Cards and Castles Ultimate news & patch notes

PATCH NOTES
• Added a new generic wild card type, which can be used to craft cards from any set. All sources of wildcards now drop generic wild cards. Effectiveness of the bonus wildcard meter from pack opening has been reduced due to this change.
• The battle pass has been reformulated for 1 month intervals instead of 2 month intervals, and the rewards and price have been proportionally reduced. Rewards now have a much greater emphasis on Ingots and latest expansion packs and cards.
• Lobby draft and sealed deck modes now have a free play feature, allowing players to organize their own challenges in place of the pre-determined format.
• Ranked system progress has been adjusted in various aspects. GAMEPLAY
• Response simplification: Responses have been renamed to TRAPS. A set trap is now visible to the opponent, but its identity and gold spent remain hidden. Traps now count as a play card event immediately when set, instead of when activated. These changes should make Traps much more understandable and more similar to normal cards.
• Activations based on a spell cast have now been standardized to use the “cast a spell” terminology and functionality.
• Spell cards that directly cause a unit to deal damage on its behalf, such as Synchronized Strike, now benefit from spell damage modifiers. Note this does not apply when the damage is triggered by an event other than the card directly being played, such as with Kunai or Blazing Claws.
• All warlock units with an effect based on fire spells have been expanded to use any red spell instead. Spell synergies should generally use the card’s color instead of a spell school going forward, except for Lightning and Frost synergies.
• Most effects that summon a random unit can no longer summon stealthed units. This was done so the outcome of the random effect is clear to the opponent.
• Yaarhym Giant: Now counts any blue spell.
• Flame Knight: Ability no longer gives +1 Attack. Instead, it gains +1 Attack whenever you cast a red spell. This slight rework avoids confusion around which effects activate if his spell is recast or duplicated.
• Field of Screams: 4g -> 5g.
• Army of the Dead: 9g -> 11g.
• Valkyrie: 6g -> 7g.
• Beastmaster: 5g -> 6g.
• Dwarven Mecha Golem: Stats reduced 7/7 -> 6/6.
• Inquisition: 4g -> 5g.
• Knight of Flowers: No longer has Shield.
• Living Vines: 5g -> 3g. Stats reduced 3/3 -> 1/3.
• Root Drake: Now also a Treefolk.
• Cull the Weak: 5g -> 6g.
• Icewalker Giant: 5g -> 6g. Stats increased 2/6 -> 2/7.
• Magmasaur: 1/3 -> 1/2. Cost reduction now only counts one other Dinosaur.
• Cambrian Explosion: Damage changed to a 3x3 area instead of full board.
• Kaiju God: Surge cost increased 1g -> 2g.
• Soul Burn: Castle damage increased 3 -> 5.
• Essence of Hatred: Redesigned.
• Exhaustion: Redesigned.

• Introducing shiny cards! All cards in the game now have a rare, visually upgraded form. Find shiny cards in packs or craft them with 4 wild cards each.
• Cards with the “recently changed” tag can now be exchanged for a wild card.
• Wild cards can now be sold for a small amount of ingots. This option is only useful for players who have collected an entire set and have excess wild cards.
• Shattered Future: Cost increased 1g -> 2g.
• Exhaustion: Cost increased 5g -> 6g.
• Time Anomaly: Cost increased 2g -> 3g. Payment requirement reduced from 3g -> 2g.
• Fixed a bug causing Time Anomaly to affect the turn timer.

Balance patch time! One nerf and a bunch of BUFFS. Weak cards aren't fun, and we want FUN here, so we will make the weak cards STRONG. Enjoy your STRENGTH and FUNNESS.

PATCH NOTES

• Sorcerous Inquisitor: Ability cost increased from 2g -> 3g.

• Mayor: Cost reduced 6g -> 5g.

• Deep Sea Submarine: Sea Monster requirement reduced from 3 -> 1.

• Zheng Yi Sao: Stats increased 3/3 -> 4/3.

• Cambrian Explosion: Cost reduced 8g -> 7g.

• Daradun Digger: Stats increased 1/2 -> 1/3.

• Cannoneer: Stats increased 1/2 -> 1/3.

• Fisherman: Cost reduced from 3g -> 1g. Stats reduced from 3/3 -> 2/1.

• Dwarven Mecha Golem: Cost reduced 5g -> 4g.

• Dark Moon Tsunami: Cost reduced 5g -> 4g.

• Time Chicken: Cost reduced 3g -> 2g. Stats reduced 2/3 -> 2/2.

• Aviary: Cost reduced 2g -> 1g.

• Kaiju Crab: Stats increased 6/4 -> 6/5.

• Daradun Prophet: Cost reduced 4g -> 3g. Stats reduced 3/5 -> 3/3.

• Dar’Khan: Stats increased 2/4 -> 3/4.

• Chef: Damage increased 2 -> 3.

• Militia Trainer: Stats increased 2/2 -> 2/3.

• Northwood Seer: Stats increased 2/3 -> 3/3.

• Pressing the end turn button now enforces a minimum lockout of 2 seconds, preventing players from accidentally skipping their bonus turn when they have one.
• Fixed a bug causing the end turn prompt to ignore some valid cards.
• Fixed a bug causing the green outline around playable cards to not appear sometimes.
• Green outlines no longer disappear when the application is unfocused.
• Added an option for turn Auto-Pass.

