Affinity System Changes

Affinities have been part of the game since the Renegade edition. In some cases, they provide a great design tool where by making a minor modification to a card we can open up new playstyles and support multiple deck archetypes. In other cases, they are needless additions which not only hurt game balance, but also dilute faction identity. A big problem we have is that nearly every card added to the game since the game's initial launch has an affinity effect, and many of these affinities are very similar, with the same 5-10 effects used over and over again across all factions. This has lead to a steady homogenization of faction identities as we have rebalanced more and more cards, making it increasingly hard for us to keep each faction feeling unique. Many cards simply do not need multiple affinities (while some Twilight edition cards would benefit from having them), and this is particularly true with many spell cards where we have needed to nerf individual affinities to account for players being able to include both in their deck (and thereby bypassing the spell's designed cooldown).

While we have modified effects and swapped between affinities, we have to date not added any new affinities to cards which did not release with them, nor removed affinities from cards which once had them. This is largely because we view ourselves as stewards of the game and are therefore generally very conservative with our changes to the game's existing systems. At the same time, we feel like our choice to not directly add or remove affinities from cards has begun to hurt the game's balance and also damage faction identity. As such, we intend to begin adding new affinities or removing existing affinities from some cards moving forward as part of balance changes. To help explain our decision, we have included some examples of good and bad examples of the affinity system, as well as some clarifying questions. 

Good and Bad Examples of Affinities

[ Good Examples ]

1. Batariel - Batariel has a fire affinity and a shadow affinity. The fire affinity is designed to work as a solo-unit, while the shadow affinity is designed to enable other units to deal more damage. This makes the fire affinity good in Enlightenment decks and the shadow affinity good in Pure Fire decks, meaning that one card can enable or even create two different deck archetypes.
2. Soul Splicer - The core function of Soul Splicer is to turn corpses into a buff effect. The nature affinity's healing has always been good, and with the release of Random Wall Defense we see that the fire affinity's damage buff has a good niche in empowering archers from behind walls. 
3. Nether Warp - While Nether Warp likely does not need affinities in an absolute sense, the two affinities it does have both bring something unique to the table. The nature affinity's healing is better in PvE, while the frost affinity's slow buffs the spell's defensive capacities in PvP.
4. Equilibrium - Equilibrium is a healing spell with a built-in scaling effect based on the amount of nearby life points. The frost affinity scales with enemy health and the nature affinity scales with friendly health. This means that one affinity is reliable when used with a friendly army, while the other affinity can scale even with single unit compositions so long as the player carefully places it around enemies. This allows each affinity to work with different decks and find its own niche. 

[ Bad Examples ]

1. Sylvan Gate - Sylvan Gate's central identity is to bridge long distances between root network groups. Yet, because it started with an affinity, we had to give it mostly random affinity effects even after reworking it. Both effects buff units in a 25m radius around the Gate itself, but since the fitting affinity effects were already taken by Root Nexus we ended up adding two affinity effects which root network decks do not need or which are unbalanced. For example, the shield piercing on the shadow affinity is mostly insubstantial when used in campaign and random PvE maps, but it causes balance problems in defensive PvE and therefore needs to be removed. But what other shadow-like effect does the root network need and which would be fitting for a root connector card to convey? Additionally, Sylvan Gate and the root network are already very strong and do not need anymore buffs when used defensively. Therefore, it would simply be better to not have any affinity effects on the card rather than slapping on another random effect which would ultimately need to be so weak that it is ignored.
2. Skydefender - Skydefender is a T2 Bandit anti-air tower and because it was released as a Renegade edition card it was given two affinities. If a player were to chose which one to use, it would always be the shadow affinity which can bypass shields. If the card would benefit from shield piercing, it could be incorporated into the base card design, and not added onto one affinity while the other affinity does little to nothing in comparison (The nature affinity effect would only be useful in PvP, but dedicated anti-air towers are not viable in PvP). Attempting to find a 2nd affinity which is comparable in strength to shield piercing and which also fits a Bandits T2 anti-air tower might be possible, but it is a lot of creative energy which is better used elsewhere. And in any case, simplicity in design is often better.
3. Cluster Explosion - The primary purpose of Cluster Explosion is to do a lot of damage. Therefore, whatever affinity does more damage is the affinity which players are going to use, unless both affinities do so much damage that the affinity effect simply does not matter. Additionally, Cluster Explosion is purposefully designed with only 4 total charges as a way to balance the card. If we were to make the second affinity even somewhat comparable in damage, it would be slotted into decks as a way to bypass the card's inherent charge and cooldown limitations. We therefore are required to keep the shadow affinity purposefully weak, which is hardly a good design practice with an ultra-rare card.  
4. Lost Dancer - Lost Dancer recently received some changes that moved her into a good spot, but as part of the balancing we also reduced the affinity effects to a mere +30% more damage to humans for the shadow affinity and a mere +30% siege for the fire affinity. The unit also has its own counter, so these additional counters are entirely superfluous to the card's central design. We only left them because the card has two affinities, but we had to make them so weak they are largely afterthoughts in the deckbuilding process. 

