Welcome Realm Runners, to the Chapter 1 card update! In this article I will take you through all the card changes, why are they happening and why we changed what we did. Let’s start by answering a question a lot you may be wondering…
WHY ARE WE UPDATING CARDS?
Firstly, with Achroma being a relatively new card game and one which is growing fast, we are getting lots of feedback from our community who are playing our game daily. We really value this feedback, and want to make sure that we listen and learn from it. Secondly, following the Kickstarter finishing, we are about to start printing what we call ‘Unlimited Edition’ prints of our Chapter 1 Chronicles. Therefore we have an opportunity to make changes and ‘evolve’ these original cards for the better based on feedback from the community, as well as our own play testing. It also allows us to fix a few cheeky wording mistakes that snuck their way past our Ludlam City Guard for the original prints!
HOW DOES THIS AFFECT THE CARDS I ALREADY OWN?
If you already own any of the 'First Edition’ prints of the Chapter 1 Chronicles, this does mean that your cards may now have changed. However these cards are still fine to play with and will be legal at all future official events. What it does mean though however, is you should be playing the cards using their updated wording. In a few days time the updated versions of all the cards will be on our Card Database, and in a future update of our companion app you will be able to click on a card in the app to see the new wording and description of any changes. We respect that there will be many players around the world who do not see this update and may continue playing the cards as the old versions, this is fine! Play the game however you wish. However any future tournaments/official events will use the updated cards, so we recommend you use them.
When you acquire any Chapter 1 ‘Unlimited Edition’ cards, these will come printed with the changes in this article.
WHAT HAS BEEN CHANGED?
I can summarise the changes into 7 categories:
- Ability updates - This is where we have actually changed how the ability of a card works. Some changes are subtle, others are more drastic.
- Ability re-wording - This is where we haven’t changed how the ability of a card works, but instead we have just re-worded the ability so that it is clearer as to how it works.
- Heroic updates - This is where we have upgraded some cards from being non-Heroic, to Heroic. This is due to some cards being too strong if they are copied by the likes of Mirror Sanctum or Double Trouble.
- Shard colour order - We have not changed the shard cost of any cards. However, what we have done is change the order of the coloured shards for consistency.
- Resolve effect consistency - This is where a card still resolves in the same way, but has been updated to use the ‘X’ mechanic to be consistent with other cards.
- Card Subtypes added - We have added subtypes for Objects and Actions. More on this later.
- Spelling/Grammar fix- As the name suggests, this is where we have fixed a spelling or grammar mistake that was on the card.
ABILITY UPDATES
The following cards have had an Ability update:
[Curse of Curdle Hill] Magus Elite Enforcer - Changed from: “Increase this Magus Elite Enforcer’s Shard Value by [R] when they attack” TO “When Magus Elite Enforcer attacks, increase their Strength by 1 for the duration of this turn.” This change better fits the Enforcers lore and play style. So rather than Enforcer having more shards (health) whilst attacking, they can now hit and erase bigger targets with an extra 1 strength.
[Curse of Curdle Hill] Murky Manor - Changed from: “FIND a card with [A] and immediately deploy it for free.” TO “ACTION: REVEAL a card with [A] and immediately Deploy it for free” Murky Manor was well known in the community for being too strong. It was the only ‘FIND’ card that allowed you to FIND your legendary, let alone play it for free. This made it far too reliable to get your legendary out each game before your opponent, causing it to be over used. REVEAL is a new keyword in which you must turn over the top cards of your palette one at a time (Visible to all) until you locate a card that meets the criteria (in this case, has an Acrhom shard), once you have done this, shuffle the rest of the cards back into your Palette. By changing it to ‘REVEAL’ it is still very strong and could get your legendary, but now has more risk and randomness to it.
[Warriors of Wishwell] Gisle - Changed: We have removed the +4 from her ability, and instead made it her natural Resolve effect. Gisle was underused due to the fact you HAD to have 2 other Trolls on your Canvas, otherwise she was just a 6 strength Character with no Resolve. With this change, she now has a +4 Resolve making her much more cost effective, and still retains ‘Cannot be Erased’ and draw a card if you have those 2 extra Trolls.
[Warriors of Wishwell] Solveig - Changed: We have removed the [Steal] 2 from his ability, and instead made it his natural Resolve effect. This change has been made for the same reasons as we changed Gisle, explained above.
ABILITY RE-WORDING
We have reworded a lot of abilities without changing how they work. The aim of this is to reduce the grey areas in how the abilities work, which will make the game easier to learn and with less questions needing to be asked regarding how some cards work. I won’t list every single card change here. But I will summarise the most common changes made:
Many cards now include the phrase “And/Or” Many of our actions/abilities give the player deploying the card multiple actions to complete. However what often caused confusion was whether you HAD to complete all of the actions, even if that meant it would back-fire on yourself. For example, Breath of fire was worded “Erase a Character and a Location”. This caused people to ask “If my opponent only has a Character, do I have to erase my own Location?” The answer was always no. Therefore for any cards that have multiple actions like Breath of fire, we have updated the wording to include “And/Or” to show that you have the choice not to action all of the ability.
