0.8.0 - First Impressions
Welcome Visionaries, to Foundry 0.8.0 - First Impressions! This is a MASSIVE patch with fundamental changes to gameplay and the official start of Foundry Closed Beta. As such, I recommend all players go through the new in-game Tutorial. In addition, First Impressions brings QoL improvements, new VFX, new ways to play, and major Core Set testing updates. We also are inviting our first group of Android play-testers (hi!) so go easy on our new friends 😉. PVP servers are online! Join the Community on Discord, Reddit, and Youtube. Forward the Foundry!
NOTE: User Data will be reset with this update to onboard new players. If you have decks you'd like to keep, make sure to export them!
New Heroes:
Hero: Darling (3), Cultist:Reveal
Imperial: Exhaust an enemy. Swap me.
Frontier: Swap me with a Hero in Hand. Steal 1 from the Hero across from me.
Ascendant: Swap me and the enemy across from me with the highest Influence cards in hand.
Reveal: I become any Hero on the board. I keep my Influence.
Special: Amplify Swap: Steal 1 from the Hero across from me.
Hero: Timeless Chronicler (4), Scholar:Reveal
Imperial: Grant an ally 2 Knowledge.
Frontier: Consume my Knowledge to grant an ally twice it.
Ascendant: Consume 1 Knowledge to Salvage. Rebound.
Reveal: Refill the Prosperity Relic Slot with a 'Final Orrery' (Adds a Round 4 to the game)
Special: Pulse: Gain 1 Knowledge.
Hero: Ace Navigator Telles (1), Intuit:RevealWatch
Imperial: Next: If all Relics add to 21 or less, Gain ALL of them.
Frontier: Next: If you have the highest Influence Hero in hand, discard your foe's highest.
Ascendant: Next: Grant an Ally +7. Allegiance: +2.
Reveal: Add all your Heroes' Predicted Relics to your hand.
Hero: Gray Lady (0), Intuit:Reveal
Imperial: Grant an ally +2 for each card you know in your foe's hand.
Frontier: Grant an ally +4 for each extra card in your hand compared to your foe.
Ascendant: If you know ALL your foe's cards, Copy one into your hand.
Reveal: Grant me Influence equal to your highest Influence ally.
Hero: Officer Dorne (0), Loyalist:Reveal
Imperial: Grant all allies in Era Imperial +5.
Frontier: Phase a Hero to Era Imperial.
Ascendant: Grant allies in Eras you Control +5.
Reveal: Gain all Sector Rewards you won this game.
Hero: Sibyl Kaal (9), Cultist:Reveal
Imperial: Replace Anomalies in both players' hands with 'Coming Storm'.
Frontier: Replace Anomalies in your hand with random Bronze Schematics.
Ascendant: Replace Anomalies in your foe's hand with 'The Mule'.
Reveal: Add each unique anomaly triggered this game into your foe's hand.
Hero: Lone Sentinel (8), Loyalist:Reveal
Imperial: Grant an ally +8 Influence.
Frontier: Do nothing.
Ascendant: Do nothing.
Reveal: Grant another ally my Influence.
New Anomalies:
Cult of Personality - Exhaust all allies except the Highest Influence Face Up Hero. (Unless Veiled)
Pandemic - Purge your Lowest Influence Face Up Hero. (Unless Veiled)
Reserve Collapse - Grant your Heroes in hand -2 Influence. (Unless Veiled)
Dev note - all anomaly text has been standardized
System Changes:
Reworked: Eras & Round Structure
Foundry shines as the competitive CCG where every decision matters, every game plays differently, and every card is meaningful. Having 2 actions per Round across 6 Rounds wasn't allowing for the full depth of strategy and card synergy. It felt too easy to just have a two card combo and use it every Round - even if that wasn't the best play. We're adjusting Rounds in Foundry to now have 4 base actions per Round and reducing the total rounds to 3 Rounds. This means 1 Round for each Era. This will increase the optionality in games and unleash deck-building, while slightly reducing game time.
Expect a Card Balance patch in patch 0.9.0. Please give Feedback on weak/overpowered cards using the in-game Form!
Passing is now allowed. It results in you losing the Action, but gaining a Charge (think of it like "banking" the Action). This comes in play with the new Pulse system as described below.
Reworked: Schematics & Relics
Biggest change here! Schematics and Relics have functionally swapped. Schematics now appear in the Galactic Ruins and Relics are your reward for Solving a Crisis. For thematic reasons, their names have been swapped as well. Here's how this will work:
Old "Schematics" -> new "Relics": The Galactic Ruins will now show you 1 "Relic" from each category - Momentum, Dominion, and Prosperity. "Relics" have each been given a Cost, depending on how powerful and game-warping they are. After the Galactic Ruins opens, you can Salvage for them.
