Welcome back, sports fans!
It’s time for Guild Ball’s annual balance update, and boy, it’s a big one!
In 2024, for the 4.6 update, we kept things fairly conservative as we were just establishing our relationship with the Guild Ball Community Project (GBCP). We made the GBCP’s 4.4 and 4.5 updates official, along with brand new changes to 15 stat cards.
This year, we’ve pushed the envelope and developed updates for 27 stat cards across 17 Guilds!
For those who want to skip straight to the cards, you’ll find them in the Guild Ball section of our Resources page.
The Guild Ball Community Project
The GBCP themselves continue to diligently serve the future of the game. Late last year, they led a strong recruitment drive for new playtesters, resulting in a huge influx of new talent to help us develop new content (like the upcoming Game Plan deck, and the Lumberjack's Minor Guild). They’ve also been hard at work revitalising existing content with balance updates like this one!
Without the GBCP, their incredible playtesters, and their tireless work to support the game, Guild Ball development just wouldn’t be possible in the same way. Everything you’re about to see has been part of a collaborative effort between Steamforged Games Ltd, and the Guild Ball Community Project.
The following breakdown has been pulled together by a combination of Steamforged Games Senior Product Owner, Jamie Perkins, and Guild Ball Community Project Steering Committee Chair, Niels Hermkens. Let’s get into it!
Balance Update Development Philosophy
Before working on a balance update for any game, we discuss and decide the development philosophy for the update.
For this update, we focused on giving as many Guilds as possible at least one exciting strength improvement (buff). Ideally, buffs bring lesser used miniatures to the table to increase the variety of miniatures players use on the pitch.
There are also a small number of models becoming weaker (nerfs) intended to bring some high performing models back into line.
Guilds that received strength improvements in the 2024 update are less likely to receive the same treatment in the 2025 update.
Guild Ball 4.7 Balance Update
Alchemist's Guild - Soma / Pneuma
It might not be a surprise to most to see that the first model in this update is the Alchemist’s third captain, Soma. This powerhouse has been rocking a 60+% win rate for a while now, meaning that either they’re way too strong, or people haven’t been able to figure out how to play against them yet.
Pneuma’s output of damage was fine, but the fact that they’d stay safe while dealing it because of the casual momentous 2>< on column 2 and having a knockdown result on column 3… that was just too much.
After many versions, we decided the damage had to stay, but the reliability had to go. We split the damage from the push-dodge on column 2, made their early damage track slightly less powerful, and we moved the knockdown result to column 5, to make it less accessible.
Now, Pneuma has to pick their target more carefully. To remove some clunkiness, we also decided to give them a flat +2 TAC buff versus Burning models.
For Soma, we also decided to reign in Gimme Fuel, only giving the TAC buff once per activation. Certain models just got too strong with the buff, being able to use it multiple times in their activation — yes, we’re looking at you, Kami and Phosphor!
Alchemist's Guild - Kami
We’ve seen this little rookie take the field by storm since their release after the Free Cities Draft. She showed up with Midas as a fast, hard to pin down ball retriever. With Smoke, Kami was a hyper mobile condition spreader. With Soma, she was a lethal striker that could deal some chip damage while reliably going for goals. Her pick rate became near 100%, which is not healthy in terms of internal Guild balance. She needed a slight tap down.
We decreased her survivability by 1 HP, as all mobile rookies had weaker-than-usual defensive numbers except for her. And we chose to shorten the range of Chemical Ordnance to get it in line with her Elusive trait. This means she’ll need to get a bit more stuck in to be as effective in spreading conditions around as she was before.
The nerf to Soma’s Gimme Fuel will impact her strength even further. It’s not a big nerf, but it’ll be enough to consider playing other models, such as Vitriol or Veteran Calculus.
Alchemist's / Lamplighter's Guild - Mercury
As one of the AOE-damage dealers of the Guild and also a crossover player for the Lamplighter's, we expected to see quite a bit of Mercury, especially with how dominant the burning-focused Soma seemed to be. But nothing of the sort happened! Mercury seemed to become one of the typical absences for tournament rosters, and Lamplighter's only sporadically fielded him.
Mercury’s role as an AOE-damage focused model was taken from him by Phosphor, and the fact that he didn’t have any influence efficiency in his kit resulted in people just playing Calculus to get some ranged damage or control in.
