Krosmaster: A new beginning

With the approaching release of two new tournament formats (Eternel and Season) we decided it was the right time to update the Krosmaster Arena rules.

These two formats both have their own restrictions (mentioned below) and we have also seized this opportunity to tidy up a few of the problematic aspects of the rules to make things more balanced.

We’ll leave you with [Nuuh], our game designer, who will explain all the changes coming up! 

Changes to minions

Rules on summoning limits are about to change.

From now on when a character tries to summon a unity, whether it is a mechanism or a character, they will only be able to do so if there are fewer minions in their team than the spell’s summoning limit.

For example: The King of the Gobballs can no longer cast a summoning spell if your team already controls another minion, whether it is a tofu, crobak or even a mechanism.

We have a range of objectives in this change:

• To avoid the board becoming overcrowded with too many minions: We think that having several minions at one’s disposal should be like having a player toolbox, to give players more tactical choices, and this should constitute more than just a simple way to accumulate the maximum number of minions on the board. We don’t want to ban summoner combinations, but we would like conscious choices to be made when creating teams.
   
• Harmonizing the rules for minions: Up until now we have had different rules for mechanisms and minions. The first step we made was to make mechanisms into allies or enemies, like other minions. Now, these two categories of playing pieces will be similar, and hence, easier for players to understand.
   
• Opening up Design possibilities: This change makes it possible to look at summoners in a new way. We made the minion limit into a genuine tool that helps balance the power of Krosmasters using summoning and the intrinsic power of their minions. Better interactions between the characters (or with ancient references) will be created while avoiding the risk of having excessively powerful crowds of minions.

Change to the Unfazed power

If there is one ability we have worked and reworked again and again, it is Unfazed! We are going to change its definition once again. Here is the new wording:

“A Spell or Power that does not belong to this game piece cannot apply an effect that will move this game piece”.

One of the main problems with Unfazed is that it forbids a large number of interactions with your opponent: there is absolutely no way to gain time in a confrontation. But this is also a problem for team synergies since an Unfazed person has very little interaction with other members of their team, which makes them a self-contained character, separate from the others, starting from the moment the team is put together.

We took a long time to formulate this change because it entirely removes one of the two things that have been associated with Unfazed in the past. However, this is an idea we’ve been studying for a long time, probably even before I joined the team.

We are making this change for the following reasons:

• It’s mainly to reduce the effectiveness of this power but it also opens a path for new synergies.
• In terms of design, it opens up new possibilities in terms of mechanics. In the future, we could break the former effects of Unfazed down into several powers; for example, a power that renders one immune exclusively to AP markers.
• The set pieces and traps will still function as before with the new wording.

Change to Wisdom power

Another power that has been causing issues for a long time, Wisdom, has been redesigned. We are going to limit Wisdom’s potential targets so that it meshes better with the new Boss dynamic.

The wording for this power will be:

When a character with Wisdom knocks out an enemy Boss, you steal an additional 1 GG.

When a character with Wisdom is knocked out by a Boss, your opponent steals an additional 1 GG.

This change might seem rather simple but we have actually tried many different ideas, from manipulating Demonic Rewards to making changes to initiative.

We finally chose an option that remains similar to what we already know about Wisdom in Krosmaster, while making it into a power that limits the meta. This is another important design change with effects that will usually interact with the presence or absence of a Boss characteristic near the target.
 

Authorization of the tournament timer

Use of a timer to time turns will be authorized from now on in tournaments. In local tournaments, we ask you to be lenient about timer use and not to scare off other players in a tournament with limited stakes.

We recommend a timer set at 6 minutes per turn. For top-level tournaments the limit will be set at 5 minutes per turn.

What we have noticed is that players don’t have much notion of time when they’re playing and that just having a timer in full view is enough to encourage self-discipline.

The main ideas behind the timer are:

• Spreading the use of the timer and the call for referees. Players should not referee a situation themselves.
• To usually allow players to go over the time limit in local tournaments and help players learn to play within a set time limit.
• The timer is accessible and visible to all players. The idea is not for players to sanction each other but for them to call in a referee to adjudicate.

Season format restriction lists

The Season format will be a rotating format. We have already tried to explain why we need this kind of format for the game’s future, its competitiveness and to keep it fresh. We will keep the Ban List system in conjunction with a Boss List, which will be different in the two game formats and will adapt to the evolution of the metagame for these two parallel playing styles.

However, there will be a major change in this format that we haven’t described to you yet.

During Season format tournaments no Krosmaster will be considered as the Boss (even if it is written on a card) unless this Krosmaster is present on the Boss List.

Yes, you read that right! From now on, characters like the Queen of Thieves, Royal Gobball, etcetera, will no longer be considered as a Boss, either during team creation or during a match.

Only characters on the Boss List will be considered to be a Boss during tournaments!

This opens up a lot of new synergies to explore, and we hope that new figurines will use this change to their advantage.

However, the Ban List and Boss List will still exist for this format. Here are the new versions:

Ban List

Arthur Bine
Poochan
Theo
Henual

Boss List

Black Crow
Ghett Outadier
Julith
Djaul

Here are a few explanations about why certain figurines are on these lists.
 

We chose to exclude Poochan and Henual for a similar reason to Theo. 

These three Krosmasters transform the behavior of other figurines too dramatically and too efficiently.

We have tried to ignore this phenomenon for a while. Even if we expected there to be synergies between characters, and even hoped this would happen in Krosmaster Arena, these two figurines, Poochan and Henual, are far too effective and this has a substantial impact in the game environment.

For example, a figurine with an initiative of 5 can get a helping hand from Poochan, increasing their effectiveness hugely in comparison to a Krosmaster with an initiative of 6. This has created a troublesome problem of balance and design for us. We tried putting Poochan and any other major characters benefiting from Poochan’s help on the Boss List, but then we noticed players were preferring to play non-Boss Krosmasters, rather than do without Poochan! 

Arthur Bine is on the list because this is a combo piece that is much too strong. Arthur possesses an accumulation of positive points: an explosive hitting strength, no line of sight and medium range, impressive mobility gains, and an integrated healing capacity. All of these points combined made us decide to put him on the Ban List.

For a long time we have hesitated to make an official change. We have finally settled on the idea of drastically reducing the length of the Boss List. In the future this means people will take on new powerful figurines by choosing a response from the Boss list, rather than having new characters continually added to this list.  This allows us to begin debossifying profiles that probably don’t deserve to have this standing.

Well, this message is getting rather long, so I’ll be in touch again very soon to present Eternel. There’s quite a few changes there too!

May the dice be with you.

[Nuuh]