"Relics" now all have an on-play effect. When a Relic is played from hand, they will grant a one-time effect based on their Class. This is to help offset the reduction in Rounds & randomness of the Relics so they feel useful even in the final Round of the game or if you didn't get quite what you were looking for.
Momentum: Charge 1. Prosperity: Barter +2. Dominion: Grant +3.
Old "Relics" -> new "Schematics": When you Solve your Crisis, you will get a choice between each of the Gold Tier Schematics. Your Crisis then becomes a Bronze Blueprint Slot costing 2 Influence. Salvaging a Blueprint will give you that Blueprint and update the slot to the next Blueprint tier: Silver (3 Influence) -> Gold (5 Influence) -> resets back to Bronze. The Blueprint cost will increase by 4 each time all the Blueprints are purchased, so the next bronze would cost 6 Inf -> Silver 7 Inf -> Gold 9 Inf. Playing a Blueprint will give you a choice between all Schematics at that tier to add one to your hand - no randomness!
Temporal Beacon has been moved to the Bronze Schematic category, now with a cost of 0.
Null-Shield Matrix (3), Silver Schematic, now reads: "Shield an ally for 2 Pulses; or Shield two allies for 1 Pulse." Concentrate the Matrix to protect one key Hero for longer, or distribute it across two allies when the board demands broader coverage.
Jester Hat has been buffed: "Create an Anomaly. Add two copies of it to your foe's hand."
Execution Drone now reads: "Purge a Hero."
Phew! For more on why this change was made, check out the Dev Blog!
New: Pulse (Enlighten Keyword has been removed)
Pulse takes the place of Enlighten (on end of Round). It is a Core keyword and defines an effect which triggers after every 4th Action taken by either player. The shared clock continues across Rounds. Example from Principal Investigator's Frontier Ability which now reads: "Pulse: Gain 1 Knowledge"
Note that Pulse triggers on Actions, not Charges! Pulse also does not trigger if the card is Facedown or Purged. You can tell a Pulse effect is about to trigger after your next Action because the card will glow.
Pulse allows us to keep the steady value-over-time feel of the original 6 round x 2 actions Foundry structure, while keeping the speed and complex combo abilities of the 4x3 structure.
Reworked: Purge & Shield Durations
Purge and Shield now last for Galactic Pulses instead of Rounds. Their duration decreases after each shared Pulse resolves, and a new status applied on the Action that fires a Pulse does not immediately lose duration.
Purge still resets the affected Hero's Influence and prevents that Era's Hero from contributing Influence, acting, being interacted with, or triggering on Pulse. Reapplying Purge increases its duration with no maximum.
Swapping a Hero from hand into a Purged or Shielded Era removes 1 Pulse from that status. If duration remains, the incoming Hero inherits the status, but Purge does not reset that incoming Hero's Influence again. The outgoing Hero is normal in hand. Hyperjump continues to leave statuses attached to their Era slots, while Reforge clears Purge immediately and triggers Reveal.
The Last Empress now Purges for 2 Pulses. Doomsday Clock Purges all Heroes for 1 Pulse.
Reworked: Crises & Anomalies
With the 3 Round structure, the current Crisis system wasn't living up to the dream. Crises have been totally reworked!
Foretelling your Crisis now costs an Action, but can be done on any of your turns in the Round.
Crisis Resolution now happens on the next Pulse instead of the start of the next round. For example, if you Foretell as your 1st Action in a Round, your Crisis will Resolve after your 2nd Action. If you Foretell as your 2nd Action, however, it will resolve after your 4th Action (next Pulse).
If you solve a Crisis, you receive a Gold Schematic (Tempo-Tron, Nuclear Power Cell, or Visi-Sonar Lens) and the Crisis Slot becomes a Schematic Slot.
If you Fail a Crisis, your foe picks an Anomaly to add to your hand and the Crisis Slot still becomes a Schematic Slot.
Anomalies now trigger on Pulse instead of at the start of the next Round.
These changes have multiple upsides:
Failing a Crisis becomes more punishing as you spent an Action and got a bad Anomaly, but you don't lose out on access to Schematics you might need, so if you're far behind it can be the right play.
Succeeding a Crisis should still feel pretty great - you get a powerful Gold Schematic of your choice.
Timing your Foretell becomes more skill-testing. If you do it on your 1st or 3rd Action, you get the reward sooner and give your Foe less time for counterplay, but you also have less time to solve the Crisis. If you Foretell on your 2nd or 4th Action, you can give yourself more time to complete it, but get the reward later. This change also makes Foretell a great option on the final Round, whereas in the previous iteration it was too late to matter.