Instead of increasing his strength (which we had already seen could be a slippery slope due to the need to nerf Phosphor in the 4.6 update) we determined we should create a new niche for this model. Well… what happens when the ball is set on fire while someone is in possession of it? Said someone will panic and randomly throw the ball anywhere they can to get away from the searing heat! Fission is how we formed that idea — his ranged damage may now also cause an enemy model to lose possession of the ball, after which it circular scatters away.
As a little extra, we also increased his power in Lamplighter's a tad by giving him a Lights Off mechanic — whenever Mercury pulls a burning or poison condition from a model, he will spread the burning condition in a fiery blaze around that model.
Alchemist's Guild - Veteran Calculus
While Kami came out swinging, the Alchemist's were less content with their winnings from the Union in Chains event. Calculus kept her utility but switched her focus to that of a striker model. Sadly, the idea seemed not to crystallize out to its final form, and people left her by the wayside.
So we had two options — either strengthen her current form, or create a new identity and build around that.
Calculus as a person is someone who is not content with the status quo. Someone who believes her Guild is declining and wants to change it for the better, if only people would listen to her ideas! But no one does. No one except for her lover, Smoke. Sadly, even that trust was broken, leaving Calculus angry and alone. Lashing out at everyone around her, she became reckless and self-destructive — a truly toxic personality, if you will.
This personal design can also be found back on her current card in Toxicity and Noxious Death. These traits, together with a slightly improved playbook in terms of retrieving the ball, make for a striker that the opponent actually doesn’t want to deal with, as it’ll literally blow up in their face as a poisonous gas cloud.
She can now use Sticky Bomb on a goal-run, making her able to poison enemy models and then use that to fuel Extraction for a dodge movement.
Lastly, we also wanted to add a bit more utility to this model — something to do when not able to go in and score a goal. This became Transmute, the first condition-removal play in Alchemist's for conditions other than Burning and Poisoned. In true toxic fashion, it’ll replace the old conditions for the Poison condition.
Blacksmith's Guild - Alloy
The last time Alloy was seen in a balance update he received a decrease in power. His 2” melee option was removed from Arsenal and his overall ability to grab the ball was diminished. This is when Cast and Bolt picked up the mantle as “scoring Apprentices” for the Smiths, as Alloy’s playbook wasn’t as effective for goal scoring. There were also activation sequencing issues with Hearth and its influence cost.
With this balance update, we’ve chosen to reinstate Alloy as the best goal-scoring Apprentice in the Blacksmith's Guild.
We’ve given him quite a bit of power by flat-out giving him the old Arsenal buffs, and bringing the 2” melee option back. This does come at the cost of the removal of Dirty Knives, though, as this character play (along with Back to the Shadows) had previously given Alloy a more non-interactive play pattern.
What came in its place is Bladework, a playbook-bought character play that provides another source of dodging, while also dealing damage and therefore activating Back to the Shadows. This leads to a potentially powerful, linear goal-scoring option for the Smith's. We’re excited to see if this brings back the glory days of 3/0 to 0/6 Blacksmith play patterns within a single tournament roster.
Brewer's Guild - Esters
The changes to Esters are simple and can mostly be called “quality of life” modifications. When she was reworked going into Season 4, she transformed into a full-time support captain with a new character play in Voice of Command. Since then, she’s quietly dropped off the radar for Brewer's players, usually only bringing her as a tech-pick against condition-heavy teams.
We removed some of the clunkiness in Voice of Command by removing the word “directly” from it. Now, Brewer's players don’t have to solve difficult geometric riddles to be able to send multiple Squaddies up the pitch in the desired direction. Also, since she is very aura-based in her type of support, we increased her MOV by +1”/+1”, making it easier to get these valuable auras closer to the action.
Butcher's Guild - Veteran Brisket
The second iteration of Brisket was only sometimes picked in Butcher tournament rosters, and her value mostly lay in Quick Time, able to give someone either a much needed threat increase, or to save a valuable model from being taken out. Her card was unfocused and needed some trimming.
The direction we chose for Brisket was one of efficiency and anti-condition tech, making Field Medic her most defining character trait. She wants to get into the action and attack a couple of models, removing all kinds of conditions from the rest of her squad, and potentially even dealing some herself through Jagged Blade, which also triggers Field Medic.
The influence efficiency is also visible in her ability to play with the ball. Her passes are free of cost through Pragmatic, and she can charge models at a reduced price as well. She’ll mostly try to be a guardian angel of sorts, fixing up the squad when they’re being controlled and providing out-of-activation movement through Quick Time and basically free teamwork action dodges. She’ll be less of a striker, but that’s what Layne and original Brisket are for anyway.