Affinities are at their best when they enable new play styles and directly enhance the card's core function. They are at their worst when they detract from the core function, add unneeded complexity, or are randomly tacked on effects.

Clarifications

• Question 1 - Does this mean you are removing the affinity system?
  • Answer 1 - No, we will not be removing the affinity system. We think it has its place in the game and where it fits we will leave it or even expand it.
• Question 2 - Will you be changing all cards?
  • Answer 2 - No, we will only be changing some cards, and we will do so slowly overtime and with community input, just like our present balance process.
• Question 3 - What happens when you remove affinities from a card? What if I own one or both versions of this card?
  • Answer 3 - If a card has its affinities removed, any player who owns a copy of either affinity will have any copies they own swapped out for the new affinity-less version of that card. In this way, you will not lose any cards you own. For example, if we removed the affinities from Forest's Vim and you had 4 copies of the nature affinity and 7 copies of the shadow affinity, you would be given 11 copies of the affinity-less version after the balance change. Additionally, all upgrades the cards had will be removed and their gold refunded (in case you had both affinities upgraded).  
• Question 4 - What happens when you add a new affinity to a card? What happens to any currently affinity-less copies I own?
  • Answer 4 - If a card has a new affinity added, all of the existing affinity-less versions will be transformed into one of the affinities. The other affinity will then begin to drop from boosters like normal.

I think it's a good idea to get rid of some affinities, especially when both of them are not really unique and make testing and deck building additionally time consuming when the outcome is not that impactful. (I currently don't have a specific card in mind but in general)

I have one question to Answer 4. What if I get the one affinity that is commonly as the worse considered and my friend with the same card gets thanks to RNG the better affinity. I don't know a solution for this dilemma but that is disappointing.

Is there a chance you can implement something where you can check boxes which affinity you like to get like the radio button's at the end of a pve map where you can choose the card upgrade. And therefore if you add a lot of cards with affinities when opening the game the first time after the patch you choose the affinities for all the new cards like when opening boosters X times.

If/when we add a new affinity, it will likely be by keeping the existing card nearly the same and that becoming one affinity. There is not a randomization of which one you get, everyone will get the same affinity while the other affinity will start to drop from boosters. Having the player choose each affinity they want is a good idea, but it is likely to be too much work, and we don't really have the UI to support it. 

Good idea but i will miss Sylvans game samage buff. While i still regret that it lost healing 😉

but yes - affinities were kinda 5/10 idea 😉 

Affinity system was made just to milk more money from the game. Most of the affinity cards are just useless, one is superior to other. Then there is cards where affinity means very little. Even current devs is to blame to release cards like that.

IMHO I would be happy to see whole affinity thing go away.

16 hours ago, Draconnor said:

Good idea but i will miss Sylvans game samage buff. While i still regret that it lost healing 😉

I also really liked its healing. But with the large range, you can place a few backup root units at the back of your base and cast Forest Vim (p) on them for MASSIVE healing for the entire network.

Sometimes the reason Affinity is good, is being able to have 2 times the card in the deck even if the effect is not great. Lost Dancer are nice and i had cases having both saved the day cause i needed a lot being stuck on t2 (and they have a usefull affinity even if it's "just" 30%). With spell cards CD also comes to play... I don't like the idea removing them on cards already existing at all. Adding i'm all in 🙂

Edited June 2Jun 2 by DrPsy

Card charges should be handled directly, not via affinities. A pretty good example of this is Necroblaster. Why does this tower only have 8 charges when all comparable T3 units, meaning those with a similar power cost, have 12-16 charges? Right now the affinities are papering off the fact that the base card is not properly balanced as regards charges. 

