[Reposted from my Axie-specific blog (Diary of a Lunacian
The Pre-Season 5 balance changes for Axie Infinity: Origins are finally here! There are LOADS of changes and here are my quick first takes on all the changes! (Do note that there could still be further changes before Season 5 starts.)
- Topaz, Square Teeth, Cottontail nerfed
- Poison, AoE, Debuff, Goo buffed
Game Mechanics
Fade is a new keyword the Exile the card when it is still in hand at the end of the turn. The main difference it makes is that most Curse cards now has Fade instead of Banish, so it will not buff Topaz damage.
The new Bloodmoon mechanic means HP loss before and during Bloodmoon now matters. Definitely a buff to Poison and perhaps Jinx. Does not affect Sustain too much. The 441 HP threshold is still there.
Status Effects
Leaf receives quite a significant buff with over heal from Leaf turning into Shield meaning the back Axie can have quite a lot of Shield at the end of the game.
AoE may want to tech some Bubbles and Bubble Bombs for more DMG?
Big changes to Doubt, Fragile, Vulnerable, and Weak. Doubt became the new Fragile against Sustain. Vulnerable and Fragile stack to give even more % bonus DMG, so we may expect Aggro teams to run both!?
Weak is now a good counter to Shield-based damage teams like Pure Damage Sturdy Fighter and Topaz.
Turnip is now a 25 Heal + 25 Shield card that applies Turnip Rocket for 4 turns, so Turnip Rocket deals 25 DMG at the end of EVERY turn (both your turn and enemy’s turn), with a total of 100 DMG at the base level! Remember you can use Charms to buff Turnip even further, so effect per Energy is way up there for Turnip in Season 5.
Tool Cards
No big change with these 4. Lumber Shield and Pure Water are now both 10.
Rise & Ruin now seems better with a 0 cost Retain AoE Cleanse + Sleep 1 random enemy Axie for Forest Breath and +20 bonus DMG for each Forest Wrath. I can see it will be good against Poison and Aggro that relies on Vulnerable (and Fragile now) but is it good enough? Leaf Cloak and Miracle Leaf have more use cases, so it is still not clear what archetype Rise & Ruin will fit into.
Venom Burst is now 2 cost and deals 5 Pur DMG per Poison instead of 8. I think it is still very good with added flexibility in terms of reduced cost but it may lack the burst to KO a key Axie compared to before. Probably still worth it in Poison teams in Epic Era.
Curse Cards
All Curse cards are now Fade or Exile and do not Banish, so it will not buff opponent’s Topaz any more. Burn going from 8 to 12 could potentially be significant coupling with the new Bloodmoon mechanic, but I am not sure if the damage is too relavant as Hot Butt teams tend to be more defensive. Maybe I will be proved wrong, who knows?
Big buffs to Sleepless and Gero with Vulnerable and Fragile, respectively, for 3 turns. Going from 2 to 3 turns is very significant as the debuff will still be there in your next turn, so now Sleepless is effectly a better Little Peas now that Little Peas is nerfed to 3 turns as well.
Same for Babylonia. 3 turns of Vulnerable is very powerful as we have seen with Little Peas.
Bubblemaker now gives 2 Bubbles when played, but it is probably still not worth slowing down your draw unless it is a very specific Bubble team.
Tiny Fan going from 400 to 500 means it can most likely 1-shot things now. I can see some Adaptive Program Sustain teching this to pick up some early KOs.
Heart of Ocean teams may be slowed down by the change with Sponge but perhaps increased survivability as there will be more Energy to play other cards. Maybe Adaptive Program Shield-based Heart of Ocean team(?).
Goldfish nerf can be quite significant now that with the Cottontail nerf.
Big buff for Ranchu now with 3 turns of AoE Vulnerable. I can see AoE making a comeback with Ranchu and other smaller buffs that favour AoE.
Small nerf to Little Peas and Axie Kiss when stacking the effects. Small buff to Puppy and Confident now can apply Heal charms.
Innocent Lamb is one of the biggest changes for this patch even though it is literally just 2 words - Next turn. Now you have to plan ahead instead of just keeping it in hand until you need it. I can see this change affect some decks more than others. It will decrease the consistancy of Innocent Lamb into Ant or Cattail taunt and potentially slows down Nimo draws. However, it is still very good in Sustain as the games are long and they usually have enough Shield cards that they usually do not need a specific card from Innocent Lamb immediately.