Prepare for a JOURNEY THROUGH TIME! Cards and Castles Ultimate has just released its first expansion set, AVAILABLE NOW! Collect over 80 new cards featuring new places both past and future, historical figures, new game mechanics and more! Sign on now for free card packs!

• Hurricane: Banned. (dev note: we made a mistake printing a board clear for druids, and have no viable path for this card to see continued play)
• Norabon: Stat reduction ability cost increased 7 health -> 10 health. Health gain per round increased 1 -> 2.
• Avalanche: Cost increased 3 -> 4.
• Winds of the North: Surge cost increased 3 -> 5.
• Living Vines: Cost increased 4 -> 5.
• Vileroth: Stats reduced 7/8 -> 6/6.
• Bandit: Ability cost increased 1 -> 2.
• Black Market: Cost reduction reduced 3 -> 2.
• Tranquility: Cost increased 2 -> 3.

It's finally time! Cards and Castles is back and better than ever! Get in now and start playing. We have a full single player story campaign that awards several starter decks, casual and ranked multiplayer and leaderboards, custom lobbies, and tons of new cards! Prepare for battle! Seize the moment! All the sayings!

Yes that's right, Cards and Castles Ultimate will be available on ALL launch platforms on February 27th, 2026! That means Steam, Android, and iOS! Cards and Castles Ultimate will be FREE TO PLAY from day one. We appreciate all the community feedback on this decision; the people demanded free to play, so we are happy to deliver.

We've really been cooking a long time on this game and we think the result will be well worth the wait. Don't miss the excitement on launch day!

If you've been looking for the mobile version of the game, you can now pre-register for those too! iOS version is here: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/cards-and-castles-ultimate/id6739714789 Android is here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cardsandcastles3.game&hl=en_US

And of course be sure to wishlist the game here on Steam if you haven't already.

We are FULLY CROSS PLATFORM, so you can play the same account on PC and on your phone or tablet.

We're just checking in with a brief update! The team is working on a server architecture overhaul to support larger player counts, and we're doing additional work and revisions on the game economy and other details necessary for launch. We'll have more news about future playtests after the server overhaul is done.

Yes that's right, we'll be back with another public beta weekend for more playtesting! We've listened to your feedback and made some significant adjustments to the core gameplay, including adjusting the map layout and removing the Safe Zone mechanic. We are also in the process of redoing our maps! This work is in progress so some of the maps will still use the old style during the playtest. Check out our new Viking arena map here!

Some differences from our last test:

• We'll be starting players with a bunch of currency so they can test more of the game's cards.

• We'll be doing a full weekend this time, so both Saturday and Sunday will be open.

We'll be resetting all player accounts beforehand as usual. The team has been hard at work making many upgrades to the game and we're excited to run another test! Join us on Discord for up to date information on the playtest as it happens. Sign-ups are open now!

We will be opening the game for a second free beta test on Saturday, September 6th! The test will be only 1 day this time. We received a lot of encouragement, feature requests and critical feedback from the first test. The dev team is working overtime to address as much as possible before the next test. Please keep in mind the following notes for the next beta test:

• We will invite many more new players!

• Previously allowed players will also be able to play again during the 1 day testing period.

• All player account data will be wiped and reset before the test. Account data will be wiped after the test too (nothing carries over to live).

• Kaiju Crab has been nerfed cry (there are actually many balance changes from the previous test, we look forward to players finding new broken combos!)

There is still time to sign up for the next test on our Steam page. Please refer to our previous post for more details on expectations and features for beta testing. We hope to see you there!

Beta weekend is starting in just a few days! We have a lot of signups and are very excited to show a larger group of players the new game for the very first time. We wanted to break down some details of how the beta test will work:

TESTING SCHEDULE

• Playtesting will be multiplayer focused, with only a short section of the Campaign available for tutorial mechanics. Queues will be open, along with custom lobbies and practice mode.

• Invites will be sent to a random selection of signed up players.

• Beta will open at 12am EST on Saturday, August 23rd. The first wave of invites will head out around this time.

• Saturday night, the dev team may elect to send out a second wave of invites.

• Servers will close on Sunday night EST and the playtest will end (exact time tbd).

• There will be a community Draft event hosted by a streamer on Saturday at 3pm PST, which anyone can join. (I apologize if the servers explode)

GIVING FEEDBACK

Please fill in the feedback form after you're done playing! There is a big shiny button right on the main menu that takes you directly to the feedback form. Tell us what you think of the game, both good and bad. We will read every single entry to make sure we're on the right track and look for opportunities to improve the game.

STAYING UP TO DATE

Discord will be the primary dev communication tool for up to the minute status and such. Join our Discord to find out when invites have gone up, if servers have crashed, that sort of thing.

We will also have a BUG REPORT CHANNEL on DISCORD. As beta testers, you should expect to potentially encounter some bugs. Please report them in the channel!

That should be it. We hope to see you in the beta test in a few days!

Good news everyone! We're having a public beta test the weekend of August 23rd! Our newest Cards and Castles game is absolutely awesome, and has crazy new features like free drafts, ranked wagers, graveyards, a single player story campaign and more. You can Request Access to the playtest on our store page right here. Beta invites will be by random selection.

Closed beta is imminent! Follow this page to be notified when playtest signups become available.