As for spells, the ability to bypass the spell cooldown is actually one of the biggest balancing problems we have faced with affinities. Frenetic Assault, to give a prominent example, has a longer cooldown than it would if the card did not have affinities, and this is because the card is so strong we generally expect players to bring both copies. Additionally, because T3 void return is so strong that it nearly instantly returns void power, charges and cooldown are the only 2 real balancing levers we have for spells. 

9 hours ago, WindHunter said:

Why does this tower only have 8 charges when all comparable T3 units, meaning those with a similar power cost, have 12-16 charges?

 

We have also opposite exasmple: Why does fire drake have only 8 charges, when windhunter have 12? They do about same damage, windhunter cost less and because of life stealing is imho better unit. Sure you can fit fire drake in wider range of decks but imho it should have same 12 charges.

 

9 hours ago, WindHunter said:

As for spells, the ability to bypass the spell cooldown is actually one of the biggest balancing problems we have faced with affinities.

 

I dont see double spell cards as big issue because there is offering what you can use to double cast. Its very rare when I actually take both frenetics. You only have 20 slots after all.

So if you want to get rid of double spells balace issue, then we need to get rid of offering also or fix offering somehow.

8 hours ago, JiiPee said:

We have also opposite exasmple: Why does fire drake have only 8 charges, when windhunter have 12? They do about same damage, windhunter cost less and because of life stealing is imho better unit. Sure you can fit fire drake in wider range of decks but imho it should have same 12 charges.

Probably a PvP balance thing. WIndhunter also costs 120 power compared to Skyfire Drake's 100. And they are commonly used in different decks and have different counters.

8 hours ago, JiiPee said:

I dont see double spell cards as big issue because there is offering what you can use to double cast. Its very rare when I actually take both frenetics. You only have 20 slots after all.

So if you want to get rid of double spells balace issue, then we need to get rid of offering also or fix offering somehow.

Offering also takes up a slot, and you might need offering targets (e.g. rifle cultists at T4), so even more slots. The point about offering is, that it is one card by one faction, which can bypass charges (plus I think Evil Eye?), while double slotting spells can in principle be done by each faction.

maybe reduce or delete void return mechanics? as said considering you only have 20 cards and void drips in back slowly should be a balance for having multiple stacks of a card in your deck for better cd or uses. speedrunners hate me now i know for sure but what should be more an issue is spamming power with void return and rushing maps to dodge aspects of the map before they happen while playing. there are many times i hear you don't want cheesing tacticts and try shuting them down while also pushing speedruns and time machanics that motivate to skip and cheese as much as possible wherever they can... makes not much sense to me, but that's maybe another storie XD

11 hours ago, Metagross31 said:

Probably a PvP balance thing. WIndhunter also costs 120 power compared to Skyfire Drake's 100. And they are commonly used in different decks and have different counters.

 

At least my windhunters cost 100 on any upgrade lvl. Drake also cost 100 at U3

 

11 hours ago, Metagross31 said:

Offering also takes up a slot, and you might need offering targets (e.g. rifle cultists at T4), so even more slots. The point about offering is, that it is one card by one faction, which can bypass charges (plus I think Evil Eye?), while double slotting spells can in principle be done by each faction.

 

Thing is you can use offering on all tiers. Some t2 spell may not be very usefull anymore at t4 so it makes you question if you should take double or not. Also if you play LS deck, you do not need rifle cultist because you can use it on revenants.

3 hours ago, DrPsy said:

speedrunners hate me now i know for sure but what should be more an issue is spamming power with void return and rushing maps to dodge aspects of the map before they happen while playing. there are many times i hear you don't want cheesing tacticts and try shuting them down while also pushing speedruns and time machanics that motivate to skip and cheese as much as possible wherever they can...

 

There is serious flaw in many many maps that difficulty increase based on time spend. Very good example is Heart of Trouble. If you go slow there, you are gonna have serious issues. If you rush fast as possible, its very easy map.

Difficulty should increase also based on progress. Shifting Temple have this mechanics.

Edited June 3Jun 3 by JiiPee

Windhunter and Skyfire are balanced based on PvP. There are different considerations here compared to defense towers which see very little play in PvP, and if they do, charges are not a balancing consideration. 

One of the benefits of Offering is cooldown refreshing. It is also limited to one faction. This is an advanced mechanic anyway. 

