Supercell-Seth

At least one of them, for sure :)

I don't think we'll ever go back to OG Three Musketeers, the thought was something like:

Deploy Time 2s -> 1s

Stagger Time per Musky 0.5s -> 1s

Keeping the delayed/slower deployment, but taking it away from a static 2s to making later Musketeers arrive a bit later. There is no rush on this, it may never happen. 3M bounce around 2-3% usage and maybe, like Xbow/Mortar, that's an appropriate usage for a fringe/spicy strategy

I legit scrolled by this post and thought "wait I didn't eat a cake yesterday"

I agree - people really underestimate cycling Earthquakes. It's pretty common to see people cycle Log or Zap for chip damage - 2 Elixir for 84 damage (42/e). Meanwhile, a cycled EQ is 3 elixir for 183 damage (61/e). It's not ideal but I don't think it's a totally dead card either, especially if you factor in the slowing effect producing 'extra' damage from your Hog/Giant getting more swings in.

Considering it for next month, but Magic Archer is right on the line of strong-but-maybe-not-OP:

All Leagues: 17% use (47% win)

7000+ Ladder: 15% use (51% win)

Challenges: 23% use (53% win)

8+ Wins: 24% use (50% win)

All of these numbers are basically in-line with Baby Dragon. If the goal of buffing MA was to reduce Baby Dragon numbers to provide more options, then it was a success. Perhaps you could say both cards are OP and need nerfs, but swarmy/spell bait kind of decks are still very viable with both of these splashers getting a lot of use, so nerfing one or both would make spell bait even stronger.

When you think about cards that you would WANT to be on the upper end of strength, Magic Archer is a pretty good design. He's 4-cost, which isn't too low. His strength comes from timing and placement geometry, so he's high skill. He's easily countered by Spells and fragile enough to die in pretty much any direct combat.

Overa...

It will not! Battle Healer has a separate healing effect from the Heal spell, the rework will not affect any other card.

This will be fixed in the next client update - Royal Delivery is a bit unique from Barb Barrel under the hood which is why they aren't identical. We spent a bit of time fudging the code trying to get them identical but it wasn't possible over-the-air. So hopefully by the next full update they'll look the same :)

For the curious, Barb Barrel is a projectile that spawns a Barb. Royal Delivery is an area-effect (like Freeze or Rage) that spawns a projectile that spawns a Recruit. That extra layer of separation means the Card Info screen 'misses' it, as those screens are auto-generated based on card stats. The info screen isn't looking 2-3 levels down, which is why it's not 'finding' the Recruit stats.

This is a very common suggestion in any game that includes drafting or deckbuilding. I have played a few events like this in Magic: The Gathering and other games - I feel confident saying these sound a lot more fun than they are. Playing a non-function deck full of terrible cards isn't very fun at all, especially not for prizes. The worst feeling is when your opponent just happens to have a good combo despite your best efforts to build a terrible deck and then they beat you with it.

Think of all the posts where people complain about Draft being unfair because they got a bad draft - now imagine we TRIED to make that happen every game. It's a recipe for disaster and I promise we will never force this mode on our player base :)

Whoa whoa whoa - I said *maybe* March :) Just to keep y'all updated, it will DEFINITELY be April. We have something else planned for March now.

But I'll give you a hint - the rework was ALREADY discovered on social media. We watch activity from around the world, and one lucky person figured it out already :)

Lol nah, I was just sitting around looking at stats and noticed that Zappies/Barb Hut were both floating around 4-5% usage with 53-56% win rates. It's still a bit early in the meta to make a call since people are still experimenting, but it struck me that I hadn't heard ANYTHING about the changes, for better or worse. Like, total radio silence. It seemed weird given how every month there are critical posts like "why didn't they touch Zappies or Barb Hut, 0% usage cards that need some love".

I don't need praise to feel confident in my decisions, just like I rarely let negative feedback change my decisions. But this was a nice reminder that 'listening to the community' can be hard if its entirely negative all the time. Many replies were along the lines of "silence is good" but that's not how humans operate - no one can absorb thousands of negative opinions without internalizing it on some level.

The comments I receive (especially ones that tag me directly on Reddit o...

I can pretty confidently say Recruits will not be changed any time soon. They are weak, but fine. Like Freeze, I don't think we want Recruits to be truly competitively viable in every meta. They sometimes pop up in CRL (during the Fisherman meta) and are good in Draft or 2x/3x Elixir modes. That's good enough for them, no plans to buff Royal Recruits.

Zappies.... February.