Similarly, the timing of when you add Anomalies to your hand or your Foe's hand becomes more skill-testing, and Anomalies continue to have importance going into the final round.
Reworked: Deck Building
Decks are no longer capped at 6 Heroes! Each Hero you add to the deck costs 3 Influence + the Hero's Influence. You may add as many Heroes as you desire, so long as you stay under the Deck Influence cap which has been raised to 42. You must have a minimum of 3 Heroes.
All Crisis costs have increased by 3 Influence to compensate for this change.
The Deckbuilder on the website has been updated!
This change has the benefit of expanding deck-building creativty. You can go all in on a few huge Heroes, or include many types of win conditions and tech Heroes in hand (aka the Reserve) - the choice is yours.
Please abuse this and try to break the system, give feedback!
Simplified: Galactic Sectors
Each Galactic Sector having three different rewards (one for each Era) was unnecessary bloat, adding UI complexity and additional balancing. Each Sector has been simplified to just have 1 Reward no matter which Era was won.
If you forget what the Era Reward is, just tap on the ScoreHUD to bring it up!
The Powergrid: Grant your Heroes Influence equal to 2x your Charges.
The Mimir Nebula: Gain a Veil Shard and a Jester Hat.
The Asteroid Field: Barter 3.
The Capitol: Grant the winning Hero +5 Influence.
The Exile System: Reforge your highest-influence Purged Hero.
The Guildworlds: Gain a Contract matching the winning Hero’s faction.
This change will result in increased game variety as there will be far more Sectors and each Sector is strong in different Eras.
Sectors have also been made more powerful on average, to reward decks that stick Influence on the board early.
Adjusted: Galactic Ruins
We've heard your feedback! Sometimes the Ruins felt like "Action Chicken" with neither player wanting to commit the resources to refresh an unfavorable Ruins. We're implementing a few changes:
If at the end of a Round neither player has Salvaged/Predicted from the Galactic Ruins, all Relics will be refreshed.
Whenever a Relic is refilled - whether it's because it was Salvaged or Predicted - it will always give you a new Relic. It cannot re-roll into the same one. This reduces both some of the "feel-bad" moments and also clamps down on some high rolls.
Rule Changes:
Adjusted: Round Action Priority
Each Round, the player who has the highest Influence on board (the Score Board shows this) will go first. If both players have the same Influence, priority is chosen randomly. This improves comebacks as going second is typically more powerful since you get the "last say" in a Round. Carefully manage your influence on board to "toss priority" to your foe! But be careful, going first in a Round also has advantages - you get the first Salvage opportunity and an opportunity to disrupt your foe before they act.
Adjusted: Charge Priority
Using a Charge now returns priority to you instead of passing it to your foe. You can continue spending Charges to chain together plays, and priority will only pass once you use an Action. For example, you could Swap with a Charge, Salvage with another Charge, then use a Hero ability with an Action before your foe gets priority.
Dev note: This makes Charges meaningfully different from Actions and gives players more control over sequencing. Banking Charges now lets you set up a multi-step line, while spending an Action commits the play and gives your foe a chance to respond.
Adjusted: Facedown vs Purged Heroes
Currently, a Hero being "facedown" vs being "purged" had too much overlap and was too confusing. This led to rules inconsistencies in how they could be targeted. To set an initial baseline, here's the new official Rules on Facedown vs Purged.
Purged: a Hero that is Purged immediately has its Influence reset and is now "banished" - it cannot be interacted with, contribute Influence, act, or trigger on Pulse. It returns to Normal when its Pulse duration expires or immediately when Reforged, which also triggers its Reveal. Swapping into a Purged Era removes 1 Pulse and passes any remaining Purge to the incoming Hero, while Hyperjump leaves the status attached to the Era slot. Reapplying Purge increases its duration.
Facedown: a Hero that is facedown is just inactive and hidden from the foe. It can't use its ability, but it can be interacted with - players can grant it Influence, for example, or target it like any other Hero. It will remain facedown until Revealed.
SEE VENN DIAGRAM HERE
There are many benefits to this design iteration. Facedown cards should now feel a lot more strategic - while they don't contribute to your Influence score immediately, they are these hidden pieces that you can still interact with, and your foe is incentivized to figure out what you are doing. You can grant or phase or do whatever else to these Facedown allies in a sort of protected fashion. In contrast, Purged cards are a real punishment. They act as if they just aren't part of the game - don't receive benefits, don't receive status changes - until they return when the timer expires.
There may be some remaining inconsistencies which will need to patched. Please submit bug reports if you find any!
Adjusted: Swapping
Swapping a card into an Era now resets it to that Era, instead of adopting the Era of the card it replaced.