Engineer's Guild - Hoist
One of the Engineer's Mechanica models has not really seen any play since the start of Season 4. Why is that? Because Mother’s Burrow and Harriet’s Sucker Punch got nerfed — two of the character plays that would make Hoist quite strong, by either being able to teleport and steal a ball, or fire punches from 8” range by attacking a subdued model.
The challenge here lay in keeping Hoist’s flavour as a copycat alive, without going absolutely overboard and giving him access to captain-level character plays. We decided on a good balance between versatility and power, allowing them to use multiple character plays during their activation. To really hit this one home, we added Locked and Loaded as well.
Engineer's / Miner's Guild - Spade
Here we had the difficult challenge of removing Spade’s automatically hitting Controlled Explosion, without trying to nerf the Miners in the process, as they’ve been hit by multiple nerfs since their release, never actually receiving a buff. So, we decided a buff based around playing with the Miners (or rather, their captain Shaft) would be the way to go.
Tutelage will give Spade some much needed influence efficiency in Miners, either increasing her threat range through Diggy Hole, or providing the team with some pushing power through Destructive Impulse — a character play that was previously only present on Locus. Being able to make 5-6 influence activations will most certainly help the Miners attain their goals.
This change will affect her efficiency in Engineer's negatively, which is exactly what we hoped to do, as she usually was an automatic pick for any of their captains, especially Rivet and Pin Vice. This change will hopefully give some other models more presence in tournament rosters, and honestly, not a lot has changed. She only has slightly less pushing power, which has been traded in for a decent spot in a Ballista line-up, since her pushing play now also deals damage.
Farmer's Guild - Harrow
This young lad was usually only seen as a tech piece to pop Resilience traits from a safe distance by using Marked Target, as other Planter models were either more efficient in placing harvest markers, or brought more overall useful traits and plays. Quite a couple of times, we’ve even seen them missing from tournament rosters altogether.
We decided to go an interesting route with this model, as there was room for a bit of a shift in power between the captains. Thresher and Festival are the usual captain pair, leaving Grange a bit underplayed, but that is hopefully about to change. Being able to give Planter models momentous damage results via Maximum Effort is going to be a game changer for the brawly captain.
But it’s not only buffs for Grange. The change to Harrow’s healing aura will also give some strength to Festival’s Subsistence or Thresher’s Lifedrinker legendary play. Lastly, the small addition of being able to charge over harvest markers through Pick of the Crop is a small quality of life buff.
Farmer's Guild - Peck
Talking about a shift in power, it’s time that the rooster takes a step down from being a near 100% pick rate since the release of the Guild. Their heroic play has been a crutch for the Farmer's since their release, and the presence of Cocksure made it so that you could either activate early or late, and both options were fine.
We’ve decided to remove the anti-condition heroic play and switch it out for a way to place down harvest markers — something the chicken could only do on their demise. This will hopefully show that this model is supposed to be a Planter, and not an all-round mascot.
Obviously Planters are the setup and protection models of the Guild, and therefore we’ve added a way for Peck to give themselves Protective Instinct, potentially making it harder for your opponent to get onto a vital model by placing the mascot in front of them. There are also small changes to their playbook, TAC and Pain Response — the latter based around being able to move the Protective Instinct buff around.
Author’s Note: If a model is in melee with two Protective Instinct models (in this case, Fallow being the second), you must attack a model with Protective Instinct instead of any other model. You may select which Protective Instinct model to attack.
Farmer's / Shepherd's Guild - Veteran Honour
The First Lady of Guild Ball was rarely played by either of her teams, mostly due to the same reason as Harrow being left out: other Planters are more efficient or bring more useful tech.
Well, since Peck has lost his ability to mass-clear conditions, Veteran Honour picked this up in the form of Smelling Salts. This change from a protective play in Cocksure to a reactionary play also means that there’s a small dip in strength for models that rely on going quite late in a turn, such as Herder.
Fields of Wheat being able to place down a harvest marker without a range limitation for the removed marker is a nice quality of life buff. And the legendary play changing into a heroic play (ready to be used every single turn) shows off her Mason heritage — the ability to continuously provide the team with out-of-activation movement and providing a bit of defense while they’re at it through Faithful Protector.
Fisherman’s Guild - Shark
The quintessential striker “superstar” type captain has not been changed since the start of Season 4 and it shows. With all of the new additions to the game, Shark has been left behind, becoming inefficient. Lately, he’s not even in the discussion anymore when talking about ‘the best striker in the game’, which is just wrong. So what do we do about that?
