September Major Update - New Region!

Three weeks since the Kraken. This one is bigger.

The Journey Map has been promising a second tavern since Day 9. It's open.
Take the Antiok node and you go down a stair, not into a taproom: the
Undercroft is the stone cellar under the Grand Cathedral where the Church
drinks after vespers, and the Church does not think you should be there.

The Undercroft

• Beat Tully's Ale Haus Tavern Keeper once and the Antiok node on the Journey Map is
  enterable. Same run shape as Tully's, different building, different rules of
  the house.
• Ysolde Marrow, the Cellarer, hosts. Her stores, her welcome, her intel.
  Tully stays upstairs.
• The tables seat the Nine of the Sacred — inquisitors, wardens,
  reliquary-keepers — who brand your units with Sin, lock them in Chambers, dig
  up Relics, and hide behind Bulwark. Ale Haus regulars who followed you down
  play Church loaner decks, so every table is a Church table.
• The Confessor waits at the last one. She opens the same way every time,
  and her Ark breaks a seal at three, six, and nine relics found. Nothing hidden,
  same as the Keeper.
• The Undercroft Ledger is a whole new ladder: ten rungs, from Down the
  Stair (sit down once, win or lose) to Grave Robber (destroy nine enemy Relics,
  lifetime). Each rung pays out — emblems into the pool, a run-start emblem pick,
  a card back, free Holy Water on the house forever.
• Cellarer's Welcome (rung 2): every Undercroft run opens with a pick of two
  Undercroft emblems. Three after rung 7.

Fifty-four new cards

The three demo factions had exactly zero answers to Sin, Chambers, Relics or
Bulwark. Now each has eighteen, and they are found only in the Undercroft —
then playable anywhere.

• Sit down once and the set's Common through Epic cards join your deck
  builder under the usual rarity gates. The fifteen Legendary and Celestial
  cards need a Confessor win with that faction.
• Archmage Technocrats — Nullification. Strip Sin, break Chambers,
  walk past towers. Warden Tessaly Voll, Chamber-Breaker frees every prisoner
  on arrival; The Godless Engine destroys every enemy Relic and Chamber when it
  enters, and can't be branded, tried, or stopped by Bulwark.
• The Merchant Coast — Indulgence. Pay to be forgiven, then get paid
  for it. Captain Isaura Denn, the Unshriven turns every Sin cleansed into gold;
  Ransom of the Nine releases, destroys, and bills the Church two gold per thing
  broken.
• Guild of the Inglorious Bards — Blasphemy. Wear the Sin. Brother
  Fenwick, Defrocked takes every brand in the parish and grows with each one;
  The Blasphemer's Cantata doubles your Sin and fires it at the fortress.
• Plus seven Church devices as run consumables — Holy Water, Confessor's
  Tea, Iron Key, Blessed Chalk, Stolen Censer, Forged Relic, Communion Wine —
  and eight Undercroft emblems.

New words on the cards

• Sin — the Church's brand. Their payoffs key off it. Cleanse it,
  move it, or wear it.
• Unrepentant — cannot be branded with Sin. Sanctuary —
  cannot be Incarcerated or put on trial.
• Breaching — this unit's attacks walk past Bulwark straight to the
  fortress. The combat preview shows it.
• Holding — a free card in the Lands & Holdings row. Heretic's
  Counting-House and Tithe Collector's Cut moved there from the structure row.
• Release — spring your units from enemy Chambers. Destroying the
  Chamber frees them too. Destroy Relic and Transfer Sin round
  out the toolkit; the Ark of the Sacred is immune.
• Incarcerate cast with no Chamber on the board now fizzles, and the play
  history says so.

The map, refit

• The gauntlet map fits the whole graph on one screen — Deck included —
  chalks your route on the oak, and zooms with Ctrl + wheel.
• Undercroft cards wear an Undercroft ribbon on browse tiles and a set pill
  on tooltips, so you always know where a card came from.
• The Journal grew Antiok and Doctrine tabs: the Nine by seat, every Ledger
  rung, and a doctrine page that tells you what answers what.
• The Unlocks screen has an Undercroft wing — per-faction shelves, sealed
  until you've sat down.
• A card back: The Undercroft (black stone, chalk nine-pointed star) at
  Ledger rung 9. Settings › Display.
• Every battlefield playmat now ships at 1920 wide. Big monitors stop
  looking soft.
• The speaker button is audio-only now; the full settings live on the board
  gear.
• Deck building opens after your first run win, not your third.

Reading the Church's table

The week between the build and this post went into making the Church legible.

• Incarceration is a flight, not a flash. The caged unit flies to the
  Chamber; it flies back to your row when it's released, rescued, or Subjugated.
• Every Interrogation Chamber wears a Prisoners n/2 badge. Inspect it for the
  roster — stats, who owns and who controls each prisoner, and what frees them.
• Relic racks have real tooltips: benefits, equip cost, bearer rules, hands
  used, convergence status, and why an action is blocked. The triad ring counts
  relics available now, not relics ever found.
• Unit and fortress tooltips list their equipped relics. Shield capacity is
  no longer labelled DEF.
• Long card names get a short form on hand cards, the stack, and flash text —
  Cathedral of Antiok, War Chains. Full names stay on inspection.
• Controller: relic racks sit on the board arrow-nav, and Escape closes an
  open inspection before it opens settings.
• Seven Undercroft emblems have their illustrations: Heretic's Candle,
  Inverted Star, Reliquary Ward, Sanctuary Bell, Scales of Judicar, Sexton's
  Key, Unrepentant Standard.

