2.5 Release Notes

New Card Set: Rivals of Ixalan

The fabled, golden city of Orazca has finally been found…but news of its discovery travels fast. Soon all of Ixalan’s tribes will be wrestling for control of the city, and the treasure within it: The Immortal Sun.

With more than 100 new cards and 2 new Planeswalkers, do you have the strength to wield their power and overcome your rivals?

New Mechanic

With the 4 tribes battling for control of Orazca, a new mechanic emerges to reflect this struggle for power.

Ascend
While a card with Ascend is in play or when one is played, it checks whether or not the sum of your creatures, your supports and your reinforcements is greater than or equal to 10. If it is, then you get the City’s Blessing for the rest of the game, which unlocks unique and powerful benefits to the player.

Planeswalkers

Angrath, the Flame-Chained
A planeswalking mishap has stranded this Planeswalker in Ixalan, witnessing the tempestuous conflict between the warring four tribes, alongside the Pirates of Captain Radcliff’s crew.

• Ability 1 (9):
  • Level 1: Deal 2 damage to your opponent.
  • Level 2: Deal 2 damage to your opponent. Then, your opponent discards a card.
  • Level 3: Deal 2 damage to your opponent and find a Treasure. Then, your opponent discards a card.
  • Level 4: Deal 2 damage to your opponent and find 2 Treasures. Then, your opponent discards a card.
• Ability 2 (12):
  • Level 1: Gain control of target creature that costs 5 or less until end of turn. It gains Haste.
  • Level 2: Gain control of target creature that costs 10 or less until end of turn. It gains Haste.
  • Level 3: Gain control of target creature that costs 15 or less until end of turn. It gains Haste.
  • Level 4: Gain control of target creature that costs 15 or less until end of turn. It gains Haste and “This creature is destroyed at the end of turn”.
• Ability 3 (18):
  • Level 1: Creates a support with: “Whenever a creature enters your opponent’s graveyard from anywhere, deal 2 damage to your opponent.”
  • Level 2: Creates a support with: “Whenever a creature or support enters your opponent’s graveyard from anywhere, deal 2 damage to your opponent.”
  • Level 3: Creates a support with: “Whenever a creature or support enters your opponent’s graveyard from anywhere, deal 6 damage to your opponent.”
  • Level 4: Create a support with: “Whenever a card enters your opponent’s graveyard from anywhere, deal 6 damage to your opponent.”

Huatli, Radiant Champion
Previously instructed to locate the city of Orazca by the Emperor, Huatli now rejoins the Sun Empire in the fight for control over the golden city and its fabled treasure: The Immortal Sun.

• Ability 1 (9):
  • Level 1: Create a support with “Whenever you match 3 or more White or Green gems, gain 2 Loyalty.”
  • Level 2: Create a support with “Whenever you match 3 or more White or Green gems, gain 2 Loyalty. If you control a creature, gain 3 Loyalty instead.”
  • Level 3: Create a support with “Whenever you match 3 or more White or Green gems, gain X Loyalty where X is 3 plus the number of creatures you control.”
  • Level 4: Create a support with “Whenever you match 3 or more White or Green gems, gain X Loyalty where X is 3 plus the number of creatures and creature reinforcements you control.”
• Ability 2 (12):
  • Level 1: Target creature gets +X/+X until end of turn where X is the amount of creatures you control.
  • Level 2: Target creature gets +X/+X until end of turn where X is the amount of creatures you control times 2.
  • Level 3: Target creature gains Trample and gets +X/+X until end of turn where X is the amount of creatures you control times 2.
  • Level 4: Target creature gains Trample, Berserker, Prevent Damage and gets +X/+X until end of turn where X is the amount of creatures you control times 2.
• Ability 3 (18):
  • Level 1: Draw a card for each creature you control and gain 6 mana.
  • Level 2: Draw a card for each creature you control then gain 4 mana for each creature you control.
  • Level 3: Draw 2 cards for each creature you control then gain 6 mana for each creature you control.
  • Level 4: Draw 2 card for each creature you control then gain 8 mana for each creature you control.