Heart of Trouble and The Shifting Temple have nearly identical scaling mechanics, though of course balanced very differently. They use an objective + timed wave scaling mechanic where a wave scales up when the player reaches a specific point (typically building an orb) and the once more 5-6 minutes later. The wave then does not scale any further until the next objective is reached, regardless of how much time has passed. 

52 minutes ago, WindHunter said:

Windhunter and Skyfire are balanced based on PvP. There are different considerations here compared to defense towers which see very little play in PvP, and if they do, charges are not a balancing consideration. 

 

Please explain in details how  drake is such a monster in PvP that it requires limiting charges to 8? Also I think its very unfair that there is made balance changes because of PvP what very few actually play. 

 

56 minutes ago, WindHunter said:

Heart of Trouble and The Shifting Temple have nearly identical scaling mechanics, though of course balanced very differently.

 

If you say so then it must be true. However that is not a experience what I have got by playing both maps. Heart of Troubles has failed on something where Shifting Temple has succeed.

 

7 hours ago, JiiPee said:

Please explain in details how  drake is such a monster in PvP that it requires limiting charges to 8? Also I think its very unfair that there is made balance changes because of PvP what very few actually play. 

In PvP some factions have very few cards to counter air units cost efficiently. If these charges deplete before Skyfire Drake gets unavailable, it would create a very unhealthy dynamic where one player can force wins through repeadately attacking with the same strategy. Windhunter doesn't need to have the same level of constraint as it's only available in one faction which doesn't have the same level of support systems compared to twilight for example.

If PvE ever needs such a change, we could just power creep the entire anti air system, but the average playcount per deck inclusion in campaign lies around 4, which really doesn't indicate any necessity. In regards to resource investments between gamemodes PvE gets substantially more support than PvP overall. It's just that PvP is inherently more dependent on functional player card vs player card balance. Therefore, the largest portion of PvP related efforts go into fine tuning the dynamics between the game mode specific cards whereas PvE has more focus on overall content creation like overall faction-, map- and new game mode design. And even then, the majority of high effort card changes are PvE related. 

Affinity Consolidation
As part of our previously announced decision to combine affinities, here is the current proposal list. Cards which are not mentioned have no present plans to change their affinities.

Fire Cards
1. Blaster Cannon - Merge affinities: New base card will have both Rage and Magma
2. Scorched Earth - Remove tainted affinity (p), the infused affinity (r) is the new base card.
3. Sun Reaver - Remove both affinity effects and combine into one version. Completely remove the root ability and all connected modules from the card.
4. Dying Breed - Remove gifted affinity (g), the tainted affinity (p) is the new base card.
5. Thunder Wagon - Merge affinities: New base card will have siege and the ability of the flamethrower to target flying units.
6. Cluster Explosion - Remove tainted affinity (p), the infused affinity (r) is the new base card.

Shadow Cards
1. Nightguard - Remove tainted affinity (p), the infused affinity (r) is the new base card.
2. Time Vortex - Remove tainted affinity (p), the blessed affinity (b) is the new base card.
3. Eliminator - Remove tainted affinity (p), the gifted affinity (g) is the new base card.
4. Satanael - Merge affinities into one card: New Satanael can now cast summon both tainted (p) and infused (r) Snapjaws; abilities should have a combined cooldown
5. Necroblaster - Combine into one affinity, the ability is being completely reworked
6. Evocator's Woe - Remove tainted affinity (p), the gifted affinity (g) is the new base card.
7. Frenetic - Merge affinities: New base card will be able to target buildings and poison enemies in range.
8. Grim Bahir - Remove gifted affinity (g), the infused affinity (r) is the new base card.
9. Incubator - Remove tainted affinity (p), the infused affinity (r) is the new base card.

Frost Cards
1. Northern Keep - Combine into one affinity, remove both affinity effects
2. Glaciation - Merge affinities: New base card prevents wall knock-off and grants a +50% damage buff; additionally, remove cooldown from new base card (reusable instantly)
3. Stormsinger - Remove infused affinity (r), the gifted affinity (g) is the new base card.
4. Northstar - Merge affinities: New base card causes hostiles units in range to move at walk speed and increases freeze duration by 25%.
5. Core Dredge - Remove infused affinity (r), the blessed affinity (b) is the new base card.
6. Amii Ritual - Remove gifted affinity (g), the blessed affinity (b) is the new base card.
7. Ice Age - Remove the blessed affinity (b), the gifted affinity (g) is the new base card.
8. Kobold Inc - Remove the blessed affinity (b), the tainted affinity (p) is the new base card.

