THESE CHANGES ARE LIVE.

WHY?

Monk’s use rate has declined a lot since the last change, so something has to be done to match other Champions.

WHY?

Firecracker sometimes doesn’t shoot when there are enemies right in front of her (looking at you, Skeleton Army). This change will allow her to shoot a target faster after locking on.

WHY?

Archers are overshadowed by other ranged support cards, particularly Dart Goblin. We want them to be more viable in the current meta by being a viable anti-swarm Troop with decent DPS.

WHY?

The use rates of Goblin Giant are low. The backpack gobbos are this card’s unique feature, so let’s make it stand out even more!

WHY?

Knight has been losing out to other cards like Valkyrie and, to some extent, Royal Ghost. So a buff is needed to bring him back into the meta, highlighting his tankiness specifically. He’s still good stats for the cost, though.

WHY?

Rocket can be devastating as a finisher, especially in Sudden Death. In order to make a Rocket deck less of a cycle race in the endgame, we are making Rocket less effective against Crown Towers.

WHY?

Despite a few nerfs in the past, Phoenix remains one of the strongest cards in the game in both use rate and win rate.

With this change we want to kill two birds with one stone (pun absolutely intended) by scaling down a reborn Phoenix’s strength and also making it look different to a fresh Phoenix by reducing its visual effects and size.

A reborn Phoenix is the Phoenix that returns to play after hatching from the Phoenix Egg.

WHY?

The Log is a very unique and versatile spell. Maybe a bit too versatile since its pushback ability makes it stand it out of the competition with other spells. This change is supposed to make it a bit less versatile and not provide such an advantage when paired with ranged defenses.

WHY?

The most used Champion needs a nerf (but she's the Queen?)!

She now takes a little longer to charge up her crossbow before taking the first shot on a target.

We aren’t balancing these cards, but we are keeping an eye on them…

Here's why we didn't balance some cards that have been a hot topic in the competitive community.

The Royal Giant has a 5% use rate in Grand and Classic Challenges (around the 70th card in the rankings) with a decent 54% win rate. Even if we only look at decks who are very successful in Grand/Classic Challenges (the 8-12 wins bracket), it's still a modest 45th place for use rate (7%). It’s a more or less similar situation for him in Path of Legends and Trophy Road.

Lightning's use rate is at 11% in Grand and Classic Challenges, which is the 8th most popular Spell. Win rate is good (55%), however it's most likely due to the popularity of Archer Queen (and she's getting a nerf). So not getting a nerf yet.

The current thinking is to keep his Ability cost 1 Elixir. We understand that for competitive players (many of you) it would not be a problem to play with a 2 elixir Ability, but from a more broad perspective, having an expensive ability that doesn't grant the most straightforward value is quite a negative.

This is unlike Skeleton King, who spawns Skeletons (which has a clear value even when played in a non-ideal situation).

Having an expensive ability that's easy to misplay may put off less competitive players from using Monk in the long run and establish him as a high-skill card only.

While we don't mind having some cards with a higher skill ceiling than others, our goal is to make most cards as broadly used as possible.

While the above change attempts to fix the issue of Firecracker not attacking enemies that are in front of her, the reason for her ‘indecision’ is the function of multiple variables: Hit Speed, ‘First Hit’ speed and targeting logic.

The most impactful (and probably the scariest since it affects all types of cards together) would be to make some changes to card targeting rules, that requires thorough planning, execution and testing. We hope to do that one day, but until then, this change will make her indecisiveness less of an issue.