Posted December 04, 2025 by MasN3
As I work on adding a rank system to Aethermancer, I've noticed two undesirable effects:
- First of all, ratings are a bit too volatile. I'm going from silver to gold to diamond back to gold back to silver too quickly.
- Secondly, it's hard to climb rating, because at a certain point, climbing rating pushes the rating of visionary down. Ideally there would be enough players between visionary and tricky, and trick and fixedpoint to balance this, but this is obviously not the case right now.
As such, the following changes are being made:
The TEMPERATURE variable has been updated from 0.7 to 0.5. In other words, rating gain and losses will be 5/7th of before. Reverted. The new climbing feels too slow.
Tricky and Visionary now have a rating floor. The pre-decay rating of Tricky is now always at least exp(0.7) times higher than FixedPoint, and Visionary exp(0.7) times higher than Tricky.
Bug Fixes and Balance
The token created by Summon Lemure wasn't triggering when-summon effects, most notably acting as if it had haste. This has been fixed.
Vampire Mystic's description states that it is modified with +2 power when the opponent takes damage. It was actually given +3 power. Further testing shows that it's a bit weak at +3 power, so I changed it to +3 power. I of course had to check whether a Vampire Mystic that gains +3 power is overpowered with Fire Darts, Rank 1.
Spoiler alert: It was, so its back at +2 power. It still could be made more interesting, so I've revised the base stats from 3/31 to 1/26, made it only gain +1 power on enemy damage, but gave it Double Combat.
Elephant: Ability now reads: If you would take damage while I have hp, I take it instead. Effects like darts aren't wasted on it now, but the real reason for this change was that it was overpowered with any source of Indestructible.
Aether Elemental: ! 4 -> 3 damage to all enemies. In addition, 0+/20 -> 0+/19. Ah, Aether Elemental. It's been with us since the core set, and has stood the test of time. Too well, in fact, it overperformed in today's human test and today's bot test.
p2/E5: This opening setup has been overperforming in the stats. The 5d(FAWEE) dice have been replaced with normal rand dice.
Vampire Lord: This core is getting a major buff. Part of the insight is that the stealing 1 hp from your creatures is on average a drawback because it leads to your creatures dying, and often dying perfectly, either due to enemy attacks or your steal. As a result, the exchange rate has to be quite good to make up for it.
First, the hp has been increased [41] -> [47].
Second, vampire lord's cost discount now works with spells.
Third, The discount formula has been changed 1-8/9+ 6 for 1 / x+3 for 2 to 1-7/8+ 5 for 1 / x+2 for 2.
Vampire Lord is a very synergistic core, so I'll be paying attention to see if this is an overbuff.
Magister of Blood: Cost 11 -> 10, ! 14 -> 12, Stats 6/20 -> 4/19.
Rune of Regeneration: [-10] -> [-11]
Phoenix Hydra: (9) to (10). Yes, this card seems to have been an entire aether undercosted. Also, lives reduced from 30 to 15 (and * based off new lives).
Blackrock and Roll: As much as its thematic to the source material that this costs 5 mana, this was causing balance issues. Cost per charge increased from 5 to 6. [40] -> [44]
Specializations
This patch introduces a new core type: specializations. Specializations work like codexes, but instead of starting frozen with -2 aether, you start frozen with -1 of each mana.
I felt like I should add them because the symmetry of being 1 turn behind, but 1 turn ahead in another area looked neat.
Codex of the Overlord [36] has been replaced with Specialization: Agility [41]
Codex of Efficiency [43] has been replaced with Specialization: Efficiency [50] -3 life instead of -4 life when playing aether cards.
Card Replacement
Astral Codex Ten is getting replaced. There's a few reasons:
- I plan to make some changes regarding the managen, specializations, and perhaps introducing a proper turn skip mechanic. Astral Codex Ten is going to cause some problems with that.
- It's a trap option. Astral Codex Ten underperforms, unless you know the trick. The trick is that you always have 11 water on your first unfrozen turn. Therefore, you should run either a basics or a wild magic rune to get your 12th.
- It leads to nuanced gameplay. Admittedly, the replacement isn't much better regarding this.
The replacement card is Codex of the Master. If you've been playing for a while, you know that you're guaranteed enough mana to play your gen on your first turn, unless the opposing Abjurer interferes, that is: F3, W5, or E5. With Codex of the Master, the guaranteed gen you can play on your first unfrozen turn is W11.
Codex of the Master [41]
You are always dealt W11.
Start with mana as if you were dealt W5, +5 water, -2 of each basic.
(Codex drawback.)
Dev Comment: Although it looks like -2 of each non-water mana ruins your curve, it doesn't really, because you recoup the first on the frozen turn, and the second the first time your W11 produces, giving you a "normalish" start despite the weird opener.
Dev Comment: Yes, you are paying 2f, 2a, 2e, 2s, an action phase, and a bunch of life for 5w and a guaranteed W11. The effect is just that good.
New Cards
Scales [44]
Each time after you summon a creature, if you then have the same amount of basic creatures and aether creatures in play, gain 2 life.
Dev Comment: Punf is evidently still playing Agricola.
Fearless [48]
! Set your life total to 0.
This is a returning one, actually. It now only gives a 1 life premium over Pass, where it once gave 2.