Balancing Patch Notes for Origins Season 5
Complete upcoming balance patch notes for Origins Season 5
In this post, we’ll walk you through the upcoming balancing changes for Axie Infinity Origins as well as some of the thinking behind them. These changes will go live at least 1 week before the beginning of Season 5 so you’ll be able to test them out and we’ll be able to make tweaks and bug fixes as we gather data and feedback.
We know that the community is curious about the methodology behind our balancing decisions and want to use this post to share our thoughts and shed light on the intended direction of these changes.
Please note that the reasoning behind these changes is derived from our present understanding and assumptions. However, unforeseen factors and unknown variables may affect the extent to which our intended targets and outcomes are achieved.
Let’s get to it!
Plant Class
Reptile Class
Beast Class
Not So Innocent Lamb
[Innocent Lamb] is likely one of the most flexible cards in the game allowing for what can only be described as in-game sideboarding where you can decide on how to adjust to your opponent depending on the matchup.
This on-demand answer also serves to enhance a deck’s consistency as you’re able to place more than 3 copies of a specific card into your card rotation. Being able to immediately play the copied card essentially allows you to treat it as an extra copy.
With the intention of toning down the explosiveness of [Innocent Lamb], similar to how Ena’s [Magic Sack] works, the copied card will be added into the player’s hand in the following turn instead of immediately. It is not placed on top of the deck and thus cannot be discarded by effects such as [Neo] or [Parasite], and will not delay deck rotation by consuming a card draw.
100% Cotton(tail)
[Cottontail] is tempo incarnate. A standard in more aggressive teams but seen even in archetypes such as midrange to give you that extra reach you would have otherwise been missing.
With the recent changes in Resource Rollouts over the first 3 Rounds, Player 2 found themselves enjoying a very specific advantage which is naturally having 7 Energy Fragments by Round 3.
The cost of [Cottontail] in Energy Fragments has been raised to 8 which allows both players to naturally (without Fragment Generation) hit their [Cottontail]s on Round 4. The Base Heal as well as the Heal per Energy Fragment have been adjusted so that the total Healing is unchanged.
With this change we expect games to be a bit less swingy in the early rounds while also providing equal accessibility to this powerful effect regardless of turn order.
Bird Class
Aqua Class
Bubbling up AoE & Multihit
No other archetype leverages the use of Buffs more than the AoE Archetype. Aquas have their share of Cards right in the mix such as Catfish, Gill, and Ranchu. However Bubbles and Bubble Bombs haven’t quite aligned with this playstyle.
As such Bubbles have been adjusted to allow hits from AoE & Multihit to trigger the HP based DMG and Bubble Bomb will provide Multihit attacks with the same +5 DMG it did for AoE Attacks.
Feather however is seeing a minor nerf where the base +1 DMG is being removed and instead the Bonus DMG from hits (Orange Feather) will scale to 20 instead of 19.
A few related cards such as Granma’s Fan, Ranchu, and Cupid are seeing adjustments in line with these changes.
Bug Class
Curse Card Updates
Curse Be Gone!
With the introduction of Fade, Curses will no longer be Banished but instead completely removed from the battle.
Curses that used to Banish on use such as Goo and Blackmail will instead Exile; and Curses that used to have Ethereal such as Confused, Jinx, Void, and Burn will Fade away instead.
Tool Card Updates
Wording is Key
Following the major overhaul of the majority of texts in-game in the previous season we continue making efforts to ensure that the game is intuitive and effects do as they’re expected when read.
In Season 5 we’re introducing three keywords, two which players will already be familiar with and one completely new. The purpose of this is to promote consistency as well as to shorten the rules texts of multiple cards as these effects are quite common.
Detect & Purify
Detect and Purify are originally the names of Tool Cards that allow the player to either Remove a Secret from their opponent or Remove a Cursed Card from their Deck. These have been lifted to be used as Keywords instead with the following effects:
Detect
“Remove a random Secret from the target.”
Purify
“Exile a Cursed Card from your Draw Pile, Hand, or Discard Pile, in that order.”
Their corresponding Tool Cards have been renamed to accommodate this change wherein [Detect] will now be [Scan] and [Purify] will now be [Prayer].
Alongside Cleanse and Dispel, these make up the general purpose effects that players use to interact with each other during matches.