We make his tackle momentous. Finished. Next!
Jokes aside, we’ve also pulled down the knockdown and the CUP playbook results a column each, while putting the 3 DMG result onto column 6. This means that he’ll have a better chance at getting that knockdown to get around i.e. Close Control and then use his enormous amount of dodges, or Tidal Surge, to get to the scattered ball.
Talking about Tidal Surge, its cost has been reduced to 2 INF. Influence cost reductions are usually the best way to balance a model that has a singular purpose. This is also why we’ve given the lad a new trait, Showboater – the first character play that Shark uses on himself costs 1 less INF, so he can Quick Foot or Tidal Surge himself for just 1 influence. Or use both for 3 influence!
To clean up this model, we’ve also removed some utility from his card with Stagger. Now Shark has a singular focus, and he might just be the best striker on the pitch once again.
Fisherman’s Guild - Sakana
With the arrival of Veteran Sakana and his Fancy Footwork, it seems that original Sakana has fallen out of grace. He was quite the linear model — increased threat range in cover with the ability to set it up for himself with Smoke Bomb, and a decent playbook together with his Anatomical Precision.
You can already see where this is going, right? Yup — momentous tackle!
But we felt that Sakana might need another niche too. He was just another fast striker in a team with already so many fast strikers — he needed his own identity. And whereas his veteran version is fully based on getting the ball with some slight utility, we gave this version actual control tech. Bye bye momentous Weak Point, hello non-momentous Netted! The Fishermen are the “goal-centric control guild”, after all…
Hunter's Guild - Hearne
Hearne was usually only played with Theron, as his Nature’s Growth always provided Hearne with a patch of forest terrain to teleport to via Nature’s Blessing.
This dependency for terrain, along with his INF generation of only 1, meant that you would need a very good reason to bring him. The INF of 1/3 was basically caused by his ability to teleport and his access to Blessing of the Sun Father, but this always meant that there were some activation issues with Theron: Hearne wants Theron to go first for the forest, but Theron wants Hearne to go first to apply Singled Out onto an enemy model for him to beat up afterwards.
Therefore, we removed the dependency altogether. Hearne now has Forest Grove, his own ability to make a forest AOE, that he can fuel using Blessing of the Sun Father. Also, we’ve increased his INF up to 2/3 to not be a strain onto the influence pool for his team.
Hunter's / Falconer's Guild - Minerva
When was the last time you’ve seen Minerva on the pitch? Her playbook is excellent, her character plays are straight fire, and the possibility to Encourage someone for free through Nocturnal Hunting is amazing. But that’s not enough, eh?
Minerva is a model that is built around ‘going in and getting rowdy’ — her playbook with the easily accessible Eye Spy, Harrier, and Knockdown are amazing in terms of setup. But defensively she’s just a 4+/0 with 15 health. She’ll go down in a heartbeat. So yeah, you’ve got your setup, but the opponent might also have 2 easy victory points by taking her out.
Feathered Friends gives Minerva some cover while in a Harrier, while also increasing her own TAC to make better use of that excellent playbook.
Lastly, we’ve increased her INF to 2/4. This comes at the cost of Easy Pickings being removed from her card, but honestly, one extra attack to deal those extra points of damage while potentially also making another point of momentum is just better, isn’t it?
Hunter's / Falconer's Guild - Veteran Hearne
Hearne’s veteran version has been referred to as “fun but clunky” a number of times. The reasons were two-fold:
First, Last Light could cause some issues in character play sequencing, as its effect triggered on the first character play, even though sometimes you’d like to use MP to pay for the cost of your second character play. We’ve removed the limitation of it needing to be the first character play. Just a small quality of life fix.
The second reason revolves around one of the most awesome traits in the game: Lunar Eclipse. Hearne was able to teleport around while dealing damage, potentially even jumping for miles after using his Skewered play. But when you look at the playbook, he actually has loads of pushes, a good knockdown, and most important of all, a reachable tackle. The problem here lies in Hearne’s mobility being locked to his damage results, of which the first momentous result was on column 4! Janky fun goal runs? Basically not a thing, also due to his maximum INF of 3.
So, what did we do? Easy. Lunar Eclipse now triggers on any playbook result. This lad will now be skipping and hopping around on the battlefield while putting people on their backsides, or stealing the ball. Having more reliability towards goal scoring will hopefully also increase the number of picks for models like Edge and Ulfr.
