Hello, Heroes!

As you might have seen, tomorrow’s Early Access launch has been postponed while we navigate some administrative obstacles. We’re working hard to navigate these obstacles in order to hit our new launch date of July 25th, but in the meantime there have been some juicy changes in the works that we wanted to get out to you all as soon as possible. This is why we’ve just deployed an update that debuts the brand new reward structure for future PvP Seasons. We’ve also made it so that more Silver is being awarded from long matches.

Additionally we’ve made some more balance changes to bring the Shapeshifter and some other problematic cards in line while buffing up some underperformers. This should help create more deck diversity within the current metagame.

As always, sound off in the comments to let us know what you think and keep an eye out http://www.fable-fortune.com, as well as our Facebook and Twitter for future updates. If you have any questions or issues in the meantime, please don’t hesitate to get into contact with us on the Fable Fortune Help Centre.

Happy chicken chasing!

- Tom “Wimbles” Wimbush, Lead Designer (Mediatonic)


In our quest to increase the steady flow of rewards from each and every play session, we have decided to overhaul the progression structure of the new PvP Season. There are now many more Leagues to progress through, meaning that you will need to invest more time into reaching the coveted Hero League, but as a reward for your efforts you will now earn up to 4 card packs’ worth of prizes on your journey from the bottom to the top of the League ladder.

In addition to packs and Silver, in future PvP Seasons you will now earn a matching pair of desirable cards en route to the Hero League. For example, during Season 6, by the time you’ve finished ascending through the Leagues you will have earned two Shining Knights to help power up your Morality decks.

The fun doesn’t stop there, either. From Season 6 onwards, everyone who competes in the Hero League will be able to earn exclusive Fancy Basic Neutral Cards that won’t be available anywhere else. For example, the reward for being in this coming Season’s Hero League will be a Fancy copy of Crowd’s Favourite, with a second copy being awarded to everyone who was in the top 75% of players. Now when your opponent slams down a Fancy Crowd’s Favourite, you know they were playing during Season 6.
At the top end of the reward table, the Hero League now also has a bunch more card packs available as well as additional reward brackets for being in the top 5, 3 and 2% to encourage fiercer competition among our most skilled and dedicated players. Top performing players will even be able to earn Fancy versions of the desireable cards to make their decks that much more bling.

Rewards For PvP Leagues:

• League 1: 125 Silver
  
• League 2: 125 Silver
  
• League 3: 125 Silver
  
• League 4: 125 Silver
  
• League 5: Core Card Pack
  
• League 6: 125 Silver
  
• League 7: 125 Silver
  
• League 8: 125 Silver
  
• League 9: 125 Silver
  
• League 10: 1 Desirable Card (This Season: Shining Knight)
  
• League 11: 125 Silver
  
• League 12: 125 Silver
  
• League 13: 125 Silver
  
• League 14: 125 Silver
  
• League 15: Core Card Pack
  
• League 16: 125 Silver
  
• League 17: 125 Silver
  
• League 18: 125 Silver
  
• League 19: 125 Silver
  
• League 20: 1 Desirable Card (This Season: Shining Knight)

Rewards For Hero League:

• Top 100%: 1 Fancy Basic Neutral Card (This Season: Fancy Crowd’s Favourite)
  
• Top 75%: 2 Fancy Basic Neutral Cards (This Season: Fancy Crowd’s Favourites)
  
• Top 50%: 2 Fancy Basic Neutral Cards, 1 Core Card Pack
  
• Top 25%: 2 Fancy Basic Neutral Cards, 2 Core Card Packs
  
• Top 10%: 2 Fancy Basic Neutral Cards, 2 Core Card Pack, 1 Fancy Desirable Card (This Season: Fancy Shining Knight)
  
• Top 5%: 2 Fancy Basic Neutral Cards, 2 Core Card Packs, 2 Fancy Desirable Cards (This Season: Fancy Shining Knight)
  
• Top 3%: 2 Fancy Basic Neutral Cards, 3 Core Card Packs, 2 Fancy Desirable Cards
  
• Top 2%: 2 Fancy Basic Neutral Cards, 5 Core Card Packs, 2 Fancy Desirable Cards
  
• Top 1%: 2 Fancy Basic Neutral Cards, 8 Core Card Packs, 2 Fancy Desirable Cards

We’ve made some adjustments to the Silver that you get from battles so that you are rewarded with more for longer matches. We’ve also redressed the balance between winning and losing by awarding some additional Silver to the losing player.

• Time Well Spent - You will now earn more Silver from longer battles.
  
• Everyone’s A Winner - You will now earn more Silver when you lose a match.

Small(er) badda-boom.

Some slight tweaks to our beloved Miracle, who has surged in popularity over the last month with her hand-buff decks. While we’re closely monitoring her performance, we’re not convinced that she needs any significant tweaks just yet.

We’re instead slightly reducing the damage dealt by Chain Reaction, which has proved a bit too reliable in clearing your opponent’s board. We’re also slightly upping Royal Fool’s stats to make it more appealing compared to neutral cards like Wardog.

Card changes:

• Chain Reaction: Damage reduced from 7 to 6.
  
• Royal Fool: Health increased from 1 to 2.

Have you been working out?

While Barter has started to see some more success, his units have remained mostly absent from people’s decks as there are more appealing Neutral units on offer. We’ve distributed a few stat increases to Debt Collector, Cabin Boy and Keelhauler to make better them stand out from their Neutral counterparts.

We’ve also reduced the cost of the mighty Horn of the Deep, as the Gold required was proving pretty prohibitive even when the payoff was so powerful.

Card changes:

• Cabin Boy: Strength increased from 2 to 3. Invested Strength increased from 4 to 5.
  
• Debt Collector: Strength increased from 2 to 3.
  
• Horn of the Deep: Cost reduced from 3 to 2. Invested cost reduced from 9 to 8.
  
• Keelhauler: Strength and Health increased from 6 to 7. Invested Strength and Health increased from 10 to 11.

+1.

We’re keeping a close eye on Sand, but one spell that we noticed has been underperforming is Wear Away. Wear Away has been struggling to take out the threats that it should be strong against, so we felt like it needed a little bump in power to make it more comparable to similarly costed effects.

Card changes:

• Wear Away: Damage dealt increased from 4 to 5.

You again?!

Even with a cleaner design and a more diverse, less removal focused card pool, Crimson has continued to overperform. We’re starting off by toning down some of her effects that have proved to be either too powerful for their cost or too consistently unfun to play against.

As I said in my previous Shapeshifter design diary, Crimson’s removal suite is now extremely comparable to the Gravedigger’s. However, it is something that we are keeping a close eye on as we head towards Early Access.

Hero Power changes:

• Draining Rend: Self-healing reduced from 2 to 1.

Card changes:

• Blood Frenzy: Cost increased from 2 to 3.
  
• Surge of Fangs: Cost increased from 5 to 6.
  
• Timber Cleaver: No longer Stuns targets affected by its Big Entrance.

Woof woof.

That Dog sure was evil, wasn’t it? As a Morality (3) card, The Dog and its Good/Evil variants should represent some of the most powerful cards that you can play. However, one-shotting your opponent with a super-buffed pupper wasn’t exactly what we had in mind when we were picturing those awe-inspiring Morality (3) moments.

We’ve adjusted The Dog in a few ways. Firstly, we’ve given it a bit more Health so that it’s not a completely underwhelming play if you’re forced to deploy it before you’ve completed your third Quest. Second, Good Dog now only digs you up the best of the best Quest rewards. I’m talking about the extremely potent Now, That’s Magic, Empty the Tombs and Cheap and Cheerful, any of which could quickly turn a game in your favour. The Evil Dog, meanwhile, has been redesigned so that he can quickly annihilate a board of weak units but can’t KO your opponent quite so easily.

To touch briefly on Rush, we’re well aware of how hard effects like this can be to balance, however it does serve a vital role within the overall game by allowing you to react instantly to what your opponent is doing and fight back from a losing position. It is also an important tool for more aggressive decks to help push through those vital points of damage. We have no intention of removing Rush from the game, however we will continue to monitor the power of these effects over time to ensure that you cannot consistently deal a huge amount of damage to your opponent in a single turn without a lot of setup.

Prison Warden has also been toned down as it was previously essentially a powerful unit that also doubled as a removal spell and could go in any deck, which wasn’t exactly fun to play against.

We’ve also made some changes to other units which hadn’t been performing up to our expectations and provide more diversity to deck archetypes which aren’t seeing too much play right now.

Card changes:

• Cursed Warrior: Cost reduced from 5 to 4.
  
• The Dog: Cost reduced from 6 to 5. Health increased from 3 to 5.
  
• Bad Dog: Cost reduced from 6 to 5. Health increased from 3 to 5. Redesigned to “Rush. After this destroys a unit, it can attack again.”
  
• Good Dog: Cost reduced from 6 to 5. Health increased from 3 to 5. Now only Conjures Fabled Quest Rewards.
  
• Prison Warden: Now reduces Strength by 2 rather than setting it to 1.
  
• Rabble Rouser: Cost reduced from 5 to 4. Health reduced from 4 to 3.
  
• Rich Auntie: Cost reduced from 4 to 3.
  
• Yellowbelly Hobbe: Cost and Health reduced from 3 to 1. Strength reduced from 3 to 2.

• Abilities which affect specific units (such as Rosewight Barkskin) should now also affect the Fancy variants of those units.
  
• Blacksmith can now always be played from your hand, even if there are no other friendly units on the board.
  
• Minor text and tooltip amends.
  
• Silence now correctly removes Stun.

Hello Heroes,

Due to an unexpected administration hiccup we are unfortunately unable to launch the Xbox One version of Fable Fortune next week and we’ve made the decision to move the launch date back to July 25th on all platforms.

