Developer Update: Balance Changes and Nightbringer Season

The new season will start on Monday, January 19th.

Greetings, citizens!

From the Daemon Prince of Shadows we come to the Bringer of Night. As the Necrons are unleashed upon the 500 Worlds there are reinforcements in the form of a new upcoming Necron Warlord and new bodyguards with a substantial buff to a number of Necron cards.

Warlord Changes:

Position: 72nd | Winrate: 63.8% | Playrate: 0.1%

Titanic Resilience: All friendly cards with a cost of 40 or more, reduce all damage received by [25% -> 35%].

Canis Rex is noticeably the lowest of the current Warlords, the only one below a 70% win rate. Unlike his Chaos counterpart who has a comfortable 75% win rate, Sir Hekhtur is far behind. So while reluctant to keep buffing a card who’s niche is clearly defined in the 400pt game mode, there’s a need to intervene when they become quite such an outlier. The damage reduction is now very substantial so it will be good to see how much of an effect these changes will have in the 200pt Ranked arena.

Position: 70th | Winrate: 71.2% | Playrate: 0.6%

Martial Exemplar: While friend cards are above [50% -> 40%] wounds they attack first when defending. Additionally, the first time each turn that this Warlord would be attacked, a random friendly card makes a Melee attack against the attacking card before the attack sequence continues.

There often seems to be one Primarch (Daemon or otherwise) in the bottom bracket, but for the first time in a while there is only one in the bottom 10, the Lion. So we’re giving him a tune up. He already has the ability to be incredibly formidable at high levels with the right set-up so we’re not being too over zealous with his buff but it should be enough to make a difference.

Position: 67th | Winrate: 72.3% | Playrate: 0.6%

Adaptive Strategy: At the end of your opponent’s turn, debuff the attack type they last used by [15% -> 25%]

+10 Psychic, +10 Melee

The Swarmlord is a Warlord that players have liked but has been hard to make really shine for the longest time. So we’re upping his debuff amount, which helps get around some of the Ready Warlords that have effects to increase stored attacks after attacks have been made, and more consistently ensure the enemy will be on the maximum debuff at the start of their next turn. On top of that it’s important to make sure the Swarmlord feels like a more menacing threat and so they are getting a good sized buff to both of their attack stats.

Bodyguard Changes:

With the Warlord Changes out the way here are the changes to the bodyguard for the Necrons. We’ve got a good pool of Necron cards getting buffs across the roster, mainly with some notable points decreases to some cards in the 30-40pts range that struggle to find a spot, as well as a buff to several overlords not seeing much play and a minor rework to two of the Destroyers making them much more aggressive.

Finally the following cards have been added to the general pool:

Cards added to the general pool: