Patch 1.29 is swarming into the Arenas and with it, a ton of balance changes, two new cards, and a bunch of bugs have been squished!

Cards Added:

All masters attacks have now special and true damage:

There were a couple of interactions in the game we disliked and wanted to solve, most notable:

• Sugilite shield protecting from master damage (we will look at a buff for sugilite shield in future patches)
  
• Stonebjorn tanking some masters for extremely long
  
• Confusion about Ravager being ranged
  
• Incubus jumping into your face (we will look if incubus needs a buff in future patches)
  
• Divine shield (chaining) in front of the masters

This change should solve all of these, and appropriate buffs to cards involved will be looked at once we see how big the impact is.

Balance Changes

Stormbringer
Dev comments: To make up for the global damage being true damage we make stormbringers attack slower.

• Attack cooldown 3.8s -> 4.0s

King puff
Dev comments: King puff is extremely strong atm, we want to lower his strength potential, but give him more flexibility in return.

• birthday cooldown -> 50 seconds
  
• Added 7 mana cards to his threshold

Guardian
Dev comments: Guardian has been a card that we had to balance several times and then became unbalanced again when new crystal cards came out. With this change, we hope to make guardian chaining more counterable and futureproof the card.

• Protectection 100 -> 75%

Haunting Hugger
Dev comments: Haunting hugger is a card currently only used to get some fast stacks for ascension and is basically useless outside of that. By giving him more damage, but lowering his attack speed we hope to give him more defense potency by killing units faster but without increasing his strength too much.

• Attack cooldown 1.8s-> 2.5s
  
• Damage 50 -> 100

Chisma boomstick
Dev comments: There were some weird interactions of Chisma attacking a unit and then running straight into that unit in fear. We have changed this so that it runs away from whatever unit it was attacking instead of running away from the enemy's base. We also donated him a small buff within the explosion radius as he felt a bit too weak.

• Runs away from the target
  
• Explosion Radius 4->5

Call to Arms
Dev comments: Call to arms has needed a rework for a long time, and with Sapphire Pebbles, it really became paramount to do it now. With this change, we hope to solve both the issue of buildings giving a lot of value before transforming and then still getting full value from transforming (i.e. an almost dead crossbow guild transforming into a warrior) and solving the problem of the limitations we have in buildings. With this change, we can create cheap buildings as long as they do not have a lot of health. The exception is wall, but considering wall is limited to one copy AND call to arms + wall is still not more valuable than two warriors are, it is an exception that should not be a problem

• Cost 6->4

Now spawns different Empyrean units based on the remaining health (always spawns a warrior at base):

• 100 or less -> spear thrower
  
• 200 or less -> legionnaire
  
• 201 or more -> warrior

Gor’ Rakk Gate
Dev comments: Gor’ Rakk Gate is not in a good place, and swarmers are easily the worst option in the gate, opening for tons of damage from spells, while also not being the best option to kill something, nor do face damage. With three elite swarmers, we hope to make it less risky, while giving an option to get a fair amount of tankiness with some damage on the field for a low price (outside of health).

• 7 swarmers -> 3 elite swarmers

Raging Reinforcements, Ahmun's Chosen & Gor'Rakk Gate

These cards now cycle through their options rather than being random. The starting point is random, but after that, it is consistently the same cycle.

We want to remove the randomness to the point that it can decide a game’s outcome (win or lose). With this change, we hope to make them more consistent, while keeping the fun of the alternating gameplay that they offer.

Border Patrol
Dev comments: Border Patrol has been bad and underplayed for a long time, and we hope that by making it cheaper more people will make use of the card.

• Shield no longer costs 1 Mana freeze

Zeppelin Bomber
Dev comments: We really wanna give this Zeppelin a small umpf because let’s be honest, it does really need a bit of love.

• Added: Scrat Swarm: Gain Haste

Empowered SoulStealer
Dev comments: Empowered Soulstealer has been rather weak, by giving him a stronger baseline he should feel better on the Arena.

• Starting stacks 3->4

Demon Warrior and Avea
Dev comments: Cards with a quest are really awkward to get from a random card like a blind date or walking blind date, as they can basically never complete their quest, so cards with a quest will generally be excluded from the random pool.

• Removed from randompool

Avea
Dev comments: Similar to Demon warrior it is generally a bad idea to triple Avea and to prevent confusion from people getting 3 to get the quest done faster, only to realize that is not how it works we limit Avea to 1 copy, which should have basically no gameplay effect.

• CardCount 3->1

Stormy
Dev comments: Stormy is a bit weak atm, and rarely gets its 2 hits off. By giving Stormy a bit more hp, it should be a bit more consistent.

• Health 125->150

Coax the Diplomancer
Dev comments: We have heard a lot of complaints about the Diplomancer, and when we looked at the stats we noticed that at high ranks coax was doing average to cards there, but in low and medium ranks coax was performing a lot better. By limiting the max value the Diplomancer can get with 1 minion (10 seconds) while also making sure he can get a minimum amount of value if played well we hope we solve the problem of the Diplomancer taking 1 big minion and hypnotised minion continuously destroying whatever is being flooded in while still keeping him as a viable card.

By reducing the health of the Diplomancer a bit as well we open him up a bit more for removal, making it a choice of fighting him with minions, or “overspending” on spells if you do not have the perfect cards.

