As promised, we have more information to share about Minion Masters 2.0. Our team have been hard at work, and we can finally give you an update.
Minion Masters 2.0 Prologue will be released on Steam & Xbox this Winter!
What does it mean? The Prologue is what we consider an “early access” for MM 2.0. Your game will automatically be updated to the new version, but in order to make sure we can make the game the best that it can possibly be, we are calling it a prologue as during this period, we will be collecting rigorous feedback and do our best to improve the experience.
In addition, it will herald the launch of the Runeshaper Master, which we are excited to finally release into the wild. We will also start unveiling a new big feature that will launch in the new year…
What about the mobile release?
The mobile version will be released on January 16th! It will be available using your Netflix account on iOS and Android. Everything will be unlockable without any in-app purchases and without any ads.
We are doing a Minion Masters 2.0 Beta starting October 1st!
Dev notes: not really a balance change, but we think it makes it more fun.
Fireball
Dam 180 > 200
Master damage 180 > 100
Dev notes: We wanted to increase its usefulness as removal slightly while reducing its ability to "fireball face" enemies to death.
Grasping Thorns
On death, summon a Skeleton for each enemy Minion that died in it (Max 3)
Dam 240 > 150
Dev notes: We wanted to add some offensive capabilities to this defensive spell. Expect similar changes to defensive-only cards in the future.
Netherstep
Summons X Swarmers where minions are teleported to, where X is the amount of Voidborne cards in hand (Max 3)
No longer Invokes
AoE 3 > 4.5
Dev notes: We want to add even more offensive capabilities to this underplayed card that is still in line with its design.
Sapphire Pebble
Mana 2 > 1
Remove Myriad bonus
Throws its head on play, destroy self, grows a new Pebble after 5 secs
Damage 60 > 100
Health 100 > 50
Dev notes: We are not entirely happy with how Sapphire Pebble Myriad bonus works, as it both encourages you to play defensively and wait around with Sapphire Pebble in your hand. This version allows us to both retain the Myriad, reduce mana cost, add some offensive capability and try something a little different...
NERFS
A.I.M Bot
Tech cost 30 > 35
Battle Shi-Hou
HP 400 > 350
Morellia
Book Cooldown 25 > 27
Shroomama Shumi
Shields can no longer trigger split
Dev notes: This opens up Shumi to be more useful outside of continuously shielding them. It's possible she needs a buff with this change, but we want to be careful so that she doesn't dominate again.
Fixes
Fixed Nylora failing to auto attack in Mayhem and Adventures
Fixed Slitheress Diona's Ruffles not wearing the correct outfit when he enters the arena.
Fixed Burn the Bridge vfx going to the wrong bridge.
Removed Raddick from the random pool.
Fixed an issue with Ghast's description having two different cooldown values.
Fixed Shroomer not splitting with the correct health and damage %.
All of these are underperforming and need some help
Cannon Roller
Attack cooldown: 2 > 1.8
Crystal Sentry
Attack cooldown: 1.5 > 1.4
Ghast
Attack cooldown: 3.3 > 3
Cooldown: 3.3 > 3
Rimargaal's Breath
Damage: 150 > 180
Spelldancer
Mana Freeze: 3 > 2
Stormy
HP: 175 > 200
This card has been nerfed by changes to the chain lightning, this should help bring it back to viability.
Vuk's Clutchcooker
Instant flamethrower after grappling hook
Stuns minions while they are being moved with Grappling Hook
Attempting to make Vuk less clunky to actually use.
Rebalance
Harbinger
Range 14 > 12
Speed 4 > 5
Damage 250 > 275
The highest health flyer is also the super high damage and the longest range flyer, and has knockback... This combination makes it a noob stomper and while it has been reasonably balanced we need to get it to a different place to try to reduce its impact on the lower skill levels of the ladder. This change makes him get closer to the enemy thereby exposing himself to more counterplay, and makes him get there faster, potentially outrunning his support.
