Rule Changes and Cost Adjustment for August Update

In the upcoming August update, Cygames will make some changes to the game mechanics. The original article can be found here.

In summary:
1. The player that goes second will draw two cards instead of one on the first turn.
2. The Forestcraft amulet Harvest Festival will cost 4 play points instead of 2.
3. Harvest Festival will yield 200 vials when liquefied for a limited period of time.
4. Future plan will increase maximum card in hand to from 8 to 9.

Thoughts

It seems that from the ranked match data, there's a tendency that player who goes first has better winning chance. So, they compensate by adding an extra card to player going second. I'm not sure how it will affect the balance, but surely it will increase the winning chance of second player. Cygames stated that they will continue to analyze play data and take steps to address balance issues whenever they arise.

The Purgatory Elf (or known as PtP Forestcraft) deck is powerful, maybe too powerful. Its strength lies on its abilities to increase cards in hands using fairies and Harvest Festival and convert them into shadows with Altered Fate. Once the shadows collected is over 30, then it's time to put Path to Purgatory to finish off the game. They works too well making it a little bit unbalanced, so it's no surprise that Cygames will nerf it. But, I think it's still good way that they won't nerf Path to Purgatory or Altered Fate, because the nerf to these two cards will probably make PtP decks become useless. If you're not familiar with PtP deck, please watch the following video.

Harvest Festival vial when liquefied increased from 50 to 200! So, if you have extra of it please hold off for now. 

Maximum cards in hands will be increased from 8 to 9. Runecraft user may benefit from this because a lot of Rune cards effect are to draw cards. This would make forestcraft more interesting too, since they rely on hand size for certain things, such as Silver Bolt and Will of the Forest.