The Skybound Odyssey season patch benched Bugfix, served the game’s first-ever ban and provided the beginning steps toward a complete player compensation policy. Posted Sept. 16, it will go into effect Oct. 3, after all of the World Championship Qualifier events have completed.

Moonlight Jellyfish uniques

As one of the first cards to be suspended altogether in the game’s history (in the Trial by Frost season patch Jan. 30, at the same time that Haven in Axiom was initially suspended), Moonlight Jellyfish have again made history as the first fully banned uniques in both Yzmir and Axiom.

The commons and rares are still fully playable and have remained so throughout the multiple-month suspension process while developers worked on a possible fix for the character.

At the time, developers were concerned about how the character’s ability for recursion when sacrificed could lead to powerful and unpredictable interactions. With unique abilities tied to the Jellyfish’s main mechanic, it became difficult to find an approach that could effectively errata the character.

After months of working different options, developers permanently banned the character, as “any errata aimed at bringing them into a healthy gameplay experience would have simply made them unplayable.” Keeping them around would cause additional interaction issues with later sets as well.

This patch also debuts the first parts of the player compensation policy for cards affected by balance patches, with some of it going into effect with the set’s release. For Moonlight Jellyfish, every player who owns one or more copies of a unique will receive a random unique from the current set (in this case, SKY) for each copy they owned. In this particular case, because the suspension lasted so long before banning, every affected player will receive an extra SKY unique card.

Importantly, the compensation will not be “one-and-done,” according to Thalia, Equinox marketing and communications project manager, in the official Discord server. Players who own a Moonlight Jellyfish now will be compensated. If a player opens a Moonlight Jellyfish years in the future and hasn’t been compensated, the policy will still apply to provide compensation.

The full details of the new policy will be shared in the upcoming week. The part of the policy that covers errata will go into effect immediately, while the part related to banned cards will activate after the launch of SKY.

Bugfix and suspension list

After being added to the watchlist with the Whispers from the Maze midseason patch July 29, Bugfix in Axiom joins others on the suspension list. Benching the card gives the team time to explore adjustment options, with the article calling out the possibilities of targeted errata or an update to the game’s rules. Some potential solutions have already been identified.

The suspension affects only the common and rare in Axiom, allowing the out-of-faction version in Ordis still available for play.

The card recently came under scrutiny as Treyst became quickly ascendant in WCQ events over the past few months. Some of those decks relied on a loop interaction with uniques that could bounce Bugfix back to hand after creating a Brassbug, skipping past the card’s cooldown and allowing it to be immediately played back out, creating 2/2/2 sets of stats for 1 mana using Treyst’s hero Scrap counter as fuel and a highly efficient After You. As an example, the article calls out the Treyst deck that won at the Spain WCQ, which included three such uniques. While Treyst has done well in recent months even without this tech (breaking the general meta even before Afanas received his patch), player frustration has risen against the card.

Bugfix joins Baba Yaga in Ordis on the suspension list.

Helping Hand rejoins the field

With the new Afanas errata, Helping Hand in Yzmir has been released from the suspension list without any changes. As the spell now gains fleeting no matter where Afanas plays it from, the immediate stat boost it provides is more difficult for him to exploit.

Bringing it back into Yzmir’s options also gives other heroes the ability to use it for new deckbuilding dynamics. The team will continue to monitor how it’s used, especially in connection to Afanas’s performance.

Kadigiran Mage-Dancer has also been taken off the watchlist, now running at a more appropriate power level even when paired up with Helping Hand.

Future-proofing errata

Will-o’-the-Wisp received a minor errata related to its interaction with a new Lyra SKY card, The Western Wind. Typically, the card moves one target expedition backward and its counterpart forward for 2 or less mana depending on the rarity. With the current wording of Will-o’-the-Wisp, if an expedition is in Ocean, it would be unable to move forward at all, giving the possibility of pushing one side back while blocking the progression of the other for a low mana cost.

The new text reads: “If an Expedition facing me is in {O}, it can’t move forward during Dusk, except due to {O}.” The reworked text makes it so Will-o’-the-Wisp only gates advancement during Dusk, allowing The Western Wind to play its tricks in a more balanced environment.

That errata does not effect unique versions of Will-o’-the-Wisp, however, as the team believes that using a unique slot for this type of interaction feels more balanced and acceptable, as well as providing a new route for Lyra deck strategies.

Read more

• Try new Skybound Odyssey cards in the BGA Demo Deck Tournament
• Skybound Odyssey card reveal: Leviathans spotted ready to party
• Lokinox Q&A: New distribution, LGS support, preorder details shared