Nature Cards    
1. Root Nexus - Move the blessed affinity (b) effect (damage reduction) to Sylvan Gate; the gifted affinity (g) is the new base card.
2. Sylvan Gate - Remove both existing affinity effects (piercing, damage buff) and add the blessed affinity (b) effect from Root Nexus as the new base card.
3. Green Peace - Merge affinities: New base card has both positive effects (damage buff and damage reduction) on friendly units; also reduce cooldown to 10 seconds and increase charges to 8.

Bandit Cards
1. Bandit Stalker - Remove the blessed affinity (b), the gifted affinity (g) is the new base card.
2. Banditos - Remove the blessed affinity (b), the gifted affinity (g) is the new base card.
3. Commandos - Remove tainted affinity (p), the blessed affinity (b) is the new base card.
4. Bandit Launcher - Remove tainted affinity (p), the infused affinity (r) is the new base card.
5. Skydefender - Remove gifted affinity (g), the tainted affinity (p) is the new base card.
6. Bandit Lancer - Merge affinities: disables special abilities, moves at walk speed, and takes 15% more damage.
7. Corsair - Merge affinities: New Corsair can summon either Commandos or Banditos, with each ability having a combined global cooldown (same as Satanel).
8. Soulhunter - Merge affinities: On spawn unit knocks back small, medium, and large units and deals 50 dps to enemies.
9. Bloodhorn - Pending
10. Tortugun - Remove the blessed affinity (b), the infused affinity (r) is the new base card.
11. Wasteland Terror - Merge affinities: New base card effect grants 100% siege and gives immunity to major debuffs for 15 seconds.
12. Artillery - Remove infused affinity (r), the tainted affinity (p) is the new base card; ability is slated to be reworked anyway.
13. Amok - Remove infused affinity (r), the tainted affinity (p) is the new base card.

Twilight Cards
1. Twilight Brute - Remove gifted affinity (g), the infused affinity (r) is the new base card.
2. Slaver - Remove tainted affinity (p), the infused affinity (r) is the new base card.
3. Treefiend - Delete both affinity effects (delete Acid Bath) and combine into one card. 
4. Willzapper - Remove tainted affinity (p), the infused affinity (r) is the new base card; will see another rework soon.
5. Twilight Curse - Merge affinities with a modification: infused effect now happens when used on an allied unit, the tainted affinity effect when used on an enemy (see Tranquility).
6. Twilight Slayers - Delete both affinity effects (Fury) and combine into one card.
7. Nightshade Plant - Merge affinities: New base card effect poisons enemies and roots them for 20 seconds. 
8. Twilight Bombard - Merge affinities: New base card now has rage and M-knockback on its attack.
9. Twilight Warfare - Remove infused affinity (r), the tainted affinity (p) is the new base card.
10. Hatecaster - Remove tainted affinity (p), the gifted affinity (g) is the new base card.
11. Twilight Pestilence - Merge affinities and modify numbers: New base card increases damage dealt by 70% and reduces damage taken by 30%.

Lost Souls Cards
1. Lost Dancer - Remove both affinity effects and combine into one version; will rework the ability in the future.
2. Lost Reaver - Remove tainted affinity (p), the infused affinity (r) is the new base card.
3. Lost Launcher - Merge affinities: New base card has both rage and the slowly regenerating shield.
4. Lost Vigil - Remove tainted affinity (p), the gifted affinity (g) is now the base card.
5. Lost Banestone - Merge affinities: Can use either existing "Underworld Gate" ability with a shared global cooldown; similar treatment to Satanael.
6. Lost Disruptor - Merge affinities: New base card effect prevents use of card abilities and increases building damage taken by 15%. 

Stonekin Cards   
1. Stone Tempest - Remove tainted affinity (p), the blessed affinity (b) is the new base card.
2. Stone Hurler - Remove tainted affinity (p), the infused affinity (r) is the new base card.
3. Matter Mastery - Remove tainted affinity (p), the gifted affinity (g) is the new base card.
4. Rageflame - Merge affinities: New base card freezes buildings and its freeze does not apply frozen damage reduction.
5. Stone Launcher - Remove tainted affinity (p), the blessed affinity (b) is the new base card; fuller rework coming to Stone Launcher's ability.
6. Bedrock - Remove tainted affinity (p), the blessed affinity (b) is the new base card.