This is to help players better conceptualize swapping as a "full reset" and to make it harder to have cards "out of phase" with the board, requiring more Actions investment. I will admit, I am unsure of the downstream implications or if this breaks any fun combos. If you feel strongly about this change, let me know in the Discord/Feedback!
Buffed: Discard
Effects that discard cards from your foe's hand based on Influence will now discard all cards that are tied for that Influence.
Buffed: Predict:
Predicting a Relic Slot after the Ruins opens now gives you three options for Relics to refill the slot with. This improves the visual clarity over the old "keep" vs "regenerate", reduces randomness, and adds slightly more power in the mechanic.
New Features:
New Feature: Galactic Draft
Foundry's first Limited format is here. Four commanders enter a shared phantom draft, beginning with a shared six-card Visionary pack before choosing 12 Heroes from two six-card packs that circulate around the pod in opposite directions. The draft ends with a shared six-card Crisis pack; duplicate Heroes are legal, and drafted cards belong to that run rather than your permanent collection.
Use the dedicated Draft Builder to turn your pool into a legal deck with one Visionary, one Crisis, at least three Heroes, and no more than 42 Influence. Draft runs continue until you reach 4 wins or 2 losses, awarding 3, 6, 18, 20, or 24 Merits based on your final win total. Entry costs 1 Tribute or 250 Prestige and can be fully refunded while you are still waiting for a pod.
Galactic Draft supports authoritative online four-seat pods, fills open seats with distinct drafting rivals when needed, and prioritizes rematches against commanders from your pod before widening match search. Timed picks keep the table moving, active runs can be resumed between sessions, and Draft now has its own rating, win-loss record, and profile rank.
New Feature: Desktop Mode!
Foundry now has a true landscape experience for PC. The playspace, Collection and Deck Builder, Game Modes, choice panels, card inspection, Versus screen, and end-game flow now recompose for widescreen displays, with desktop-friendly hover states, drag-and-drop targeting, and smoother hand browsing.
New Feature: Three Tutorial Campaigns
Tutorials 1-3 have been completely rebuilt: "First Contact - The Basics," "The First Mayor - Ruins, Relics & Prophecies," and "Tinker, Trader, Seer, Spy - The Reckoning." New play-testers are guided into the first tutorial on launch, while later campaigns teach the Ruins, Relics, Crises, Pulse, advanced sequencing, and emotes through scripted matches with clearer dialogue, highlights, and completion rewards.
New Feature: Tactical Archives - Puzzles Return
Puzzles have returned as a dedicated single-player mode with 11 authored tactical board states: Simple Addition, Reserve Forces, The Inquisition, The Galactic Pulse, The Great Survey, The Prophet's Wager, Dead Man's Shield, The Nomad's Road, Twenty-One, The Relic Missile, and The Fire Sale. Each challenge asks you to find a precise sequence using Foundry's Heroes, Visionaries, Pulse timing, targeting, and Crisis systems.
The full archive is visible from Game Modes with clear Available, Locked, and Solved states. Solve puzzles in sequence to unlock the next challenge, then replay any completed puzzle whenever you like. Your first solution to each puzzle grants 10 Galactic XP, for 110 XP across the current archive; replays do not grant the reward again.
Puzzle cards, Visionaries, Crises, and ability logic now use a frozen rules snapshot. Live balance changes will no longer silently alter an authored solution, while new puzzle-specific goals support Purge and successful Foretell challenges.
New Feature: The Plan - Progression & Rewards
Every completed match now awards Galactic XP. Advance your ten-thousand-year Plan, reach milestones, and claim Merits and Tributes through a new animated progression timeline. Tutorial rewards, claim ceremonies, wallet updates, profile ranks, and navigation alerts for unclaimed rewards are now live.
Your Visionary Profile now tracks collection completion by expansion across Heroes, Visionaries, and Crises. Select an expansion to inspect exactly which cards are missing, or confirm that its archive is complete.
New Feature: The Star Forge
The Galactic Shop is now open. Spend earned Merits and Tributes to forge missing Heroes, Visionaries, and Crises; browse daily cosmetic and targeted collection offers; exchange currencies; and use Prestige for seasonal rewards and XP boosts. The Closed Beta commerce terminal is still a test environment, so real-money checkout is not yet active.
New Feature: Companions & Cosmetic Identity
Home-screen portraits have become animated Companions. Beta testers get the exclusive Hooded Figure portrait, while Clockwork Quill, Foundry Bot, and Catlactic Kitten can be collected in the Star Forge. Reach Ascendant rank in Constructed or Draft to earn the exclusive Ascendant Wisp! Your equipped Companion joins you on the home screen, Versus screen, and battlefield, with responsive placement for phone and desktop. Tap your Companion in a match and it may even react.
