With the latest patch, the Axie Infinity balance team reverted some of the earlier nerfs they performed. Aqua, Bird and Poison team users can now celebrate as some of their vital cards were buffed after the recent balance patch.
Most notably was the buff of the Anemone cards. A lot of players pointed their pitchforks at the team when they nerfed one of the meta teams. The recent nerf rendered the build useless so this buff is a pleasant surprise.
(Numbers below reflect Season 19 -> Buffer period -> recent patch)
80/35 -> 70/30 -> 75/30
They also reverted the weirdest nerf in the patch, the Dark Swoop nerf. Players were left bewildered by the nerfing of the Dark Swoop since out of all the cards of the meta birds, Dark Swoop is the least threatening. The nerf also rendered the backdoor Bird type, helpless against Aquas since the recent nerf of the meta bird cards cannot kill a shieldless Aqua.
20/0 -> 10/0 -> 20/0
The most powerful Aqua horn is back again to its glory as Oranda (Hero’s bane) is also buffed this patch. Oranda was the go-to Horn card of Aquas in the recent season’s meta and its attack was nerfed significantly. Oranda is now back to 120 damage but with less shield.
120/30 -> 110/25 -> 120/25
Cerastes is one of the most famous cards of the Jumping Poison build that terrorizes the Arena ladder since Season 18. Cerastes is very famous due to its high attack and defense despite the requirement that the user should have low speed. We saw a significant drop on Cerastes damage when the Buffer period patch was introduced but it’s recent buff is definitely welcomed by the poison teams
90/30 -> 80/60 -> 85/60
Another controversial nerf was reversed for this patch. The Scarab being a true debuff nerf was heavily criticized as it favors an already strong Axie build, the immortal plant. Back in Season 19, players incorporated Scarab on their Axies to counter the Double Anemone and the Immortal Plant. Anemone became a non-problem once the new patch came in but Immortal Plant became a problem once the Scarab became a true debuff since Bidens rendered it useless. Now, they changed it back to a non-true buff so Immortal Plant can now again be countered by the Scarab status.
This new system of balance patch was introduced by the Axie team a few weeks ago. This season they introduced the Buffer period where they will do a non-final balance patch then gather data and feedback from the community to create the final patch.
Once the final patch is introduced, there will be no changes unless absolutely necessary..
This change is the effect of the backlash that the Axie team received when they did a mid-season nerf back in Season 19. This resulted in the loss of confidence by some breeders as their farms were directly hit by the mid-season changes that the Axie team implemented. It was the first-ever mid-season balance patch ever as an “overpowered” combo managed to slip the scrutiny of the developers.