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Hey there!
With the new Season and Balance Update around the corner, let’s step back and take a look at the May Balance Update. Did it breathe new life into underused cards? Did the changes shift the meta? Did they break the game?!
Universally speaking, our balance changes pursue several goals: make unpopular cards more viable, tweak the extremes (if there are any) and overall provide more interesting choices for your decks. Our overall goal is to make the game more diverse and therefore, more fun.
DATA DEEPDIVE!
Dark Prince
Dark Prince is hands down the all-star of this month. The buff to his Attack Range and Area Damage Radius made him less susceptible to troop attacks, and this is reflected in the stats.
Dark Prince has received a huge boost in usage throughout all the game modes, climbing from 4% to 12% usage in Classic Challenges and up to 16% in Grand Challenges.
Although the card’s win rate is around 49-50% in Ladder, it’s a bit on the strong side in Challenges, reaching a 55-57% win rate. So we’ll be keeping an eye on the Dark Prince to make sure he doesn’t become a problem!
Three Musketeers
As we had hoped, this iconic trio has indeed made a comeback - this card is now used 3x as often in Classic Challenges and nearly 5x as often in Grand Challenges!
But it is still a niche, Elixir-heavy card, used in 2-3% of the games. Provided that its win rate has also improved significantly, now hovering around 50-52%, we believe that Three Musketeers has found its place in meta.
It has become a more viable card than before without ‘breaking’ the Ladder, so we’re happy with its current state.
Princess & Goblin Barrel
These two cards faced pretty much the same result: they were good before and still are. The recent changes haven’t shaken things up for them but rather reinforced them in the roles they have been already fulfilling. Both cards are now picked more often in all modes, seeing a usage increase from 13% to 15%.
Their win rate has also improved: from 42% to 48% for Princess and from 40% to 44% for Goblin Barrel. We consider these numbers to be within the acceptable range as they make the Log Bait a viable deck but not too powerful.
Bomber
The Hitpoints buff made Bomber bite a bit harder, and the card is played in 4-5% of decks up to 6000 trophies with a solid 49% win rate. Although it is still on a weaker side in Challenges, the card win rate has improved (41% and 34% in Classic and Grand Challenges respectively) and made it a bit more popular than before.
We have no plans to rebalance this card further as it is already a great counter to ground troops and can be dangerous enough with the support of an ait troop counter.
Wall Breakers
The Damage buff has helped these little guys (their win rate has improved across all game modes, reaching 36-37%) but it is still among the least used cards in the game. Interestingly enough, Wall Breakers shows a solid 45% win rate in the 6000+ trophy range. The card indicates further potential, but nevertheless, we’ll give it some more time.
Overall, we are satisfied with how the balance changes have affected the usage and the win rate of the cards.
Have you started using any of those cards in your decks during this month? How do you find them in different modes?
June Balance Changes will be announced on Friday as usual!
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