Hunter's Guild - Veteran Minx
The Hunter's Guild over the last few years has had a strong mainstay in its tournament roster since the Union in Chains event, veteran Minx. This lady can place down traps, blocking any entrance into your lines, and causing the snared condition when triggered. Besides that, her Heightened Senses was so incredibly easy to activate, she was typically regarded as being a 5+ DEF model with 1 ARM — currently one of the hardest defensive stats to get through.
Add Marked for Death usually being online as well, and you have a model that nobody can get rid of, and everyone wants to run away from.
When we consider the intended playstyle of the Hunter's Guild, the terms “hard to take out” and “can engage and survive” are typically not in there. This means that Minx’ inherent defensive capabilities and survivability should take a slight hit, while keeping her mobility and utility intact. Therefore, we chose to slightly increase her health pool by 1 point, and changed Heightened Senses to not increase her own DEF, but decrease the opponent’s TAC. This seemed to reign her in somewhat, and opened up lanes for other models to get back into the tournament rosters as anchor models.
Hunter's Guild - Zarola
The last Hunter's model we are adjusting in this update is Zarola, the model tied closest to their panther mascot, Fahad. Both of these models seem to be rare picks; Fahad due to Snow’s incredible value as a battery through Pack Mentality, and Zarola due to Fahad being underwhelming and herself not doing much in terms of output. She fuels her own Chain Bolas, but that’s it.
We wanted to buff Zarola’s card, but also give some power to Fahad to pull them off the bench. The first point of order was to increase Fahad’s strength through a new character play on Zarola: Catching the Scent gives a slight TAC buff, but more importantly gives an extra attack with Feral.
This will make the lethal threat from Fahad somewhat bigger, but it’s not only a Fahad buff — we should not forget that Snow has a momentous tackle on their first column with a push-dodge on their third: A single wrap makes for a tackle with disengage on a model with a 6″ KICK. Wolf goals, anybody?
Lastly, to potentially give Fahad proper one-shot potential, we changed Chain Bolas as well. The play doesn’t deal damage anymore, but does cause a -2 DEF in Snared and Knockdown conditions. It’s also buyable off the playbook now, so Zarola can lead the charge to provide an extra TAC for Fahad. Because we don’t want this play pattern to be super safe, we shortened the range of the play as well.
Mason's Guild - Hammer
The first thing to be said about this change. Mason's are a three-captain Guild once again.
Corbelli’s release and the change to Honour in patch 4.1 thoroughly cemented the way Mason's were to be played in Season 4 — loads of out-of-activation movement and a 2 goals, 2 takedowns style game plan. Due to this favouritism for quick games with loads of goal action, the slow and steady beatdown game plan took a seat on the bench, and with it, their Season 2 captain, Hammer.
We chose to not just adjust some numbers and words. We chose to go for a rework — one that took part old, part new, something borrowed, and totally Masonic blue.
Remember, way back when, how Hammer was previously able to use influence from his squad to fuel his character plays? It’s back. The legendary was an aura, which didn’t really feel on theme, as Hammer was the one leading the vanguard, so it’s a pulse now. And Corbelli and Honour provide the team with out-of-activation movement, right? Hammer can do this now too, in a way that fits his flavour and theme.
Mason's Guild - Tower
With such a power boost for Hammer, we also took into account another Mason: Tower. The captain's change has been made with one idea in mind — the removal of Tooled Up from the Guild.
Tower’s card has always been “problematic”. They want to go first to activate Tooled Up and Protect Those Close, but you can’t activate the heroic without having someone to attack and create momentum from. It also contained Floored to get access to higher columns on the playbook, but his access to KD was very low and his playbook almost equaled Ratchet’s — one of the worst books around.
Let’s bring some focus to this model with a better playbook, utilizing his Knockback and Floored better, and let’s give him the possibility to access his character play through attacking. New Tower is built around going in as the vanguard, throwing down the Sturdy aura and surviving the initial counterattack, after which his buddies will come in and mop up. A more active role, no longer crowded out by the regular slow bruisers in Brick, Granite, and Mallet.
Mortician's Guild - Obulus
Obulus’ changes are simple. In the ever evolving game of Guild Ball, it seems that there’s always the next best thing. You need to be able to keep up or leave others to do the work for you. For a while, this “other” was Scalpel, but it’s time to get the grand maester of the Morticians back to action.
The first iteration of Puppet Master granted a point of influence back after casting, providing the captain with a small bit of influence efficiency. This is back.
We’ve also changed Confidence into a trait, bringing in another point of extra influence efficiency. Obulus’ play style hasn’t changed, he can just do his thing with a cost of two less influence. A similar change in style to Shark — the initial design is great, they both just need to keep up with the young ‘uns.
