Gameplay Changes

Mulligan

We have changed the mulligan system.  The first player will now get to see three cards and have an opportunity to redraw any amount and the second player will see four cards and have the same opportunity to redraw.  Cards redrawn are shuffled back into the deck after the redraw completes.

Mana Coupon

We have removed the mana coupon and the second player now receives a fragile mana gem.  Mana from fragile gems remains until spent and is always spent last.  Mana from a fragile gem used to set a trap is not spent until the trap fires.

All cards that used to grant a Mana Coupon now grant a fragile mana gem instead (Birds of Paradise, Vraska's Grub, etc.).

Game Systems Changes

Challenges

We removed all "Play with X Planeswalker" and "Win with X Planeswalker" Rotating challenges.

• These challenges were too restrictive in how the players could go about completing them, and did not reward creative deck building.

We added six new rotating challenges.

• Play with a Multicolored Planeswalker
• Play with a Single Color Planeswalker
• Play 3 Haste Creatures
• Play 4 Monsters
• Play 1 Giant
• Restore 5 health 

We updated the "Deal Spell Damage" challenge to be generic

• This challenge now counts spell damage done to creatures as well as enemy Planeswalkers.

Card Packs

The current pull percentages of card packs were rewarding too many rare cards and not enough epic and mythic cards.  The percentages have been updated to reduce the number of rare cards and increase the number of epics and mythics players receive from packs.  For full information, see the Booster Pack Contents article.

We also added duplicate protection to mythic rarity cards; you will no longer get a duplicate mythic from a pack until you own all of the mythics.

We have also adjusted the rarity of a few of our cards:

• Confounding Entity: Epic --> Rare
• Clone: Rare --> Epic
• Active Volcano: Epic --> Rare
• Azra Challenger: Rare --> Common
• Ball Lightning: Rare --> Epic
• Bombastic Boost: Common --> Core
• Flame Coil: Common --> Rare
• Hoarding Dragon: Epic --> Rare
• Lava Axe: Core --> Rare
• Molten Monastery: Rare --> Epic
• Opening Salvo: Rare --> Common
• Pouncing Lemur: Common --> Rare
• Scattershot Crossbow: Rare --> Common

Quality of Life Improvements

Crafting Foil versions of Base Cards and Signature Cards now awards Influence.

• Base - --> 5
• Signature - --> 100

We increased the values for Team Donations.

• Each Teammate can now donate three times per request, (up from one) and each request can take 15 donations (up from 10).

Foil Card Frame Revision

• We updated the foil card frame to better show off your bling.

Planeswalker Gem Buyout

• If you don't have any keys, you can now spend gems to instantly get a new Planeswalker instead of having to wait for more influence.  You still earn keys and influence just as fast as before!

Match Flow

• To speed up the time it takes to get into and out of games, arena intro animations have been removed.
• A new and improved versus screen has been added to the matchmaking sequence.

Leagues

• The current league banner now displays prominently on the main menu.
• New league banners are incorporated into the end-of-match sequence.
• Chests now only reward three cards.

Crafting Materials

• We updated the names and art for the crafting materials:
• The materials that discount the creation of creatures are all now named <color> Anima and have an organic material icon.
• The materials that discount the creation of other spells are all now named <color> Essence and have a vial material icon.

Training

• Optional training matches are now accessed from the main menu instead of the options menu.

Card Changes

Dynamic Card Pools

• We have added dynamic pools to our draft and random card creation lists. You can now draft cards exclusive to your Planeswalker from random pools.
  Example: A Jace player can now find Remand off of a Lorekeeper where a Chandra player could find a Flameshot, but not visa versa.

Ready to Rumble

• +1/+0 -->+0/+1
• This changes the role of Ready to Rumble a bit. Where +1/+0 was pushing for the ability to trade up and get extra damage, +0/+1 is aimed at protecting what you have and living to fight another day. We felt that this latter role was more fruitful space and offered the ability to include some interesting deckbuilding combinations that were otherwise less present in the card pool.

Watchful Giant

• 8/10, Can't attack --> 6/8, After this blocks, heal yourself 1
• We've had an eye on Watchful Giant, and it is getting pointed to a slightly different job than just a big wall. It still has healthy stats for blocking, but can come in for an attack as well.

Ravenous Pit Lord

• Raise opponent card costs by 2 --> Raise opponent card costs by 1
• This turned out to be more punishing than we intended to slower decks when combined with ways to repeat the effect multiple times. We still want to give this sort of ability a place, just scaled back to a more reasonable level.

Reach Additions

Did you know that trees are tall? Like, really tall? Like, reach up to the skies tall? And they are sick and tired of flyers defying gravity. We felt like Green needed more options when dealing with flyers so a few additional cards are gaining reach to continue bolstering Green’s flying defense.

