Ashes Errata and Organized Play Update
Hello again Ashes players!
Plaid Hat Games is burning hot right now as we run the Ashes Ascendancy Kickstarter, and this campaign marks a big opportunity for us to enhance the experience for Ashes players, both new and old. As a part of our Ashes master plan, you may have seen the launch of our new website, a deckbuilder site that partners with our colleagues at ForgeFire to provide Print on Demand and Print and Play services for Ashes, making it easier than ever for people to try out the game, print out the decks they want, and not have to worry about whether or not expansions will go out of print.
With an already HUGE amount of new players getting into Ashes via the new Ashes Ascendancy Starter Set and the ForgeFire printing service, we felt this was the best time to prepare a bold set of changes to the existing Ashes card pool. Best of all, we are planning to include a comprehensive Errata Pack in the Ashes Ascendancy Starter Set to best ensure every player moving forward has up-to-date copies of any card changes that were made during the game, post-Reborn. This includes the errata cards made during Red Rains: The Frostwild Scourge, the new version of Rimea, as well as a handful of other cards, which we will discuss in detail below!
Since ForgeFire is already up and running, this errata will go into effect for competitive play April 21st, 2025. While this does mean there will be some time before you get these cards in hand via the Ashes Ascendancy Starter Set post-Kickstarter campaign, we feel it is best to enact these changes now so you can all get to exploring the new metagame as soon as possible. Until then, you can get a print out of the Errata Pack here for reference or use with your collection.
Okay, get on with it, Nick! What are the errata cards?!
Clarity Errata
This new batch of errata tackles two objectives, the first being to clarify some text that resolves “out of order” as a result of some unintended verbiage, which required FAQ entries to officially define (unintuitively) how to resolve them. These cards are:
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Void Pulse
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Enchanted Violinist
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Return to Soil
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Chained Creations
All of these cards have conditional bonuses if they destroy a unit with their damage. We are simply removing the “after it is destroyed” clause to indicate that you fully resolve these cards’ damage and any triggering effects (like reaction spells) before you begin resolving their conditional bonus. But what does this mean for you?
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Players on the receiving end of Void Pulse can respond with reaction spells before Void Pulse lowers dice in their active pool!
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Return to Soil can remove from the game the very ally that it destroys with its damage. Ta-ta, Raptor Herders!
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Any future reactions to these effects that could alter the outcomes of conditional bonuses.
Another clarity change is for Luminous Seedling. This unit has the quirky quality of gaining life from its status tokens, and its Blossom ability also removes these tokens when activated. This unintentionally could cause a wounded Seedling to become destroyed as a result of a game state change (having wounds on it equal to its life value) rather than being destroyed via the Blossom ability. Thus, as you follow along in the Blossom text, “if you do” asks if you did indeed destroy the Seedling with this ability. However, being destroyed by a game state change is not the same, therefore, TECHNICALLY, you could not summon your Brilliant Thorns. This erratum clarifies that this was not the intent of Luminous Seedling, and now will resolve as intended.
One more clarity update is for Reimagine. While Reimagine did nothing wrong, it does have some text that would have created unintended consequences with future design surrounding the upcoming Artifice magic. This erratum clarifies the intent of Reimagine to only allow Time and Illusion magic to be used to pay costs.
Additionally, we are planning to tidy up some of the rules surrounding cleaning up dice on cards at the end of the round, and have adjusted the last sentence of Reimagine to stay in line with these future changes.
Now onto the juicy changes: balance errata!
Balance Errata
We welcome the return of Ashes’ ONLY banned card in the form of a balance change. ‘Burn’ spells that deal damage directly to Phoenixborn have always been powerful. Molten Gold had proven to be too powerful and game-defining, which led to its initial ban. We are taking the opportunity to change this card in a way that will remove it from the ban list and keep it within the bounds of a fair unit removal spell. Players can still enjoy using this card as a way to ‘place wounds’ instead of dealing damage, circumventing powerful armor or damage prevention effects from their opponents. We are also softening up the cost to 2 natural class instead of power class, given that its initial cost was factoring in its ability to go right for Phoenixborn.
A core design principal I established during Ashes Reborn was the importance of spending power dice for powerful reaction spells. This adds a layer of interactivity between players as they study their opponent's dice, meditate actions, and leverage ‘spindown’ effects to set up, predict, and disrupt the possible reaction spells each might have. Ice Trap was an unchanged card from Ashes 1.0, and its cost was not brought into line with this design principal. You can see the consequences of this, with Ice Trap being one of the most played reaction spells in the game, and for good reason! It's easy-to-pay cost, paired with its ability to ‘trade up’ with units that cost more than it, cemented this card as a competitive staple. Over the past several years of designing new units, units that cost 2 dice and have 2 life have always been a challenge, as the threat of Ice Trap makes them a risky play at virtually any time against an opponent with Natural dice. While Ice Trap will continue to trade up against this class of unit, they will have to pay the appropriate power die cost and set up time, telegraphing to their opponent the possibility of an Ice Trap, and also opening the door for those power dice to be lowered before playing said unit.
This big conjuration was originally on the errata list due to a strange interaction between playing Law of Sight before shuffling your draw pile, thus drawing cards from a deck that was searched through but not shuffled. While the FAQ provided a solution to this quirk, now is the time to polish out that funky text. Better yet, instead of maintaining Emperor Lion’s odd niche with ‘Law’ ready spells, I wanted to transform this unit into a trusty combat conjuration for divine magic. Law ready spells have been a difficult class of spell to design more of, and the preconstructed Odette deck will certainly enjoy having this big conji on the battlefield!
My dear Fallen, always a problem child. James Endersight’s deck was my first official design in Ashes history, going back to 1.0. Summon Fallen has always been a radically different summon spell from its peers, and with that came some powerful interactions that sent waves through the competitive meta. Summon Fallen was also changed for Ashes Reborn in 2020, and to this day, this spell has a huge impact on the competitive metagame. The endless wall of zombies poses a tough challenge for deck-builders; do I have a plan to get over or around the zombies, or will they wall me out in the endgame? The influence Summon Fallen has on the game as a whole is one I’d like to adjust, fitting more in line with the expected output of a ceremonial summon spell. This new errata for Summon Fallen maintains its focus on sacrificing allies to fuel the resurrection of Fallen, but does so without scaling up its efficiency as more copies of the spell are played. It also requires exhausting the ready spell (like every other summon spell in the game). Still, this card boasts a strong efficiency of summoning 3 units for 2 dice as your reward for maintaining the steady cycle of life and death of ally units.
FAQ, OP Rules, and the Chained List
Alongside these big errata changes, the FAQ and OP Rules have been updated. The FAQ is up-to-date with recommended First Fives, errata reference, and new Q & As for recent releases.
As previously mentioned, Molten Gold is being removed from the ban list, marking the eradication of banned cards in Ashes altogether!
As for the Chained List, I am holding off on making any adjustments at this point. While I have a small group of cards I think could be eligible for chaining, I want to let the errata changes settle in for a little bit before applying more changes to organized play. You can expect another FAQ and OP update around the release date of the Ashes Ascendancy Starter Set, and with it any Chained List revisions that feel appropriate for the new era of Ashes.
AshCon?!?
The requests have been heard! While I don’t have an official date set for another AshCon, I plan to bring back this popular week-long Ashes tournament/celebration to help bridge the gap between the Kickstarter campaign and its fulfillment. Stay tuned!