Visionary alternate art is now its own cosmetic loadout category. Equip owned static or animated art for each Visionary, and that choice will follow them through deck selection, collection inspection, the Versus screen, and their in-game leader display. Foes' equipped Visionary art and Companions are also shown in online matches, while AI matches respect your own loadout.
Equipped alternate and animated Hero art now remains consistent between the Collection and the battlefield. The Star Forge has also been expanded to beautifully preview Companions, Visionary art, card frames, card backs, game boards, emotes, and OSTs, alongside new curated bundles.
Daily Deals are now delivered through Foundry's public live-content feed on GitHub. The shop caches the latest valid lineup and has an offline rotation fallback, so cosmetic offers remain available even if the feed cannot be reached.
New Feature: Direct Targeting
Targeted abilities can now be aimed directly on the battlefield or into your own hand. Click a supported Hero or Visionary to begin targeting and then click a legal target, or drag from the source to the target and release, reducing many multi-step plays by a full click.
A new animated targeting line follows your pointer, snaps to legal targets, highlights every valid destination, and displays a red X over illegal cards. Right-click or press Escape to cancel on PC; releasing a drag on an illegal target cancels it, while a stray illegal click keeps click-targeting active so you can correct your aim.
Once a target is chosen, the source and target remain visibly linked while the complete action waits for Commit. Undo cancels both the ability and its selected target together. The game engine revalidates every preselected target before resolving it and safely returns to the classic choice flow if the target is no longer legal.
Eligible board-target and own-hand-target prompts that occur after Commit now use the same targeting line instead of a choice box. Effects that genuinely require a menu or additional decisions, including Create, foe-hand selections, and mixed-zone choices, continue to use the appropriate choice panel.
New Feature: In-Game Game Log
Open the Game Log during a match to review plays, abilities, triggered effects, and important state changes in order. Major effects receive readable notifications with card art, while hidden information such as unknown cards in your foe's hand remains hidden.
New Feature: Rules Lens & Expanded Card Inspection
Hover or tap a card to inspect its keywords and rules in context, then expand the Rules Lens for the full reference. Card detail layouts now adapt to phone and desktop screens, making art, lore, abilities, and unfamiliar mechanics easier to read without leaving the match.
Visual Overhaul: Galactic Sectors, Timeline & Ruins
Relics now have clearer class frames, cost medallions, drag targets, and readable Ruins plates on phone and desktop. Galactic Sectors now transform the battlefield with themed art and effects, while the on-board Galactic Timeline tracks the active Era, Pulse countdown, initiative, and Sector reward. Era transitions, Ruins refreshes, Versus, and victory or defeat sequences have also received new VFX, SFX, and presentation polish.
New Feature: OTA Updates
A crucial part of any live service card game, Foundry now has the ability to deliver OTA hot fixes! These can be simple number changes to cards or even bigger ability changes for cards - all without needing to redownload the game.
Additionally, bulky animation files have been moved to a first time launch download, so that app size can stay small. You may notice a long load/download on the first time opening, but would be fast on subsequent launches. These will auto-update whenever there are new animations/cards added.
New Feature: Emotes
The most critical part of any digital card game! Now you can be... kind... to your foe with some emotes of Foundry characters. Would love to get feedback on how to make these cosmetics more appealing and monetization in general!
New Feature: Game Lore: on the website and links in game. Learn about the Foundry universe and read the first two lore stories, "Prayer before Jump" and "The Empire Still Breaths."
New Feature: Custom Card Workshop: on the website. Submit cards on Reddit and in the Discord. We will choose one of the most popular cards each month to actually add into the game! Cement yourself in Foundry history.
Balance Changes:
Visionaries:
Buffed: The (First) Mayor: Grant a Hero +X - now starts at 3 Influence and can target foe Heroes.
Buffed: The (Eternal) Steward: 1->2 uses
Dev Note: Bringing these Visionaries in line with The Empress. They all now deliver ~12 Influence of value over the course of a game on their own. Notable adjustments to Viceroy Isha below. Will watch this closely!
Crises:
Trade Dominion Deck Cost 2->4
Siting the Capitol Deck Cost 1->5
Dev note: After experimentation, it's becoming more clear how to balance Crises. Cheaper Crises should be more swingable/interactive, while higher cost ones are more reliable and easy to get early. Salvaging is something every deck can compete on, and its locked to Era Frontier and beyond, so it should be cheap. Hyperjumping is hard for generalist decks and this Crisis can be solved in Round 1, so should be more expensive.
Relics:
Buffed: Lost Land Grant: now reads, "Reserve: Pulse: Control 2+ Eras: Get a Gold Schematic."
Buffed: Perpetual Motion Machine: now reads, "Reserve: The first time you Hyperjump each Round, gain a random Silver Schematic."