Force of the Wild

• Gains Reach

Soul of the Wood

• Gains Reach

Survivor’s Regalia

• 3 durability --> 2 durability
• Survivor’s Regalia has been such a reliable and effective win condition that it has been crowding out many other alternative options. This change is targeted at making the choices more interesting and competitive.

Red Aggro Tweaks

We wanted to rearrange a bit of power in the suite of aggressive red cards, and this is a step toward that.

Hellrider

• 3/3 --> 4/3

Two-Headed Hellhound

• 2 mana 2/2, deals double damage to opponent --> 1 mana 1/2, deals double damage (to creatures too!)

Zo-Zu

• 1/4, debut: gets +1 power for each of your opponent's mana gems --> 0/5, attack: gets +1 power for each of your opponent's mana gems.
• Increasing Zo-Zu's health combined with switching the debut for an attack trigger makes Zo-Zu more likely to get higher power and more attacks.

Cerulean Dragon

• 8 mana, 7/9, flying, ward --> 6 mana, 4/4, flying, +1/+1 after you draw a card
• This is another move in the direction of providing blue more midrange threats in a uniquely blue way. We don’t know about you, but we appreciate it when our blue opponents put us out of my misery sooner rather than later.

Confounding Entity

• 2 mana 1/2, debut: switch power and health of all creatures in each player's hand --> 4 mana 2/4, debut: switch power and health of a creature in play
• Making the swap from affecting creatures in hand to a single creature in play and bumping the Entity's cost and stats makes it easier to see the impact of the Entity's ability while preserving much of the same synergies. Additionally, being able to affect itself in play makes for an interesting 2-in-1 card, letting you pick a more aggressive or defensive creature as appropriate.

Mastermind Lazav

• Now retains sneak in hand as Lazav transforms
• Lazav is a fun, sneaky card that gives players access to a wide variety of legends. There is a real cost to not knowing what you're going to get on any given turn though, so we wanted to make Lazav more enticing and stay true to the character. Keeping sneak as Lazav transforms makes for a lot of exciting combinations and we hope will give players more fun moments. After all, it's not like Lazav stops being sneaky when he changes his disguise.

Gluttonous Goo

• Now gets ward if a creature died
• This is the kind of card that we like to put strength into. It’s an honest creature doing honest creature’s work, and we don’t mind making it stronger against pesky Spellslingers that would seek to invalidate your creatures. This was also lacking a solid attachment to its green color identity, and ward helps cement it as a black-green gold card.

Fountain of Magic

• Add a random spell to hand that costs 6 or less and get an empty mana gem --> Add a random spell to hand that costs 6 or less instead of getting a mana gem
• Fountain of Magic's ability giving both a spell and an empty mana gem was a generous pour by any measure. This was reflected in a play rate that drowned out alternate land choices and threatened to continue to do so into the future, so we're making the trade-off more significant to create more interesting land selection choices going forward.

Active Volcano

• Starting turn 8, chance of dealing 3 damage to everything and transforming --> Starting turn 6, chance of dealing 3 damage randomly split among enemies
• A combination of a troubling play pattern based on uncertainty (playing creatures when Active Volcano is about to come online can be a bit nerve wracking for both players) and transforming into a dud of a land after your Volcano erupted prompted us to reconsider the design of Active Volcano and opt for something simple and clean.

Planeswalker Adjustments

Kaya

Kaya has consistently been testing the upper bounds of performance levels that we are comfortable with, and we wanted to intervene with a light, almost incorporeal touch. We explored a few options and ultimately decided to pull back slightly on some of the rewards Kaya’s special gives.

Somber Spirit

• 3/2 --> 2/2

Stalwart Spirit

• 2/3 --> 2/2

Nahiri

Forge from Stone

• The Stoneforged Blade now only remains until end of turn
• Nahiri has clearly and consistently been overperforming relative to the rest of the cast of Planeswalkers. Her Stoneforged Blade let her excel not only at putting on the pressure but also at thwarting attempts to race back against her. It was like getting stuck between a rock and a (very sharp) hard place. We are aiming to bring Nahiri down to earth and make her in-game role more specialized with this change.

Ashiok

Shadowmage Saboteur

• Attach 1 more Nightmare --> Double Nightmares this turn
• This change keeps most of the same functionality of the previous version, but it also opens up some exciting upside if you manage to get more than one of these to go off. With one of these attacking, the outcome is the same. If two Shadowmage Saboteurs attack, you will now give 4 Nightmares rather than 3 when you trigger Nightmare Weaver. If three of these attack, that’s 8 Nightmares when you trigger Nightmare Weaver! Just because Ashiok is the Nightmare Planeswalker doesn’t mean that you can’t live the dream!