The proposals sound good so far.

I especially like the Lost Souls changes.

 

Some questions:

1. Will the charges for Root Nexus be increased, after the affinity removal?

2. Is there anything planed for Lost Horror / Lost Warlord? Maybe with a toggle ability?

3. What about Lost Priest or the other Lost Souls units, buildings or spells?

Very interesting stuff, definitely a good decision overall imo.
Some questions though, mainly with how getting the replacements will look like for players.
1) Let's say I have two copies of the Sun Reaver card, one of each affinity. After the changes, will I have two copies of the new Sun Reaver instead?
2) Let's say I have a Cluster Explosion (P) \ I don't have a Cluster Explosion (P). Does it make sense for me to hold on to it \ buy one now off of AH to get a better replacement after the patch?
3) Let's say I have a two copies of Time Vortex of each affinity up on the AH when the patch hits. Will the cards be automatically de-listed and given to me back in their new version?
There may be other things I'm not thinking of right now, but overall the main question is: how will it look like for the player? An automatic replacement? Or will it be a trade-in type of situation? This may be a technical challenge for you guys.

Merged summoners is great idea. 
Merging other skills ar mostly good idea also 😉

but:

Eliminator - Remove tainted affinity (p) - It was one that i liked more to be honest. 
Frenetic - Merge affinities: - a little shorter recast time maybe? i remember using both affinities in defensive challengers few times. 

Northern Keep - Combine into one affinity, remove both affinity effects - i fear that it will became another regular tower. 
Sylvan Gate - could one sylvan gate get some healing/regeneration? like old one  had? i sometimes miss the old skill when need to manually heal non rooted units

Twilight Slayers - Delete both affinity effects (Fury) and combine into one card. - Will they get any bonus instead that? i really tested them many times and they were "only ok" in bad harvest pos 3 while on constant +50% against stonekins... they have terrible drawback (-50% dmg) and nothing fot it to be honest. 

Stone Tempest - Remove tainted affinity (p), the blessed affinity (b) is the new base card. - i feel that purple one was the only one being slightly usefull... while whole card is still... not great 😉

Matter Mastery - Remove tainted affinity (p), the gifted affinity (g) is the new base card. - i liked purple one more 😞

 

I liked almost all of these, except:

 

Nothern keep, because its affinity effect is the only thing that I would use this tower for;

I would ad Northland drake to the list;

Matter mastery, no so sure as well, since the purple is great for early camps, before the change I would agree, but since only purple can swap some structures, I would leave both affnities;

 

 

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here, but in the future if we have a Fire Frost faction, warlock (blue) could be a fire frost card, and warlock red reamain a fire card, there fore removing the affinity.

Hey, I've seen multiple uses for keeping both ice ages, this allows me to persist shields even after charges run out.

Its true that green is better in 95% of use cases, but they do work well together and I would really like to see the option to use both in a deck!

 

One example is doing Into the Jungle with pure frost, it would become harder if you had to reapply shields instead of using both ice ages. 

On 5/23/2026 at 8:24 PM, WindHunter said:

Clarifications

• Question 3 - What happens when you remove affinities from a card? What if I own one or both versions of this card?
  • Answer 3 - If a card has its affinities removed, any player who owns a copy of either affinity will have any copies they own swapped out for the new affinity-less version of that card. In this way, you will not lose any cards you own. For example, if we removed the affinities from Forest's Vim and you had 4 copies of the nature affinity and 7 copies of the shadow affinity, you would be given 11 copies of the affinity-less version after the balance change. Additionally, all upgrades the cards had will be removed and their gold refunded (in case you had both affinities upgraded).  

 

@Nibylg Please see the quoted section of the original post, which should answer your questions here.

---

We will have another iteration in the future which will include some more card changes. We know that some cards are balanced around double affinities, such as Frenetic and Ice Age, and we will be making charge and/or cooldown modifications to these spells to ensure they stay viable.

In some cases the merge doubles as a nerf, and this is true of a few cards, such as Green Peace and Matter Mastery. I do not think it is healthy to have a T2 card which can mind control any tower in the game (same reason we nerfed Nightguard and Parasite Swarm); rather I think if the other affinity lacks viability in some places, such as rPvE, we ought to look at individual NPC tower orb/power costs to potentially move them into takeover range. We also want to more fully differentiate between Matter Mastery and Stone Age.

