Top left position (pos 2):
TopLeftShadowNature.pmvTopLeftPureFrost.pmvTopLeftFireNature.pmvTopLeftPureShadow.pmvTopLeftPureFire.pmvTopLeftNatureFrost.pmv
Bot right position (pos 3):
BotRightPureFire.pmv
Bot left position (pos 4):
BotLeftShadowT1.pmv
btw, special thanks to Donaar, Irysunna, gam3over, Schlytz, Alexandra, ArthurKnight, saffo5, VegetaSSB and those 20 guys I forgot who played a ton of blight with me and nearly did not flame when i failed with pure frost again. 
 
Duo (each side solo)
BlightDuo18'15'7.pmv
 
 

my english bad blablabla
ign: Keksmonsta
 
Pipeline aka. whats coming next?
 
Bandits topleft is done, im kinda struggling with the 3rd camp there, but as soon as i got a replay where i don't look like a retard, it will be here!
After those are done, I might focus on botright a little more, will share first camp with all T1's soon, thinking about all positions-no-manawing too. 
cya
 
TopLeftStonekin.pmv

Hello Skylords!

Just a quick announcement to let you know that we have a new developer in our team! Welcome @Kubik in the project!
He proved himself during our tests and discussions, and he's clearly a good developer, we are really happy and amazed about that! So, he'll work on the server with the rest of our team!

Congratz! And once again, welcome here skylord!

Thanks