
If I recall correctly… (these aren’t my words, just a summary of what I remember)
- All Grandmasters were just flat out added. Lyonar already had theirs, so Excelsious was put in instead (so that every faction has the same number of Legendaries)
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Lyonar - Epic Swap; Sunforge Lancer is pretty iconic to Healyonar, no one really played with Sunstone
, we swapped those two to keep the quantity of cards the same, while improving the Lyonar core pool
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Vetruvian - Common Swap; There is no “ranged removal” in Vetruvian’s core pool. In order to prevent having to (re)print removal every set/year for rotations, it just made sense to put the newest iconic removal (Blood of Air) into core. To do that, we removed another unplayed card (Sand Trap).
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Vanar - Rare Swap; Sometime last year it was decided that instead of accentuating weaknesses (ex: making Vetruvian General’s close-quarter monsters and thus making that Siphon Energy changes), we should just timidly shy away from anything we don’t want the faction to have.
Ranged Removal and AoE are cornerstones to Duelyst, and every faction needs them. To avoid reverting Vanar back to beta days (where a single Jax Truesight could ruin them) we opted to include Frostburn into core, and swapped out the incredibly niche (and apparently confusing) Mark of Solitude.
The whole Neutral grab-bag: lots of reasons for lots of things. Some had to do with a clash of aesthetic (Hank Hart is loveable, but messes with the vibe of Duelyst, how do you explain a spaceman in a world with Fire Spitter?). Others were the monthlies that weren’t made with the TLC, etc. I don’t have the whole list of reasons, just know there were many for why some made the cut, and why others didn’t.