v0.99 of Worldbreakers: Advent of the Khanate is now available on Tabletop Simulator! Barring any significant last-minute playtesting, this will be the version that will be included with the printed game. Here is a full list of changes, followed by the reasoning for each of the updates.
List of Changes
Many cards had their traits updated
Card name changes
- Bolt Strike: Renamed to “Bolt Trap”
- Khutulun, the Unrelenting Pride: Renamed to “Khutulun, the True Daughter”
- The Pride’s Kheshig: Renamed to “Khutulun’s Kheshig”
Card changes
- Alamut Emissary: Health reduced to 4 (previously 5)
- Ambitious Construction: Discount reduced to 2 mythium (was 3 mythium)
- Confident Suitor: Mythium payoff increased to 6 (previously 4)
- Forlorn Flats: Added “You may” to the effect on the second stage
- Luminous Lagoon: Added “You may” to the effect on the second stage
- Mesmerizing Maze: Added “You may” to the effect on the second stage
- Nocturnal Reaper: Health reduced to 5 (previously 6)
- Patient Mentor: Health reduced to 4 (previously 5)
- Polo’s Portraitist: Mythium cost increased to 3 (previously 2)
- Sparring Braggart: Ability changed to “While Sparring Braggart is attacking, followers with lower strength can’t be blocked” (previously “other followers cannot be blocked”)
- Steelclad Captain: Added “It can’t block again this combat.”
- The Ten Thousand Ride: Mythium cost reduced to 0 (previously 1)
Solo Changes
***Spoilers ahead!***
- The layout on the campaign and order cards has been redesigned
- The story text has been changed
- • Inspire •/Charge: Now puts a follower into play
- Recruit/• Advance •: Now attacks
- New Rule, Khutulun: Change Khutulun’s targeting rule to default targeting
Reasoning of Changes
Khutulun, the True Daughter. The title “unrelenting pride” comes from an 18th century play written by the Venetian playwright Carlo Gozzi (not to be confused with our #1 backer, Carlo Gozzi, who is now part of the Worldbreakers universe!) Adopting a European name to the game’s Mongol protagonist felt inappropriate, so we updated the subtitle and the Worldbreakers story to reflect Khutulun’s role. Following her reuniting the hordes, many Mongols believe that Khutulun is the true daughter of the great Chinggis Khan.
The Shrines (Forlorn Flats, Luminous Lagoon, and Mesmerizing Maze). These three locations have a powerful stage II ability that can wound, defeat, or debuff a follower. The ability was designed to target opposing followers, but previously to this update you had to target one of your own followers if your opponent did not have any. In order to avoid this situation, and to continue with the philosophy that abilities are optional, we added a “you may” to all three locations.
Sparring Braggart. The previous text could lead to a problematic situation in 4p draft: If you had two copies of the Braggart, your opponent could never block any of your followers. The new ability is a minor nerf (for example alongside Tengri’s Cavalry, which has 6 strength) but is functionally similar and will avoid the unblockable state.
Ambitious Construction. Over the past few updates, we continuously nerfed economy cards. The goal was to make aggressive decks on a similar power level to control decks. Ambitious Construction is the latest (and hopefully last!) such nerf, putting it in line with Gratuities Gift.
Alamut Emissary. The Emissary’s bloodshed alongside his high health proved too overwhelming for other aggressive decks to handle, especially Khutulun decks. Therefore, we reduced his health by 1.
Confident Suitor and The Ten Thousand Ride. Worldbreakers are balanced around their ability text and signature cards. On one hand of the spectrum, we have Marco Polo, who has three very strong cards and a weaker ability. On the other hand is Ruknuddin Khurshah, with situational signatures and a very powerful ability. Khutulun and the Muhandasat are positioned in-between. Khurshah’s strong ability, along with the increased flexibility of the migrate package over the past few updates, resulted in Khurshah decks which are heavy on Earth cards. Effectively, players have been incentivized to drop both Khurshah’s and Khutulun’s signature cards in favor of Khurshah’s ability.
In order to address this situation, we decided to buff two of Khutulun’s signature cards. Since the migrate package offers a tradeoff between standing and economy, the buff is through Confident Suitor’s trigger reward (which has been increased to 6 mythium) and The Ten Thousand Ride’s mythium cost (which has been reduced to 0 mythium). Both of these cards now carry a stronger punch.
Nocturnal Reaper and Patient Mentor. Both of these cards received buffs in previous updates. While we are happy to see them used more often, their combination of utility and health proved problematic for aggressive decks. Their health has been reduced to be more in line with Generous Dealer, another popular utility follower.
Polo’s Portraitist. The Portraitist is not presenting a problem — at the moment. However, we are concerned about Polo combo decks becoming significantly more powerful as more cards are released in future expansions. Therefore, this is a defensive nerf: starting rounds with Portraitist, then following with a three-turn combo, will be slightly more difficult now.
Steelclad Captain. Dropping the Captain with four Moon standing was often a death sentence for aggressive decks. The Captain can still block multiple times per round (or block and then attack), but only in separate combat turns.
