Coming Soon: New Card Set Structure and Content Cycle

Hello everyone!

Earlier this year, we announced several details surrounding our plans for KARDS content going forward. Here’s a brief summary of the main points in Director of Game Design Keli’s dev blog:

• Two major releases each year. Large summer and winter expansions, each containing new features and around 80 new cards, with smaller content releases in spring and fall.
• Card rotation with major releases. Equal number of cards are moved to the Reserve pool as cards that arrive with the release.
• Hand-picked rotation. Cards entering the Reserve pool will be hand-picked, with new expansion cards being safe from rotation for at least 1.5 years.
• Keep using Reserve cards. Play in AI training matches, challenge matches with friends, and an upcoming PvP gamemode.
• Reserve cards reintroduced. Cards may return to the game with future expansions.
• Card set simplification. While all cards belong to their own original sets, you'll only be able to buy two types of card packs at any given time: packs from the latest expansion (currently Legions), and Core packs, which contain all other cards.
• Shop changes. World at War bundles retired from the Shop, Theaters of War temporarily removed and reintroduced at a later date without card rewards.
• Crate system rework. More things will contribute to filling up the crate, which fills up more frequently but with reduced rewards each time, providing overall similar gains.
• Duplicate protection. Card packs and rewards will not give duplicates if possible.

You can find more details in Keli’s dev blog The Cycle of KARDS and our followup blog FAQ: The Cycle of KARDS.

What Happens Now?

At the end of April, we commence the first phase of the new content cycle. At that time, the following happens:

• All cards, apart from the latest expansion, Legions, become part of the new Core set.
• Theaters of War campaigns and World at War bundles are removed from the shop. Theaters of War will return at a later date in a reworked state, without the card rewards.
• Five very infrequently used cards move into the Reserve pool.

Which Cards Are Rotated Out?

For this first rotation, only 5 very infrequently used cards enter the Reserve pool. This first rotation is primarily intended to test the Reserve pool system before the first major rotation happens this summer, when the summer expansion is released.

The cards to be rotated into the Reserve pool at the end of April are:

• AT ALL COST
• SUPPRESSION
• F4F-3 WILDCAT
• QF 40mm Mk III
• SHIBATA REGIMENT

These cards are present on average in 0.79% of all decks of players playing in 2023 and were played on average in only 0.78% of matches in March this year.

Going forward, when the first major rotations kick in, you can expect a similar amount of cards to be rotated out and into the game - so if 80 new cards come into the game, you can expect about 80 cards to move into the Reserve pool at the same time. We also aim to communicate about cards moving into the Reserve pool with at least 4-6 weeks notice.

Why Do a Rotation?

There are many reasons why we are introducing a rotation at this point in time. With a plan of up to 200 new cards entering the game each year, this could lead to a number of issues, such as:

• Power creep. When introducing new and exciting cards and mechanics through expansions, without a rotation, we risk a power creep issue, making it less appealing to play anything other than a narrow range of the top cards. We want to support a variety of decks and strategies and create an environment where cards in a new expansion don’t always have to be more powerful than previous content, which in turn could continuously make older cards less relevant and lead to balance issues.
• Deck building difficulties. With an ever-expanding pool of cards, deck building would become increasingly difficult. Recalling all the different cards and possibilities can take a lot of mental energy and building new decks can become tedious with too many cards.
• Inaccessibility for newer players. As the amount of cards in the game grows, newer players have more and more of a difficult time getting into the game. Collecting all available cards will be challenging and wrapping your head around all the available cards will become increasingly daunting for newer players.
• Balancing difficulties. Balancing the game becomes more challenging as the card pool expands. With a card rotation, we are able to more effectively balance the game, providing a consistently fun and engaging experience for our players.

You can read more details in Keli’s dev blog.

Will There Be Compensation?

For this first phase, since only five very infrequently used cards are rotated into the Reserve pool, we have not planned for a specific compensation. However, we are planning a one-time larger compensation when the first full rotation cycle happens with the summer expansion, the details of which will be revealed closer to the summer expansion release. Going forward from there, the reworked crate mechanic will serve in part as a compensation mechanic, as we plan on cards moving into the Reserve pool contributing to filling up your crate.

We Want Your Feedback!

To collect feedback from various sources about the new content cycle and card set structure, we’ve set up the Content Cycle Feedback channel in the official KARDS Discord server. Please join us in Discord and let us know what you think - your feedback means a lot to us!