This is to make sure Fable Fortune releases on PC and Xbox simultaneously, so we can make the most of cross-play between the platforms. Sadly this is an unavoidable slip, however the PC beta is still rolling and we will be giving away more keys over the next few weeks. Keep an eye on our Twitter and Facebook! That’s the last time we let Hobbes into the office!

Thank you for your patience,

The Fable Fortune Team

Hello, Heroes!

The updates just keep on coming. This latest patch contains another big improvement to the game’s economy, as well as a rather fancy new feature, a bunch of bug fixes and some quality of life tweaks.

By far the prettiest part of this patch is the addition of our brand new Fancy Cards. These are super-rare versions of the collectible cards which you can find in packs or craft using Ink. They have brand new, custom animated card frames that get even more glorious as you level them up and a whole bunch of awesome VFX to make them stand out, both in your hand and on the board.

I’m happy to announce that we’ve also made some big changes to the crafting and salvaging values to make higher rarity cards much easier to craft. This makes powerful Epics or potentially deck-defining Mythic and Fabled cards way more accessible. You can check out the full list of changes below, and I hope you’re all as excited as I am about how quickly you’ll now be able to create those signature cards.

We’ve also redesigned some of our Quest rewards, as a few offenders were either warping the metagame or weren’t powerful enough to be worth playing in most scenarios. This is something that we will continue to iterate on over time, so please let us know what you think about the new versions.

There are also a bunch of small improvements and bug fixes which you can scroll down to see a full list of. Overall, the game will be much more stable and many of the more noticeable issues in the previous versions of the game have been addressed.

Unfortunately, a last minute issue has been discovered which means that we won’t be running any special Events (To The Max!, The Ol’ Switcheroo, etc) until it’s been resolved. This is our highest priority issue right now and we’ll look to get these back up and running ASAP.

Finally, as a thank you to all of our amazing beta testers, and to celebrate the launch of the awesome Fancy Cards, all existing players have been gifted two packs stuffed full of 100% guaranteed Fancy Cards. Fancy that! Just visit the crystal ball to collect your packs!

Sound off in the comments to let us know what you think. We’re all working hard on the upcoming Early Access update, so make sure to keep an eye out for more Steam announcements and check out http://www.fable-fortune.com, as well as our Facebook and Twitter for future updates.

Happy chicken chasing!

- Tom “Wimbles” Wimbush, Lead Designer (Mediatonic)


Even though we’re really happy with how your cards level up and improve their appearance over time, we wanted to add an extra tier of awesomeness that collectors could strive to obtain. Fancy Cards are exactly that: super-rare versions of our existing collectible cards which look even better than their regular counterparts. They have animated card frames and a suite of new visual effects designed to make them truly stand out from the crowd wherever they are. Fancy units even have brand new, dazzling pedestals to perch on when they’re on the board.

You can find Fancy Cards in packs, but you can also craft them yourself using a wad (puddle? Pool? Splodge?) of Ink. Levelling up each Hero will also award you with Fancy versions of that Hero’s Basic cards at every odd level starting at level 7, so when someone hits you with a Fancy Ashes to Ashes, you know for sure that they’re a true Temple aficionado.

As with the card packs awarded for levelling up your Hero that we added in 0.3.2, existing players just have to log in and complete a game with any Heroes above level 7 to earn the applicable rewards for that Hero.

• Ooo, Fancy! - Fancy Cards have been added to card packs and the card crafting screens.
  
• Back to (Fancy) Basics - Fancy versions of each Hero’s Basic cards are awarded for getting each Hero to level 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, and 19.
  
• Only The Fancy Need Apply - Use the card collection search bar to search for ‘fancy’ or use the ‘Fancy Cards Only’ toggle on the card crafting menu to only see the Fancy Cards you have in your collection.

After doing some analysis on the rate of collection progression, one of the areas that we felt we could make big improvements was in how fast you were able to craft higher rarity cards. Our existing crafting costs and salvage values were weighted much too heavily towards the higher rarities. This meant that while salvaging a high rarity card would net you a lot of Ink that you could craft lower rarity cards, crafting a single Mythic or Fabled card was often a massive undertaking.

Our new crafting costs make it a whole lot easier to craft Epic, Mythic and especially Fabled cards. While we’ve had to also bring down the salvage values of the higher rarities, overall these changes will make it far easier to craft the Mythic and Fabled cards that you’ll need to round out your favourite decks.

• Rare cards - Salvage value reduced to 10 from 20.
  
• Epic cards - Crafting cost reduced to 300 from 500. Salvage value reduced to 50 from 100.
  
• Mythic cards - Crafting cost reduced to 600 from 1500. Salvage value reduced to 100 from 400.
  
• Fabled cards - Crafting cost reduced to 1600 from 4000. Salvage value reduced to 400 from 1000.

• Click Me! - Mousing over a game mode portal inside the crystal ball now causes that portal to become highlighted.
  
• Completely Unplayable - Cards in your hand that you can no longer play are now fully desaturated to make it easier to identify which cards you can play at a glance.
  
• Easy On The Eyes - Transitions between various screens in the game are no longer bright white.
  
• Funky Font - Damage dealt to units now uses an improved font.
  
• Just Add Shadows - The floating pieces of text on the main menu now have shadows.
  
• Just Add Sparkles - The crystal ball on the main menu now has some new sparkly VFX.
  
• Pick A Card - Mousing over cards in the deck list on the deck select screen now causes that card to be highlighted in the list.
  
• Wherever You Want - The area in which you are allowed to play cards is now much larger, preventing issues where cards were accidentally returned to your hand if you released them too high up on the screen.

Just say no to one-hit KO.

The one-two punch in the Crucible of playing Payoff into Team Spirit to buff up your units and one-shot your opponent is causing games to play out the same way too often and causing the PvP season’s metagame to become badly warped. These rewards also served to help out the winning player more than they helped the losing player stabilise and come back from a bad position.

As a rule we would rather not change Quest rewards mid-season, however in this case we think it is necessary to ensure a more enjoyable gameplay experience and broaden the range of viable decks.

We’re also changing some of the rewards in the Graveyard because Extraction was often getting stuck in the player’s hands as they struggled to find a use for it. We’ve moved Live Again up to be the second Quest reward as it could often swing a game in your favour and introduced a brand new reward for completing your first Quest.

Card changes:

• Extraction: Renamed to Guards! Guards! Redesigned to (1) “Add a 3/3 Over-Eager Cadet to your hand and draw a card.” Moved to be the first Quest reward in the Graveyard.
  
• Pay-Off: Renamed to Brandish and redesigned to (1) “Give a unit +1 Strength then set its Health to be equal to its Strength.”
  
• Live Again: Moved to be the second Quest reward in the Graveyard.
  
• Team Spirit: Redesigned to (2) “Give all units in your hand +2 Strength.”

She’s simply furious. Even more so than usual.

We had intended to redesign Furious Librarian a while back, however shortly before the 0.3 update went live we had to revert this design change due a bug. Since then she’s been using her pre-0.3 design, but now that the issue has been resolved we’re able to deploy her redesign. The new version is a fun card to try and build a deck around, so I can’t wait to see what you all come up with.

Card changes:

• Furious Librarian Redesigned to (3) 1/1 "After you draw a card, gain +1/+1."

• Art of the Deal no longer sometimes causes an error when played.
  
• Aura effects (Royal Officer, Standard Bearer, etc) are now correctly removed from other units when the parent unit is removed from the board.

• After creating a new deck, you will no longer see cards for another Hero appear briefly before disappearing and being replaced by cards for your selected Hero.
  
• Bars on the gold curve graph in the deck editor are now scaling correctly.
  
• Cards in card packs now have their positions correctly randomised so that the rarest card no longer always appears in the bottom left.
  
• Card packs in a stack no longer clip through each other while in the Store.
  
• Card packs no longer appear dark and upside down during the match results sequence.
  
• Cards that are rewarded during the match results sequence are no longer tinted yellow.
  
• Invest cards no longer play the Evil transformation animation when played.
  
• Mouseover tooltips for cards now correctly disappear when you remove your cursor from them.
  
• New cards are now correctly flagged as ‘New’ if you earn them from playing a match.
  
• Placeholder UI will no longer briefly appear after entering the deck select screen.
  
• Playing multiple cards as your turn is about to end will no longer cause an error.
  
• Progress bars that were missing from several screens have been restored.
  
• Returning a unit to your hand will no longer cause that unit’s card to become invisible.
  
• Returning to the Store will always correctly default to showing you 1 pack rather than remembering your last selected amount of packs.
  
• Several missing or corrupted UI art assets have been fixed.
  
• Several common errors that are encountered during battles have been fixed.
  
• The design which appears on the red mat during pack opening no longer also appears on the main menu and the Store.
  
• The edges of the game mode portals in the crystal ball no longer flicker when moused over.
  
• The message telling you that your cards have levelled up will no longer appear after each battle.

• ’Play’ text on the crystal ball does not disappear correctly during the transition into the crystal ball.
  
• Card packs given out in the gift box will occasionally appear enlarged.
  
• Fancy units with Invest do not appear as Fancy when they are on the board.
  
• Fancy cards that you cannot craft may occasionally appear in the ‘currently craftable’ filter on the card crafting screen.
  
• Some cards are incorrectly flagged as being 'New!' while in card crafting mode.
  
• Special Events will be unavailable until further notice.

Hello, Heroes!

I’m here with the full notes for a small patch that packs a mighty punch.

A lot of you have reached out to us with feedback on the changes to the economy that we made as part of the 0.3 update, and we’ve been listening carefully to what you’ve had to say. We went back to the drawing board and looked hard at every part of the economy to see what was lacking and where we could make improvements.

I’m happy to announce that the 0.3.2 patch is the first part in a multi-stage process to revamp various parts of the economy to ensure that you are getting rewards at a more satisfying rate. We want you to start off with enough packs to begin building decks, and come away from each session feeling like you’ve made meaningful progress.