• Health 400 ->350
  
• Hypnosis: while attacking -> 10s once per minion.

Bug fixes

• Fixed an issue with Hellfire not being removed when t.a.a.s. dies - Thanks Anno
  
• Fixed an issue with Akinlep and Morellia mistakenly removing cards from decks - Thanks The Mike 1979
  
• Fixed a visual bug with Adera attacking friendly units - Thanks me
  
• Fixed an issue with the Musketeer sprinting when hypnotize is used - Thanks Last_Elf
  
• Fixed Nyrvir’s description to better indicate attack range when initiating an attack - Thanks me
  
• Fixed an issue with Eeeek the sneak’s abilities in the patch match screen looking like Doomapocalypse’s abilities.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Wrecked walker spending tech even with 0 mana - Thanks Jackeea
  
• Fixed an issue wíth the Stonebjorn having excessively long spawn time.

Masters!

We're thrilled to announce how the team has been progressing with Minion Masters - Remastered! Check out all the details in this blog.

We also have a shiny new trailer to share with you and we hope you enjoy it!

Scrats…. Are… WHERE DID THEY GO? Oh no… does this mean the Scrat invasion is over?!

Masters, brace yourselves because the Scrat invasion is done and dusted but we have a new season screeching into Minion Masters and this time it’s going to be darker and scarier than ever!

We’re super stoked to introduce our newest expansion … Malediction!






With this new expansion be prepared to enjoy new cards, balance changes and the reintroduction of Wild Cards!

Wild Cards will be now re-introduced but under certain conditions:

• Wild Cards will still remain unavailable in 1v1
  
• Wild Cards will be reintroduced in 2v2
  
• Introducing a “Copies Allowed” stat which will define the number of copies allowed for every card to 1, 2 or 3.
  
• For more information about the reintroduction of Wild Cards, check out our blog post here

Balance Changes!

Spirits

• Maximum Health Gain 300 > 400
  
• Minimum Health Gain 0 > 50

Crossbow Guild

• Production time 4.5 > 4

Swarmer Totem

• Production time 6.5 > 5.7

Dev notes: The old production of buildings have not been performing well since their health/duration reduction, so a bit more value over time should help them become more relevant.

Priestess

• Speed 3 > 2

Dev notes: We like how the priestess is no longer an infinite healing source that stays with the army at all times, but she leaves the army a bit too fast. Setting her speed to two should allow her to stay with the army unless there is a prolonged fight.

Fireball
Dragon Ball
Magma Storm
Grasping Thorns
T.A.A.S/H3LL-F1R3

• Damage 170 > 180

Dev notes: Since the increase of spell cost, a lot of the minions that could barely survive a fireball-threshold became a bit too good at surviving spells. Hence, we moved the threshold to 180, making it a smaller buff mostly being relevant for these specific units (it also makes it easier to remember the numbers, as both daggerfall and these spells end with 80).

Smite

• Damage 150 > 180

Dev notes: Smite could use a buff, so we moved it into the fireball thresholds.

Ardent Aegis

• Delay 4 > 3.5
  
• Healing 250 > 275

Dev notes: Ardent aegis needs a buff, so making it a bit more consistent and stronger should help.

Rampage

• Cast Delay 2 > 1

Dev notes: Rampage is mostly outshined by Volco/Ragers rage, and most use cases are preemptive, so no real reason for this delay. We’re reducing it to allow for a bit more flexibility.

Daggerfall
Stunlancers

• Now have Call Slitherbound (1)

Dev notes: These cards could use a small buff, and it also buffs slither in general that has been a tad weak lately.

Bladestar

• Damage 100 > 130

Dev notes: Bladestar is a tad hard to use, so more damage should make it more consistent.

Avea

• Quest Threshold 5 > 4

Dev notes: As promised, an Avea buff.It's quite possible it's not enough yet, but we want to see if getting her to relevance earlier. We’ll be closely looking at how she performs in case she needs a bigger tune-up.

Healing Fireball

• Cast Delay 2 > 1.5

Dev notes: Healing fireball missed its target a bit too often, making it a very binary spell. Letting it hit a bit more often should help with the balance of the spell.

Chain Lightning

• Bounces 10 > 12

Dev notes: Chain lightning needs a buff. To differentiate it more from fireball it gets more bounces, letting it be better against spread out swarms and hit more important targets more often, while still being less good against higher hp units and really clumped up units.

Defenso Chopper

• Health 500 > 450

Dev notes: Defenso chopper is a tad overpowered, it’s doing pretty well against the swarm. But it gets a lot of value against mid ranged thus making it a frustrating card to play against.

Wrecked Walker

• Mana Cost 1 > 2
  
• Health 100 -> 150
  
• Outlander Tech: Spend 40 scrap to reduce cost by 1

Dev notes: As some feared, a 1 mana bridge grab turned out to be a bit too good. We are adding a small scrap cost to it, otherwise it’s become a 2 mana bridge grab/small tank. This allows for good usage in decks that have scraps leftover, while limiting the power in non-scrap decks.

Howling moon

• Now does true damage

Azali

• Mana Cost 8 > 9

Dev notes: Azali is a staple card in 2v2 far more than she should be. We don't want to kill her, but we do want to reduce a bit of her power. By increasing her cost, her army should be a bit smaller, and you should have more mana to kill her, without completely killing the dream of the Azali swarm commander.

