Greetings Citizens! This Season marks our 6 year anniversary, and the start of Grey Knights Season. As well as the full Anniversary celebration (more information on that coming soon), we have a new Supreme Commander on the way, Kaldor Draigo.
Additionally, as mentioned in the last balance blog, we’re going to look at a slightly new approach to balance changes, which will maximise impact, and streamline the changes each month.
Warlords are at the core of a deck and its power so going forward we are going to focus on Warlords for the foreseeable future. Our first iteration of this will be that the three lowest performing Warlords from the previous season will receive a buff, and the highest performing Warlord will receive a nerf. On top of that we will still do bodyguard adjustments for that Seasons focus faction, in this case Grey Knights.
Before we move on to these changes there's one more thing to cover. With the Ranked arena modifiers, we’ve heard the feedback, and with the increased upcoming power level with Enhancements we’re changing the stat buff amount in the final arenas. Going forward the last three arenas will be as follows:
Terra: +10 -> + 10%
Imperial Palace: +20% -> +15%
The Dark Cells: +30% -> +20%
This will mean that the step between arenas will be much smoother and that The Dark Cells is now capped at the previous level of the Imperial Palace.
With that news out the way lets look at the balance changes in full:
Warlord Changes:
Position: 66th, Winrate: 65.5%, Playrate: >0.1%
Hatred's Embrace - Chaos Knight Abominant Dreadblade
-10 Cost
Overwhelming Carnage: All friendly cards with a cost of 40 or greater increase all attack stats by [40% -> 50%]
The knight Warlords are newer playable additions to the game, having existed as event Warlords for some time, and are not the most competitive at their current position. Not as powerful as the daemon primarchs, we are taking the cost down, which is a key difference given their reliance on high cost bodyguards, and also increasing the effectiveness of its special rule. This should be a big enough swing to make a serious amount of difference.
Position: 60th, Winrate: 70.2%. Playrate: >0.1%
Canis Rex - Sir Hekhtur the Chainbreaker
-10 Cost
While not performing as poorly as Hatred’s Embrace, Canis Rex isn’t overperforming by any means. Since we’re reducing Hatred’s Embrace’s cost we’re mirroring it here for Canis Rex, but his special rule remains unchanged, given its stronger position.
Position: 65th, Winrate: 66.6%, Playrate: 0.3%
Ettôk Warspeke - Greater Thurian League Grimnyr
+40 Wounds
Ready Change: Psychic Debuff -> Ranged Buff
Despite being a terror to face in many scenarios, Ettok is not a high winrate Warlord at the moment. While one option would be to increase his nullify ability from 3 turns to 4, I don’t think anyone, even Ettok players, would be in favour of that. So, given he is already a very cost effective Warlord, we’ve increased his Wounds substantially, and have changed his ready. This ready change may be the most impactful, since Ranged is one of Votann’s strongest attack types, and gives him a better support role than currently.
Position: 64th, Winrate: 68.0%, Playrate: 0.1%
Trajann Valoris - Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes
Guardians of the Golden Throne: If a friendly card has 50% or more base Wounds remaining, boost its attack stats by [25% -> 40%]. If it has less than 50% base Wounds remaining, reduce incoming damage by [25% -> 30%].
Trajann is the lowest performing Supreme Commander and we’ve judged this to be because his ability buffs are fine, and nothing more exciting than that. As such, we’re cranking up the numbers on his special rule that should make an immediate and noticeable impact.
Bodyguard Changes:
Brother Varon - Grey Knight Battle Brother
+5 Psychic
+5 Melee
Apothecary Aralan - Grey Knights Paladin Apothecary
+8 Psychic
+3 Melee
Paragon Taremar Aurellian - Grey Knights Paladin Paragon
+3 Range
+10 Psychic
+5 Melee
Brother Moritar - Grey Knights Venerable Dreadnought
Trait Change: Psychic Link -> Shield
Cards added to the general pool:
Aeldari
Lhykhis
Phoenix Lord of the Warp Spiders
Servants of the Emperor
Arcadian Leontus
Lord Commander Solar
Death From Above
Death Korps Heavy Mortar Artillery Team
Sgt Kabil
Death Korps Death Rider Sgt
Mine-Sierra-II
Death Korps Remote Mine
Trooper Kraust
Death Korps Combat Engineer
Ganzorig
Attilan Rough Rider
Carver
Hades Breaching Drill