Well met, Champions!

Today, we have a brand-new Event Augment. We're really excited for this Augment to shake up the final week of our Simril Event, allowing players to put their formation strategy skills to the test and push as far as they can go to show their true Mastery!

As you set up your best possible formations in the Challenge Adventure, you can collect Mastery Gems. This new currency is used to purchase a new type of prestige cosmetic that you can collect for Event Champions: Card Sleeves!



To learn more, read on...

Welcome to Mastery Challenges

The Simril Mastery Challenge will go live at Noon PT today. It will be active until the end of the Simril Event (12/24 at Noon PT). It is accessed from the new notification at the top of the game, either in an Adventure or from the campaign map.



This Mastery Challenge uses the Simril Spoilsport Adventure, with Lark's formation. At first, only the Base Restriction ("Center of Attention") is available. However, there are four Optional Restrictions that you can eventually add to your Challenge Adventure. These Optional Restrictions increase the Adventure's difficulty and are necessary to collect Mastery Gems

Base Reward: Event Token Rewards

You'll earn 10 Event Tokens for every area completed in this Mastery Challenge, up to area 2,500. You'll only earn the Event Tokens per completed area once during this Mastery Challenge, so if you complete area 2,000 with the Base Restriction enabled and collect the Event Tokens for completing areas 1-2,000, you won't start earning additional Event Tokens in this Mastery Challenge until you complete area 2,001+ on later runs.

Unlocking Optional Restriction Slots

Your first step in the Mastery Challenge is to run the Simril Spoilsport Adventure with the Base Restriction to unlock your Optional Restriction Slots.

• For every 500 areas you complete in a Mastery Challenge (with any restriction active), you'll unlock one of a total of 4 Option Restriction Slots. Those Slots allow you to toggle on Optional Restrictions for future Mastery Challenge runs. Note: When a Mastery Challenge is active in the future, Optional Restriction Slots that have already been unlocked in previous Mastery Challenges will remain unlocked.

Mastery Reward: Mastery Gems

After you complete your initial Challenge Adventure and unlock one or more Optional Restriction Slots, you can start adding those Optional Restrictions to your Challenge Adventures to collect Mastery Gems!

You can earn up to 1 Mastery Gem for each area completed, based on the number of Optional Restrictions enabled. It doesn't matter which Optional Restriction is enabled, just that you have completed an area with X or more enabled.

• For example: If you complete area 1,000 with 1 Optional Restriction enabled, you'll collect 1,000 Mastery Gems when you reset that Adventure. If you complete area 1,500 with 2 Optional Restrictions enabled on a future run, you'll collect a total of 2,000 Mastery Gems (1,500 Mastery Gems for 2+ Optional Restrictions enabled, PLUS an additional 500 Mastery Gems because you've now completed up to area 1,500 with 1+ Optional Restrictions enabled as well).

Spending Your Mastery Gems: Card Sleeves!

With this Mastery Challenge, we are introducing a new prestige cosmetic that you can use to bling out the Equipment cards of Event Champions: Dragonsoul Card Sleeves!

Dragonsoul Card Sleeves are currently available for each Simril Event Champion in the Event Shop Tab, for a total of 2,000 Mastery Gems each. That means by proving your Mastery of Simril, you can purchase Card Sleeves for up to 5 of the following Champions: Dhadius, Halsin, Krull, Lark, Lucius, Nordom, Regis, Shadowheart, Talin, Warden, Warduke, and Yorven.

Once purchased, the Dragonsoul Card Sleeve is automatically equipped, but it can be toggled off or on via the Champion Page near where you equip Skins. Once equipped, Card Sleeves can be seen in the following locations:


When you open Chests and collect equipment for that Champion.

When you view the Champion's equipment on the bench, or on the Champion Page

You can collect up to 2,500 Mastery Gems for each number of Optional Restrictions enabled. Reaching 2,500 is a top-tier goal, and isn't something we expect most players to achieve - after all, this is a Mastery Challenge.

Every milestone you reach is meaningful progress. If you don't quite make it to the next milestone, any Mastery Gems you've earned will remain in your inventory and help jump-start your progress in the next Mastery Challenge. Every run makes you stronger, and every Mastery Gem earned puts you one step closer to your next Card Sleeve when this augment returns!