Werewolf

• Attack cooldown 0.9 -> 1.0 seconds

Dev note: Once bitten and lone wolf are a bit too strong, while howling moon and Wolf among sheep are too weak. Therefore, we are reverting a small buff to werewolves so that we can see where all the cards land. We’ll probably be planning a buff to both howling moon and WaS next patch once we have a better idea where they land with these stats.

All the below Cards will have the “No-Wild Card rule” thus only permitting using one of each of these cards in any deck:

• Bats Bats Bats
  
• Black Hole
  
• Blood Imps
  
• Brothers of Light
  
• Brutish Betrayer
  
• Clear Skies
  
• Crossbow Guild
  
• Demon Warrior
  
• Dragon Nest - Removed Mythic
  
• Fanriel
  
• Gambler's ball
  
• Groggy Woodsman
  
• Jing Long
  
• Lone Ranger
  
• Lone Wolf
  
• Mana Puff Madness
  
• Mountainshaper
  
• Netherstep
  
• Nyrvir’s Breath
  
• Once Bitten
  
• Red Golem
  
• Ritual Of Servitude
  
• Rock Rivals
  
• Scrap Yard
  
• Scrat Tunnel
  
• Shen Shock Stick
  
• Styxi
  
• Sugilite Shield
  
• Thelec
  
• Void Altar
  
• Wall
  
• Xiao Long
  
• Zap Shrine

All the cards below are going to be restricted to one Wild Card allowing for a total of two of each card in the deck:

• Arcane Ring
  
• Ardera
  
• Bridge Buddies
  
• Combustion
  
• Guardian
  
• Jadespark Watchers
  
• Leiliel
  
• Unholy Ground
  
• Wizard Puff

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue with Vortex not getting a damage increase
  
• Fixed an issue with minions trying to attack others across the gap, which made Veilstalker
• behave incorrectly - Thank you Pom
  
• Fixed an issue with the emergency reposition tunnel spell being used in places where
• buildings are normally not allowed
  
• Fixed an issue with the red golem at exactly 1500 health not acting as intended
  
• Fixed an issue with Fanriel Stormcharge interacting incorrectly with the protection by Guardian - Thank you InCole
  
• Fixed an issue with Hypnotized Shield Guard of Light dashing across the map - Thank you chimaerok
  
• Fixed an issue with Boom Buggy not attacking properly - Thank you Matt
  
• Fixed an issue in 2v2’s showing +2 marksmanship buff from teammate Stormbringer’s perk 2 on unit placement preview - Thank you Pom
  
• Fixed an issue with Veilstalker Crystalline Dashing outside the arena - Thank you Matt
  
• Fixed an issue with different Volco skins being a different sizes
  
• Fixed an issue with the wrong Morellia using books - Thank you Pom
  
• Fixed an issue with Veilstalker jumping on stealthed units
  
• Fixed an issue with Veilstalker’s ability interacting incorrectly with root and stun
  
• Removed scrat tunnels from the random pool
  
• Fixed an issue with Miloween not getting extra sparks from certain spells
  
• Fixed an issue with Lychanthropy leaving poison clouds. - Thank you Pom

Don't forget our Social and Community Channels!!! Follow us and let's talk about everything there is Minion Masters!

• Facebook
  
• Twitter
  
• Discord

Thank you for your feedback and participation in the Wild Cards surveys we've conducted over the last few months. We believe, through your feedback, we've arrived at a final conclusion for Wild Cards.

It's clear to us that Wild Cards is a widely loved feature by the majority of our community and we are happy to announce the reintroduction of Wild Cards with Update 1.28.

There are, however, a few caveats.


First of all, we will only reactivate Wild Cards in the two Team Battle modes (2v2 Randoms and 2v2 Premades), retaining the No-Wild Cards rule in Battle Mode (1v1)

We're doing this because; while we're seeing overwhelming support for wildcards, there is also a large group that does not appreciate the feature. The majority of complaints regarding Wild Cards seem to be coming from the 1v1 segment and conversely, we're also seeing the majority of Wild Cards support coming from the 2v2 segment.

We, therefore, feel like this could be a "happy medium", in which all players might find a game mode/style that suits their liking.


Second, we're introducing a Wild Card stat, or "Copies Allowed" as it'll be known in the game.

This is being added to help us mitigate the "negative" side of Wild Cards allowing us to limit the worst and most frustrating combos. We understand that part of the fun with Wild Cards is to create explosive and exciting strategies and we're therefore not seeking to shut down any viable Wild Card strategy. We do, however, have a few combos and strategies that we wish to limit.

This stat also adds a design space that we haven't really had before as we can make certain cards without having to worry that they'd be exploitable via Wild Cards.

So we hope this stat can help us make Wild Cards a better experience for all, allowing the fun strategies while mitigating the "cheese" factor.

We are excited about the future and believe we've found the right solution going forward. However, we are also aware that all the recent changes we've been doing have been disruptive to the play experience and we want to thank you all for your patience with us, and for all your help. With this in mind, we plan to let this setup remain for a while. Naturally, we are still interested in, and appreciative of, all of your feedback. We will be monitoring the general community response to this new setup and we'll also do another survey round at some point when you've all had a chance to try it out, but we are not currently planning any changes for the near future.

