Summary

Effective Date: Immediately, October 16th, 2023
Next B&R Announcement: November 6th, 2023

Hello everyone! With the conclusion of our first ever Ascent in Houston and seeing how the metagame shook up with the release of FTC, we've taken a closer look at cards that have been inordinately shaping the meta. We will be moving two cards into Category 3 for banning as well as adding two cards to Category 1. In addition, we are excited to announce the release of the very first two cards from Proxia's Vault!

Moving to Category 3 are both Sword of Avarice as well as Reckless Conversion.

Two new cards were added to Proxia's Vault: Scepter of Lumina and Stonescale Band.

Watchlist

Category 3

This category will contain all cards that are banned and restricted, proving to be too powerful or too impactful and limiting tournament deck diversity and meta health. Sword of Avarice and Reckless Conversion are the first cards in category 3.

Sword of Avarice has been part of the two-card linchpin of almost every competitive Crux deck, providing a large degree of card advantage when combined with Ascensions. In turn, this enables very explosive turns that typically take longer to finish as well as making some "feels bad" experiences for the opponents. The overall effect can't be done without having both Ascension and Sword of Avarice. Between the two, we believe removing Ascension would have too many side effect for Crux decks compared to just removing Sword of Avarice. In addition, the power level of Sword of Avarice pushes the limits of how much power we want Regalia cards to have, which currently limits the design space of flicker type effects such as Ascension and Zephyr.

Reckless Conversion has a similar function and effect for Arcane decks that result in explosive turns that take a while to complete while making opponents feel bad. We felt we could not dismantle the Sword of Avarice and Ascension engine without also touching Reckless Conversion since they are analogous across the advanced elements. For this reason, Reckless Conversion is also being banned.

Category 2

This category contains cards that we consider very problematic and are heavily watched for potential future legality changes and category shifts. With Sword of Avarice and Reckless Conversion moving up to category 3, there are no longer any cards in Category 2.

Category 1

This category consists of cards that we don’t consider problematic in the current environment, but are unhealthy for future balance and game design space. This category currently has six cards:

The new cards in Category 1 are Crystal of Empowerment and Displace.

We have observed the ways in which players are making use of these cards and it has informed our process in designing cards in the future. Crystal of Empowerment has been used ubiquitously across almost all deck archetypes, from aggro to control. We feel that this sort of effect being too easily and consistently accessible blurs the line between aggro and midrange strategies, in particular. One good example is Banner Knight, which we intended to fit a more midrange shell. However, many competitive decks are making use of Crystal of Empowerment to activate the Class Bonus early and allowing Banner Knight to be used even in aggro decks.

Displace has proved to be too efficient and versatile of a card, allowing both defensive and aggressive use with minimal opportunity cost. This results in Displace performing unconditionally well at all stages of the game. We can compare Displace to other cards that have similar effects, such as Zephyr. Rather than instantly removing and returning a card, Zephyr uses the suppress keyword which results in a slow return of the banished object. Used aggressively, an opposing ally will still come back awake with a chance to affect the board while Displace offers no such possibility as it rests. Additionally, while Zephyr can hit more targets, the delayed return requires greater planning and decision-making to avoid a greater drawback. Other interactive Wind actions like Favorable Winds and Reclaim are quite limited in an aggressive context while functioning well in their intended defensive purpose. In general, we would like cards similar to Displace to offer more critical choices and decision points to players by making cards more impactful situationally rather than being as useful in all contexts.

New to Proxia's Vault

Proxia's Vault is a new way we're addressing specific meta issues by releasing cards that players are allowed to proxy, even at competitive events. Read about the Proxia's Vault policy here: With Sword of Avarice and Reckless Conversion being banned, we are also adding in two new cards from Proxia's vault that will be immediately ready for competitive play via proxying. Officially printed versions of these cards will be handed out at future GA events.

The first card we will discuss is Scepter of Lumina. The design goal of this card was to accelerate the Water mirror matches. We wanted Water to be a more supporting element to the inevitable unlock of advanced elements at Level 3, however, Water decks have a tendency to result in achieving a win more slowly. This is especially true for mirror matches between one Water deck and another, often preventing players from playing out their matches timely enough for a BO3 format. We identify this sort of problem as a competitive metagame issue that limits the viability of Water decks overall. We hope that this new addition will accelerate Water matchups in a healthy way and allow for increased deck diversity.

The second card we are releasing is Stonescale Band. This card is meant to augment the Tera gameplan and allow for more variety in the ways Tera Tamers can secure a victory. In addition, this card will push Tamer players to play more allies and push the class' identity even further.

With the ban of Sword of Avarice and Reckless conversion, as well as the addition of these two cards, it is our hope that the competitive meta becomes healthier and more diverse until the release of Alchemical Revolution in January.

That concludes this B&R update! The next update will include another Proxia's Vault card and will be in the middle of FTC season, November 6th, 2023.