There will be other changes coming in the future to further enhance the update we’re making today, but we feel that this patch already represents a significant improvement to what was on offer in 0.3 so we wanted to get it out to you as soon as possible.

Thank you all for your patience and understanding while we investigate further improvements to the economy as we head towards Early Access. Keep an eye out for future Steam announcements and check out http://www.fable-fortune.com, as well as our Facebook and Twitter for more updates.

Happy chicken chasing!

- Tom “Wimbles” Wimbush, Lead Designer (Mediatonic)


It was hard to build interesting custom decks when you only had a handful of packs to open at the start of the game. We think that deck-building is one of the coolest parts of any collectible card game and we want to make sure that it is accessible to as many players as possible.

When a new player logs in to Fable Fortune for the very first time, they will now receive 10 Core card packs to help kickstart their collections with. What’s more, one of these card packs will always have a Fabled card in it that will help power up their first custom deck. To level the playing field, all of our existing Open Beta players have also been sent 5 Core card packs, including one that contains a guaranteed Fabled card.

We think this will give you a much more exciting start to the game and help you jump into deck-building right away.

• A Strong Start - Number of starting Core card packs increased from 5 to 10.
  
• Feeling Fabled - One of these starting packs will contain a guaranteed Fabled card.

We don’t want the rewards to stop flowing after you get your starter packs. We want you to always feel like you have some sweet new rewards in your sights. Starting today, you will be able to earn up to 11 Core card packs for levelling up each Hero in addition to the existing unlockable Basic cards. You’ll earn two packs for each Hero you get to level 2, and then a further bonus pack at every other even level (4, 6, 8, etc) all the way up to the maximum level of 20.

For any of our existing players, just log in and play a match with any Hero that is level 2 or higher to retroactively earn the applicable level up rewards for that Hero.

• Play The Field - Earn two Core card packs for each Hero that you get to level 2.
  
• Get On My Level - Earn a Core card pack for each Hero that you get to level 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, and 20.

We want your regular forays into Fable Fortune to be an exciting experience and give you a boost right from the start of your session.

Each day that you log in to Fable Fortune from now on will earn you a bonus of 300 Silver, which is enough to buy two packs per week if you log in every day. You can retrieve this Silver by clicking on ‘Play’ from the main menu and entering the crystal ball. This reward will reset daily at 00:00 UTC. If you’re online when the reward resets (e.g. you log in at 23:00 UTC and remain online until after 00:00 UTC), you will need to exit the game and log back in to receive your reward.

• Day Rate - Entering the crystal ball for the first time each day will earn you 300 Silver.

Fixer-upper.

Unfortunately, the mighty Spire Commandant has been struck down by a rather nasty bug. While we look into getting it fixed, we are temporarily redesigning him so that he remains playable. We apologise for any inconvenience caused and will look to resolve this as soon as possible.

Card changes:

• Spire Commandant: Redesigned to (9) 8/8 “Last Laugh: Deal 3 damage to ALL units.”

Hello, Heroes!

Yesterday I posted a design diary on the changes the Shapeshifter that we made as part of the 0.3 update. To round out my series of posts on the biggest patch for Fable Fortune so far, I wanted to go into more detail about the changes we made to some of our neutral cards.

We ended up making changes to over 70 different neutral cards during this update, as well as introducing over two dozen brand new cards. We were targetting a few specific groups of units with these design changes, so I wanted to give you guys some insight into what our overall goal was.

One of the problems we were noticing during the Closed Beta was the overall diversity of neutral cards that were making it into people’s decks. Cards that were just big ol’ piles of stats with no abilities were extremely popular as they were good on pretty much any possibly board state. Cards like:

We definitely want cards like this to be a viable option, especially for new players that are just joining the game and need some strong units to fill out their decks with. However the power level of these cards compared to other, more complex and synergy focused cards meant that these more exciting cards were getting pushed out of the meta. Through heavy playtesting, we found that this was either because the synergies on these cards were either too obscure or not powerful enough to warrant playing. So we set about leveraging the awesome, characterful creatures that the Fable universe has in spades to try and solve some of these problems.

While we had almost all of the critters from the world of Albion represented in our Closed Beta card pool, there were a few types of creature that we had more of than others. Of all the various races, Hobbes and Hollow Men were by far the most numerous, particularly with a few new Hobbes being thrown into the mix with the 0.3 update. Because of this, we saw Hobbes and Hollow Men as prime candidates for transforming into fun new synergy-based units that could in turn power some more combo focused decks.

Hobbes are easily some of the most recognisable characters from Albion. They’re strange, mischievous and a little psychotic. They come in all shapes and sizes, wielding all sorts of weapons and spells, and often gang up on you in these strange motley crews. A trio of staff-wielding magic users flanking a hulking Hobbe in armour and a pair of Hobbes on stilts? Yup, sounds like a classic Hobbe encounter.

We wanted to really inject this feeling of having a bunch of weird and wonderful Hobbes working together to take you down, so we created a new Hobbe-based mechanic: after you summon a Hobbe.

These effects really pay you off for playing Hobbes. Lots of Hobbes. Each Hobbe that you play from your hand (or summon from your deck with effects like Pressgang, or return to life with effects like Wake the Dead) causes these Hobbes to generate additional value and help put pressure on your opponent.

These types of effects combine really well with any Hobbes that have a Big Entrance ability or Rush, because they allow you to get value out of those units right nowwhile triggering your other Hobbes' abilities, we made sure to include those effects in our redesigns:
To help really empower the ‘play all the Hobbes all the time’ theme, we also introduced some return to hand and cost reduction effects, allowing you to replay some of the more powerful Hobbes over and over again for cheap to trigger the other Hobbes’ abilities:
All in all, this makes Hobbes a really fun and whacky deck to play as you seek to play and then replay lots of Hobbes with different abilities while raining fire down on your opponent with the explosive Bombers and Firebreathers.

Hollow Men, on the other hand, needed to have a very different kind of feeling to Hobbes when you were playing them together in a deck. Hollow Men are aggressive but hard to kill and heedless of their own (un)life. They attack in swarms and can seem like an endless horde. We tried to capture some of that feeling with the following mechanic: after a friendly Hollow Man dies.
These units all get more powerful when a fellow Hollow Man bites the dust. This allows you to trade off other Hollow Men to destroy or deal damage to your opponent’s units while also generating value using these abilities. These effects naturally play well with Last Laughs, which already give you an advantage when your units die, so we made sure that at least a few Hollow Men had some potent Last Laugh abilities for you to build around:


We also included a few stand-out cards that can really help you to outpace your opponent by generating additional Hollow Men or getting use out of using multiple Last Laugh and ‘after a friendly Hollow Man dies’ triggers:

While we wanted to make Hollow Men a viable option for any Hero, it’s worth remembering that the Gravedigger also makes heavy use of Hollow Men with her Hero Power, spells and units. Be sure to think about some of the following cards when considering how to construct your Hollow Man deck:

That pretty much covers two of the largest scale reworks of neutral cards that we carried out as part of the 0.3 update. We think that Hobbes and Hollow Men are now an interesting and potentially super powerful pair of races that can help fuel a wider range of different decks. I’m really excited to see how these decks will shape up in the Hero League over the coming weeks.

Happy chicken chasing!

Tom “Wimbles” Wimbush - Lead Designer of Fable Fortune (Mediatonic)

Hello, Heroes!

I said as part of the 0.3 update patch notes that I’d be putting up a deep dive post on the rework for Crimson the Shapeshifter, and I’m here to deliver just that.

Crimson has long been a problematic Hero for us, and one that has been cited as probably the most powerful in the game at various points. Her ability to mercilessly slaughter her prey fits her theme as a Balverine, but in a game about playing and attacking with units this had given her a distinct edge when it came to controlling the board. This made her pretty un-fun to play against, while earning her a place at the top of our internal power rankings for the six Heroes.

So, we decided to make some drastic changes to try and address these issues. Let’s get right into the bigger changes and start off by talking about Feral. Anyone who’s read the patch notes or glanced at Crimson’s post-update section of the card collection should have noted that the Feral mechanic no longer exists. For those of you who are just joining the game now, Feral was a keyword mechanic that said:

This card does something different if you dealt Rend damage this turn.

Rend damage was a unique kind of damage that only appeared on the Shapeshifter’s Hero Power (Rend an enemy for 1 damage), as well as on some of their units (Big Entrance: Rend an enemy for 3 damage) and spells (Rend all enemy units for 1 damage).

Through extensive playtesting, we found that Feral ended up being a mechanic that promoted a very set play pattern: use your Hero Power, (or one of the other cards that dealt Rend damage) then play a powered up card. This led to really predictable lines of play, and didn’t give you the flavourful, intricate choices that you get with a similar, dual-natured mechanic like Invest where you’re able to choose which effect you would like at different stages of the game.

Nobody ever wanted to play the un-Feral version of the spell, as doing so often felt like a failure. This meant that Feral as a mechanic didn’t really reward you for doing something smart. Rather, it felt often like it was punishing you if you couldn’t do that thing at that moment. Consider the old version of Ambush for a moment - (2) Deal 2 damage. Feral: Deal 4 damage instead. Using Ambush to deal 2 damage for 2 Gold felt awful, especially compared to the option of using it to deal a total of 5 damage for 4 (2 Gold for Ambush, 2 for your Hero Power). You basically felt like you were getting a raw deal, because you were.

In addition to that, Feral was also hard to design effects for. This was because you didn’t want the Feral effect to change the card so it did something different to the un-Feral effect because it introduces a lot of issues with ordering actions during your turn. Use your Hero Power without thinking? Oops, now your card does something completely different. No takesies-backsies. In testing out some designs for more of these dual-natured effects, when you made these sorts of mistakes, you felt pretty stupid. That’s not a feeling that we want you to associate with what should be a Hero’s core mechanic.