Hello Masters,

With the Wild Cards decision still hanging in the unknown, we thought it was time to bring you an update. We've been analyzing the data from the last survey and have a few conclusions.

You can read more about those below here, but if you do not have time to read all of that we would like to ask you to please partake in this next Survey as well.

In this, we propose a few different ways to bring Wild Cards back that we hope can allow more players to have fun with the game, and we'd like your take on it.

👀 {LINK REMOVED}https://bit.ly/WCSURVEY3 👀

This survey will run for three days as well (until 1 PM GMT, Friday, Aug. 27th)

As for our findings from the last survey, read on:

Keeping Wild Cards is the more popular choice



Wild Carding 2 different cards seem to be where it's at



2v2 Randoms is the preferred mode for Wild Cards



We generally see the support for Wild Cards fall with higher Ranks. Most clearly we see it in the 1v1 game mode.

Hello Masters,

We've now all had the chance to try out Minion Masters as it would look without Wildcards for a while. We're very grateful for all the various feedback we've received from you all so far, but now it's time to get a more measured look at things. We would, therefore, like to do a survey to take the temperature and see what the sentiment is at this point in time. The survey will be open until Monday, Aug 23rd, at 1 PM GMT.

This is not the final chance for you to share your thoughts, but this survey will be a vital piece to help us reach a conclusion, so do make sure to take part.

We're working on some ideas we'd like to present to you all at a later date, but for now, we just want to know if people feel the game has become more or less enjoyable with the removal of wildcards.

{LINK REMOVED}https://bit.ly/WCSurvey2

The scrat infestation is about to reach the end of the line! Prepare yourselves for a “Wild” Patch 1.27 zooming into with tons of changes, new cards and much much more!


The final season of the Scrats has arrived!

With a ton of new changes, 2 new cards, let’s have a look at what’s in store this season for Minion Masters.

New cards added to the game.:





The Season Pass will end on September 8th.


At the beginning of July we casted a survey asking your final opinion about Wild Cards! After many years of contemplating, having a lot of conversations and understanding what our players want we will be removing Wild Cards from patch 1.27. We will be monitoring player feedback and gamehealth like a hawk during this patch and let you know what our final decision will be moving forward in patch 1.28. For more information you can check out the Wild Cards blog post.



We have been gathering feedback to reflect on the mana changes we made in 1.26, and combined with our own experience on the difference between 1.25 and 1.26 we feel that we're happy with how 1v1 mana is, but we want a slightly bigger curve over the match, and give players a bit more time to get into the game. While in 2v2 we feel we went a bit too far, especially in the late game, so we are removing the increase in max mana speed, and reduced the starting mana generation a bit.

This will mean that the main change compared to 1.25 is the faster ramping up towards Maximum mana generation, with a slight increase in starting mana generation in both 1v1 and 2v2.

1 v 1 Changes compared to 1.25

• Starting mana generation increased; ~+10% > 5%

2 v 2 Changes compared to 1.25

• Starting mana generation increased; ~+15% > 10%
  
• Maximum mana generation increased; ~+10% > 0%

Mordar
Dev notes: Mordar has been getting resses from minions with almost certain value such as walking blind date, wizard puff and snipers too easily.By changing the threshold we hope to reduce the strength of this, while still preventing the heavy coin flippy value of the resses.

• Tombstone minimum charge for resurrection 25->50% (so from 5 to 10 seconds)

Valorian
Dev notes: Valorian has been the best master for a while now, and a big part of that has been getting consistent small values throughout the match by winning trades with the small heals. By reducing the amount of healing this value should be more in line with perks from other masters.

• First perk Heal 18->13

Morellia
Dev notes: Morellia has performed really well after the spell nerf, and despite the breath nerf and wildcard nerf we do think we want to reduce the amount of support Queen’s dragon can get a bit to make it a bit easier to deal with, especially in lower ranks.

• Queen’s dragon (3rd perk): cost 8->9
  
• Card Changes

Dragon Whelps
Dev notes: Flightless has been a card in the top 5 best performing cards almost as long as the card has existed, by decreasing the attack cooldown to 1 second but increasing their mana cost by 1, we hope to get a more balanced version of this card, and all other dragons

• Attack cooldown 1.2 -> 1s

Flightless Dragon Whelps

• Mana cost 4->5
  
• Affected the by the attack cooldown change

Sniper Scrat/ Bounty Sniper/ Sniper Squad
Dev notes: With the spell nerf the snipers have gotten a lot more value making previous buffs superfluous.

• Attack cooldown 3.5->4.0s

Warrior/Divine Warrior/ Zealots/ Avea
Dev notes: Warrior is one of the best performing cards in a long time, while we do like warrior being a staple card that fits in most decks, there should be a bit more room for other cards in the same role.

Zealots has been a very strong meta card for a while as well and can use this nerf as well.

Divine warrior can perform her main duty as the divine wall a lot better now with the taunt, and should not feel this nerf too much.

Avea is a card we will keep our eyes on to see how she performs after this, to see if, and how much she needs a buff.