Buffed: Archived Scroll: now reads, "Reserve: Pulse: Grant your Frontier ally +2 for each Relic in hand."
Nerfed: Sedition Act: now reads, "Reserve: When your foe Hyperjumps, Exhaust those Heroes."
Adjusted: Forgotten Battle Plans: now reads, "Reserve: Pulse: Activate an ally."
Clarified: Tempo-Tron now reads, "Next: Permanently Gain +1 Action."
New Relics: Find them in game to see what they do! Especially watch out for Hostile Takeover ;)
Momentum: Semaphor Vial (6), Isha's Diary (5), Illegal Jump Fuel (7)
Dominion: Gray Lady's Tabloid (6), Doomsday Clock (4), Panopticon Prototype (6), Settler Treaty (5)
Prosperity: Surveyor's Maps (5), Hostile Takeover (13), Stimulus Cheque (5)
Anomalies:
Buffed: Coming Storm Anomaly now reads, "Add 2 Anomalies to your hand."
Dev note: The idea with Coming Storm was to create these exciting moments where anomalies chain together creating absolute chaos. As more anomalies get added to the pool, the odds of this chain reaction will go down. For now, adjusting it by adding 2 anomalies, but may need a more significant update in the future. Also with number of Rounds decreased, Cultists needed a buff.
Keywords:
Adjusted: Allegiance:
Allegiance now means, "If the target shares my Faction, resolve the Allegiance effect. If it says 'instead,' replace the normal result." This allows an Allegiance effect to either add to or replace a card's normal result, as its text specifies.
Adjusted: Phase:
Phase now changes a Hero's Era without moving its lane and Activates it. Phase is also a supported Amplify trigger.
Removed: Retired Core Keywords:
Energize has been removed from the Core Hero roster, while Free, Hide, and Transmute are no longer treated as Core keywords. These effects now use Activate or direct language such as "without spending an Action" and "Replace." Retired mechanics may return when a future expansion has room to support them properly.
Heroes:
Reworked: Penitent Engine:Â Imperial now: "Grant a Hero -3."
Frontier now: "Grant a Hero -4."
Ascendant now: "Grant a Hero -5."
Dev note: Penitent engine now fits in more decks. Plus, stay tuned for more negative Influence support ;)
Reworked: Speaker Isaac: Starting Influence 5->7
Frontier now: "Swap the lowest influence Hero in your foe's hand to the Era Frontier."
Ascendant now: "Exhaust an enemy. Rebound."
Reveal now: "Use the Reveal of the Hero across from me."
Dev note: Standardizing the Speaker in preparation for 0.9.0 and increasing his disruptive optionality. Now, Imperial disrupts your foe's positioning, Frontier their hand, and Ascendant their abilities. Plus, more synergy with Intuits like The Gray Lady,
Reworked: Salvage Baron: Imperial now: "Barter 1 for each Trader in hand".
Frontier and Ascendant abilities switched.
Reveal now: "Barter 5."
Dev note: Salvage Baron was missing a bit of an identity, with too many Trader cards having the default "Barter 2" as their Imperial ability. Now, she is more clearly a Hero who synergizes well with the "low cost Relics" variant of Traders and with Guilds.
Nerfed: Magistrate Mallow: Imperial now: "Do nothing."
Ascendant now: "Do nothing."
Dev note: Mallow, Rodwin, Sentinel, and other Anchor-type Heroes are part of an experiment for this pattern of high powered abilities that are weak to disruption from Hyperjumping or Swaps. There may be future support for a "Do Nothing" archetype ;)
Reworked: Thesis Defender (5 Inf) -> Lost Archivist (4 Inf):
Imperial now: "Reforge an ally."
Frontier now: "Set an ally's Influence equal to the highest Influence Hero in your hand."
Ascendant now: "Grant all allies and Heroes in hand +1. Allegiance: +2 instead."
Reveal now: "Double the Knowledge of an ally or Hero in hand."
Dev note: Shield is a Loyalist identity keyword, so Lost Archivist now leans fully into Scholar hand, Knowledge, and Allegiance synergies while still supporting a mixed-Faction team.
Reworked: Aegis Legionary -> Aegis Drone (2 Inf):
Imperial now: "Next: Shield 2 an ally."
Frontier now: "Shield an ally."
Ascendant now: "Grant me +3 for each Shield duration on allies."
Reveal now: "Shield all allies."
Dev note: Aegis Drone now supports proactive shielding in every Era and scales with total Shield duration, giving Loyalist decks a clearer defensive engine.
Reworked: Creditor: Reveal now: "Take a Schematic or Relic from your foe's hand."
Imperial now: "Barter 4. Next: Grant me -4."