Once per turn abilities how specify “Once per turn” OR “Once during your turn” Many of our abilities can be used on multiple turns. But what wasn’t clear before was “Is it once per MY turn, or once during EACH players turn”. This caused confusion for cards like Cocoon Lantern where players were not sure if they could gain the shards for a character being erased on every players turn, or just their own. Therefore we have made it so each of these cards is now clear. It is either “Once per turn’ which means once during EVERY turn, including other players, OR “Once during your turn” which means it is only during your turn where this effect takes place.
Repeatable abilities now specify ‘Must’ or ‘May’ A common question we had from players was whether an ability was optional or not. For example Delilah’s Cauldron, Fishing Dock, or Umbra Igneus, to name a few. We have updated all cards of this nature with either the word “may” or “must” to clarify to the player whether it is an ability you must do, or may do, when the card is actioned. For example, Fishing Dock is now worded: “Once during your turn, you must look at the top 2 cards of your Palette. TRADE 1 of them. Put the other at the bottom of your Palette.”
Individual Abilities have been re-worded for clarity I won’t list them all here, but many abilities have have been individually re-worded to help clear up how they work, without changing how they were supposed to work. For example: Silent Thicket has been changed to: “ACTION: RESTRAIN a Character in Silent Thicket” whereas before it used to also have the word “CLAIM” which was incorrect and caused confusion.
HEROIC UPDATES
We have ‘upgraded’ some cards to Heroic status. This doesn’t change their gameplay at all, but it does mean that you cannot have 2 copies of these cards on your Canvas at the same time. The cards that have had this update are:
- [Siege of Draco Temple] Achrom Balenium
- [Siege of Draco Temple] Monastery Nest
- [Siege of Draco Temple] Vast Volitarus
- [Siege of Draco Temple] Chroma Storehouse
- [Warriors of Wishwell] Lacringi Gardens
- [Warriors of Wishwell] Norso Totem
- [Warriors of Wishwell] Wishwell Market Stall
- [Warriors of Wishwell] Brisgavi Falls
SHARD COLOUR ORDER
We noticed that with each new release, the order in which the coloured shards were placed in the centre hex were not consistent. So whilst we have a chance to update the cards, we have changed all cards to be consistent with Darnacusk who uses the order: Red, Yellow, Magenta, Green, Cyan, Blue. We have not changed any card’s shard count or colours. The only change is the order in which the colours appear.
RESOLVE EFFECT CONSISTENCY
Something we noticed had happened across multiple releases is that we started using different ways to show a Resolve effect for a card that gains/drains/steals based on the number of another type of card on the canvas.
So moving forward, we have changed all cards to follow the same rule as Spiral. Where possible, all Characters/Locations/Objects with a Resolve effect that stacks equally (E.g. +2 for every Character including themselves) will have changed to the [X] and [X =] rule. Some Characters have a natural Resolve effect which is a higher value than their Resolve ability, (E.g. Huxon who is +2 in the top right, but +1 for each other Character and Location) for cards like these, they remain unchanged as the [X] and [X =] rule would not work for them.
CARD SUBTYPES ADDED
In Achroma, Characters and Locations always had a ‘Subtype’. This helped categorise different Characters and Locations into smaller groups for both lore purposes, as well as certain gameplay mechanics (E.g. FIND a Magus Elite). In the First Edition cards, we did not have subtypes for Objects of Power, or Actions. Moving forward we have decided to add subtypes for Objects (E.g. Weapon, Artefact or Tool) and Actions (E.g. Spell, Ritual or Event). This is for 3 reasons:
1) New Mechanics that are coming in future releases (E.g. Find a Spell)
2) Mechanics in the Achroma Role Playing Game (E.g. Crafting a Weapon)
3) Lore
This does not change the gameplay for any of the current Objects or Actions. But means they are now ready for some of the new wordings in future releases.
SPELLING/GRAMMAR FIXES
It’s never a good thing to admit, but we did have some spelling and grammar mistakes in our original cards. I won’t list the cards that had these, but rest assured we have fixed them all now.
WHAT NEXT?
Now these changes have been made, you should start playing games of Achroma using the new wording. In a few days time you’ll be able to check out any individual card on our Card Database. If you have purchased any ‘Unlimited Edition’ prints of the Chapter 1 cards. These will have all of the changes on them ready to play. Prefer a verbal explanation? Watch the below live stream replay from [15:48] to see me explain verbally what has changed on a recent livestream.