• Health 400 -> 350

Lost legionnaires
Dev notes: Lost legionnaires are giving a bit too much value with the Empyrean army, by giving shields they are a bit better at tanking hard hitting units, but destroy mid ranged units easier

• Empyrean army: gain shield instead of rage

Stormy
Dev notes: Stormy has been a troublesome card for a long time, especially in lower ranks, and when combined with spirits, shrooms and healing. By limiting the amount of extra health Stormy can get we hope to make her easier to handle. Giving her a spawn stun in exchange should keep the balance somewhat equal in the less extreme abusive situation.

• ZenChi Flow changed to: Stun enemies in range area for 3 seconds

Werewolf

• No longer transfer buffs when transforming
  
• Attack cooldown 1.1-> 0.9 s

Howling Moon
Dev notes: Howling moon has been pretty good at dealing with the really big units, and with the attack speed buff the wolves get we think the cost should go up one mana.

• Cast 7->8

Lone wolf
Dev notes: Lone wolf has been a bad card for a long time, by allowing her to keep her rage on transform, and combining that with the general werewolf attack speed buff she should become a bit stronger.

• Cost 5 -> 4
  
• Rework: Summons a warrior with Rage, if lone, summon a Werewolf with Rage.

Wall
Dev notes: Wall is one of the reasons for the mana frenzy game we have been seeing for a long time.
Having a 2 mana shut down a big push for a reasonably long time, in range of the masters is too much value, especially in 2v2. By making the wall less tanky, but more of a fighting building we hope to get it in a more healthy spot in the meta.

• Health 700 > 400
  
• Melee attackers take 50% damage in return

Stun Lancers
Dev notes: Stun lancers have been really good at shutting down any push with 1 or 2 big units. By limiting their stun duration we hope the defence will be at least more interactive, if not plain harder.

• No longer stuns on every attack
  
• Stunning Strike: first attack to a minion stuns for 5 seconds

Propeller Scrats/Horde
Dev notes: The propellers were hit pretty hard by the removal of bridge grab and can use some more firepower. Now that King puff is gone we can allow a bit more flying units in a single pack as well, allowing the horde to shine a bit more hopefully.

• Attack cooldown 1 -> 0.9
  
• (Horde only) if rage, summon 2 -> 4 more

Leiliel's Vortex
Dev notes: Other spells have been outshining Vortex for a bit now, and although we like that its no longer an auto-include card, we do think it can use a little bit extra power.

• Damage 50->65

Zeppelin Bomber
Dev notes: Zeppelin Bomber has been invisible for a long time now, so lets up the power a bit to give it some gameplay.

• Attack cooldown 1.6->1.4s

Troubadour
Dev notes: There has been a cheesy tactic of getting a Troubadour to face and black holing it to get almost entire uncontested hits on face. By reducing the damage but increasing the attack speed we remove that tactic while also improving how the Troubadour attacking a building looks.

• Attack cooldown 4.5->1.5
  
• damage 300 ->100

Frostfeather Flyby
Dev notes: Frostfeather Flyby is one of the best spells in the game right now. We want to lean deeper into the idea of this being a spell using minions by making them move slower and have them get closer to their target. this way ranged units, especially aoe ranged units, and significantly reduce the damage if not stop it entirely.

• Frosfeathers speed bonus 10 -> 7
  
• Range 4 -> 2 (only for this spell, regular Frostfeathers are unaffected)

Sun Burn
Dev notes: Sun burn is also one of the best performing spells, and needs a bit of a damage nerf to allow more units to survive it, while still keeping it as a great swarm counter/rage source.

• Damage 100->80

Wolf Among Sheep
Dev notes: Wolf Among Sheep is over performing and completely outshining legionnaires. By decreasing the wolf's power, we hope to differentiate the 2 cards more, and give both of them a spot to be played.

• Legionnaires summoned 4 -> 3

Nyrvir Breath
Dev notes: Being able to give bridge control, and countering entire pushes WHILE building up ascension was too much power. Giving that power after ascension, but delaying the perks of the masters in exchange should put Nyrvir’s breath more in line with other cards.

• No longer spawns skeletons before accursed ascension, the after ascension Nyrvir’s Breath still
• spawns 8 skeletons
  
• Damage before ascension: 180-> 130
  
• Damage after ascension: 300 -> 260

R4:Z0R Squadron

• Tax per tick 4 -> 5

Atg

• Health 250->225

Harbinger

• Health 270 ->250

Herald

• Health 270 ->250

Spirits
Dev notes: Spirits are too good on swarm and glass cannons, and too weak on bigger units.
by limiting the amount of extra health a unit can get compared to their max health, but increasing the potential on bigger units we hope to make spirits a bit healthier, and less abusable.