Puppy changed to a “hybrid” card with 50 ATK and AoE heal 20% of ATK. Now it could be good against Jinx as it deals damage.
Pocky now targets the lowest HP Enemy which is a significant buff allowing teams to snipe of certain Axie.
Dual Blade received a big buff as well adding 4 Doubt with makes Bleed and Grievous Wound even more effective. It also makes it harder for Grievous Wound to be cleansed with another debuff on the opponent Axie.
Cottontail is another change that can make a large effect on the meta. Now needing 8 Energy Fragment to get to the extra energy means it will be require extra work for Player 2 to get to the extra energy in Round 3. It definitely slows down Aggro and we will expect to see more ramp cards getting played on teams with Cottontail. Another significant effect is that we can no longer double Cottontail into Perch before Energy Burst, which may kill some Perch decks that rely on double Cottontail.
Gerbil is now an okay tech card but now that the “tech charms” require fewer PP, it is hard to see Gerbil getting played unless we see a lot of teams runnig Secrets.
Unfortunately there are not that many changes to Birds. Slight nerf to Hungry Bird. The biggest one for bird is Cupid becoming AoE which now competes with Tri Feather and Buzz Buzz for the back slot for AoE. With Weak becoming the new Fragile, AoE may finally be able to fight Sustain(?).
Massive nerf to Square Teeth, which is well deserved as a 0-cost card which used to deal 100+ DMG. It can still do 60+ DMG now but it may no longer be worth it to put a 70 Shield on a Square Teeth Axie to only deal 65 DMG.
Ear Breathing reworked to be a 1-cost “hybrid” card with 35 ATK and same amount of Shield. It can have high effect per energy as the buff of stat-buffing Charms are doubled. Having said that, Ear Breathing now only Add 1 Goo may not be efficient enough especially when the Shield are not always useful.
I personally think Leaf Bug was already a good card. Now that they are buffed from 55 to 70 Shield, we may see more Cocoon-based decks.
Sandal buffed to 130 ATK which may finally push it to the point that it will get played, especially with many debuff cards getting buffed.
Similar to Dual Blade, Scarab is now a very strong card in Bleed teams as another option to apply Grievous Wound. However, being a Back card, it competes with Green Thorns for Poison Bleed teams and Buzz Buzz for Brutal Claw Beast.
Thorny Caterpillar finally gets the buff it deserves. Now that it is a 1-cost card, it is a lot easier to play and scales better as you can play multiple Thorny Caterpillar in one turn. It is definitely the enabler for Goo teams if it can finally become a thing.
Cucumber Slice is more viable now, especially seeing that AoE and Poison could be strong in Season 5. Cucumber Slice with White (or Red) Sage is a good tech against debuffs, which is likely to see more play. The other big buff for Cucumber Slice is the change to Healing Pulse, which now works on Summons, meaning it can potentially do massive DMG from the over heal of Axies + Summons.
Confusion turned into a hybrid card which again could be good with Healing Pulse + Charms that buff Heals.
Small nerf to Leafy which could end up being quite significant as it makes it slightly harder to one-shot Axie with Shrimp.
With the change with Fragile, Zigzag may see play teams that focus on dealing damage as a complement to Vulnerable, though the Heal does not do too much in Aggro teams.
The buff on Lotus (and nerf for Innocent Lamb) could mean that more teams may run Lotus if Jinx (or Goo / Hot Butt!?) become dominant.
Big rework for Turnip - see Turnip Rocket above.
Carrot also had a big rework with scaling potentially to 150 ATK. However, the scaling is not easy to achieve as it requires healing from Cards (including Charms) and Runes (e.g. Prehistoric Armor, Moonlight Thief etc.) (To be 100% confirmed). Healing from buffs (e.g. Leaf) and Tool Cards do not count. The key limitation is that it requires the Axie to be damaged in order to be healed. If healing from Prehistoric Armor works, it is potentially be pretty good given that it +1 Energy Fragement at the base level anyway.
Topaz is nerfed again. With the nerf of Innocent Lamb as well, it is finally time for Topaz to fall? We shall see.
Toothless Bite now apply 3 turns of Death Mark which makes it a lot better than before.
Sidebarb buffed to deal Pure DMG and apply 5 Poison for the 1 Spike Consumed. There was some experimentation with Sidebard Poison last season. Perhaps this season we will see Poison players shifting from Small Frill to Sidebard.