Milloween
Arcane Golem - Can not hit flying
Arcane Golem - Range 8 > 4
Arcane Golem - Timer starts on death
Arcane Golem - No longer mythic
Basic Attack - Damage 9 > 10
Basic Attack - Gain an Arcane Charge for each spell you play (max 5)
Basic Attack - Each charge increases basic attack sparks by 1
Arcane Golem - Consume all Arcane Charges and gain 1 level for each
Arcane Golem - Damage bonus per charge 3 > 5
Arcane Golem - No longer gets bonuses when you play spells
Perk 1 Cooldown 30 > 25
Perk 3 - Arcane Golem gains 2 levels from each Spark (60 hp and 10 damage)
Perk 3 - Reduce cooldown of perks 1 and 2 by 5 secs
This borders on a complete redesign. This changes the Arcane Golem from the best ranged support to a tank that itself needs support. Also changes the dynamic of how it increases in power.
Volco
Swap Perks 1 and 2
His core deck building mechanic is his ability to give rage to minions, not having that available until halfway through a match somewhat disincentivizes people from deck building around it.
Nerfs
Apep
Attack cooldown 2 > 2.2
Caged Prowler
Releases after 16 > 20
Duration 24 > 30
HP 400 > 360
It's everywhere, and a very powerful value tool. This does effectively revert buffs it got in the past, but the game changed drastically since then.
Chain Lightning
6 jumps > 5 jumps
Still feels somewhat overtuned at 4 mana.
Crakgul Doomcleaver
Copies 3 > 2
Everyone will have seen this one coming. A single wild card isn't actually doing that well, so we aren't going all the way on this restriction.
Future Past
Mana 3 > 4
Future Present
Mana 8 > 10
Both the future cards are simply too good value generators and frankly probably too simple designs. This is something of a placeholder until we find time to do a better rework. They should still be playable for anyone who wants to have fun with this kind of deck.
Mordar
Tombstone delay 30 > 35
Giving people more of a window where Tombstone isn't around should allow for more opportunity to exploit Mordar's "all my perks are this based around this one thing" weakness.
Ritual of Servitude
Can no longer summon 7 mana minion cards
Can no longer summon 9 mana minion cards when triggered
8 mana minions are strong enough that it will likely still be playable activated. This frankly isn't an elegant solution, but something has to be done.
Rocket Scrat
Range 8 > 6
Less likely that it will get double jumps off, might not be enough to actually bring it under control, but it should be a good start.
Walking Blind Date
Alternates between 3 and 4 mana cards
This card has too few ways in which we can adjust the balance and frankly it has way too many use cases. Hopefully this brings it down to a reasonable level.
There is a major discrepancy between how Valorian performs in 1v1 and 2v2 this is trying to address that.
Arcane Bolt
Kill threshold: 400 > 450
Bazooka Scrat
HP 120 > 140
Bounce Berry Flingers
Attack Cooldown 2 > 1.9
Frozen
Duration 3 > 4
Most cards using the Frozen mechanic are underperforming, and at 3 seconds the mechanic seems a little underwhelming and uninteresting.
Idol of Sacrifice
Gains Haste instead of Rage
Gor'Rakk Gate
Elite Swarmer > Flightless Dragon
It is now less punishing in terms of health lost when you get this option and their offensive output is significantly higher, so this should result in a sizable buff. However, whether it’s actually easier to gain the needed value from playing the card remains to be seen.
Grasping Thorns
Damage 220 > 240
Korrrgoth
Seal Mana 5 > 4
Net Blaster
HP 120 > 140
S1ege Br3aker
HP 550 > 625
Spelldancer
Arcane Spheres 2 > 4
Mark an area and fire sparks 1 at a time at the area
Already underperforming while also being changed to align with the Arcane Barrage nerf.
REBALANCE
City Watch
Mana 5 > 6
Leggo count 0 > 1
Xbow Dude count 3 > 2
This card is still just too strong.
Magnetic Bombs
Moves faster over time, starts at 4 > 16 (hits max speed at opponent tower)
Damage 80 > 90
This is intended to both buff the card a little and make it more offensive. Moving slower in the beginning means they will be easier to kill when used defensively.
Toll of the Dead
Mana 6 > 5
Copies 3 > 1
Removing the wildcard option makes it less strong as a win condition where you have to stop multiple waves of multiple skeletons, so we feel it’s appropriate to bring it back to 5 mana where it is a strong ascension card.