Dev note: There was an infinite APM combo with the new Ruins system where you would have Dita on board and any source of Influence (like Transmuter) and on the last action in the game, you just cycle through Bronze, Silver, and Gold relics on repeat to get guild contracts which gave you ~+5 Influence on average for each cycle and Visi-Sonar Lens to repeat Creditor's Reveal. This inspired the cost increase on cycle for Schematics.
Reworked: Emperor's Wrath: Frontier now: "Purge all Purged enemies."
Ascendant now: "Purge an ally and the enemy opposing it."
Dev note: Still working on the most fun and healthy ways for purge & self-purge archetypes to play. This attempt refocuses Wrath on self-purge and lock-down strategies. Reforge will be more limited to Scholars as part of their Faction identity.
Reworked: Brother Corbin: Reveal now: "Consume your Charges. Gain a 'Nuclear Power Cell' for each." (Master nuclear energy!)
Ascendant now: "Consume 2 Charges: Discard the Highest Influence card(s) in your foe's hand."
Dev note: I was too cautious with discard as I worried this ability would be spammable, but turns out 2 Charges + 1 Action is quite expensive! There is enough counter-play with moving cards in and out of your hand to protect them.
Reworked: Transmuter: Imperial now: "Create a Bronze Schematic."
Frontier now, "Replace a Schematic or Relic in hand with a more expensive one."
Ascendant now, "Grant me -10. Create a Gold Schematic."
Reveal now, "Copy a Relic in hand." (Dev note: copying Schematics goes infinite if you have 2 Visi-Sonar Lens)
Reworked: Whisper-Broker Xenia (3 Inf): Imperial now: "Consume 2 Barter to Gain 3 Charges."
Frontier now: "Consume 7 Barter to Gain a 'Tempo-Tron'."
Ascendant now: "Consume 1 Barter to refill all Relics. Then Salvage."
Reveal now: "Consume all of your Barter. Grant me triple that amount in Influence."
Buffed: Star Seer: Frontier now: "See the Highest Influence unknown Hero in your foe's hand." (less random, more synergy!)
Buffed: Imperial Prefect: Starting Influence: 0->3
Dev note: Prefect is on rate with abilities, so should be at the base influence of 3. (More balancing to come with 0.9.0.)
Adjusted: Grand Admiral Sirk:
Starting Influence: 11->12.
Imperial now: "Grant allies in Eras you control +2."
Frontier now: "Steal 2 from each enemy in Eras you do not Control."
Adjusted Provost Thale: Starting Influence: 11->10
Ascendant now: "Set my Influence to 0. For each 7 I lost, Create a Relic."
Adjusted: Guildmaster Dita:
Trademaster Dita renamed to Guildmaster for lore purposes!
Imperial now: "Barter 1."
Frontier now: "Barter 2."
Ascendant now: "Barter 3."
Special now: "Amplify Salvage: Barter 2."
Buffed: Tome Raider:
Ascendant now: "Consume 2 Knowledge: Reforge an ally. Rebound." (down from 4 Knowledge)
Adjusted: Guild President Rusk:
Imperial now: "Barter 5. Next: Grant the enemy in this Era +5." Each mortgage remembers the Era where it was created, multiple mortgages are tracked independently, and Rusk's Ascendant and Reveal now count only Schematics as written.
Buffed: Telepath: Ascendant now: "Grant -8 to a Hero you know is in your foe's hand." (More balancing to come with 0.9.0.)
Buffed: Herald of the Anomaly: Imperial now: "Add 2 Anomalies to your Foe's hand." (No longer negative tempo.)
Frontier now: "Desecrated: Steal 4 from an enemy."
Ascendant now: "Add 2 Anomalies to your hand."
Adjusted: Wayfinder: Imperial and Frontier abilities have swapped.
Frontier now: "Hyperjump an ally. Allegiance: Barter 2." Wayfinder can now move any ally, but only another Trader earns the Barter.
Adjusted: Viceroy Isha: Imperial now: "I use your base Vision"
Frontier now: "Your next 2 Visions do not cost Actions."
Ascendant now: "Activate your Vision. Rebound."
Dev note: This means Isha will trigger the original form of your Vision, regardless of how many times it has been used. It will still count as a Vision use though. For example, Isha paired with The Empress will result in him Purging a Foe. This will make Isha much more flexible with different Visionaries, while also bringing down the Influence output of the "Edge of the Knife" combo deck. Also a flavor win as Isha pushes The Empress to be more ruthless, purging over and over.
Reworked: Warmother Thyra: Reveal now: "Gain a 'Temporal Beacon' for each Loyalist ally and Loyalist in hand."
