Mortals, we’ve made some balance changes to a few recent cards. Some may be expected, others less so—here’s the reasoning behind them and why they matter.
Charity, Shining Pilgrim
Change stats from 3/2 to 1/6
Charity is a great concept—a card that rewards you for doing things you might not normally do, like not attacking. The issue was her power level; you need to land her and keep her alive for a round, which is tough with only 2 health.
To match her pacifist theme, we’ve made her tankier and less likely to trade in combat. It felt odd for a pacifist to be able to crash into a Viking warrior for value. Her new 6 health makes it harder for opponents to simply use a god power and removal to end your attempt, while her lower attack makes it easier for others to trade into her without losing board position.
With alternate win conditions, hitting the sweet spot between unplayable meme and broken can be tricky. This change moves her closer to that ideal—she may not win the game outright, but she can generate a massive amount of favor and still pay for herself.
Mayday, Jaded Admiral
Changed health from 4 to 5
The libertarian queen of the seas has gained a sturdier constitution. Mayday was designed to enable a self-milling strategy while also being a strong standalone legendary. There was a time when a 4/4 for 4 with Twin Strike, Ward, and Protected would have been unheard of, so the forced self-discard cost helped balance her while adding interesting interactions, like powering up Blade of Whiteplane or Fallen Legion.
Mayday still fulfills these roles, but 4-cost creatures now have a very high pedigree. We want her to see some limited play and for self-mill to become a viable Deception deck type. This slight health bump helps her compete with the likes of Scavenger Impling, Elixir-head, and Aloria.
Mendicant Traveler
Increased attack from 1 to 2
Not much to say here—we undershot his stats. The design was loosely inspired by Empyrean Pacifist, as someone who interacts well with fellowship and favor strategies. But the game has moved on; a 1/1 for 1 can no longer be a credible threat.
Adding 1 attack means this creature isn’t just a sitting duck—it can trade and has some later-game snowball potential. Played on turn 1 alongside another 1-drop like Blind Martyr or Felid Protector, followed by a turn 2 hand dump, it can generate significant health and favor value. It won’t happen every game, but now, when your opponent blitzes your Traveler, you at least get something for your first-turn investment.
Ludia’s Schemer
Ability now reads: Roar: Deal 2 damage. After you play another Guild creature, return this to your hand and reduce its mana cost by 1 (minimum 1).
Anyone who’s faced this deck on ladder can probably see why this change was needed. As written, and combined with Forge New Bonds and Eri, it enabled an infinite damage combo in Deception where none had existed before.
While the combo wasn’t stronger, faster, or more consistent than similar options like Schoolteacher, it didn’t feel appropriate for Deception. Magic can run glass-cannon combos by trading consistency and control for speed through ramp, search, thinning, and cost reduction. That’s a real, polarized trade-off.
Deception didn’t have to make that trade. It still had access to two of the best proactive answers in the game—Ludia’s Deception and Cutthroat Insight—to protect both the combo and its health total.
Many future printings would make this combo even less desirable. Since it ran counter to the card’s intent and was widely disliked to play against, we’ve made this change.
Proselytize
Cost changed to 1
This card represents an unprecedented effect in the game. While we’ve had favor-stealing cards since launch, none have been as absolute as this. There’s a meaningful design difference between stealing a fixed amount of something and stealing all of it, so we initially erred on the side of caution.
This card was always intended to work with Charity and Light’s “favor matters” themes. In cases where it steals around 30 favor, it can theoretically represent a -2/+2 card swing. While it can be extremely powerful, those situations are more corner cases than the norm.
After reviewing Sanctum play patterns, we’re comfortable making this a 1-mana spell. It will occasionally act as a game-winning bomb, but usually late in the game, when matches should already be nearing their conclusion.
Living Library
Gained spell boost +1
We really liked this card’s design. Playing an inanimate creature early that springs to life later creates tension for your opponent: do they deal with it now and ignore other threats, or address it before it’s fully online?
The issue was execution. Strength and Health couldn’t make a Level up of 10 feel worthwhile while staying safe for print, and Magic had recently received a similar but much stronger card in Palmera.
Adding Spell boost brings this creature in line with other spell-boost cards in Magic. It’s not overbearing, but now provides early benefit to its controller and forces opponents to acknowledge it, making it a viable choice for some decks, though not all.
Petit Bourgeois
Updated wording - Hidden for 1 turn. At the start of your turn gain +1 strength and heal your god for 2.
Private eye
Updated wording - After this attacks and survives, pull the top 2 cards of your deck into your void and gain +1 health.
Negotiations Partner
Updated wording - Roar: Pull the top card of your deck into your void and draw a card.
These 3 are copy changes just to keep our templating consistent.
Going forward, we are going to reserve the term discard for when a card is moved from either player's hand to the void, not through playing it. It’s surprisingly not a word that appeared on many cards before Age of Ascent. There are now a total of 11 cards plus an echo with the word discard in Gods Unchained, and 4 of them were from this set.
We hope this update adds variety to your matches and gives a few underused cards and strategies more life. Our goal remains a broad meta with multiple viable decks for each god. These changes create strong role players for both current and future decks. Let us know what you think in the Discord—we love hearing your feedback.
See you in the Arena!