Unholy Ground
Spawns 5 Skeletons over the duration
First Skeleton spawns immediately
Only Spawns skeletons when there is an enemy in the area
Also immobilize ground Minions
Duration 10 > 7
Accursed Ascension: +3 seconds, +3 skeletons
This card was never really used for its intended purpose of being a control tool, instead being used as a skeleton spawner.
NERFS
Arcane Barrage
Mark an area and fire sparks 1 at a time at the area.
Actually making the card do a barrage instead of a volley. Makes counterplay easier, also makes it less straightforward to get full value by reducing sniping potential generally.
Avea
No longer shields flyers
This does help with the Mana Chaser situation, but it's also a good change generally since artificially inflating flyer health has frequently been a problem.
Bannerman
No longer shields flyers
Guardian
No longer shields flyers
Chain Lightning
Jump Distance 7 > 5
Most played card in the game which is much easier to get full value out of than other spells, so we're upping the skill floor. We also don’t want to touch the mana or damage right now.
Dormant Defenders
Copies allowed 3 > 1
Jolo
Dodge chance lost per hit: 10% > 15%
Still able to serve his main function but less able to do so over any kind of long term. He’s both overperforming and played a lot.
Mana Chaser
Range 8 > 6
Scrat Tank
HP 650 > 600
FIXES
Fixed Flightless Dragons occasionally not gaining rage when behind on health.
Fixed units spawned from Blind Date occasionally trying to ascend to a higher plane of existence
Fixed ground melee minions affected by Net Blaster suddenly being able to attack flyers.
Fixed Bearvalanche bears running in the wrong direction.
Fixed R3KT perk 3 description stating the wrong damage.
Removed Slitherbind from Living Statue description.
Removed Mana Surge visuals where appropriate.
Fixed Mana Chaser's occasionally glowing.
Made Spelldancer’s barrage area indicator only appear when she would activate.
Forbidden Knowledge perk 2 now reduces the cost of 3 different 4-mana+ spells by 1 (instead of 2 by 2).
Valorian
Searing Light attacks 4 > 5
R3-KT
One Punch Blast changed:
It is now a line nuke dealing 300 total damage. Every unit killed reduces remaining total damage by the health they lost.
One Punch Blast: Deals True damage
One Punch Blast is hard to pull off. This allows him to kill a congo line of 20 scrats, never doing overkill damage, or help with clearing out a warrior, or a combination of the two. Making it so that it won't get blocked by a scrat or a shield should make the ability feel substantially more impactful.
Ravager
Terror Brutus health 2300 > 2500
Mordar
Tombstone changed:
Tombstone is no longer added to the deck but on a 25sec cooldown timer that starts when the Tombstone dies.
Tombstone activation delay: 15 > 10
When ready the Tombstone will resurrect the next unit that dies. This will no longer destroy the Tombstone but will instead restart the activation delay. Effectively putting the Tombstone on cooldown.
The Minion resurrected by Tombstone deals damage to Tombstone equal to half its max health. Resurrects with health equal to twice the amount of health lost by the Tombstone.
Tombstone health: 400 > 500
Lifetime: 40 > 60
Perk 3: Tombstone health becomes 1500. No longer adds a second Tombstone.
Stunning the Tombstone disables the Tombstone and restarts the activation delay.
Essentially this means Tombstone is now using its own health as a resource for resurrecting units and allows it to resurrect multiple times. The intent is to make it more interesting to build a deck around Tombstone by making deck building less restricted.
Milloween
Arcane Missiles changed:
Missiles now targets a random unit in the area and is homing towards the target. Still impacts first enemy unit encountered. Moves slightly slower.
Master damage 100% > 10%
This change should make Arcane Missiles significantly harder to misuse or miss with entirely, while also making it a little easier to counter.
Cowardly Imps
Attack Speed 4 > 3.5
Pincer of Dread
Damage 120 > 140
Rocket Scrat
Damage 100 > 90
Sanctum of the Cleansing Fire
CD 7 > 5
Duration 30 > 25
Giving it limited range completely killed the card, so we want to bring the power level back up to compensate.