Balance: what changed and why

Three passes at 100 games a cell on the battle track this cycle, plus the
Day 18 boss grid.

• The first elite stopped coin-flipping your run. Players were
  winning 98% of battle tables for two or three damage, then meeting a flat
  20 HP + 2 shield elite on layer two and losing 44% of the time. Elites now
  scale with depth (16–21 HP, 1–2 shield). Layer-two elite win rate 56% → 67%;
  deeper battle tables open with one or two cheap, summoning-sick units on the
  board so the track ramps instead of stepping.
• Demerzet: shield 6 → 3. Loriel's Unfair Advantage: siphons
  3 → 2. Technocrat boss win rate came down from 62% to 47%, which is the band.
• The Keeper's House Deck: 20 → 17 cards — the duplicate Cotton
  Fields, Sugar Cane and Currency Exchange are out (−5 income a turn at full
  build). The Kraken still surfaces around turn six; her opening economy fills
  the bank regardless. We're watching it.
• Papri's Dragonfly: 0/1 → 1/1, with Swarm — an unblocked fortress
  hit while Papri is untapped spawns another.
• Scales of Judicar reworked: it weighs Sin on both sides and deals
  up to 3 to the enemy fortress each turn. It was dead for Coast and
  Technocrat decks that never brand anything.
• Siege Sappers draws whenever any enemy Structure or Holding falls.
  The old trigger could never fire.
• Tithe Collector's Cut and Heretic's Counting-House are free
  Holdings now (were 3-Gold and 2-Gold Structures).
• Fire Sale needs at least one stored Trophy. An empty Credenza was
  selling nothing and stalling your auto-pass every priority window.
• Brother Emeric, Envoy of the Confessor visits Tully's tables in
  roughly one run in seven — a taste of the Church before you go downstairs.
  Measured at 72% player win rate: harder than a regular table, easier than the
  first elite.

Fixes

• Sanctuary Skiff's Sanctuary now reaches the units next to it, as the card
  says.
• Punish them All's flash text reads 2 DMG TO ALL ENEMY SINNERS. It used to
  say something else entirely.
• Undercroft runs no longer borrow Tully's words in the stores, interstitials,
  or run-end.
• Cards whose art hasn't published show a monogram instead of a blank box.
• The Confessor no longer re-equips the Radiant Sun on every priority window.
  It was a free no-op she could pick forever; six of ninety benchmark boss games
  stalled on it before the fix. The Sun's equip is now offered only while it's
  unworn.
• Re-equipping a relic onto the unit already wearing it is refused before it
  costs you Divine Favor.
• A Chamber bounced to hand or removed frees its prisoners. They return to
  their current controller, untapped.
• Structures land in their real slot instead of the end of the row, so a
  Chamber's prisoners fly to the right place.
• Chain drag effects no longer leave the target invisible when interrupted,
  and cost far less frame time.
• Keyword-only cards no longer print their keyword a second time as an
  ability.
• The House Tally stops growing once the Kraken has risen.
• No more phantom hover-lift in the deck panel after a controller takes over.
• Visiting patrons' decks always pair Incarcerate with a Chamber, so the
  spell does something.

What we're actively watching

• Undercroft battle tables measure 97–100% player win rate with a starter
  deck and no emblems, across all three factions — the same band as Tully's
  regular tables (95–98%). The Cellarer's Welcome emblem doesn't move that
  number; there's no room above it to move to.
• Undercroft elites (Hollis, Malik, Srella): 67% Technocrats, 77% Merchant
  Coast, 76% Bards. Tully's second-layer elites sit at 58–74%. On par, a shade
  softer.
• The Confessor is too easy. Starter decks beat her 96–100% of the time in
  eight to eleven turns; the Kraken holds Technocrats to 47% and the other two
  under 16%. She's the cell we retune first — expect her Ark and her opening to
  sharpen in the next drop, not the tables on the way down.
• Layer-six elites sit at 29% player win rate with a starter deck and no
  emblems. That's the pessimistic read — real runs arrive with both — but it's
  the cell we'll retune first if it feels wrong.
• The Church's VFX are in for the six shared answers (cage slam, chain
  break, absolve, sin transfer, relic shatter, ward refuse, breach). A handful
  of higher-rarity Undercroft cards still deal their damage with a plain shake;
  those get their own effects in the next drop.
• The Confessor plays over the Keeper's boss tracks for now. Her own score
  lands with the next content drop.
• You cannot pilot the Nine of the Sacred yet. Their rows on the Journey Map
  say "Deckable in the full game" — that's the honest state.

Come argue with us

• Join the Discord: discord.gg/EQ7sMQk37q —
  patch discussions, balance arguments, Confessor-kill screenshots, and the
  fastest way to get a bug in front of us.
• If the Church takes your favourite unit and you want to see where the full
  game goes — the wishlist button is right there.

Forty days, eight patches. There's a second tavern now, and it's a
church basement. Mind the stair.