Dev note: Warmother no longer introduces Energize to the Core Hero roster and instead rewards committing to a Loyalist army across both the board and Reserve.
Adjusted: Frontier Surveyor: Frontier now: "Choose a non-Scholar ally to Phase: Ascendant."
Special now: "Amplify Phase: Gain 1 Knowledge."
Dev note: The Surveyor's Knowledge gain is now a reusable Phase payoff instead of being bundled only into its own Frontier ability.
Smaller Changes:
Quality of Life:
Click on the Scoreboard HUD to get a reminder about the Era Boons for the current Galactic Sector
No more waiting to do consecutive actions, See the text of a Schematic before picking it, Animation speed scale for many Influence grants, Show/Hide button on choice panel, End Game Showdown screen no longer covers the score label, See how many actions, charges, barter you and your foe have, See cards as they go in your foe's hand, Improved Visionary status visuals. Many more!
Beauty:
All cards now play a Reveal VFX. All cards have SFX and voice-lines.
Note: there is an initial download required to download all the VFX. This will also allow OTA updates in the future!
Hand/Reserve UI is more smooth and "handy" for when you have many cards, especially on mobile. Try swiping or hovering through your hand to select the card you want to play.
Collection Screen UI Beautified
Updated Collection card view to easily access Lore and Art only display. Some search performance improvements also.
New VFX, SFX for Ruins refreshes. New VFX for visual clarity for which Era is currently active.
Added more Cosmetics (WIP), updated art for some heroes and relics.
Desktop effect notifications now use the open side rail instead of covering the foe's Visionary, Crisis, or Actions Orb.
Features:
Time Bank system added for smoother turn time management
Simple AI has graduated into Smarter AI - Smarter AI will try to Salvage and Foretell its Crisis when it thinks it can win!
Added Settings button. Let's you control volume in game, adjust frame rate, see credits, report bugs, and more coming soon.
Rules:
Relics now play first and then execute their effect (fixes edge cases with Transmuter, slight nerf to Mallow)
Many default decks updated to be more streamlined and synergistic.
Naming convention and other text standardization. (WIP will see more of this in 0.9.0 with balance changes)
Bug Fixes:
Fixed issue where Grants to hand were not showing visually in online PVP.
Fixed issue where if the AI had to take multiple choices, it could soft lock.
Fixed issue with Entropy Acolyte Imperial ability sometimes deducting a Charge instead of an Action.
Fixed visual bug for Relic items, labels should now be positioned appropriately on both mobile and PC.
Fixed bug where undoing after a Free Salvage would lock you out, and other bugs with the Free Salvage flow.
Fixed visual bug where anomalies would appear behind relics when auto-played, making it hard to read.
Fixed bug where if a player was presented with multiple choices, it would sometimes soft lock by closing out the first choice.
Fixed bug where Enlighten was triggering when dead.
Fixed bug where Hyperjumping a card with a status like Shielded or Dead would alter the duration
Fixed bug where swapping a card from hand would result in the foe knowing about it regardless if it was facedown or not
Fixed incoming Heroes briefly appearing face-up when Swapped into a Facedown Era.
Fixed bug where Kaelen/Speaker Isaac could not copy multi-step abilities/reveals
Fixed bug where Thruster, Wayfinder, Isaac would Hyperjump based on Phase instead of Position on board
Fixed bug where Salvaging a Relic when you had Free Actions did not consume the Free Action
Fixed bug where you could get a free salvage forced by Era reward despite not having enough influence to purchase a relic
Fixed Provost Thale's Reveal so its under-cap bonus correctly accounts for decks with a variable number of Heroes.
Fixed event sequencing so status, Influence, and Knowledge animations show each change in order instead of jumping ahead to the final state of a server update.
Fixed Amplify Schematic triggering from non-Schematic Relics and Blueprints.
Fixed a rare crash caused by chained effect animations starting inside the same deferred frame.
Many more! Please report any new bugs.
DOWNLOAD PATCHUpdated Roadmap:
Core Set Full Rebalance (0.9.0)
Based on player game data, many of the cards will be adjusted.
Galactic Sector balance update
Some keywords will likely be removed from the Core Set.
See the dev blogs for philosophy for these changes. Briefly, two major goals: reduce linear play patterns, encourage interaction
Ranked & Progression Improvements (0.9.0)
Improve placement matches, rating calibration, rank progression, and competitive feedback so players can better understand where they stand and what they need to do to climb. The Plan will also receive improvements to reward pacing, milestone clarity, and the overall progression flow based on Closed Beta data and player feedback.
Login features (0.10.0)
Second wave of alpha play-testers onboarding
The Beautification Update (0.12.0)
Open Beta!
Tournament Game Mode (1.0.0)
Full Launch, Start of Season 1