We are going to make a few balancing changes sometime very soon. Many buildings will change, plus Ascent and some other cards. We will post a complete list when the changes take place.

We realize that this might upset some people but we think these changes will be better for the game balance and make the game better in the long run.

We changed the basis for how much vision in buildings costs. So many buildings changed price or health.

Building changes:
Bamboo Watch Tower: 2 flux -> 3 flux
Beacon of Celador: 4S -> 4SS
Emerald Spring: 3 flux-> 4flux, -1 health
Dank Pit: 2 flux -> 3 flux
Exhausted Mine: 3M -> 3MX + ability changed
Magnetite Beacon: 2 flux -> 3 flux
Walled Outpost: 3 flux -> 4 flux
Mogi Nest: 3 flux -> 4 flux
Foul Obelisk: D->DX +1 Health
Vapor Mahal: 4 -> 5
Ascent: 2S -> 4S
Solstice: 4E -> 2E
Training: 2M -> 2MX

Acmar's Disruptor: no longer takes a flux a round to upkeep
Form of Vigor: Same price but doesn't get tokens from other vigors
Spying sparks: Attaches automatically when its host is removed.
Fissure: 4MX -> 5MX You can now go negative
Micro Tectonics: 4EX -> 3EX
Benefits of Spectacle: 2E -> 2EX and player who casts spell gets the glory
Charm: 4SSX -> 5SSX
Constable of Glorn 5MX -> 4MX
Planar Intersection, Air: Now effects Figures instead of just creatures
Electric Storm: Only loses a token a round rather than all of them
Exhausted Mine: Now can move next to any MF base and can move from that base back to the Mine rather than just from the mine.

Bear Strength: This card will change when the next set comes out.
And I said before but might as well remind:
Benefits of a Clear Mind & Mass Confusion: will both go to a different domain when the next set comes out.

All enchantments start dim now like figures

In case people weren't online for my earlier whining, I'd like to point out that this seems to negatively affect DL and EL, worsening two and three of their enchantments respectively. Unless some Sylvan and MF enchantments are forced to dim to get their effects, this isn't very balanced.

While I understand that the idea was to make things "consistent", you could argue they were already consistent before. Figures came into play dimmed. Non-figure entities came into play undimmed. Right now it'll be figures and enchantments come into play dimmed, and non-figure non-enchantment entities come into play undimmed (ruins and corpses). The only consistency here seems to be EL and DF get the short end of the stick.

I'd say the one that probably started this all enchantments dimmed or undimmed needed to be tweaked a bit more, but the others were already rarely used cards and just made even worse. This probably would have been better addressed by doubling that card's special ability cost and leaving everything else alone.

First things first: I am glad that a willingness is being shown to change things in the game that weren't balanced.

Ascent: I think a change was needed. Maybe 4S is a *bit* harsh but the card was a complete and utter BEATING before, and made playing big creatures completely pointless.

Vapor Mahal: Also a good change. The other option I could see working would be to make it cost 3 but only have sight 1.

Benefits of Spectacle: I think this might have been a bit overboard. Just the change to make your opponent get the benefit too is a significant downgrade.

Form of Vigor: interesting change. fixes the Morph + vigor problem a bit. both cards stay powerful but lose a little bit of their appeal when working together.

Now can you make more of the Sylvan 1-flux creatures cost 2? maybe thistle falcon could cost 3, since it's WAY better than anything else you can play on the first turn (except Galom's, which already costs 3)?

Ascent could cost 3 and still be good, I think it costing 4 just kills it though.

I thought Vapor Mahal was balanced to begin with, I don't think it should have changed.

What enchantments are affected by the comes into play dimmed?

I'm curious as to what the changes to Bear Strength will be since I have 3.

I like all the other changes though.

that completely gimps Benefits of Spectacle, and destroys one of the only alternative win strategies. Very unhappy. Just kills trying to play a spellcaster.

I think its great for the game to be ever tweaking. I also believe that Vapor Mahals are in the department of needing tweaking (even though I play them.) But, I think its a little unbalanced that the sylvian domain will now be the only domain that will be able to link buildings together and take middle flux well by turn 2 or 3.

This was the main reason I started playing elemental in the first place, because it was difficult to compete with the 'Bamboo+Beacon' combo to the middle. I'm not writing this as a hack on the Sylvian domain but as to the balancing of domains. Now for buildings with two vision by domain and cost:

Sylvian
Bamboo Watch Tower....1 domain 2 flux
Beacon of Celador....1 domain 4 flux
Gossamer Palace....2 domain 4 flux
Great Oak....0 domain 7 flux
Temple of Zorn....3 domain 3 flux

and throw in the Ivory Spire, hell it only has 2 buildings that doesn't have vision over 1.

DL
Bone Fortress....0 domain 7 flux
Foul Obolisk....1 domain 5 flux
Ghost Crypt....2 domain 4 flux
Eye of Varexes...3 domain 3 flux

MF
Earthworks....1 domain 7 flux
Hardark's Fort....2 domain 4 flux
Storm Factory....3 domain 2 flux

Elemental
Vapor Mahal....0 domain now will cost 5 flux
Sphere of Radiance....0 domain 4 flux

And I'll put it in just in case someone want to bring up the Epicenter which is 3 domain 3 flux and then you have to pay more flux just for vision until the end of turn.

Add MF and Elemental together and they still fall short of Sylvian on its own when you count the Ivory Spire. Not to mention Sylvian will have 4 buildings with 2 vision with flux cost of 4 or less, while if you add up all the other domains there are only 5 buildings that fit that catergory.

Ok, I'm done my rant, I would just like to see the other domains used more. I just see an even bigger influx of Sylvian players in order to compete with it being the fastest building linking domain now.

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I think at some point cards need to be locked, and balance created by creating new cards.

Altering existing cards drastically on this scale is a very bad idea. You take value from people, cards that were worth 100gold, are now going to be worth 50.

Fix it by gining players new ways to deal with existing balance issues, not by radically changing cards peple are used to using and working the same way.

All I see is more favor to the elves, and the styles of play I enjoy get screwed over.

> Fix it by gining players new ways to deal with existing balance issues, not by radically changing cards people are used to using and working the same way.

Well in most cases that is what we are trying to do. We really didn't want to have to change any cards. It is a big headache for us but the game will be more balanced and more fun afterward. Besides there are some things that are not easily fixed with just more cards.

There are 3 different types of changes we made:
1) Building prices. These changed because we realized the basis we were pricing buildings at was too low. You can't fix this with more cards.

2) Cards that were practically useless. Most cards that are pretty much useless now we left. For example barrier peaks that will be better as there are more ways to make mountains and more creatures with mountain stride. But cards like spying sparks we felt would always be pretty worthless unless we tweaked what the did.

3) Broken cards. These cards were disrupting the game and forcing people to play a certain way. Ascent being the main one. Like all CCGs we will inevitably release cards that turn out to be unbalanced. We can either ban the card like other CCGs do or just alter the card to make it balanced. We would prefer to just alter it since:
a) It is sad to get a card you own banned (it is also sad to own a useless card).
b) It isn't cheap to make these cards so we don't want useless ones laying around.
c) There isn't a very large card pool yet so every card counts.