Angrath

Searing Chains

• 2 mana, 2 durability, 2 damage --> 1 mana, 3 durability, 1 damage
• Searing Chains is meant to be a reliable way of turning on Angrath’s Hammer Home. The previous version suffered a bit in this role; it can be difficult to get into play early enough to fuel the special when you really want it and only gave two turns of direct damage to draw first blood for the turn. With this change, it should serve as a more reliable way to do its intended job.

Gideon

Lead the Charge

• Gideon no longer replaces a creature on a full board; he is treated as a sixth creature
• We had always envisioned Gideon jumping in with ALL of your creatures when leading the attack, and that dream is finally a reality. You no longer have to choose a creature to replace, which speeds up the game and allows you to just click the attack button once all of your creatures are in position.

Bug Fixes

Fixes included in this release for notable issues.

General

• Fixed many issues that were causing matches to shut down and/or players to get disconnected from matches.
• Fixed many issues that were causing poor performance overall.
• Fixed an issue where many sound effects and visual effects on cards and Planeswalkers were not playing.
• Fixed an issue where the incorrect weekly win chest could be displayed if it was earned on the same win that promoted a user to the next league.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the deck builder to error when adding cards outside of the current filter rules.
• Fixed an issue where sometimes the Planeswalker select menu would load improperly and overlap the main menu.
• The duplicate protection of challenge prizes now correctly accounts for multicolored cards when granting rewards.
• Newly created decks will be named "New Deck" by default instead of "Default."
• Searching for a team now will sort results in order by recent activity.
• The second time you get a non-legendary card it will appear as NEW in your collection. 
• We improved the performance of the deck builder and prevented an issue that was causing the menu to reload as cards were added and removed.
• We fixed an issue where the attack button would incorrectly change states between blocks.

Planeswalkers

• Fixed an issue where Angrath's Hammer Home ability could trigger when it was not the Angrath player's turn. 
• Fixed an issue where Dead-onator's finale did not correctly trigger Angrath's Hammer Home ability.
• Angrath now displays a visual effect on his portrait when Hammer Home is active.
• Fixed several issues with missing or incomplete voicelines, including mirror matchups.
• Fixed an issue where the damage from Chandra's Torch ability did not count towards the Deal 75 damage Daily Challenge.
• Fixed an issue where Domri's Rage counter would light up incorrectly when their opponent summoned a creature.
• Fixed an issue that would cause Multiverse Mind to count down incorrectly in a Jace mirror match.
• Fixed an issue where sometimes Ashiok's mana gems would not refill correctly at the start of their turn.
• When Kiora battles Nahiri, Fish no longer starts the game wielding Stoneforge Blade.

Cards & Gameplay

• Fixed an issue where Gravedigger and Absorb would leave a card back floating in the middle of the arena when played by the opponent.
• Fixed an issue that prevented Scour the Void from being played while the players hand was full.
• Reworded Tolarian Academy's ability to make its effect more clear.
• Fixed a typo in Eminent Archangel's card text.
• Niv-Mizzit's debut visual effect no longer appears upside down.
• Fixed an issue where casting Anticipate to draw the final card in your deck would break the "Final Turn" logic.
• Fixed several issues where Enraged Elemental's ability triggered twice in a single fight.
• Fixed an issue where destroying a Githu Embermage with Fling would redirect the Fling damage to the opponent.
• Fixed an issue that was preventing Possessing Arcana from being cast with a full arena.
• Centaur Sage now triggers once for each creature summoned at the same time (i.e., Forest Patrol) instead of just once.
• Fixed an issue that caused the game to briefly freeze up after playing Ragerunner.
• Fixed an issue where Omnath's power would only double once when playing Plot.
• Mystic Weapons now have tooltips for their keyword abilities when inspected in hand.
• Fixed an issue where Dupe would not trigger with a full hand.
• Fixed an issue where Scour the Void would award multiple copies of a single Pick Teams if it had been cast multiple times in a match.
• Fixed an issue where Panharmonicon could activate targeting Breeching Serpent.
• Fixed an issue where Mastermind Lazav would not transform correctly if he was added to hand by effects instead of drawn normally.
• Paragon of Balance no longer changes her own power if it was modified before being played (i.e., Ajani's Mentor ability).
• Fixed an issue where the game could crash if a relentless creature died at the same time as the opponent was dealt lethal damage.
• Fixed an issue where temporary keywords could visually remove other, non temporary keyword abilities
• When the opponent's deck is emptied on the player's turn, the message now says “That was your opponent's last card! They get one FINAL TURN!"
• Fixed an issue that prevented relentless creatures from suffering summoning sickness when they returned to the arena.
• Fixed an issue where artifacts that draft cards to hand with a full hand could not be activated (Beware, doing so will discard the drafted card).
• Cards that offer choices now always display those choices in the same order (i.e., Kothophed).
• Fixed an issue that was preventing damage triggers from firing when the defending creature died blocking a creature with trample.