If the Feral effect couldn’t be significantly different, that meant that they had to be either amped up versions of the un-Feral effect, or something that could sit alongside it and not seem out of place. Those types of effects are really hard to design and balance without just having them feel tacked on. We ended up cutting them and cutting them until we only really had Ambush left, and Ambush fell heavily into the ‘I will only use this if I can get the Feral effect’ category. Then we asked ourselves: if there’s a card with two effects but you only ever want to use one of those effects, shouldn’t it just have the one effect that you want to use?

To top this all off, Feral cards sucked if you received them from a source of random card while playing another Hero because you simply couldn’t activate their Feral effects 99% of the time.

So, Feral was out. That meant that we had to redesign cards that previously have Feral effects, or just straight up remove them, as follows:



This left us with another dilemma: with Feral out, Rend really didn’t serve much of a purpose in the game. It just added a layer of complexity (rather than depth - which is very different) to a Hero that we’d always wanted to be easy for newer players to pick up and be able to have fun with. We played around with a few alternate uses for Rend but in the end circled back to our initial thinking: getting rid of it offered the cleanest solution. Now, all damage dealt by Crimson’s spells and Hero Powers is now just damage like any other damaging effect.

With the larger mechanical changes out of the way, let's look at what we changed about her cards. We do want one of Crimson’s strengths to be dealing damage. However, much like Sand she was previously pretty much only dealing damage, so we wanted to introduce some more diversity into her card pool.

We started with her units, as these were the main cards that were allowing her to simultaneously remove opposing threats while developing her own board presence. Of these, the Balverines were by far the biggest offenders. After a few rounds of iteration, we came up with the following set of designs:

The Balverines were redesigned around a common theme - feasting on slain enemies by having abilities that trigger when they destroy an enemy unit in combat. This is a pretty fun mechanic to play around, as you can use your Hero Power and spells to weaken an enemy before having a Balverine finish them off and trigger their ability. It also allows interesting counterplay on your opponent’s part as they can throw some of their tougher units in Guard to protect their weaker ones and remove the Balverine’s easy prey.

We also took some steps to introduce some other sub-themes to further expand Crimson’s deck diversity. For example we invested more into Wolves as one of Crimson’s themes with the brand new Mistress of the Hunt spell to join old staples like Savage Charge and Maiden of the Beasts.

We expanded on the existing self-healing theme with our redesign of her Evil Hero Power, White Hart and Snarling Lunge, giving her the option to play a more attrition-based game, like the Prophet.


We also added more pro-active Stunning units like the new Brown Bear and Timber Cleaver, so that you can lean more on temporarily neutralizing your opponent’s threats rather than just dealing damage to them.

Finally, Call of the Balverine is now a fun enabler for Shapeshifter decks that want to fill their board with units.

Suddenly transforming your board into self-healing 4/3s can be pretty explosive if your opponent doesn't have a board-wipe to counter it.

Speaking of clearing the board, let's talk about her removal spells for a moment. What we found after changing the Balverines was that Crimson now had a similar removal package to other Heroes. For example, compare Crimson’s removal spells to Temple’s:

Crimson:


Temple:


While you could argue that Crimson has the edge in some areas, Temple also has some strong options in Ashes to Ashes and Consume Life that Crimson doesn’t have access to. It's no longer the case that Crimson has more powerful as well as more numerous removal spells than everyone else. This means that for now, aside from making Surge of Fangs more fair by making it affect ALL units and redesigning Blood Frenzy into a card draw spell, we’ve not made any further changes to her other removal spells while we wait for the dust to settle on her other changes. If more adjustments are necessary, we will continue to make them as we head into Early Access.

That’s all for now. Hopefully you’ve gained a little more insight into our thought process behind the latest changes to a pretty divisive Hero. Sound off in the comments with your thoughts.

Happy chicken chasing!

Tom “Wimbles” Wimbush - Lead Game Designer of Fable Fortune (Mediatonic)

Here's the remainder of the 0.3 patch notes!. Phew! Check out Part 1 here!

Happy chicken chasing!

Tom "Wimbles" Wimbush - Lead Designer of Fable Fortune (Mediatonic)

From the top.

“Crimson’s been really, really good for a while now. Her ability to reach out and kill any of her opponent’s units while also generating board advantage with units like the Blooded and Predatory Balverine has often made her hard to fight against. Not to mention not very fun.
I’m going to be doing a deep dive into Crimson’s changes over the weekend, but to provide a summary of the changes here: Feral and Rend no longer exist as mechanics. Anything that used to Rend now just does regular damage instead. Balverines have been redesigned to no longer double as removal spells and we’ve introduced and strengthened some of Crimson’s other themes to make it so that killing things isn’t her only option.

Keep your eyes peeled for a deep-diving post on her rework over the weekend, but feel free to take a look at her full list of changes below.”

Hero Power changes:

• Focused Rend (Evil): Redesigned to (2) “Deal 2 damage to your opponent, or 1 damage to an enemy unit."
  
• Ferocious Rend (Good): Redesigned to (2) “Deal 1 damage to an enemy and heal your Hero for 2."

Card changes:

• Ambush: Cost raised from 2 to 3. Now deals 4 damage to an enemy.
  
• Blooded Balverine: Redesigned to (3) 4/3 “After this destroys another unit, heal it for 2.”
  
• Blood Frenzy: Redesigned to (2) “Draw a card for each damaged enemy."
  
• Brown Bear: Redesigned to (5) 6/4 “Big Entrance: Stun an enemy unit.”
  
• Call of the Balverine: Redesigned to (3) “Transform all friendly units into 4/3 Blooded Balverines."
  
• Feral Squirrel: Now gains +1 Strength after you use your Hero Power or play a spell.
  
• Predatory Balverine: Redesigned to (5) 5/5 “After this destroys another unit, gain +2 Strength and heal it for 2.”
  
• Savage Charge: Cost raised from 7 to 8. The summoned Blooded Balverine is now 4/3 instead of 2/2.
  
• Snarling Lunge: Damage dealt has been reduced from 5 to 4. Heals your Hero for 3 instead of 4. No longer has a ‘Feral’ effect.
  
• Stunning Slash: Cost raised from 0 to 1.
  
• Surge of Fangs: Cost reduced from 7 to 5. Now deals a flat 4 damage to ALL units instead of just enemy units. No longer has a ‘Feral’ effect.
  
• Timber Guardian: Cost raised from 5 to 7. Strength increased from 4 to 7. Health increased from 5 to 6.
  
• Timber Guardian (Evil) Timber Cleaver: Redesigned to (7) 7/6 “Big Entrance: Stun an enemy unit and its adjacent units, then deal 1 damage to them.”
  
• Timber Guardian (Good) Timber Lurker: Redesigned to (7) 7/6 “Big Entrance: Remove all enemy units from Guard.”
  
• Track Prey Has been removed and replaced with Mistress of the Hunt - (5) “Summon three 1/1 Wolves.”
  
• White Balverine: Redesigned to (8) 5/8 “After this destroys another unit, summon a 4/3 Blooded Balverine.”
  
• White Hart: Redesigned to (4) 3/5 “Your Hero Power and damaging spells also heal your Hero for that much.”

Welcome to the neutral planet.

“Well, well, well. Neutral cards. There are quite a lot of those. Especially now with a whole new batch of cards being thrown into the mix. In fact, what with these patch notes already being super long, I’m going to provide a TL;DR version of what’s changed here and then delve into these changes in more detail over the weekend.

Essentially, what we’ve tried to do with neutral cards is make sure that they all have a home. This is different from making them all competitive; not every card in a card pool of this size can fit into a top tier competitive deck. Instead we’ve tried to focus on ensuring that each card will appeal to a certain type of player, or that each card will fit into a particular deck. We’ve done this by making some cards more universally useful while making others more powerful in niche strategies. Some cards we’ve just tried to make more fun, or silly, or cool to play with and against.

Keep your eyes peeled for more on the design of neutral cards over the weekend, but scroll down to see what’s changed.”

New cards:

• Blade Scavenger: (5) 6/4 “After a friendly Hollow Man dies, give a unit in your or your ally's hand +1 Strength.”
  
• Demon Door: (6) 0/8 “Big Entrance: Add a spell to your hand per point of Good, or a unit per point of Evil.”
  
• Depraved Cultist: (3) 1/3 “Safeguard: Summon a 2/1 Undead Chopper.”
  
• Diseased Balverine: (6) 6/3 “Last Laugh: Deal 3 damage to your opponent.”
  
• Dread Champion: (9) 8/9 “Big Entrance: Add a copy of all other friendly Hollow Men to your hand.”
  
• Flagellant: (4) 2/5 “After this unit takes damage, it gains +2 Strength.”
  
• Frightblade Stalker: (6) 4/3 “Big Entrance: Destroy a unit with 7 or more Strength.”
  
• Heartless Lancer: (3) 2/4 “After a friendly Hollow Man dies, set this unit's Strength to 4.”
  
• Hobblett: (1) 1/1 “Rush.”
  
• Hobbe Stiltwalker: (4) 3/3 “Big Entrance: All players draw 2 cards.”
  
• Hobbe Warlock: (3) 4/3 “Big Entrance: Return a friendly Hobbe to your hand. It costs 2 less.”
  
• Logan: (8) 5/5 “Big Entrance: Conjure a Royal Decree.”
  
• Royal Decree: Martial Law: (1) “Set the Gold cost of units in your hand to 3 this turn.”
  
• Royal Decree: Military Service: (3) “Summon 3 Royal Cadets.”
  
• Royal Decree: Field Surgeons: (2) “Restore 10 Health to your Hero.”
  
• Nymph Warden: (3) 2/2 “Big Entrance: Set the Gold cost, Strength and Health of a unit in your hand to 4.”
  
