Hero Rebalancing After This Weekend's Open
Apologies from myself and the developers of Champions of Otherworldly Magic for Aethonar and Zorkavah being stronger than intended.
Along with Aethonar and Zorkavah and the recent hero buffs comes data regarding the last 2 months of standard ranked ladder play.
Madeleine has always been strong, including taking the top3 spots of the previous Open before being banned this weekend where Aethonar and Zorkavah dominated. Tsunami effects getting +1 is an effect worth 1 mana and it happens plenty over the course of a game. Steadi is a 3 mana card, but after the passive is closer to 4, making a 5 mana active a little too strong, which is why it will be increased to 6 mana.
Thalas took awhile to find the right build, but has seen it's share of top8s as well. You can use it's active early as removal to push damage, then later use it 3 times in a turn starting turn 9. Changing the active from 3 mana to 4 will keep Thalas strong without players leaning on the active as much.
Incendium had two buffs in the last update, gaining a passive of your Arson champions dealing 3 damage to a random enemy, and a cheaper active from 10 to 4 life. Summoning Messik for 4 mana would be fair at no life-cost. At 3 mana, however, getting a 1 mana discount is worth 6 life rather than 4.
Aldric is an accessible Hero that is cheap to build and has many different ways to construct it. Aldric's heavy play, along with it's win-rate, says it should be taken down a notch. The active goes from 2 mana to 3 mana.
Gemini is an common hero but hasn't seen play since the update. Reducing it's active to 2 mana from 3 will make it stronger and more appealing while giving new players an accessible hero to try.
These are what the changed Heroes will look like:
Passive - Dark cards cost 1 less. Whenever you play a card you lose 2 life. You can't evolve
Passive - Start with Fyusha in play. You can't evolve Fyusha on your first turn going first
Passive - Your Tsunami deals 1 additional damage to all affected Champions
Active - Summon 1 Steadi (6 mana)
Passive - You Fangz have Otherworldly in addition to other abilities
Active - Summon 1 Fangz (4 mana)
Passive - Your Arson also deals 3 damage to a random enemy Champion or Player if there are no enemy Champions
Active - Summon 1 Messik (3 mana, 6 life)
Passive - Light Champions have +1/+0
Active - Your Champions have Rush until end of turn (3 mana)
Passive - Your Genetic Split can summon any Element evolution. You may play up to 6 copies of Gemini in your Deck
Active - Add a random Gemini evolution to your hand (2 mana)