Heal? Welllllll.... *maybe* March. There's a bit more art assets in that rework :)

You might be misunderstanding me. Any combination of H/T in a specific sequence has the exact same probability of occurring (0.5)^X. You are thinking of a standard distribution of the output, which would err towards the average (50/50) but in any given set of 3 flips:

HHH - 12.5% of occurring HTH - 12.5% of occurring TTT - 12.5% chance of occurring

So while 20 heads in a row is WEIRD, its the exact same likelihood as 5H/5T/5H/5T or H/T alternating. But we see 'weird' random outcomes as evidence that its not truly random.

"This doesn't feel random" is the best way to describe human's relationship with probability. Humans are completely unequipped to deal with large amounts of random numbers because we seek a narrative to understand our world. True randomness feels wrong because it doesn't match a story in our head, and "evil man rigs game" is a pretty compelling story.

If you flipped a coin 20 times and it came up Heads 20 times, you could say "it doesn't feel random, something must be up". But its just as likely as any other series of outcomes. The fact that you jumped right to "you will say anything to protect your secret unknown financial interest" is a great example of how matchmaking conspiracists are in the same wheelhouse as flat earthers and anti-vaxxers.

Matchmaking happens in a fraction of a second, exactly how deep do you think this hypothetical algorithm goes just to match you against Barbs and Skarmy (two of the most popular ladder cards)? Why did we give free wins to...

We have answered this dozens of times:

• Matchmaking on ladder is based on trophies, only trophies and not card levels
• If you are on a losing streak (3+ losses), we match you against other players on losing streaks (still trophy based, we just limit the pool to "other players at your trophies also on a loss streak". The winning player ends their loss streak and resumes normal matchmaking

That's it. The truth is we can answer this question a million times and you will still see conspiracy theories because people who insist matchmaking is rigged are emotionally looking for an answer for their losses, not seeking some factual resolution. Matchmaker conspiracies are psychologically really similar to flat earthers or anti-vaxxers, no amount of proof will satisfy them because the conspiracy is providing the emotional validation they are seeking.

(Party Mode is a level-based matchmaking system, which is shown in the popup. We felt like Party M...

Great post /u/Mew_Pur_Pur! These are definitely the hardest rarity to design for and I think you've done an admirable job within those constraints. Here's for-real feedback/comments:

Minion Guards

• I agree with the premise (more tough air troops) but not the execution. Shields can reduce counterplay on Troops that already have ground immunity. They should definitely die to heavier Spells like Fireball, but probably survive Arrows to be different from Minions.
• From an IP standpoint, you don't want to mix two unrelated factions (especially in a grotesque Human Centipede way lol). They should probably just be another form of Minion? or bigger Lava Pups? Or a Flying Machine-ish contraption?
• I think there is a lot of potential here, there is def a need for something between Me...

Still coming - the mechanics are finalized, just waiting on some assets :)

The answer is that X-Bow has a much wider range of counterplay than competitive spawner decks have had in the past. Spawners generate an outsized amount of Elixir for their cost (for example, Barb Hut makes 10 Barbs = 10 Elixir's worth) in exchange for the staggered deploy. If Spawners were all competitively viable then you could simply plop them down behind your King Tower and win about 50% of your games. Counterplay becomes limited to trading Spells, and that's not very exciting.

X-Bow however has a ton of counterplay because you must place it so close to the bridge. It's a constant tug-of-war at the bridge that some decks can handle but others can't. But that struggle over the X-Bow's spot is far more interesting and multi-faceted than high health buildings all the way behind the Towers.

The meta needs outlier / weirdo decks or else it devolves into beatdown vs. control grinds. Spicy decks like X-Bow, Mortar, LavaClone, or Freeze decks should not ever be 10% of t...

Plenty of casual players really enjoy their spawner cards / decks, especially 2v2 only players. Just because a card isn't competitively viable doesn't mean it needs to be deleted, plenty of cards exist for non-competitive play and we think that's fine for the game overall.

So far there doesn't seem to be many outlier cards. Almost everything is within expected ranges, and the cards that are above that range aren't urgent / could be benefiting from the meta.

If things stay the same, you can expect an all-buff sort of balance update. Though we have reduced the amount of 'rework' level of changes that are coming up, the cards that needed reworks will probably end up with buffs. Here's one we have been playing with that will probably ship in February (as always, nothing is final / everything can change):

BARBARIAN HUT

Lifetime Reduced 60s -> 50s

Spawn Time Reduces 13.5s -> 12.5s

Added Death Spawn of 2 Barbarians (1 wave)

The reduced lifetime and added Death Spawn work out to the same number of spawns, but the building becomes a bit more Spell resistant (since there is no way to remove the Death Spawn by damaging the building). The waves also end up closer together with a shorter spawn time, providing m...