• Offensive Gnome: (2) 2/2 “Big Entrance: Remove all enemy units from Guard.”
  
• Reanimating Wisp: (5) 3/3 “Last Laugh: Summon a 2/2 Reanimating Wisp.”
  
• Redcap Shaman: (4) 3/5 “After your opponent takes damage, give a unit in your or your ally's hand +1 Strength.”
  
• Reformed Criminal: (2) 4/4 “While this unit is undamaged, it has -4 Strength.”
  
• Rich Auntie: (4) 2/3 “Last Laugh: Reduce the cost of a card in your and your ally’s hand by 1.”
  
• Rosewight Barkskin: (7) 7/7 “Your other Redcaps, Rosewights, Nymphs and Pucks have +2/+2.”
  
• Rosewight Stalker: (6) 4/5 “Big Entrance: Destroy an enemy unit with 2 or less Strength.”
  
• Royal Cadet: (2) 2/2 “Big Entrance: Give another unit Guard.”
  
• Royal Armourer: (6) 4/5 “Safeguard: Give another friendly unit +2 Health.”
  
• Royal Tactician: (5) 5/3 “Safeguard: Give your other units +1/+1.”
  
• Royal Commander: (4) 3/4 “Safeguard: Add a 2/2 Royal Cadet to your hand.”
  
• Shining Knight: (5) 5/5 “Your Morality units cost (1) Gold less.”
  
• Spire Commandant: (9) 8/8 “Last Laugh: Deal 1 damage to ALL units for each spell in your hand.”
  
• The Dog: (6) 6/3 “Morality (3): Transform this unit.”
  
• The Dog (Evil) Bad Dog: (6) 6/3 “Rush. Big Entrance: Can attack twice this turn.”
  
• The Dog (Good) Good Dog: (6) 6/3 “Big Entrance: Conjure a Quest Reward.”
  
• Wise Spellweaver: (8) 5/6 “Safeguard: Draw a card.”

Card changes:

• Abbot of Avo: Strength increased from 3 to 4. Health decreased from 8 to 6.
  
• Apprentice Inventor: All players now draw a card, at the end of your turn.
  
• Apprentice Will User: Health decreased from 4 to 3.
  
• Arena Commentator: Cost reduced from 6 to 4. Strength and Health decreased from 4 to 3.
  
• Auroran Conjurer: Redesigned to (3) 2/2 “Big Entrance: Conjure a Hobbe, Hollowman or Bandit.”
  
• Bank Clerk (Evil) Inside Trader: Redesigned to (2) 2/2 “Last Laugh: Reduce the cost of cards in your hand by 1.”
  
• Bank Clerk (Good) Philanthropist: Redesigned to (2) 2/2 “Big Entrance: Give all units in your hand +1/+1.”
  
• Banshee: Redesigned to (4) 0/8 “At the start of your turn, destroy ALL units.”
  
• Battle Medic: Redesigned to (3) 1/4 “At the end of your turn, heal a damaged friendly character for 3.”
  
• Blood Augur: Strength decreased from 3 to 2.
  
• Bloodstone Blackguard: Redesigned to (5) 5/4 “Big Entrance: Give adjacent units +1 Strength per point of Good, or +1 Health per point of Evil.”
  
• Bowerstone Guard: Cost reduced from 4 to 3. Strength decreased from 4 to 3. Health decreased from 4 to 3.
  
• Bowerstone Sheriff: Health decreased from 7 to 6.
  
• Clockwork Beetle: Redesigned to (1) 1/1 “Deflect.”
  
• Colin Mk 2: Cost reduced from 6 to 5.
  
• Corrupted Spellblade: Redesigned to (4) 5/3 “Big Entrance: Destroy a friendly Hollow Man, then resummon it.”
  
• Crowd’s Favourite: Now gains +1/+1 for each other friendly unit, instead of only +1 Strength. Health decreased from 6 to 5.
  
• Cullis Master: Cost reduced from 3 to 2. Strength decreased from 4 to 2.
  
• Cursed Warrior: Cost increased from 4 to 5.
  
• Earth Troll: Redesigned to (8) 7/7 “Big Entrance: If you control a unit with 7 or more Strength, deal 3 damage.”
  
• Elite Grenadier Strength increased from 2 to 3.
  
• Experimental Repeater: Redesigned to (4) 0/7 “At the end of your turn, deal 1 damage to this unit and gain +2 Strength.”
  
• Friendly Crone: Health decreased from 4 to 3.
  
• Furious Librarian: Redesigned to (2) 1/1 “After you draw a card, gain +1/+1.”
  
• Hardened Colonel: Cost raised from 5 to 6. Strength increased from 5 to 6. Health increased from 4 to 5.
  
• Hardened Colonel (Good) Merciful Colonel: Redesigned to (6) 6/5 “Big Entrance: Gain +2/+2 and Guard.”
  
• Hardened Colonel (Evil) Merciless Colonel: Redesigned to (6) 6/5 “Big Entrance: Give adjacent units +2/+2.”
  
• Hobbe Bomber: Redesigned to (1) 1/2 “After you play a Hobbe, deal 1 damage to your opponent.”
  
• Hobbe Bull Rider: Redesigned to (3) 2/3 “Big Entrance: Reduce the cost of Hobbes in your hand by 1.”
  
• Hobbe Clobber: Health increased from 2 to 3.
  
• Hobbe Firebreather: Redesigned to (5) 5/4 “After you play a Hobbe, deal 1 damage to 2 enemy units.”
  
• Hero of Oakvale: Strength increased from 6 to 8. Health increased from 6 to 8.
  
• Hero of Oakvale (Evil) Paragon of Evil: Strength increased from 6 to 8. Health increased from 6 to 8.
  
• Hero of Oakvale (Good) Paragon of Virtue: Redesigned to (10) 8/8 “Other friendly units have +2/+2. Enemy units have -2/-2.”
  
• Inept Bowman: Strength decreased from 3 to 2. Health increased from 1 to 2.
  
• Lord of Bower Lake: Strength decreased from 6 to 4. Health increased from 5 to 6.
  
• Lord of Bower Lake (Good) Lord of Oakfield: Redesigned to (5) 4/6 “Your other Morality units have +2/+2.”
  
• Lord of Bower Lake (Evil) Lord of Wraithmarsh: Redesigned to (5) 4/6 “After you play a Morality card, draw a card.”
  
• Magehunter: Health decreased from 4 to 3.
  
• Malignant Wisp: Strength increased from 4 to 5.
  
• Necrotic Enforcer: Redesigned to (1) 2/1 “Last Laugh: Give a friendly Hollow Man +2 Strength.”
  
• Nostro: Redesigned to (5) 2/6 “After you play a unit, destroy it, then resummon it.”
  
• Outlaw Chief: Cost reduced from 6 to 5. Strength decreased from 6 to 4.
  
• Pie Seller: Strength decreased from 5 to 4. Health decreased from 6 to 4.
  
• Prison Jailer: Strength increased from 6 to 8.
  
• Prison Jailer (Good) Prison Warden: Redesigned to (7) 8/5 “Big Entrance: Silence an enemy unit, then set its Strength to 1.”
  
• Prison Jailer (Evil) Prison Executioner: Redesigned to (7) 8/5 “Big Entrance: Choose an enemy unit. It will be destroyed at the end of your opponent’s turn.”
  
• Redcap Chieftain: Strength increased from 4 to 5. Health decreased from 4 to 3.
  
• Redcap Lobber: Cost reduced from 2 to 1. Health decreased from 2 to 1. Now deals 1 damage to your opponent twice instead of 1 damage to your opponent and a random enemy unit.
  
• Redcap Skullchuck: Strength increased from 3 to 4. The damage now occurs at the end of your turn instead of at the start.
  
• Redcap Stabber: Strength increased from 2 to 3.
  
• Restless Spirit (Evil) Vengeful Spirit: Redesigned to (4) 4/3 “Big Entrance: Add a random unit to your hand.”
  
• Restless Spirit (Good) Playful Spirit: Now adds one random spell to your hand rather than two random spells to each player’s hand.
  
• Rookridge Butcher: Redesigned to (4) 4/4 “If you control another Bandit, give all Bandits in your hand +1/+1.”
  
• Rookie Cardshark: Cost reduced from 3 to 2.
  
• Rotlung Slaver: Redesigned to (7) 4/4 “Last Laugh: Summon two 2/1 Undead Choppers.”
  
• Sea Witch: Redesigned to (8) 8/5 “Big Entrance: Enemy units gain “Can’t Guard”.”
  
• Shadow Warrior: Strength increased from 4 to 5. Health increased from 4 to 5.
  
• Shroud: Redesigned to (6) 5/3 “Big Entrance: Deal 1 damage to an enemy unit. If you control no other units, destroy it instead.”
  
• Snowspire Summoner: Redesigned to (6) 7/5 “Big Entrance: Deal 1 damage for each point of Morality you have.”
  
• Stampeding Fans: Redesigned to (7) 6/4 “Big Entrance: Conjure a transforming Morality unit.”
  
• Tattooist: Health decreased from 3 to 2.
  
• The Guildmaster: Redesigned to (3) 1/5 “Other friendly units with no abilities have +2/+2.”
  
• The Nightcrawler: Redesigned to (9) 4/4 “At the end of EACH turn, fill your board with 1/1 Shadows.”
  
• Treasure Hunter: Strength increased from 7 to 9. Health increased from 5 to 6.
  
• Treasure Hunter (Good) Demon Hunter: Redesigned to (8) 9/6 “At the end of your turn, the enemy unit with the highest Strength gets -3 Strength.”
  
• Treasure Hunter (Evil) Bounty Hunter : Redesigned to (8) 9/6 “Big Entrance: Deal 3 damage to an enemy unit. If it dies, you gain 3 Gold this turn.”
  
