July 6, 2018
Greetings Lightseekers,
Just like we did with Lightseekers: Mythical we are going to be doing some updates to the comprehensive rules, and updating the banlist for tournament play.
A new version of the Lightseekers Comprehensive Rules will be made available in the near future, though they will not take effect for tournament play until the official release of Lightseekers: Kindred on the 7th of August, 2018. Any bans or erratas to cards will also take effect on this date, so notably there will be no change before the US National Championship event at Gen Con.
If you have any feedback on the following please feel free to reach out to us on Facebook, Twitter, or via email at contact@lightseekers.cards
Major Rules Changes
There have been a number of clarifications made to the rules document in different sections in order to make the working out of corner cases easier.
Burn & ‘Store’ Effects
Moving forward with Lightseekers: Kindred, the keyword for Burn has been updated to have the following effect:
Cards labelled with this keyword cannot be moved out of the discard pile or stored under other cards. If a card attempts to move a card labelled as Burn out of the discard pile, this effect fails. These cards are still kept in the Discard Pile once they move there.
Cards are given the Burn keyword when we are concerned about them being recurred and played multiple times – in keeping with this, the ‘loophole’ of catching them with storing effects has been removed.
Hand Reveal Effects
Moving forward with Kindred, we will be reverting the hand reveal rules for proving card effects to what it was Pre-Mythical. So players will only have to reveal what information is absolutely necessary for proving card effects. Having now run events with both sets of rules, we’ve determined that less information being provided is the direction we would like to go forward with.
We’ll also have an update in the Tournament Rules document specifically that covers this situation with examples.
As well as this for all future sets, we will be looking at ways that we can alleviate this rule, by moving away from cards that require proof for their effects.
Ban & Errata Changes
The following cards have either seen an errata or been added to the banlist. As with all cards on the banlist, there is no guarantee that they will remain on there forever, and they will be periodically reviewed to see if they can return to the game. If you have any feedback that you would like to share on these changes, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us via our social media or by emailing us at contact@lightseekers.cards
Dolo the Mighty (Errata)
Frequently taking up more than its fair share of the meta in events, and forcing other Mountain Heroes out as viable choices, Dolo the Mighty has been on our watchlist for the past few months. In order to not prevent players whose only access to the Mountain Order is through the Mountain Starter deck Dolo will be receiving the following errata for use in both Basic & Advanced Constructed tournaments:
Previous: Ability: Take 2 damage. Draw 2 cards.
New: Ability: Take 3 damage. Draw 2 cards.
Spirit Gate, Time Worm, and Reality Rift (Errata)
A constant concern in terms of the overall power level of Lightseekers is the effectiveness of cards that can return other cards from the Discard Pile. While we were quite relaxed on these effects in Awakening, it’s becoming more of an issue as new cards come into the game and more possibilities become available. In order to shut down some of the more straightforward and less interactive ways of “looping” cards, we have applied the ‘Burn’ keyword to the following cards:
Spirit Gate
Time Worm
Reality Rift
Wind Controller (Errata)
In combination with the errata mentioned above, we are also making a slight adjustment to Wind Controller; it can no longer move back ‘Burn’ cards.
Previous: [Played] Attack and Defend combos and [Expired] Buff combos are immediately moved back into your hand (after applying their effects).
New: [Played] Attack and Defend combos and [Expired] Buff combos are immediately moved back into your hand (after applying their effects). This does not apply to [Burn] cards.
Tantosian Blacksmith (Errata)
There has been a relatively minor change done to Tantosian Blacksmith, which you will also see on the reprinted version of the card. Moving an item into play is now optional.
Previous: Move 1 Item card from your hand or deck into play. Gain 1 additional action.
New: You may move 1 Item card from your hand or deck into play. Gain 1 additional action.
Flynamo (Ban)
Whilst a seemingly innocuous card by itself, Flynamo has proven to be quite the enabler in a number of highly competitive strategies, whilst also being a difficult card for all players to reasonably access. Lightseekers: Kindred also features new Item cards for all Elements, and we don’t want a new Time Item to be immediately invalidated because it doesn’t measure up to a card that is known to be too good nor did we want to make the new Time Item to be better and cause power creep. In order to increase diversity in Item choices & bring certain decks power levels into a more reasonable balance Flynamo will be banned with the release of Lightseekers: Kindred.
Sun Beacon (Ban)
In the overall balancing of the game, Sun Beacon stands above many other options in not just Astral but all Orders as providing far too much value in a single card with negligible downside. Seen as an automatic 3-of in Astral decks in tournaments over the past few months and pulling double duty as both efficient healing and damage. In order to create more variety in deckbuilding choices for the Astral Order, Sun Beacon will be banned with the release of Lightseekers: Kindred.
Tyrax Engineer (Ban)
In much the same way as Sun Beacon, Tyrax Engineer provides far too much value in a single card with a restriction to deckbuilding choices that only gets easier as more and more Mechanical cards get printed. As it is also a primarily defensive card, it serves to draw games out for longer, causing an issue in timed rounds at tournaments; for these reasons it will be banned on the release of Lightseekers: Kindred.
Discuss this further in our forum post.