About two months ago, we began rolling out Mastery Variants. Since then, we've been listening closely to your feedback. Based on what we've heard, we're making some changes!

As we roll out the September Mastery Variants batch today, we want to share some updates on how Mastery Variants connect with other game systems, as well as a preview of what we're working on to help players tackle their challenges.

Our goal for Mastery Variants is to create challenging, aspirational content that tests your Champions, formations, and game knowledge. They're not intended to be content that every player can immediately complete as soon as they're unlocked, but your feedback has highlighted ways we can improve the experience around that challenge. We're addressing some of those areas today, with more improvements to come.

Today

We're making several changes to better establish Mastery Variants as their own form of aspirational content and reduce the pressure players feel to complete them immediately.

1: Increasing the Adventure requirement

When Mastery Variants launched, they became visible after completing 100 Adventures & Variants (along with the first three Variants of the associated Adventure).

We missed the mark there.

100 Adventures & Variants is also when players can unlock Vecna: Eve of Ruin, but the power required for Mastery Variants is considerably higher.

Moving forward, Mastery Variants will become visible after completing 400 Adventures & Variants, to ensure players' progression is commensurate with the challenge. For players with the Bastion enabled, in Version 655, there is a new level for the Guild Hall to unlock after completing 400 Adventures & Variants to unlock access to the Mastery Variants. For players who have previously completed a Mastery Variant, the Guild Hall upgrade is available even if you haven't yet reached the 400 Adventures & Variants threshold

2: Separating Mastery Variants from Campaign Completion

Mastery Variants will no longer count toward your campaign or game completion percentage.

Rolling out in Version 654, Mastery Variants will be treated as their own category within the Campaign section of Collections. We want players to be able to tackle Mastery Variants at their own pace while preserving their existing progress towards the campaign completion target.

3: No New Steam & Epic Achievements for Mastery Variants

Starting with today's batch, Mastery Variants will no longer include platform achievements.

Like the Collections change, this is intended to let players approach future Mastery Variants when they're ready rather than making them feel required for completion.

Coming Soon

1: Community Notes

We're working on a new Community Notes feature for Mastery Variants, with the possibility of expanding it to other Variants in the future. Mastery Variants require inventive solutions, and we hope Community Notes will help players share their best strategies.

Players will be able to share strategies and tips about what worked for them in-game, while others can upvote, downvote, or report those notes. The most helpful responses will rise to the top, giving players somewhere to turn when they've hit a wall and want to see how other players approached the challenge.

Our initial rollout will be text-based, but we're exploring sharing formations directly as we refine the feature through internal testing and player feedback.

With more than 160 Champions available and countless ways to synergize them, we're excited to give players another way to share the creative strategies and formations they've discovered.

2: Continued Bug Fixing

We know some Mastery Variants are experiencing bugs & issues with background parties and offline progress. These aren't intended to be part of the challenge.

If you encounter one of these issues in a Mastery Variant, or any Variant, please submit an in-game ticket so we can investigate and continue smoothing out the experience.

Thank you for playing with us over the past 9+ years, and for always being willing to share your feedback. We hope these updates, along with the changes still to come, continue to make Idle Champions better for everyone!

September 2026 Mastery Variants

A Grand Tour of the Sword Coast

Tomb of Annihilation

Waterdeep: Dragon Heist

Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus

Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden

The Wild Beyond the Witchlight

Light of Xaryxis

Turn of Fortune's Wheel

New Legendary Feat

With 8 new Mastery Variants available today, players can earn another Legendary Feat from the Mastery Shop, choosing from Drizzt, Pwent, and Wulfgar. Three more play-reward Legendary Feats will be added to the Mastery Shop in October. In the meantime, a new Legendary Feat for Eric, from the Saturday Morning Squad, is available today via DLC!

Eric

Weekend Warrior - Level 1: Eric increases the effect of his Trait specialization by 100% for each 5% of his current Corrupted Gem Scavenger cap that he has collected. Once all Champions in the formation have knocked back enemies at least 60 times in the current area, Eric's second specialization ability gains 1 additional stack(s). The requirement is reduced by a static 5 if it's the weekend (ie. a Weekend Promo Buff is active).

• Per Level Adjustment:


• x2 damage buff per Feat level
• -5 stacks required to activate additional buff
• Second spec buff additional stacks +0.33 (note: rounds to nearest)
  • Note: This rounds to the nearest whole stack number, to a max of +4 at Level 9 & 10
• Caps at level 10

Please Note: Eric's Legendary Feat will be exclusive to its DLC Pack for the first 6 months. Afterward, it will also be available through play as well.