FAQ

What are Mastery Challenges?

Mastery Challenges are a limited-time system where you can run Challenge Adventures to earn rewards by building efficient and powerful formations. By enabling Optional Restrictions, you can also earn Mastery Gems, which can be spent on a brand new prestige cosmetic type to deck out the equipment cards of various Champions: Card Sleeves!

What can I earn from Mastery Challenges?

You can earn Event Tokens by completing areas in the current Challenge Adventure. The number of Event Tokens you will earn is based on the highest area completed across all of your runs during the current Mastery Challenge. Once you've claimed the Event Tokens for a particular area, you cannot claim the Event Tokens for that area again in a subsequent attempt during this Mastery Challenge.

By enabling Optional Restrictions, you can also earn Mastery Gems, again based on the highest area(s) you have completed in your attempts using one or more Optional Restrictions.

To gain the maximum rewards from a Mastery Challenge, you must reach the max area (currently 2,501) with all of the Optional Restrictions enabled. This is *not* a task that most players will be able to accomplish!

What are Optional Restrictions

Optional Restrictions are additional, challenging restrictions that you can opt into for the Challenge Adventure. Before you can attempt any Optional Restrictions, you must unlock Restriction Slots, which you do by reaching area milestones with the Base Restriction enabled. You can enable multiple Optional Restrictions at once, up to the number of Restriction Slots you have unlocked. You will earn Mastery Gems for completing areas based on the number of Optional Restrictions enabled. You can choose any combination of Optional Restrictions to attempt at once, and you will earn currency based on the number of Optional Restrictions chosen, not the specific Optional Restrictions that are enabled.

What are Mastery Gems?

Mastery Gems are a new type of currency only collectable through a Mastery Challenge. They can be spent on a brand new cosmetic type to deck out the equipment cards of Champions you love: Card Sleeves!

What are Card Sleeves and how do they work?

Card Sleeves are a new card border that you can collect for certain Champions during the Mastery Challenge. This new cosmetic will accent the look of the equipment cards that Champion has! You can equip or remove them from the Champion Page, near where you equip Skins. You can only purchase Card Sleeves for Champions from the current Event.

Do I have to purchase the Card Sleeves during the Mastery Challenge? Can I wait a few weeks?

Card Sleeves are available on the Event tab of the Shop, and you can purchase Card Sleeves for any current Event Champions. They are currently available for purchase only while the Mastery Challenge is active.

Do Mastery Gems go away at the end of the Mastery Challenge?

No! Just like the Optional Challenge Restriction Slots that you can unlock during this Mastery Challenge, the Mastery Gems you earn are yours. You can spend them on Card Sleeves during this Mastery Challenge, or you can hold onto them for another Mastery Challenge to get sleeves for other Champions! If you have any Mastery Gems remaining, they will remain in your inventory.

When is the next Mastery Challenge Scheduled?

At this time, the Mastery Challenge is an Event Augment. As with all Augments, we plan to review player feedback before determining when Mastery Challenges will next appear!

Mastery Challenges & Card Sleeve Feedback

We're excited to hear what the community thinks about the Mastery Challenge Augment and the new Card Sleeve cosmetic! Your feedback is important to us, and we would love to have you join our community on one of our official platforms to share your thoughts:

• The Official Idle Champions Discord.
• The Official Idle Champions Subreddit.
• Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Bluesky, or Instagram.

Our team saw an opportunity to make some quality of life updates at the beginning of this year, so over the next few weeks we'll be making these changes and adding them to this blog. Read on for details!

Legendary Trials Update: January 25th, 2023

We've made some updates to how Legendary equipment is crafted, and added some new rewards for completing the Trials of Mount Tiamat!

New Champion Skins: The first time you complete a specific adventure during the Trials of Mount Tiamat, you will unlock a specific Champion skin. Now we've added five new skin rewards for completing those adventures a second time! Unlock new Wyrmspeaker Skins for Bruenor, Warden, Celeste, Jamilah, and Delina by challenging Tiamat once again! Unlocking these skins does not unlock the Champion, but those skins will be saved for when you get that Champion.