• Twinblade: Strength decreased from 7 to 5. Health decreased from 7 to 5.
  
• Undead Footman: +1 Strength is now only gained after a friendly Hollow Man dies, instead of any unit.
  
• Voice of Avo: Cost increased from 5 to 6.
  
• Wardog: Strength increased from 5 to 6. Health decreased from 8 to 7.
  
• Wasp Queen: Strength increased from 2 to 3. Health decreased from 4 to 3.
  
• Westcliff Recruiter: Strength increased from 1 to 3.
  
• Wraithmarsh Slicer: Redesigned to (5) 5/5 “Big Entrance: Deal 1 damage to all damaged units.”
  
• Yellowbelly Hobbe: Redesigned to (5) 0/7 “After you play a Hobbe, return this unit to your hand.”

Fighting fair.

“We’ve increased the power level of Trophy cards to help give the player who goes second a helping hand. Chicken Vengeant and The Boot can now pick off weaker units all by themselves, and Point Stick and Jar of Leeches can help to pump up tougher units and help keep them on the board for longer. Tofu Trader is now a great option for anyone who needs consistent self-healing or an early blocker to help extend the game.“

• Chicken Vengeant: Strength increased from 1 to 2.
  
• Jar of Leeches: Now heals a character for 5 instead of 3.
  
• Pointy Stick: Now gives a unit +1/+2 instead of +1/+1.
  
• The Boot: Now deals 2 damage instead of 1.
  
• Tofu Trader: Redesigned to (0) 0/3 “At the end of your turn, heal your Hero for 2.”

• Card tooltips will sometimes persist once a unit has been removed from the board.
  
• Minimising will cause the game audio to be muted and behave strangely when maximised again.
  
• Parts of various progress bar assets may appear missing from some screens.
  
• Remaining on one screen for too long can cause you to receive an error after exiting that screen.
  
• The attack animation for enemy units sometimes appears to play incorrectly.
  
• The Gold values of cards remains visible briefly after you switch to another page
  
• Transforming Morality units sometimes do not trigger their on-play effects while Nostro is on the board.
  
• Units that randomly give units Guard can target units who are already in Guard and therefore have no effect.

“Hello, Heroes!

I’m here with the full patch notes that accompany the gigantic 0.3 update that just went live. It’s easily the biggest update to the game so far, comprising big feature revamps, 30 brand new cards and hundreds of card buffs, nerfs, rarity changes and redesigns. Multiple Heroes have been reworked to provide a deeper and more engaging gameplay and deck building experience.

Basically, it’s huge. So huge that I need to split it into multiple posts!

So huge in fact that we’ve had to reset the accounts of everyone who is currently playing in the Closed Beta. This should be the final account reset that we will be performing, barring any unforeseen issues, so any rewards earned and progress made after the 9th should last forever, even through the launch of Early Access and beyond. As stated in our FAQ, everyone who has already bought packs via a Steam purchase will be fully compensated with an equivalent number of bought packs after the reset.

As a thankyou to all of our awesome Closed Beta players, after the reset anyone who logs into Fable Fortune between now and the 20th June will receive 5 card packs to help jump-start your collections with. This is a limited time promotion, so make sure to log in to claim your rewards.

Unfortunately, we’ve had a last minute issue discovered in co-op battles that means we’ll be delaying the start of the next co-op challenge until after we’ve deployed a hotfix. I apologise for any inconvenience and want to reassure you guys that we’re working hard on getting a fix up as soon as possible. In the meantime, PvP and Training will still be available as per usual, so jump in and start slinging chickens at each other!

Scroll down for the full list of changes then log in to see what’s new. For those of you who signed up to our Closed Beta, keep an eye on your inboxes as we’ll be sending out another wave of codes any time now. For anyone who didn’t manage to sign up: look out for future Steam announcements as well as http://www.fable-fortune.com and our Facebook/Twitter for more news as we head towards our recently announced Early Access.

Happy chicken chasing!”

- Tom “Wimbles” Wimbush, Lead Designer (Mediatonic)


“I gave you guys a sneak peek into the work that we’ve been doing on this screen a while back, but I’m excited to say that the new and improved card collection is now live. Almost every aspect of this screen has been polished to provide a much more pleasant user experience. Check out all the juicy changes that have gone into this update below.”

• Soul Searching - You can now type into the brand new search bar at the bottom of the collection mat to search your collection for specific cards. Enter any part of a card’s name, rules text, Gold cost, Strength, Health, Rarity, Race, type, and more. You can even use logical operators (>, =, etc) to your search for cards that cost more than 3 Gold, or units that have more Strength than Health, for example.
  
• Deck Check - Deck lists have been rebuilt from the ground up to be easier to read and edit. You can now see most, if not all, of the cards in your deck at a glance. You can also see thumbnails of each card’s art, which Hero it belongs to, how many copies of that card are in your deck, and if that card is Fabled or not.
  
• All The Colours - Decks have also received a similar treatment to the deck list so that it is easier to see quickly how many decks you own for each Hero. They’re also much prettier. Good times all round.
  
• I Hereby Rename Thee - You can now rename existing decks by pressing the pencil icon below the name, typing in your new name, then hitting Enter to confirm.
  
• Brand Spanking New - After you receive a card that you don’t currently own, that card will be highlighted as ‘New!’ in your collection until you mouse over it. Each category tab will also display the number of new cards it contains. You can even use the search bar to look for new cards by typing ‘new’.
  
• What Does That Do Again? - Mousing over a neutral morality card in your collection will now display that card’s Good and Evil transformations so that you can make more informed deck building choices.
  
• Mission Complete! - Placing the final card into your deck will now trigger a sweet animation to make it clear that your deck is ready for action.

“Receiving and opening a card pack should be a real moment of delight, and we felt like we weren’t quite hitting that bar with our previous implementation. The Core card pack has been redesigned to be much more vibrant, and the pack opening process has been overhauled to provide maximum excitement.”

• Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger - The pack opening sequence is now much faster, more responsive and crammed full of explosions.
  
• Snazzy Packs - Brown and red is so last year. Dazzling azure blue with fancy gold trim is the new you.
  
• Fabled Fireworks - Cards of higher rarities will now produce increasingly awesome fireworks when they are revealed, making it easier to tell the different rarities apart.
  
• Brand Spanking New 2 - If you reveal a card in a card pack that you don’t already own, it will be highlighted as a ‘New!’ card.
  
• You Belong To Me Now - You will also be able to more easily see if a card is neutral or if it belongs to a specific Hero during the pack opening sequence.

“We want to make sure communicating with your co-op partner is as easy as possible when you’re not already on voice chat together. Alongside our existing pinging system, we’ve implemented some new UI so that you can now see which Quest your partner has selected when you’re picking your Quest in co-op. This allows you to make a more informed decision about which Quest you might want to choose.”


“During the Closed Beta, we’ve been making use of an accelerated economy model designed to get cards into the hands of players more quickly to help with playtesting and gather data. As we head towards Early Access, we’ve made adjustments to bring overall progression speed back in line by reducing the overall amount of Silver gained from matches and introduced a cap of 1000 Silver that can be earned from matches per day. Card packs will also no longer guarantee an Epic card as well as a Rare card.

We’ve also taken the opportunity to remove a lot of the randomness from the crafting economy by changing Salvaging to no longer generate crafting items, and stopping items/Ink randomly dropping after some matches. To compensate, items will now appear much more frequently on the reward tables for collecting a certain amount of Medals/Seals during PvP Seasons and Co-op Challenges. Salvaged cards will also award more Ink than before. This should result in a much more stable crafting system that doesn’t depend so much on random drops to allow you to craft the cards you want.”


“Completing your Quest just wasn’t feeling satisfying enough, in part because the rewards that you got for doing so weren’t particularly desirable. This is no longer the case, as completing a Quest now rewards you with a spell card that cannot be acquired in card packs or other means.

Your first Quest completion will grant you a pretty strong spell that could net you a decent advantage, not to mention they give you access to abilities that your Hero might not possess. For example, completing your first Quest in the Circle of Death gives you:



Completing your second and third Quests give you increasingly powerful, and potentially even game-changing spells, like these:




This makes finishing your Quest a much more exciting prospect that also has the potential to propel you forwards into a win, or otherwise get you back into a game that you might’ve been losing. Head to each location to check out their new unique Quest rewards!”


“The balance of Good and Evil Hero Powers has always been extremely delicate. The way that Hero Powers scaled up after each Quest completion meaning that Good or Evil was often a much better choice at different points in the game. For example, the Evil Alchemist Hero Power was generally better in the early game, with the Good Power generally only matching it in the later stages. This results in extremely linear play patterns from game to game, as there was often a ‘best’ option at each juncture. This goes directly against the goals of the Morality and Quest system.

So, we made a pretty big change to the way Hero Powers work: the Good and Evil versions are now generally more powerful, particularly in the early game, but they no longer increase in potency with additional Quest completions. This makes your first Quest completion really important, but with the changes to Quest rewards and Morality cards (which I’ll talk about later!), additional Quest completions still afford you a lot of additional punch.

Be sure to check them out in game, as many Hero Powers also have improved VFX.”


“Morality cards have all received significant buffs and redesigns pretty much across the board. We want Morality cards to be some of the most powerful cards in the game as a reward for completing your Quests. Up until now they’ve been quite situational or only had uses in very specific decks. Now they’re much more appealing choices, to the point where you can even play a whole deck full of Morality-dependant cards using cards like Shining Knight to get an extra edge.”




“Previously, many of our board wipe effects like Surge of Fangs (a.k.a. public enemy number 1) and Leeching Swarm would only affect your opponent’s units. As stated in my last State of the Game Review, this has the problem of not only allowing you to come back from a losing position, but also helps you to annihilate your opponent when you’re already winning. This made them must-pick cards for every deck, rather than powerful tools that you want to use in specific situations.