Scrat Pack
Scrat Count: 4 > 5
Slitherbind
Cap 3 > none
Distribute Slitherbound to random Slither cards instead of all on the same card
Stormy
Attack Speed 4 > 3.5
Sun Burn
Removes Frozen and Slow from targets
More utility for a hybrid spell that's having a hard time finding it's niche.
Taloc the Vessel
Attack Speed 2 > 1.8
REBALANCE
King Puff
Knight Puffs health 50 > 2
Knight Puffs spawns with shields.
King Puff heard somewhere that his knights were supposed to have a shield, so he decided to give them one.
Crystal Sentry
Remove Mana Surge
AS 1.7 > 1.5
We want to put Sentry in the starter deck, but don't want to confuse new players with Mana Surge. Therefore we are introducing a new rule that male crystal elves do not have Mana Surge.
Fanriel
Remove Mana Surge
Damage 130 > 140
Male crystal elf that no longer has mana surge. Lets him lean more into his unique mechanic, makes him less of a threat when he sits and beats at enemy master tower.
Thelec
Remove Mana Surge
AS 1.3 > 1.1
Damage 55 > 50
Male crystal elf that no longer has mana surge. Increased damage output when below 6 mana, reduced when above. Let him be more useful as a reactive play and get more value right away, which is useful for a 10 drop to be viable.
Puff
No longer dies when defeated.
This is specifically to preempt shenanigans with the new Tombstone design.
Walking Blind Date
Now Transforms instead of dying.
This is specifically to preempt shenanigans with the new Tombstone design.
NERFS
Apep
Perk 3 cooldown: 28 > 33
Base Attack damage: 40 > 30
A.I.M Bot
Damage: 45 > 40
Bearvalanche
Damage: 160 > 140
Blue Golem
Attack Cooldown: 2 > 2.2
Caber Tosser
Caber Damage: 200 > 150
Colossus
Damage: 275 > 250
Crystal Construct
No longer has Mana Surge
Dormant Defenders
No longer has Mana Surge
Drone Walker
Damage 45 > 40
Guardian
No longer has Mana Surge
Living Statue
Health: 1000 > 900
Rammer
Damage 180 > 160
Red Golem
Attack Cooldown: 2 > 2.2
Vulture Prime A83
Attack Speed 0.9 > 1.0
S.T.INT
Attack Speed 1.1 > 1.2
S.T.INT is already everywhere, and the game field changes are going to make it stronger compared to other 2-drops, as well as making the ability more useful.
Troubadour
Health: 1500 > 1400
FIXES
Fixed yet another interaction between Apep, Simulacrum and Ability cards.
Using /cd or /sd while in deck collection view no longer crashes the game.
Frozen now correctly lasts 3 seconds. It's possible that this amounts to a nerf that is too big for what is warranted, we will be keeping an eye on Frozen.
Fixed A'Zog's description.
Fixed Lash of Ah'Mun's description to correctly state master damage.
We are excited to announce that Minion Masters 2.0 will be released this year!
Some of you may remember we posted about 2.0 some time ago and now we are ready to share more details. We have found a great partner to help fully realize it to meet your expectations. It includes many things as well as new content, but also a huge code and UI rework that will make the game run much more solid and makes it easier to develop updates in the future.
Our team has been hard at work to bring you this upgraded version of the game, and we're thrilled to share that it will be released this year.
That’s not all, as we would like to make a shout-out to our new partner Netflix who is helping us bring you 2.0. Furthermore, also a new special version of Minion Masters to Android & iOS, without ads or in-app purchases, that can cross-play with PC and requires a Netflix subscription to play.
So our Minion Masters family, meta and matchmaking, has good chances of growing and evolving a lot this year.
Here is how it will work: the mobile version of the game will support cross-play, but cross-progression will not be available. This means that your progress won't be shared between platforms, but you will still be able to play with and against mobile players, opening up opportunities to make new friends and rivals with improved matchmaking and meta evolution.
Lastly, we'd like to express our gratitude to all the testers who participated in the previous mobile version of Minion Masters. We'll be disabling the mobile server soon to make way for the new version, which we're excited to release later this year. Thank you for your support, and we can't wait for you to experience the improved Minion Masters 2.0!
