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New Keywords, Updated Balancing, Colorblindness Update

2026-10-07 · Cards, Art
This changes Cards, Art
Check the linked pages for the current public text.

Chromatic Battlelines — Update Announcement

New abilities, a cleaner ability system, and gems everyone can read.

TL;DR

  1. Three new abilities — Recycle, Fragment, and Deplete X.
  2. Ability rebalance — abilities were given clear home colors, simplified, and rearranged so they make more sense and every card's abilities fit its color.
  3. Colorblindness update — each gem now gets a distinct adornment.

New Abilities

Recycle — Instead of putting this into the graveyard from play, you may Harvest this as a Facet instead. This does not count as your Harvest for turn.
Fragment — Instead of putting this into the graveyard from play, you may Shatter instead. This does not count as your Harvest for turn.
Deplete X — Exhaust X target Facets.

Ability Rebalance — Synopsis

Abilities now have clear home colors — simplified and rearranged. Previously, abilities could sit in slots whose color didn't actually own them, leaving cards with effects that didn't belong to their color. We've re-homed each ability to the color where its effect makes the most sense, simplified the palette so each color's toolkit is cleaner and easier to learn, and rearranged placements so every card's abilities line up with its colors.
How abilities sit on a card. Every creature has one Base ability in its own color, plus four ability slots (the other four colors). Spells follow the same color logic across their positions.
The placement rules:
  • ✅ An ability's effect matches the color of the slot it sits in.
  • ✅ The trigger may cross colors (e.g., a Red pay-off that triggers when you Mill is fine).
  • ❌ An effect that doesn't match its slot color is loose and gets re-homed or cut.
Cards are now sorted into power levels. Every card is assigned a power level that groups it with cards of similar strength and complexity. This keeps ability distribution consistent — simpler, foundational abilities land on lower tiers while the more intricate pay-offs climb the higher tiers — so players always know roughly what to expect from a card at a glance.
What roughly changed:
AreaBeforeAfter
Home colorsabilities scattered across mismatched colorseach ability assigned one clear home color
Growoverused (~39)trimmed to a focused set (~9)
Exhume118
Reanimate84
Witherscatteredconsolidated (~8)
Millscatteredconsolidated (~4–5)
Off-color slotsmany (e.g., Purple Weaken in Red/Blue slots)replaced with color-correct abilities
Pillarsduplicated / unclearone carrier each
Power levelsunclear spreadcards categorized consistently by tier

Colorblindness Update

Each gem now gets a distinct adornment — a differently shaped flourish on the gem — so players can tell the gems apart by shape alone, without relying on color.

Headline Numbers

AbilityBeforeAfter
Grow39~9
Exhume118
Reanimate84
Wither—~8
Mill—~4–5
Deplete03