Season 8 of Axie Infinity: Origins is startng on Wednesday 3 Apr 2024! It is sooner than I expected, probably because I have been busy with life as I just started a new full time job. With the balance changes coming in Season 8, the Mystic and Final Eras will play out quite differently compared to last season.

If you have not read the previous post on the Pre-S8 balance changes, please check that out as most of the changes are in that post. After the pre-S8 changes, there were a bunch of changes introduced last week as well as a few final changes right before the start of Season 8. All balance changes for Season 8 can be found in the official changelog.

Balance changes between Pre-S8 and Start of S8

27 Mar 2024 (Official Axie Discord)

Balance Changes

• Giant Bubble

  • Shield reduced to 5 (was 10)

    • Innate added.

    • Base Bubble granted reduced to 2 (was 3)

    • Max turns increased to 4 (was 3)

• Plague Bearer

  • Debuffs are received when your turn ends (was when your turn starts)

• Flock's Might

  • Summons on odd rounds (was every round)

    • Summons at the start of your turn (was at the start of enemy turn)

• Fate Maker

  • Damage cap from discarding reduced to 35 (was 50)

• Greedy Leech

  • Receive shields as well as HP (was HP only)

• Bombshell (Status Effect - Bombshell Maker)

  • Bonus DMG on Single Attacks reduced to 2.5% (was 5%)

• Rocket (Status Effect - Rocket Barrage)

  • Base conversion reduced to 15% (was 20%)

    • Rune Owner's conversion reduced to 30% (was 35%)

• Big Rocket (Status Effect - Rocket Barrage)

  • DMG conversion reduced to 30% (was 35%)

• Goo

  • Reverted to old effect and adjusted to Discard on Draw (was Fragment Loss):

    • 0E. <Retain>. On draw, discard 1 non-Cursed Card then draw 1 Card. When played, if you have Fragments, lose 1 <Fragment> then <Exile>; otherwise, discard.

• Deadly Spell

  • Curses removed on trigger increased to 2 (was 1)

2 Mar 2024 (Official Axie Blog)

• Mít’s Dream Eater - Meditate

  • Capped at 15 stacks (was uncapped)

• Inspirational Hero

  • Bonus Card Stat reduced to 8% (was 10%)

Here I will only go through the most significant changes.

Flock's Might is nerfed to summon a "Bird" every other Round, which is a lot more managable, but still pretty strong I feel. I personally do not like the "high roll" and "low roll" nature of it, but the effect can still be quite strong in certain archetypes (maybe the new Bird Goo archetype).

Bombshell and Rocket nerfs nudging them to a more managable power level but I still think the 2 respective Mystic Runes will still be used in a lot of Aggro teams as their effects are still strong.

Deadly Spell got a big nerf from removing 1 to removing 2 Curses on trigger, which is pretty bad. Removing the Curses, especially the Jinx and Confused in the draw pile, can be pretty bad as it allows opponent to draw into their key cards which may otherwise be "blocked" by Cursed Cards.

Finally, it is a good move to nerf Mít before it becomes another Momo where people will again complain how Starter Axies are OP. If there is a mechanic to deal a lot of damage, players will try to make it work, and often does. Now as Mediate caps at 15 stacks, the maximum it can do is 225 AoE, which is still pretty good for late game but not necessarily game winning.

Conclusion

Opening the Runes and Charms up in Ranked mode during the pre-season is a good move. We can now be a bit more confident about the evenness of the meta (at least in the Mystic Era). Having said that, there will always be stronger teams than others. The question is how even will the playing field be. Let us find out as Season 8 starts.

Thank you so much for your support! If you have any comments and/or suggestions, please feel free comment or reach out to me on X (Twitter) or Discord @mauriceccy.

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