Quick reminder: Confidence previously only worked on attack and character plays, but now also works on kicks. Going on an Obulus goal run is BACK!
Mortician's Guild - Vileswarm
It’s quite hard living under the shadow of a captain-level mascot. So much so that it can drive one insane.
And that’s exactly what has happened to the entity known as Vileswarm. In their crazed and ravenous thirst for blood, they want to also take to their own, slowly losing more and more of the swarm until they just… explode.
This design is particularly exciting as it’s the first of its kind. A model that is actively hurting itself, trying to use Noxious Death to add onto its damage output. And that damage output has been given a bit more oomph by small changes to the playbook and Scatter. This would be hard to sell on a model that provides the opponent with 1/6th of the required victory points every time that it dies, but a mascot might just do the trick.
Mortician's / Ratcatcher's Guild - Bonesaw
Bonesaw has always been heavily polarising. Either you totally love the model and think they’re one of the best Morticians around, or you actively hate them and think they’re useless.
There was one clear point of feedback that kept returning, though. Bonesaw doesn’t feel like a ‘Mortician’. Now that is something we needed to address.
Certain parts of his card had to stay, like his ability to move through models, and his Stamina, as they were fully part of his theme. Meditation has been removed as it encroached on the Navigators vibe, and the recent buff to Confidence and addition of The Knowledge has given Bonesaw other options to increase their reliability. Slippery has been removed as hoping that your opponent can’t roll a six was basically gambling, and Morticians should be in full control, not needing to resort to luck.
Mortician's are built around control, and Bonesaw didn’t have any of it. This is why we’ve opted to put some into his card by altering Unexpected Arrival to Spirit Strings, borrowing some of Scalpel’s Voodoo Strings idea, and giving him a heroic that would cause an enemy model to topple over after having been pushed, working in tandem nicely. Lastly, he becomes TAC 7 while someone on the pitch has been taken out — janky enough for a Mortician (and actually quite synergistic with new Vileswarm)!
We’re hoping that this change is not a buff or nerf, but just a rework to improve on the model’s theme and synergise with the rest of the squad.
Union - Strongbox
Not as big of a difference as between Dirge and Vileswarm, but Strongbox has been on the bench for a while now, mostly because of the fact that the big tortoise is slow and spends influence to do their thing. While having an influence-efficient mascot and an influence-greedy mascot is fine, the greedy mascot should also generate some form of progression towards victory.
To help with the slowness of the mascot, we’ve added Tag Along onto his card, which will hopefully help with getting the Shelling Out aura up the pitch. Confidence is now a trait, like on Obulus’ card, so he can spend that influence on something else — a charge potentially!
But, if they’re not trying to get that knockdown, the tortoise can also buy themselves Battering Ram to push the rest of the players up, and it has a fun little interaction with Tag Along!
Coin still is far more influence efficient, but doesn’t have the amount of setup that Strongbox can provide. Hopefully this will make people think twice about which mascots to bring to tournaments. Both?
Union - Snakeskin
Last, but certainly not least, is Snakeskin. The elusive assassin that wormed her way into other Guilds, posing as members and spying on them, or going in for potentially fatal terminations via quick stabs with poison-laced daggers. One can still recall what she did to Brisket…
Old Snakeskin was a jumble of tech that all fit her card, but none of it worked together harmoniously. She could give herself DEF 6+ and had a way to make it harder to hit her with character plays, and was highly mobile through Where’d They Go? and dodges on her playbook. The poison angle was present via Venomous Strike, but what was she supposed to be doing? Be a model that doesn’t really do much, but also is quite hard to get rid of during a turn?
The lass needed a rework, which is what we gave her. She was meant to be a hard-to-lockdown, poison-based spy, so this is what she’s become, based around an entirely new design space — effects triggering on dodging.
Through Poisoner, she now gives an enemy model the poison condition while dodging, and her Aqua Tofana makes the condition even more potent than it originally is. To make sure her aura is gone, you’re going to want to take her out, but then it will hit you: she’ll get back on your backline potentially through Chameleon. So make the choice: suffer the poison, or get pinched from two sides. Good luck!
Download PDFs of these new stat cards here.
See You at AdeptiCon!
That’s all from us on this balance update — if you’re already registered to come and play at one of the AdeptiCon Guild Ball events next week, you can try out the changes for yourself. And if you're not playing those events, come and play some casual games in our open play area instead!
Until next time, sports fans — Perkins out!