Unko now changed to a hybrid card which actually feels better as it gives Goo team more survivability while putting Goo into opponent’s Discard Pile.
Iguana is another card that put Doubt and Grievious Wound. With so many cards applying Grievous Wounds, Bleed teams have a much higher consistancy and it will be very strong in Rare Era with Dominant Predator and Mystic Era with Brutal Claw and Hidden Razor.
Tiny Dino is buffed but with so many Discard effects, it may still be hard to compete with other premium tail cards such as Cottontail.
An expected and reasonable nerf to Nut Hunter. It is how I thought I should work and now they basically fixed it.
A lot of love for Poison as Poison Touch buffed to -1.5% DMG per Poison on the attacker. Definitely very strong for Rare Era.
Blunt Teeth may see play now that it only -10% DMG, especially with the nerf to Cottontail, Blunt Teeth can potentially be worth it.
Quite a big buff to Energy Shard for ramp-based teams. We saw it being used in Heart of Ocean team last season. Perhaps more teams will go with the Energy Burst route with Energy Shard instead of using Cottontail given the nerf.
Energy Guru feels pretty good now with the ramp every Round which makes the nerfed Cottontail a bit easier to be played.
Fate Maker may potentially see play now that the effect becomes 15% which is a very significant buff. Having said that, it will still require verry specific Bug Axies for it to work well.
Glorious Mane down from 10% to 8%. It think it is now a fair card in Epic Era given the nerf to Nut Hunter as well.
So much love for Poison as Venom Master now applies 2 Poison per Energy spent on Cards to a random Enemy. I can see Poison stacking very fast in Season 5.
Adaptive Program is finally nerfed from +25% to +15% Shield from Cards. It makes it easier to aggro down the Adaptive Program Mech but the ramp effect still stays.
Malediction from 15% to 20% is quite a big buff, so I would expect it to see more play in the Epic Era for teams with debuffs (maybe with Sandal too!?).
Bloodlust now feels more like a Mystic Rune with a potential 42 HP swing every Attack. Putting a Square Teeth on Bloodlust Aqua still feels good. The thing is, is it enough to compete with other Mystic Runes? Does the healing matter much in the Mystic Era? We shall see.
Last Stand down from +40% to +30% but the Immortal effect is still there, so I expect it will still be the same as previous seasons.
Metamorphosis Combo teams were coming up near the end of last season. With this small buff, I am sure there will be people who will try to make it work despite the Innocent Lamb nerf.
Finally a nerf on Collect and Protect. The draw is still strong and it is still good with Square Teeth.
A small change with Healing Pulse where the over heal works on Summons now, but potentially a huge effect together with the buff on Cucuber Slice.
A fair nerf to Regenerator which makes it less of a hard counter to Poison.
Last season I thought Celestial Might may see play but +25% was not enough compared to other Mystic Runes (like Holy Prayer). Would +35% be enough in Season 5? I would like to think so.
Interesting change to Holy Prayer which makes it less strong against non-Curse teams but stronger against Curse teams. I can see the Unstable in Cottontail being used to buff Holy Prayer’s effect.
Soul Eater is going to be big now that it is changed to allied Axies lose 6% HP. With the damage spreading across all Axies, it can go with with heal synergies like Leaf stacks, Carrot, and increase effectiveness of AoE heal. I think this is the season where we will see Soul Eater at the Top.
Good change to the tech Charms down from 5 to 3 PP which makes it easier to fit into teams. It is also good to see the buff Charms now apply to all allied Axies which feels a lot better.
Nothing too dramatic at the end of the patch note with slight nerfed on the Curse Charms and Glove of Infection. The buff on Mantis Dagger makes it even more consistent so I can see there will be a lot of Discard in the Mystic Era next season.
Overall, I quite like the balance changes for Season 5 for multiple reasons.
- It shakes up the meta, especially with the nerf to the most dominant archetype
- The changes are small enough that it does not feel overwhelming (and it does not feel like a completely new game)
- We see the potential of the rise of some strategies that were previously too weak, which should mean that we will see more diversity in the meta (unless one strategy turns out to be too powerful - Soul Eater(?), Poison(?))
I am happy to see that Axie Infinity: Origins moving in a positive direction in terms of balancing which translate into better player experience. Let’s have fun theory crafting and stay tuned for more updates on how the changes go when the patch goes live!
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