Events

Battle of Four Tribes – Coalition PvE – Standard
Join your Coalition and fight for control of Orazca in this new event. Beating encounters and completing objectives will help you and your Coalition gain control of the Golden City. Coalitions will be ranked based on how close to controlling Orazca you are.

• Node 1: Pirates
  • During its boss fight, both players will face a special condition: Whenever they match four or more gems of specific colors (Blue, Black or Red), special effects will trigger and the tides of war can change.
• Node 2: Sun Empire
  • During the boss fight, activated gems (Red, Green and White) will grant special benefits for each player’s dinosaurs, while harming their opponent’s strategy.
• Node 3: Shapers
  • During the boss fight, casting creatures, spells and drawing cards will create cyclical benefits by reducing mana costs, empowering creatures and increasing the speed of the battle.
• Node 4: Dusk Legion
  • During the boss fight, sacrificing your own vampires and destroying the opponent’s creatures will grant players control of the battlefield. Try to disable, exile or gain control of the enemy’s army to achieve victory.
• Node 5: Azor, the Lawbringer
  • On the first node, the Golden Guardians will fully benefit from loyalty gems. They have abilities to replicate themselves and smash the player’s planeswalker. Be ready to face a constant flow of large Golems.
  • On the second node, Azor’s Gateway should be approached as a puzzle, as you try to ascend as fast as possible to receive the City’s Blessing, in order to deliver the ultimate hit on the opponent’’s planeswalker. Be aware of a one-hit KO battle, and prevent the Gateway from Ascending.
  • During the boss fight, players will face Azor himself. The sphinx has a great variety of binding spells, bounce effects and creatures that Disable, which can completely fizzle out strategies that were not built to defeat him.

Standard Card Sets

Kaladesh and Aether Revolt will be rotating out of Standard. Since Aether Revolt was a significantly smaller set than Kaladesh as well as dependent on it, removing Kaladesh once Ixalan released would had had a negative impact on the environment. As such we decided to wait until Ixalan’s smaller set is released to remove Kaladesh block as a whole.

Card Balance Adjustments

We’d like to take a moment to talk about Ixalan; more precisely, Ixalan cards’ mana costs. Since release, we’ve been closely monitoring the forums, in order to gather feedback. A recurring one was that the cards in Ixalan were costed above the curve of the game. Because of that, we re-evaluated the collection as a whole and identified the issues that led to those high costs.

To summarize:

• We added two new mechanics in Ixalan (Explore and Treasures) that increased the mana generation potential for players. The impact of this was overestimated.
• We wanted to address the power creep issue.

Another issue was the self destructing supports. While definitely over-used in Ixalan, the mechanic will remain a tool with which we control very powerful supports. Rest assured, however, the mechanic’s use will be significantly reduced in future collections. In order to help ease the issue with XLN’s self-destructing supports, while keeping with our planned RIX release, we have increased their starting shield and reduced cost where necessary.

Before we show the changes, we’d like to thank the community for the mountain-load of useful feedback that allowed us to quickly identify the issue and correct it for future collections. So thank you for being an active and passionate community.

In light of that, we have decided to rebalance the set to bring the cost more in-line with the game’s overall cost/stat line. Here are the changes to the Ixalan Planeswalkers and Cards.

Planeswalkers

Special Offers

Bolster your forces and strengthen your tribe with brand new special offers available – including Planeswalker and Tribal themed bundles.

General Changes

After an initial overall adjustment to the AI in the Release of 2.3.0 (XLN), the AI has been adjusted again, to fine-tune the difficulty during the battles.

Bug Fixes

• Liliana, Death’s Majesty’s Anoint ability is now correctly able to add +3/+3 to a creature more than once.
• Tishana, Voice of Thunder now correctly reinforces when she is buffed upon entering the battlefield
• Sorcerous Spyglass now correctly prevents the opponent’s Planeswalker from activating any Loyalty abilities
• Damage is now correctly dealt before Pirate creatures Explore, when Vraska, Relic Seeker’s Level 3 YARGHHH!!! Support is on the board