• Health Boost 200 > 50% of max health (Max 300) (remove flying variance)

• Fixed an issue with Sugilite Shield not blocking Settsu in field attacks - Thanks N!kola
  
• Fixed an issue with Ghosts stealing units affected by Sugilite Shield - Thanks apexdreambreaker
  
• Fixed an issue with the Fire Imp side of Void Brothers not showing range radius in the preview before placing - Thanks Last_elf
  
• Fixed an issue with Netherstep turning Succubus grey - Thanks to Chimaerok
  
• Fixed an issue where if you have Book open as Akinlep dies, you don’t lose Gong
  
• Fixed an issue where you could see Valorian’s heal on stealthed units
  
• Fixed Tantrum Throwers’ description
  
• Fixed an issue with Stormy not being able to kill Jolo but chain lightning could
  
• Fixed an issue where reporting a leaving teammate did not work
  
• Fixed an issue with Marked only increasing damage on ranged units - Thanks DeathShoottOneyOoney
  
• Increased the Battle Pass xp for each tier
  
• Fixed an issue with Tech counter stuck at 100 in 2v2
  
• Updated Morellia’s life steal description to show correct one - Thanks Credmo
  
• Fixed an issue with Veilstalker and Netherstep being able to jump inside the Master tower
  
• Fixed an issue with Shen’s shock stick’s description showing 40 damage
  
• Updated Pincer of Dread’s description
  
• Fixed an issue with Priestess being able to attack if hypnotized
  
• Updated Priestess’s description - Thanks Steven
  
• Updated Divine shield’s description - Thanks Lazur
  
• Fixed a bug with Incubus being randomly feared - Thanks Me
  
• Fixed spacing issues in text with Dragon Valorian Skin
  
• Fixed Blast/Spirit Mancers not working if there is another Blast/Spirit Mancer located on the field
  
• Fixed an issue with Veilstalker getting stuck - Thanks miguel14yt
  
• Fixed an issue with Succubus becoming permanently stealthed - Thanks me
  
• Fixed an issue with Nyrvir getting stuck - Thanks me
  
• Fixed an issue with Blastmancer and Spiritmancer interfering with each other in unintended ways - Thanks MasterTommy96, Nightfall and Cosmic Vortex42
  
• Increased maximum permitted load time in an attempt to reduce the number of timeout disconnects on xbox.

From everyone at BetaDwarf, we thank you for being such a passionate and amazing community. Without you, all this could never have been a reality and for this, we are eternally humbled!

Wild Cards have been one of the most widely criticized features within Minion Masters over the years. With 2.0 coming we've decided it's time to take a good hard look at the feature and try to discern what the issues with it are but also what it contributes.

We want our players to continuously have fun and challenge themselves for years to come. For a long time, we've felt that Wild Cards added to that main goal, at least for most players.

We've heard the argument that it disturbs the overall balance of the game and we agree. It is undeniably harder to find and maintain a great game balance with Wild Cards making decks more unpredictable and extreme, adding to a more rock-paper-scissors experience.

So far we have maintained that the feature also allowed for more creativity in deck building and in most cases for more fun. It's no secret that Wild Cards somewhat limits design space when it comes to the more unique and bombastic designs. We've seen several of these cards become problematic over the years when wildcarded (I.e. Thelec, Wolf Among Sheep, Black Hole, Brutish Betrayer, Guardian, to name a few).

Earlier this week we ran a survey asking you all, what you think of the current state of Wild Cards. Through this survey we found that:

~60% of players like Wild Cards
~36% of players vote to keep Wild Cards as they are; ~31% ask for a change; while ~32% want them flat out removed.
Generally, we see the call for removal mostly with high-rank players as around ~70% of the Remove votes came from players in Master rank or above.
We also see that while the positive impact of Wild Cards is more widely spread than the negative, it does seem to be less intense.
You can see the results of the survey here





Despite the majority of players telling us that Wild Cards are good for the game, we're going to go out on a limb. We believe that the time is right to try something else.

We wish to do a test in which we will remove Wild Cards from the game for a full season. That will be this upcoming season starting with Patch 1.27.

After that season ends we will be asking everyone again to see what your feelings are after having tried the game without Wild Cards for a bit. We'll naturally also be following your feedback on Discord, Reddit, and the Steam forum so do share your opinions as we go along.


When Wild Cards were added to the game, there were a total of 77 cards and deck choices were far more limited. Today is a vastly different scenario with more than 220 cards and several new mechanics. This also means that many cards have alternatives that perform similar duties in slightly different ways. For instance, instead of playing with a Cleaver, you could play with a Brother of the Burning Fist. Instead of Whirly, you could play with Fergus, Plasma Marines → Crystal Archers, Scrat Horde → Skeleton Horde, etc.

Therefore, we believe that the time is right to try and reevaluate this fundamental feature of the game. We believe that we have a broad enough variety of cards as well as several options for most functions that Wild Cards are no longer needed in order to create fun, interesting decks. At the same time, the incredible amount of combination possibilities is also making it substantially harder to fully consider Wild Cards with every balance patch. We now believe that the negatives outweigh the positives.

Here you can read all changes related to the newest hotfix we have just released 1.26.50375.


Priestess

• Removed her attack.

Haunting Hugger

• Cost 1 -> 2

Colossus

• Health 1200 -> 1000

Nyrvir slumbers

• cost 3 -> 4

Jahun

• Health 1200 -> 1000

Mar'Dred

• Health 1200 -> 1000

Living Statue

• Health 1200 -> 1000

Troubadour

• Health 1800 -> 1500

Red Golem

• Health 1400 -> 1200
  
• Damage 350 -> 300

Sunder

• Damage to Master Tower 75/hit -> 25/hit

Bannerman

• Cost 3 -> 4
  
• Damage 15 -> 25

Wrecked Walker

• Start hp 150 -> 100 (max hp unchanged)

Blood Pact

• Self Damage 66% -> 75%

R4Z:0R Squadron

• Attack Cooldown 0.4 -> 0.5

Pincer of Dread

• Damage 170 -> 130
  
• Only fear if it doesn't kill and the fear now only affects the unit that was targeted.