We’ll start sharing more information about the 2.0 version and its content very soon, so stay tuned!
Perk 1: Add a random free 2 mana card to your deck > Add a random free one-use 2 mana card to the top of your deck every 25 sec.
Perk 3: Add a random free 4 mana card to your deck > Add a random free one-use 4 mana card to the top of your deck every 25 sec.
Basic Attack Damage: 30 > 40
Basic Attack Max Targets: 1 > 2
Basic Attack Speed: 2.5 > 2
Basic Attack no longer gets a speed bonus from having 5+ mana cards in hand.
The main reason for doing this is to allow deck building with Apep that doesn’t focus so heavily on trying to get as much as possible out of the free cards by building very cheap decks. It also allows us to normalize the outcomes of the perks by changing which card you get every time. Because of system limitations the card isn’t truly random, but pseudo-random.
Diona
Perk 1: Add a trap card to your deck > Add a trap card to the top of your deck every 25 sec.
Perk 3: Add a trap card to your deck > Add a trap card to the top of your deck every 25 sec.
Bear Traps no longer have Stealth (remains untargetable).
The deck building incentives for making cheap decks are less pronounced with Diona than with Apep, but we still don’t think it’s healthy for masters to so directly incentivize a specific type of deckbuilding in this way.
King Puff
When Royal Gifts is triggered, place only one gift in a random unoccupied lane.
Perk 2: Cooldown 45 > 22
Increase pick-up range of puffs slightly.
Mainly intended as a quality of life improvement.
Annihilator
Attack Speed: 2.1 > 2.3
AoE radius: 3 > 4
Feng the Wanderer
Mana cost: 6 > 5
Health: 400 > 325
Flightless Dragons
No longer has Voidborne Wound
If you have less health than your opponent, gain Rage.
Netherstep
Invoke > Invoke twice
Jump distance: 10 > 6
More outright value and changing the use case. This reduction in distance makes it much harder to use the card to bypass a fight, meaning it retains mostly the use cases of repositioning within a fight or dodging spells. Ideally we want people to be more aggressive in using this card.
R4Z:0R Squadron
Now has Piloted. Mechanically unchanged.
Rock Rivals
Mana: 6 > 4
Summon a Living Statue with every play.
Living Statue no longer has haste.
Overall meant to be a nerf, but also fundamentally changing the use case for the card. We feel this is significantly more interesting than taking a risk one time to get a cheaper version of another card, specifically since the card is always the same and knowable in advance.
NERFS
Miloween
Arcane Golem gains Mythic.
Bearvalanche
Damage 180 > 160
City Watch
Legionnaires summoned on play: 1 > 0
Crossbow Dudes summoned on play: 2 > 3
Idol of Sacrifice
No longer gains Haste.
Jing and Xiao Long
Phase Cooldown: 2 > 2.5 sec
Stun Lancers
No longer has Slitherbind
Spawn of Fury
Changes base values rather than working as a multiplier.
This affects mainly the interaction with other sources for changes in health and damage, ie. buffs. Specifically this is a nerf to those interactions.
Spirit
Max health gained: 400 > 350
Tantrum Throwers
Now summoned in a horizontal line.
FIXES
Fixed King Puff getting the same spell every time he picks up the spell gift puff.
Fixed Ritual of Servitude not summoning 6-mana cards.
Finally Fixed the Mechapep visual glitch.
Fixed Frozen Aura description.
Fixed Bearvalanche master damage.
Fixed Bearvalanche animation occasionally being reversed.
Stopped Incubus from using netherstep while frozen.
Stopped Caber Tosser from throwing the log while frozen.
Attempted another fix of the Border Patrol trigger indicator.
Fixed Netherstep and Combustion being able to invoke ability cards.
Removed the indicator for more wildcards being available on card promotion.
Fixed Perk Timers malfunctioning in speed adjusted replays.
Removed Crystal Sentry flavor text to make the actual description not get super tiny in formatting.
Fixed Magnetic Bombs description not mentioning reduced damage against masters
Fixed Frost Shock relic affecting the wrong units.
Removed Combustion from High Five bucket.
Fixed Rimargaal perk description.
Updated Buckets and Relics availability for masters in older adventures to match the most recent versions.