Ever since the Modern & Wild battle formats were released last year, players have been asking "when can I use my Doctor Blight and Chaos Legion reward cards in Chaos Legion tournaments & brawls?", or "I want a tournament with only Chaos Legion reward cards, I don't want reward cards from other editions to be mixed in", and the like.
After all, those reward cards & promos like Doctor Blight, Runi, and Lux Vega are also part of the Chaos Legion family of cards, right? They have the same style card frames and were introduced alongside the main Chaos Legion edition. So it makes sense you should be able to use them!
Well, at long last, those questions are about to be answered...
Introducing the Card Sets update
On Tuesday Feb. 7, we are planning to release Card Sets for tournaments & brawls. This effectively changes the way we think about how cards are organized. Instead of thinking in terms of what edition a card is, we will think about what set it belongs to.
What is a set?
Up until now, cards have always been grouped together only by editions (Alpha, Beta, Promo, Reward, Untamed, Dice, Gladius, Chaos Legion, and Riftwatchers). But with the introduction of the Modern & Wild battle formats, it’s becoming increasingly important to characterize cards based on the type of frame they have.
A set refers to an entire family of cards across multiple editions that all have the same card frame. A set always consists of 1 core edition (Alpha, Beta, Untamed, Chaos Legion), plus any mini-sets associated with the core edition (Dice, Riftwatchers), plus the subset of cards from the Promo & Reward editions that are associated with the core edition.
That gives us the following 4 sets (5 after Rebellion is introduced):
- Alpha Set: Alpha edition + Promo cards with Alpha borders (Dragon Whelp, Neb Seni, Royal Dragon Archer, Shin-Lo)
- Beta Set: Beta edition + Promo cards with Beta borders (the Orb cards, SEEDGerminator cards, Prince Julian, Archmage Arius) + Reward cards with Beta borders (Exploding Dwarf, etc)
- Untamed Set: Untamed edition + Promo cards with Untamed borders (Mighty Dricken, Halfling Alchemist, Chain Golem) + Reward cards with Untamed borders (Flame Monkey, etc) + Dice edition
- Chaos Legion Set: Chaos Legion edition + Promo cards with Chaos Legion borders (Doctor Blight, Oshuur Constantia, Arkemis the Bear, Waka Spiritblade, Runi, Lux Vega) + Reward cards with Chaos Legion borders (Venari Heatsmith, Soulbound cards, etc) + Riftwatchers edition
- Rebellion Set: Coming this summer!
This allows us to think of Modern cards as:
Modern - will always be those cards from the two most recent sets. Thus right now the set of Modern cards consists of all cards from the Chaos Legion & Untamed sets.
Please note that Gladiator cards are a special case and are not included in any of the sets described above. Gladiator cards can only be used in guild brawl battles or in other battles only when an ability or ruleset allows.
Sets in tournaments
Every new tournament created after the Card Sets release will have playable card restrictions given in terms of sets rather than editions.
This means the types of tournaments you see will be changing a little. For example, you won't see something exactly like this anymore:
Instead, this tournament will change to Chaos Legion Set only. Riftwatchers is included in the Chaos Legion Set, so you'll be able to use it, along with Doctor Blight, Runi, Lux Vega, and all the Chaos Legion reward cards.
Similarly, these Alpha only tournaments will now also allow you to use Alpha promo cards like Dragon Whelp, Neb Seni, Royal Dragon Archer, and Shin-Lo:
Note: Tournaments created before the Card Sets release, or in-progress at the time of the release, will still adhere to the old edition-centric restrictions. Sets will be used for all new tournaments going forwards. So there will be a transition period where we will see a mix of edition & set based tournaments, until all old tournaments have completed.
Sets in brawls
Sets will also be introduced to Frays, beginning with the next brawl cycle to start after the Card Sets release. Frays will be changing from edition based to set based, across all 5 Tiers as follows:
What else will be changing?
You'll notice a few other assorted things:
- "Alpha Cards Only" Challenge matches will mean Alpha Set instead of Alpha Edition (so you can use those Alpha promo cards).
- A Gladius filter will be added to the tournaments list page, and these filters will work based on sets instead of editions:
- Text on the tournaments & brawl screens, as well as tooltips, will refer to "sets" rather than "editions".
What about Collection & Market screen filters?
These filters will not be changing in this release, and will continue to be based on editions, not sets, for now:
However, our creative wizards are busy re-designing these filters around sets, so they will be changing in a future release likely not so long from now.
We hope these changes make the organization of cards feel a little more intuitive and enhance your enjoyment of tournaments & brawls!
Stay tuned for more updates from the Splinterlands!
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NOTE: All rewards from this post will be sent to the SPS DAO.