Swarmer Totem

• Health 325 -> 250
  
• Duration 50 -> 40
  
• Production interval 7sec -> 6.5sec

Crossbow Guild

• Health 450 -> 350
  
• Duration 60 -> 45
  
• Production interval 4.8sec -> 4.5sec

Divine Shield

• Duration 6sec -> 5sec

Combustion

• Damage on unit it is on is now true damage (self-inflicted damage is true)
  
• Cost 2 -> 3

• Fixed an issue with Divine Warrior description not mentioning taunt
  
• Taught King Puff how to spell Birthday
  
• Fixed an issue with Tombstone resurrecting units with almost no health
  
• Fixed an issue with Tombstone failing to revive, when a second Tombstone was recently played

The team has been closely looking at the game for a while now and, leading up to 2.0 we’ve been preparing some major changes that we believe can help some ongoing issues with the gameplay.

We're still a fair bit away from that, but we want to get started with these things as we may need time to reconfigure balance to reach a good spot. Additionally, we believe this will result in a healthier meta. Some of the things we've noticed are that the game seems to have become incredibly reliant on spells and controlling/defending until Mana Frenzy (particularly in 2v2).

We've looked at a bunch of changes that we believe will help sort out some of those issues as well as make the game more dynamic and action-packed.

Why everything at once?

We want to do all of these changes in one major patch, as we believe many of them will change the meta quite a bit. So we think it is preferable to shake the bag one big time and then concentrate on fixing the issues, rather than continuously making changes that will destabilize the balance repeatedly.

What is our approach from this point on?

We certainly expect the meta to be unpredictable with all these changes. We therefore also expect that we will have to do a lot of adjustments. Some will occur in the patches to come in the next few months, others we will have to do through hotfixes. As usual, it fully depends on the severity of the issue whether we chose to hotfix or not, but we will keep an eye on things and are prepared to hotfix where necessary.

The overarching goal is then to spend the remaining time before 2.0 to stabilize the meta and find the best balance for Minion Masters Remastered.



Mana generation increased

• 1v1 Changes
  
  • Starting mana generation increased; ~+10%
    
  • Time to get to max generation decreased; 5 min → 3 min and 20 sec

• 2v2 Changes
  
  • Starting mana generation increased; ~+15%
    
  • Maximum mana generation increased; ~+10%
    
  • Time to get to max generation decreased; 5 min → 3 min and 20 sec

• XP generation rescaled
  
  • Passive XP gain increased; ~+20%
    
  • Bridge XP gain increased; ~+10%

• Balance Changes to adjust (more details in the Patch Notes)
  
  • Movement speed change (Slowest minions)
    
  • Demon Warrior
    
  • Accursed Ascension
    
  • The Mancers
    
  • Call to Arms
    
  • Dragon Nest
    
  • Morellia Book
    
  • Apep Totem
    
  • Nyrvirs Breath

Why are we doing this?

We've tried to change the spread of cards (or rather mana cost ranges) that are being used in previous patches. We feel we've been successful in this with the bi-product that the game has been slowed down. With these changes we're hoping to speed it up again, retaining the good action-packed feel which was the nature of what Minion Masters is. Our general goal is for most games to be around 3~5 minutes and we believe this is a good step in that direction.

With this change, we know the balance won't be perfect right away and we'll need a bit of time to watch the new meta develop and adjust as we go. We see this as an opportunity to change some things that we view as problematic and can aim for an entirely new - and hopefully improved - meta.

Flying No Longer Grabs The Bridges

Flying Minions will no longer be able to convert a bridge to your team.

Why are we doing this?

We believe that cheap flying Minions have too many functions. They are great at defending, cycling, and grabbing bridges. The bridge grabbing part is not healthy for the game as it neutralizes the use of Melee Minions and can potentially dominate the bridges for cheap. With this change, we aim to make flying Minions focus more on their fighting capabilities as strong counters to Melee. Adding them to your deck can be a great defensive tool, however, you won't strengthen your ability to control the bridges

We expect that some of the flying cards, particularly the cheap ones, will need some further adjustments to find a good balance. We've done some changes in preparation, but we're fully anticipating more will be needed once this update hits the servers. We will be keeping an eye on it and will adjust accordingly in the coming months.

General Damaging Spells Nerf

Most damaging spells will have their mana cost increased by 1. We may opt to instead reduce the efficiency of certain spells, keeping them at their cost, but in general, all spells that are related to damaging or controlling Minions will receive substantial nerfs. (more details in the Patch Notes).

Why are we doing this?
The game has become too centred around spells, we've even seen the game being referred to as Spell Masters on several occasions. We agree with this sentiment and want to put more focus on Minion versus Minion interactions, and give Spells a more supportive role.

Master Reworks

A Complete King Puff Rework


King Puff has long been a restrictive element for certain designs. While we do like the idea that he is restricted to a certain subset we believe he was too restricted while also gaining too much, in turn making the cards also restricted to him.