We’ve now changed the majority of these effects to now affect ALL units rather than just your opponent’s. This makes them really powerful when you’re losing, but seriously detrimental when you’re already winning. Aggressive decks are now much less interested in these types of effects, but controlling and midrange decks are still very likely to put them into their decks.”


“With all of the card design changes happening, we also felt that this was a good time to revisit each card’s rarity.

Part of rarity’s role in Fable Fortune is to make sure that you guys get your hands on cards that are important to a whole range of decks quickly by making them Basic or Common, and that rarer cards are more niche and are introduced to you after you’ve assembled a solid foundation. We also ensure that cards at lower rarities are easier to understand and allow those at a higher rarity to be more complex, so that newer players don’t get overwhelmed when they start playing.

With all that in mind, a whole bunch of cards - too many to sensibly list here - have had their rarities adjusted so that they better fit this schema. You should now be able to see a good selection of universally strong yet straightforward cards at low rarity, with increasingly crazy cards that drive particular strategies at high rarity.

We also made some adjustments to each Hero’s basic deck as part of this change, as several cards have shifted into or out of the Basic rarity.”


“While we were looking into this latest set of card changes, there were a few cards that we disliked the existing designs of and couldn’t find a suitable alternate design for. Fortunately, we had a few cards held in reserve that we were happy to swap those cards out for while we work on new designs for them. This effectively means that there are some brand new cards in the game! Specifically:”

• Knight - Good As New Recruits Has been removed and replaced with Self Defence Training - (3) “Give Deflect to your units with 1 Strength.”
  
• Prophet - Recharge Has been removed and replaced with Sand Fury - (4) 5/4 “After you target this unit with a spell, gain +2 Strength.”
  
• Shapeshifter - Track Prey Has been removed and replaced with Mistress of the Hunt - (5) “Summon three 1/1 Wolves.”

“As I said in one of the new card spotlights, Conjure is our new keyword mechanic that encapsulates all of the existing ‘Choose 1 of 3 cards and add it to your hand’ effects. For example:



In game terms, those cards still do the same thing that they did before, but it’s an effect that we like so much that we want to streamline our terminology and be able to build other synergy effects around important mechanics like Conjure in the future (After you Conjure, Your Conjured cards, etc) so we decided to create a new keyword.

Be sure to check out the detailed list of card changes below to see which cards have been updated.”

We need more stat changes, stat!

“Miracle’s supposed to be a master of stat manipulation, but she was previously leaning heavily on some of the most powerful single target removal spells in the game to keep up with her opponents. This was mostly due to her lack of spells that help her come back when she was already behind.

To remedy this, spells like Bottled Rage and Unstable Brew have been redesigned so that they can double as both buff spells and pseudo-removal spells under the right circumstances to give her more flexibility. Liquid Fire has been redesigned to be a cheap board wipe spell, and Chain Reaction has received a slight bump in power to help her claw back from a bad spot.

We’ve also done more to make her units play more nicely together while also being more reliably powerful. Flask Golem now affects a card in your hand rather than a unit on the board, making it a more appealing play on most board states. It also synergises really well with the redesigned Vial Flinger, which has been bumped up to Mythic as a powerful payoff card for the hand-buff effects that the Alchemist can make use of. Similarly the Royal Fool has been changed so that he rewards you for stocking up your hand with Vials. Vials that you can then use on the updated Leech to spawn an army of Oozlings.

SYNERGY.”

Hero Power changes:

• Devious Concoction (Evil): You now have the choice of all four Vials at all Morality levels.
  
• Enhanced Concoction (Good): The Enhanced Vial added to your hand now costs 0 at all Morality levels.

Card changes:

• Bottled Rage: Redesigned to (1) “Give a unit +2/-2.”
  
• Chain Reaction: Damage dealt increased from 6 to 7.
  
• Flask Golem: Redesigned to (2) 2/5 “Last Laugh: Give a unit in your hand this unit’s Strength.”
  
• Lab Assistant: Strength increased from 4 to 6.
  
• Lab Assistant (Good) Lab Physician: Strength increased from 4 to 6.
  
• Lab Assistant (Evil) Lab Maniac: Strength increased from 4 to 6.
  
• Leech: Redesigned to (5) 5/5 “After you play a Vial on Leech, summon a 1/1 Oozling and apply the same effect to it."
  
• Liquid Fire: Redesigned to (2) “Deal 2 damage to ALL units.”
  
• Recipe for Success: Cost reduced from 5 to 4.
  
• Royal Fool: Redesigned to (6) 6/1 “Big Entrance: Gain +1 Health for each card in your hand."
  
• Unstable Brew: Redesigned to (2) “Set a unit’s Strength and Health to 4."
  
• Vial Flinger: Redesigned to (4) 2/4 “Big Entrance: Deal damage equal to this unit’s Strength.”

Digging. Digging never changes.

“Temple has received relatively few card changes compared to some of our other Heroes. Her selection of removal spells remains strong, as does her ability to return dead units to the battlefield. There are some changes worth highlighting however.

Crypt Ghoul’s transformations are now seriously intimidating. Crypt Baron can trade for multiple big units on your opponent’s side of the board, and the Crypt Reaper can be a huge Rush threat if you have enough other units on the board. Damned Legion has received a slight buff as it needed you to do a bit too much work to have it be worth playing before. Stench of Death no longer deals damage to your opponent to reduce your ability to burst down your opponent from high Health. Morbid Arcanist has also had its stats reduced slightly, as a potential 0 Gold 6/6 was a bit too good on most boards.

From The Grave has been redesigned, as it can be quite unpredictable, making it hard to justify dedicating slots in your deck to. However, it was an effect that we still liked and felt very in keeping with Temple’s theme, so we changed Headless Norman to have the old From The Grave effect as a Safeguard ability. Being able to repeatedly summon dead enemy units under your control can be incredibly powerful, and the baseline of getting a decent set of stats to go along with that ability makes him much more appealing than From The Grave could ever be.”

Hero Power changes:

• Enslave (Evil): Redesigned to (2) “Summon a 2/1 Raging Corpse with Rush that dies at the end of the turn.”
  
• Resurrect (Good): Redesigned to (2) “Summon a 1/1 Shambler and a 1/1 Crumbling Corpse with Rush that dies at the end of the turn.”

Card changes:

• Crypt Ghoul: Cost raised from 5 to 8. Strength decreased from 4 to 2. Health increased from 5 to 8.
  
• Crypt Ghoul (Good) Crypt Baron: Redesigned to (8) 2/8 “Destroy any unit damaged by this unit."
  
• Crypt Ghoul (Evil) Crypt Reaper: Redesigned to (8) 2/8 “Rush. Big Entrance: Gain +1 Strength for each other friendly unit."
  
• Damned Legion: Health increased from 4 to 6.
  
• From The Grave: Redesigned to (4) “Give your units “Last Laugh: Summon a 1/1 Shambler."
  
• Headless Norman: Redesigned to (7) 7/5 “Safeguard: Summon an enemy unit that died this game."
  
• Morbid Arcanist: Strength decreased from 6 to 5. Health decreased from 6 to 5.
  
• Plunder the Tombs: Redesigned to (1) “Conjure a Hollow Man."
  
• Stench of Death: Now deals 3 damage to all units instead of all characters.

The peasants are revolting.

“Marshall’s had many cards dedicated to specific Peasant synergies. This meant that if you didn’t want to play a Peasant deck, you had a smaller pool of options than most other Heroes. While we want the Knight to be summoning lots of units, we don’t want to force those summoned units to be Peasants; certainly not at the expense of overall deck diversity.

Peasant specific cards are now mostly out, and Marshall has a much firmer focus on generally summoning a lot of units and then buffing them to overwhelm your opponent. Blacksmith and Standard Bearer are good example of this, now able to turn any unit into a significant threats quickly, not just Peasants. There are still some powerful cards that support playing Peasants specifically, but also pump up other units too. The redesigned Veteran Battler and the new Self Defence Training buff up units that only have 1 Strength, so Peasants count, but so does everything else with 1 Strength, from Ferryman to Scarecrow. Because of this, the deck-building possibilities are much deeper than before.

We’ve also spent some time developing some more dedicated midrange cards. Post-change Hearty Breakfast, Big Pig, Inga, Sergeant of the Shovel and Muster all represent a solid amount of value and/or board presence for their cost. This has really helped to diversify Marshall away from just being a one-trick pony.

Peasants can also now Guard, as preventing them from Guarding was always a difficult interaction for newer players to understand and didn’t add a whole lot to the game.”

Hero Power changes:

• Conscription (Evil): Redesigned to (2) “Summon a 1/1 Peasant Sapper. It has, “Last Laugh: Deal 2 damage to a random enemy."
  
• Recruitment (Good): Redesigned to (2) “Summon a 1/1 Peasant Medic. It has, “Last Laugh: Give 2 random friendly units +1 Health."

Card changes:

• Angry Mob: The two summoned 1/1 Peasants now also gain +1 Strength.
  
• Big Pig: Health increased from 5 to 6.
  
• Big Pig (Good) Battle Swine: Redesigned to (5) 4/6 “Last Laugh: Summon a 3/3 Guard Pig."
  
• Big Pig (Evil) Boardozer: Redesigned to (5) 4/6 “Rush. Adjacent units have +1 Strength."
  
• Blacksmith: Redesigned to (6) 3/3 “Big Entrance: Give another friendly unit +1/+1 for each other unit you control."
  
• Good As New Recruits Has been removed and replaced with Self Defence Training - (3) “Give Deflect to your units with 1 Strength.”
  
• Hearty Breakfast: Redesigned to (2) “Give a unit in play and a random unit in your hand +2/+2."
  
• Inga: Redesigned to (7) 4/7 “Rush, Deflect. At the end of your turn, gain Guard."
  