---

Just to clarify, cards which were not brought forward for changes generally fall into one or more of the following categories:

• Each affinity has a substantial playrate.
• Each affinity has a use case in either PvP or PvE such that it justifies an independent existence for its affinity
• We are planning on reworking the whole card or one of its affinities.
• We don't know what to do with the card yet, so combining affinities could be counterproductive if we end up reworking it and having a good concept for two affinities.

Im really starting to feel bad for poor Northern Keep just remove it completely if you hate it that much but dont make it die a slow and painful death by slowly nerfing it into obsolescence. 

At rPvE Expert+ Ice Shield Tower combined with Imperials and Landship is such a good combo that you dont even need Northern Keep anymore anyway. I just dont understand the point of nerfing Northern Keep is it so OP on Campaign maps or PvP that you absolutely have to nerf it or do you just hate it for some reason?

Edited September 2Sep 2 by Fimion

Maybe I don't get the deeper meaning of this intiative, but if you remove a card variant, it's decreasing the playable flexibility. Let me phrase it this way, I would even tend to get more aff. than less and this is by the way even a cheap way to "create" new cards and way of game-play.

I can mainly judge on shadow cards, here we are:

6. Evocator's Woe - Remove tainted affinity (p), the gifted affinity (g) is the new base card.
Feedback - This card is a good example of having a different scope when casting, i frequently use the card (purple aff) in pvp to block defensive spell actions when I am attacking, but this will not hinder the defensive use with unit casting (e.g. Timeless One when fighting vs frost t3). That's also the purpose of why having the 2nd aff of Evocator's Woe, just as an example. Seldon I have used even the combination to purple aff first followed by green aff to fully block the attack defensive action.

7. Frenetic - Merge affinities: New base card will be able to target buildings and poison enemies in range.
Feedback - Those who know me,  knows that I used both aff in my pvp deck since ages. Unfort. the red aff (maybe it was even green in the past?) that did block healings, was nerfed some years ago, finally resulting in, that an early t3 cannot be defend vs. an agressive t2 attack with deep one, spikeroot or vileblood any longer. Since this was the only way for shadow to block such single unit attacks somehow to hinder heal after heal with a lower power setup. Why I am telling, since this was and still is a major disadvantage and just one of endless examples of negatively changed shadow cards. Anyhow it shows, that those changes can be used to change gameplay, therefore use aff as oppertunities and not as "reduce complexity" topic. I would love to have this main differenciator back, or even the red aff to target buildung and keeping purple as is. Merging both, would also impact my deck setup, since I always use both, otherwhise 50 sec recharge will lead to even more failure with shadow and early out of charges, which even happens frequently to me when playing longer pvp matches.

1. Nightguard - Remove tainted affinity (p), the infused affinity (r) is the new base card.
Feedback - Have you ever played pvp vs. frost and try to defend vs. Mountainer, while beeing T1 or T2 Shadow? I use the purple aff to have at least some advantage vs. human, remove this aff, make an already weak and costy card even weaker. I am not the best pvp player, but Nightguard is really hard to play vs. people been better then average, therefore I can encourage to be very carefull when interacting on this level, especially if some cards anyhow are near to be useless against good players. Removing the aff will not make Nightguard better, but that's basically the direction you need to consider for such cards instead of down-grading it.

1. Lost Dancer - Remove both affinity effects and combine into one version; will rework the ability in the future.
Feedback - Removing both without plan how to compensate? It's like nerging Firedancer (removing additional damage to buildings) without any replacement. I feel Lost Dancer being balanced.

 

Side node, many nerfs (and I assume also changes like this) led to situations that cards have no longer being useful (e.g. Altar of Nihil in pvp) afterwards, therefore I can encourage not doing similar here.

 

I am open for comments and discussion if desired,

 

Edited September 1Sep 1 by Twinson

The planned changes seem good, someone more knowledgeable should weigh in instead of me. A lot of these are obvious good changes and I'm not opposed to the merging of affinity, makes collecting easier for new players as well, and changes should be made with that in mind as well IMO. 

One thing though, Core Dredge feels like it had a reason for infused affinity, you had the choice between Siege or more damage to frozen units? - Doesn't that mean that the infused affinity succesfully has an identity?

A question as well regarding upgrades. I currently only own Ice Age (Blue affinity), do I then get the new Ice Age fully upgraded or gold refunded?