Mordar Tombstones reworked for less coin-flippy results
We believe that the difference between Mordar getting a good resurrection and just missing it, is too stark, making matches against him feel either super easy or practically unbeatable. With this, we hope to bring him to a more healthy spot.

Diona Rebalanced to remove randomness and removed bridge control from traps
It can be frustrating to watch your opponent pick up the healing potion several times in a row, we decided to remove that and make her perk more deterministic. Furthermore, we think that Diona has been too focused on a heavy bridge-control style, and we want to make her more versatile.

Apep Totem rework is on a timer in order to avoid it becoming overpowered in cycle decks, particularly with the new mana rules.

Why are we doing this?

Many cards and mechanics have been added to the game and many changes have happened, certain Master designs no longer feel like they fit in quite the right way. These changes are aimed to increase the fun and reduce frustrating elements.


Along with the Big changes that are coming into Minion Masters (read here for more information) we also have a LOT MORE balance changes and 2 more cards entering the Arena! Join us now Masters as we unleash all these changes into the Arena!


A new season has arrived to Minion Masters!
Tons of new rewards, including 2 cards, a Legendary Skin, bonus cards, and more!

New cards added to the game

• The Season Pass will end on 4th of August.
  
  
  Master changes
  
  King Puff Rework
  
  • Basic Attack - Added:
    
    • The King's Birthday - Celebrate the king's birthday every 40 seconds. Reduce the cooldown by half the cost of every 4 - 6 Mana Card you play.
  • Perk 1: Gain a one-use copy of Trick Swap every time the kings birthday is celebrated. (You can only have one trick swap at a time)
    
    • Trick Swap: Swap minions on the bridges. Stun swapped enemies for 4 seconds.
  • Perk 2: When the king's birthday has celebrated a Rage Puff and a Shield Puff appears in your arena (One in each lane, on fixed positions).
    
    • Rage Puff - If picked up by a friendly minion give it and up to 4 nearby friendly minions Rage
      
    • Shield Puff - If picked up by a friendly minion give it and up to 4 nearby friendly minions Shield.
  • Perk 3 - changed to:"Summon a Knight Puff for each friendly Minion affected by Trick Swap (Max 5)
    
    • Knight Puff: Health: 50, Range: 8, Damage: 50(25 dps)
  Diona
  
  • Cycle instead of random
    
  • XP Potion 3XP > 4XP
    
  • Taunt trap hp 300 -> 400
    
  • Crossbow trap damage and lifetime 15 -> 20
    
  • Traps no longer grap bridges
  Mordar
  
  • Tombstone ress minion with % health-related to charging up (Tombstone needs 25% charge to be able to resurrect a unit)
    
  • Tombstone now takes 20 seconds to charge
  Morellia
  
  • Book cooldown 30->25 seconds
  Valorian
  
• Damage 45->40

Stormbringer

• Attack cooldown 4->3.8 seconds

Apep

• Gain totem on timer, 25 seconds

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Dragon pack

• voidborn wound, cost reduction(1)

Mal'shar

• now also teleports himself on kill (2-second cooldown)

Nether Bat

• count 2 -> 3

Divine warrior

• now has taunt

Dragon nest

• Cost 4->5

Call to arms

• cost 5->6

Speed changes 3->4

• Boom buggy
  
• Snake Druid

Speed Changes 2->3

• Living Statue
  
• Priestess
  
• Colossus
  
• Troubadour
  
• Red Golem
  
• Blue Golem
  
• Jahun
  
• Mar’dred

Ritual of Servitude

• cost 5->6

Demon Warrior

• 5->6 stacks

Mancers

• 200 -> 170hp

Accursed Ascension

• 70->80 stacks

bats bats bats

• cost 4->5

Caged Prowler

• Activation time from 20 to 16 seconds
  
• Building Lifetime from 30 to 24 seconds

Propeller Scrats

• Count 3->4
  
• Movement speed 7->9

Haunting hugger

• attack cooldown 2.5-1.8 seconds
  Cost 2->1

Frostfeathers

• damage 10->12

Scrap Yard

• Base scraps 100 -> 60

Fireball

• cost 4->5

chain lightning

• cost 4->5

shock rock

• damage 40->25

Daggerfall

• cost 3->4

beam of DOOM

face damage 300->150

Vortex

• cost 2->3

resonating blast crystal

• cost 3->4
  Delay .8 seconds -> 1.2 seconds

Scrattilery

• cost 5->6

Smite

• damage 200->150

corpse explosion

• cost 3->4

Magma storm

• cost 5->6

mountain shaper

• cost 6->7

poison strike

• cost 3->4

T.A.A.S

• cost 2->3

Ion grenade

• delay for first hit: 0.5s -> 1.0s
  
• cost 2->3

Gamblers Ball

• cost 3->4
  change per sacrifice 20 -> 34%

black hole

• cost 2->3

Nyrvirs breath

• cost 6 -> 7

Stun blast

• cost 3->4

Arcane bolt

• cost 2->3

Stun Shrine

• cost 3->4

Grasping thorns

• cost 2->3

Wheel of Doom

• wheel speed: 1000->800

Ardera

• Selfdamage is now true damage

Avea

• Selfdamage is now true damage

Zealots

• Selfdamage is now true damage

Impatient

• Autoplays if you would flood mana

Mana Surge

• 50%->33% attack speed increase