• Knighthood: Redesigned to (3) “Give a friendly unit +1 Strength and Deflect."
  
• Master of Bacon: Cost raised from 1 to 2. Strength increased from 1 to 3.
  
• Muster: Redesigned to (2) “Summon a 1/1 Peasant. Draw a card. Give a friendly unit in your hand +1/+1."
  
• Rally the Troops: Your units now gain +2 Strength this turn instead of +1 but you no longer draw a card.
  
• Ride Them Down: Cost raised from 4 to 5. Damage dealt increased from 2 to 3.
  
• Sergeant of the Shovel: Redesigned to (3) 2/3 “At the end of your turn, summon a 1/1 Peasant."
  
• Standard Bearer: Redesigned to (4) 1/4 “Adjacent units have +2 Strength."
  
• Veteran Battler: Redesigned to (4) 3/4 “After you summon a 1 Strength unit, give it +2/+1."

Poor little rich boy.

“Barter’s been suffering a bit during the Closed Beta so far. His units haven’t really been in a position to prop up his early game so that his powerful but expensive spells can take over late. However, he has a strong core identity that we’re able to build around so we’ve made some changes targeted at shoring up those weaknesses.

Debt Collector and Black Market Dealer are now potent early plays that can generate you an advantage as you transition into the later portions of a game. Intrepid Lookout and her transformations now represent a lot of value after you’ve completed your first Quest. The Art of the Deal is now a great spell for buying you a turn or two while you set up a big Invest card. Reaver now enables you to regain a lot of lost tempo when you play him by enabling you to also potentially play another really expensive card for free.

We’ve also made some cost adjustments to alter the power level of a few cards. Set Sail and Cast Away are now one Gold cheaper (which makes Set Sail a total of 4 Gold cheaper!) so are now more appealing options. Pressgang has had its cost bumped up by 1 to curtail a bit of its snowball potential, as one good Pressgang that early could run away with the game before your opponent was able to respond.”

Hero Power changes:

• Risky Investment (Evil): Redesigned to (2) “Reduce the cost of a card in your hand by 1 and add a Gold Piece to your hand."
  
• Secure Investment (Good): Redesigned to (2) “Add a Gold Piece to your hand and give a unit in your hand +1/+1."

Card changes:

• Black Market Dealer: Redesigned to (4) 4/3 “Big Entrance: Conjure a Merchant Card."
  
• Cast Away: Cost reduced from 6 to 5.
  
• Debt Collector: Redesigned to (3) 2/4 “After this deals damage to a unit, add a Gold Piece to your hand."
  
• Intrepid Lookout: Strength decreased from 4 to 2. Health increased from 5 to 6.
  
• Intrepid Lookout (Good) Intrepid Explorer: Redesigned to (5) 2/6 “Big Entrance: Add a copy of a unit to your hand and give it +1/+1."
  
• Intrepid Lookout (Evil) Intrepid Sniper: Redesigned to (5) 2/6 “Big Entrance: Gain Strength equal to the number of cards in your hand."
  
• Pressgang: Cost raised from 5 to 6. Invest cost to summon 2 units reduced from +5 to +4.
  
• Reaver: Redesigned to (8) 5/5 “Big Entrance: Draw a card. It costs (0)."
  
• Set Sail: Day 1/2/3/4: Cost reduced from 5 to 4.
  
• The Art of the Deal: Redesigned to (2) “Return an enemy unit to your opponent’s hand, and a friendly unit to your hand."

Pump up the tempo.

“Sand has only had one speed up until now: slow. Healing naturally promotes a more reactive style of play where you’re trying to build up incremental advantages by keeping your units alive while your opponents die. His focus on healing meant that Sand’s games tended to run very long, and also that there wasn’t a lot in his section of the collection for players who wanted to do anything other than heal.

We’ve taken some steps to shift Sand away from midgame value units into a more proactive mode. Minion, like Apostle, is now an intimidating early game play when backed up by buffs and heals. Fanatic now gives you easier access to the healing -> damage conversion that the Avenging Disciple used to offer, which allows you to turn cards like Oasis and Healing Beam into straight-up removal spells. Meanwhile Avenging and Energising Disciple are now stand-out mid-game units that help you to take over the game in different ways. The brand new Sand Fury, in combination with cheap buff spells like the new versions of Repair Drones and Blaze of Glory, can easily become a force to be reckoned with, particularly in co-op.

We’ve also removed Zeal as a keyword. It was a mechanic that we originally envisioned appearing on a lot of Sand’s cards, however it is one that we’ve found over time has a very limited number of ways it can be used (mainly Strength buffs/debuffs). Much like the addition of Conjure as a keyword, this doesn’t mean anything in gameplay terms, only that the card text on Apostle is different from before.”

Hero Power changes:

• Energise (Good): Redesigned to (2) “Heal a unit for 2 or a Hero for 4."
  
• Incite (Evil): Redesigned to (2) “Heal a character for 2. If it’s a unit, give it +1 Strength."

Card changes:

• Blaze of Glory: Redesigned to (2) “Give a unit +2 Health, then fully heal it."
  
• Eradicate: Redesigned to (3) “Destroy a unit with 5 or more Strength."
  
• Fanatic: Redesigned to (6) 6/6 “Your cards and effects that heal now deal damage instead."
  
• Leeching Swarm: Redesigned to (5) “Deal 3 damage to ALL units. Heal your Hero for 3.”
  
• Minion: Redesigned to (3) 3/3 “At the start of your turn, if this has less than 5 Health, gain +1/+1."
  
• Protect the Prophet: Health buff reduced from 3 to 2.
  
• Recharge Has been removed and replaced with Sand Fury - (4) 5/4 “After you target this unit with a spell, gain +2 Strength.”
  
• Repair Drones: Redesigned to (1) “Give a unit: ‘At the end of EACH turn, heal this unit for 1. Draw a card.’"
  
• Replicating Shard: Strength reduced from 2 to 1. Health increased from 3 to 4.

• Sand Fury: Redesigned to (4) 5/4 “After you target this unit with a spell, gain +2 Strength."
  
• Shimmering Mirage: Redesigned to (1) “Summon a copy of a unit. It gains Guard. Destroy it at the start of your next turn."
  
• Smite the Cynic: Cost reduced from 3 to 2. No longer draws a card.
  
• Stone Disciple: Strength increased from 4 to 5. Health increased from 5 to 6.
  
• Stone Disciple ( Evil) Avenging Disciple: Redesigned to (5) 5/6 “After a character is healed, gain +2 Strength."
  
• Stone Disciple (Good) Energising Disciple: Strength increased from 4 to 5. Health increased from 5 to 6. Now heals a damaged friendly character for 4 instead of all other friendly characters for 1.
  
• Wear Away: Damage dealt decreased from 5 to 4.
  
  Check out Part 2 to see the changes to Shapeshifter & Neutral cards!

Hello, Heroes!

My name is Tom "Wimbles" Wimbush, Lead Designer of Fable Fortune from Mediatonic, and I'm coming to you with a fresh batch new cards that will be coming to Fable Fortune as part of the 0.3 update that's coming this Friday, 9th June. Time to check out what today's new motley crew has to offer.

Rich Auntie is an interesting card that has some particularly potent implications for co-operative play. Being able to reduce the cost of cards in not just your hand, but your ally's hand as well, is a powerful effect that will set you up for some powerful turns later in the game. The fact that both you and your ally can have a pair of these in your decks can lead to some pretty crazy cost reductions, which is exactly the kind of cool team-up plays that co-op should be all about.

Reformed Criminal is another cool card that can really reward you for performing some combos with it. Much like Flagellant, which I mused about in the update announcement, Reformed Criminal is a card that gets particularly strong in decks that are able to heal and buff it through some early skirmishes to take advantage of its amped up Strength. However more than that, he's asking to be abused (literally!) by cards like the Inept Bowman...

...which expose him to just enough incidental damage to make him angry and shoot his Strength all the way up to 4. Double Reformed Criminal on turn 2 followed by an Inept Bowman and another three-cost card on turn 3 can be a intimidating play if your opponent doesn't have a good counterplay ready.

Morality cards are getting a big buff in the new update, and as part of that we wanted to give you more cards that encourage you to play lots of Morality cards together in the same deck. Shining Knight's passive effect of reducing the cost of Morality cards in your hand makes him one of the corner stones of these Morality decks. Sneaking out a Restless Spirit, Treasure Hunter or Hero of Oakvale for 1 or even 2 less Gold is hugely powerful given the already high power level of those cards. If you're able to use that cost reduction every turn, you should be able to quickly swing a game in your favour by easily outpacing what your opponent can throw down.

Finally, we have another awesome new Fabled card to share with you: the Spire Commandant! Infused with shards from The Spire, his Will power makes him a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield. Spell heavy decks can use him to deal as much as 10 damage to all other units on the board when he dies. But the question is, how many spells does your opponent really have in their hand? It could be enough to annihilate the board, or just enough so that all your units die and theirs survive. It could even be 0 - a complete bluff! Will you take that chance?

This ability to bluff as well as the decision between holding spells in your hand and using them to generate advantages for yourself makes the Spire Commandant a super fun yet deep card to use and deck-build around.

That's the last of the new card spotlights for the 0.3 update, but there are plenty more amazing new cards waiting to be revealed in the full patch notes on Friday. Let me know in the comments what your favourite card from this spotlight is; we're always looking for feedback on what you guys find exciting.

Be sure to keep an eye on Steam, Facebook and Twitter for news of when the 0.3 update goes live on Friday. We'll be sending out a big wave of beta codes shortly afterwards, and any new or returning players will have 5 fresh new card packs to open if you log in before the 20th. I'm looking forward to seeing you all flinging spells and Hobbes at each other really soon.

Happy chicken chasing!

Tom "Wimbles" Wimbush