The following format will be used when specifying the repeat application of an action:
“<Action>: X” where X is the number of times the Action is performed. As an example, Arco which removes secrets twice will be written as “Detect: 2.”
Fade
“When your turn ends, if the card is still in Hand, remove it from the battle.”
Fade is essentially Degrade, but without the [Confused] card being added to your deck.
This keyword is being introduced specifically to accommodate a change in the behavior of Cursed Cards, that is, all Cursed Cards will now be removed from the battle instead of going to the Banish Pile.
Cursed Cards by design are meant to serve as a hindrance to your opponent but under certain circumstances might end up helping them as is the case with [Topaz]. With this change once a Cursed Card does its job, it simply disappears.
Runes and Charms Updates
Runes
Charms
Utility Charms for Everyone
Charms that alter Cards and provide access to mechanics such as Cleanse, Purify, Detect, Dispel will have their PP Cost reduced to 3 (was 5). This should allow for more flexibility when building teams and more opportunity for players to tech for any particular meta in their bracket.
One big change is the adjustment of [Bean’s Charm] allowing it to alter Attack Cards as well which should allow less aggressive decks to tech accordingly against Curse based opponents.
Status Effect Updates
Status Effect Overhaul
With the previous topic in mind, four Status Effects have been reworked to promote their usability both on their own and in conjunction with one another.
Doubt
“Receive -25% Heal & Shield. HP Loss increased by +25% .”
Doubt previously only reduced healing provided by Cards making its usage very limited. It will now reduce Healing from all sources.
In addition to this Doubt will also reduce Shields received by the affected Unit also from all sources, as previously seen with Fragile.
And lastly, all forms of HP Loss will be increased by 25%.
These changes are made to position Doubt as a Status effect that dampens the effectiveness of sustainability while also amplifying HP loss likely from status effects.
Fragile
“Take +10% DMG, additional 10% while Shielded.”
Fragile has often found itself in the shadow of Vulnerable wherein the effect was essentially non-existent in matchups against teams that didn’t have any Shields to speak of.
A base of 10% DMG Bonus has been applied together with a conditional 10% DMG Bonus should the opponent be shielded.
With Doubt taking the role of keeping enemy shields manageable, Fragile will pivot towards further breaking through those defenses as a more offensive debuff.
Vulnerable
“Take +10% DMG, additional 10% while not Shielded.”
From its inception Vulnerable has always been a bit of an easy pick. Without any means of counterplay outside of cleansing the debuff and with dealing damage being a general goal there was little to no reason not to run this status effect.
The total amount of DMG amplification remains the same at 20% but with the condition that the target is not Shielded, or as you might say, is Vulnerable.
One key takeaway here is that while Fragile and Vulnerable are two sides of the same coin, on their own they provide a guaranteed 10% and conditional 20% bonus. When used in tandem will come out to a guaranteed 30% DMG bonus with or without shields on the target.
Weak
“Deal -20% DMG. Grant -20% Shield.”
Lastly we have Weak which previously only reduced outgoing DMG and in turn had little to no impact against teams that didn’t deal any direct DMG at all.
With that, Axies that are affected by Weak will also see their outgoing Shields reduced by 20% providing Weak with a bit more utility against different matchups.
Game Mechanic Updates
The Bloodmoon Ratio
If there was ever a list of top Game Mechanics that gained attention from players Bloodmoon would easily deserve a spot. By design Bloodmoon serves the purpose of ensuring that games end in a timely manner, while also creating an environment where players find themselves pressured to act.
One consideration with the previous design of Bloodmoon is that damage done in earlier rounds can find itself overtaken by the Max HP Reduction effect of Bloodmoon essentially invalidating it, and in consequence, healing that damage isn’t necessary either as again, Bloodmoon simply covers up whatever health was lost by an Axie.
With this in mind immediately after an Axie has their Max HP Reduced by the effect of Bloodmoon, their Current HP will also be adjusted such that whatever HP% they were at prior to the reduction will be retained. In short, if your Axie was at 50% prior to the reduction, it will still be at 50% after the reduction.
This change will allow earlier damage to still carry some weight into the late game while also making healing in matches more impactful.
Final Thoughts
Thanks again for joining us on this journey to make Origins the best game it can be. We're excited to see how all of these Balancing Updates can help take Origins Season 5 to the next level!
See you in the arena! ⚔️🛡️