(Update)

The temporary vial bonus for Homecoming will last until the next major update as opposed to the end of October.

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In anticipation of the update planned for the end of September, we’d like to outline a card cost adjustment to be implemented then.

Summary
1. The Forestcraft spell Homecoming will cost 7 play points instead of 5.
2. For a limited time, Homecoming will yield 800 vials when liquefied.

1. Cost Adjustment

In the August 15th update, we made the following changes:

1. The player who goes second draws two cards instead of one on the first turn.
2. The Forestcraft amulet Harvest Festival costs 4 play points instead of 2.

Go to the following website for details:
August 15th Update

The above changes were made to reduce the excessively high win rate of players who go first and to prevent Forestcraft decks based on Path to Purgatory from becoming too dominant in the metagame.

Based on player match data from September 8th to 11th, the changes had the following effects:

– Players who went first won 49.6% of all ranked matches.
– For each rank, this percentage went from 48% to 51%.
– For each class, the win rate difference based on who went first was smaller than before the August 15th update.

Overall, we don’t feel that who goes first currently has a significant effect on game balance.

Meanwhile, regarding Path to Purgatory Forestcraft decks, there don’t seem to be any win-rate problems at AA rank or below. However, for players at the Master rank, these decks boast a high overall win rate of 54.4%, with rates exceeding 65% for some matchups. Naturally, we consider such deck dominance a serious problem.

That said, although Path to Purgatory’s ability to deal 6 damage to all enemies is indeed powerful, it’s really difficult to reach 30 shadows, so we don’t think it’s necessary to adjust this card’s cost or effect.

More specifically, for non-Forestcraft decks, Path to Purgatory’s effect seems to be in line with the condition necessary to trigger it, so the card seems fine in such decks. This is also backed up by win-rate data related to non-Forestcraft decks containing this card.

At the same time, Homecoming is often used in Path to Purgatory Forestcraft decks. One weakness of Path to Purgatory decks is the need to buy time until the card triggers, and Homecoming is ideal for this.

Due to its ability to return all followers to the players’ hands, Homecoming is especially powerful against decks that rely on high-cost followers, which helps make the card too effective for more easily triggering Path to Purgatory’s effect. The combination of Homecoming and Path to Purgatory is currently so powerful that it risks pushing other decks and strategies right out of the metagame.

This is a problem because we’d like to see our players enjoying a variety of decks and strategies in Shadowverse, even at the most competitive levels of play.

In addition, when Homecoming is played multiple turns in a row during the midgame, the opponent’s cards are repeatedly returned to their hand, which can ultimately prevent them from drawing cards. To make matters worse, having a full hand can result in crucial cards being discarded, which is no fun at all! Though players sometimes end up filling up their own hands by using card-drawing effects, Homecoming’s ability to force opponents to deal with full hands makes this card uniquely frustrating, and not in the fun, challenging kind of way!

Because Homecoming’s strength seems to exceed its cost and the card can be extremely stressful to deal with when played repeatedly, we decided to increase its cost from 5 to 7.

2. Temporary Vial Bonus
We will compensate for the above change by increasing the number of vials you receive for liquefying Homecoming. Vials obtained will be increased from 250 to 800 for a normal card and from 600 to 800 for an animated one.

You need 800 vials to create one copy of a Gold card. This compensation is aimed at users who created Homecoming but would like to exchange it with another card due to the upcoming adjustment.

The compensation will be available from the end-of-September update until the next major update which will be announced at a later date. After this period, the number of vials received will revert to normal. We will follow up with details in the future.

Note that the temporary vial bonus for Harvest Festival will end once the end-of-September update goes live, and the number of vials received will revert to normal.

3. Future Plans
The Shadowverse Team will continue to analyze players’ match data in order to ensure game balance, and we will adjust card abilities when necessary. In such cases, users will be notified in advance and compensated with vials for liquefying affected cards.

Thank you for continuing to thwart the forces of darkness (and good!) with us!

Shadowverse Team