Changes To Crafting Legendary Equipment: We've made it cheaper to craft and upgrade Legendary Equipment so that you can get more legendries onto more Champions.

• The initial crafting cost of a piece of Legendary Equipment is now tied to the total pieces of Legendary Equipment equipped to a Champion. This should make it easier to outfit all Champions with Legendary Equipment.
• An estimated difference in cost has been refunded to players who crafted using the old system.
• The cost to upgrade a piece of Legendary Equipment has been reduced.
• A hard cap of 20 has been implemented on each piece of Legendary Equipment. Equipment over the cap has been reduced to the cap. A refund of scales has been credited if this occurred.
• The cost to reforge a piece of Legendary Equipment is unchanged.

We've put together two tables to give some details to what you can expect:
We hope these updates bring even more excitement to your next assault on Mount Tiamat!

Feat Update: January 18th, 2023

It's time for an update to Feats! We have added two new Feat slots to all Champions! This doubles the number of Feats that can be equipped to four. Existing feat slots unlock at ~e18 and ~e60, and the new slots will unlock at ~e36 and ~e90. This should be very useful, especially for Champions who have feats that increase ability scores to make them eligible for certain Patrons as well as other restrictions.

Enjoy your new Feat slots!

Patron Challenge Update: January 9th, 2023

Mirt, Vajra, Strahd and Zariel have updated the challenges they request from you every week. It's time to get your formations together and earn some Coins and Symbols for your favorite Patrons!!

Thanks to player feedback, we've made updates to our weekly Patron challenges for all four patrons. In general, our design goal was to allow all challenges to be buffed by Fen, the Champion releasing on Jan 11th, so things that required a certain number of resets now require a certain number of areas cleared. We got rid of some annoying challenges and refreshed others to take into account newer and currently-meta Champions.

Challenge Changes

• Removed all challenges that were like "Complete X patron free plays in area Y or higher," as those required multiple resets and we want to ensure all challenges are completable in a single run if you're lucky and/or clever.
• Removed all challenges that were like "Complete X areas WITHOUT any [tag] Champions in your formation in any patron variants or free plays," as they were generally viewed as annoying and forced an uninteresting formation build.
• Removed all challenges that were like "Reset any patron variant or free play in area X+ with specific Champion as your highest total damage dealing, excluding ultimate," as those were confusing and generally viewed as annoying.
• Added new challenges like "Complete X areas in patron variants or free plays," which are intended to replace the "Complete X patron free plays in area..." challenges
• Added new challenges like "Complete X areas in patron variants or free plays with a specific champion as your BUD-setting DPS," which are intended to replace the "Reset in area X+ with specific Champions..." challenges. These encourage builds around certain Champions, but generally include only popular/meta Champions.
• Updated all the challenges that were like "Complete X areas with three specific champions in your formation in any patron variants or free plays" to new combinations.

New Patron Perk Tiers

All four patrons are getting Tier 8 and 9 local and global perks! These powerful new perks include damage bonuses, gold find increases, and things each patron would be especially interested in.

• Mirt Local Perks
  • High Interest Loan: Gold Find +4%
  • The Old Wolf: Beast enemies take an additional 50% damage.
• Mirt Global Perks
  • Rich Friends: Damage +15% for each Gold Find Champion in the formation (additive)
  • Expert Adventurer: Global Damage +10%
• Vajra Local Perks
  • Irresistible: Damage of Champions with a magic attack +50%
  • We're All Aligned: Damage of Champions with an affiliation +25%
• Vajra Global Perks
  • Ley Lines: Damage +5% for each Champion in the formation with a magic attack (additive)
  • Champion of Splendors: Global Damage +10%
• Strahd Local Perks
  • The Flesh Strengthens: Tank Champions Healing Taken +2.5%
  • Fellow Conquerors: Global Damage +25%
• Strahd Global Perks
  • Strahd's Chosen: Damage of Evil Champions +10%
  • Glory of Ravenloft: Global Damage +10%
• Zariel Local Perks
  • Friends of my Enemy: Increase the damage done by Champions while at least one Fiend enemy is alive by 100%
  • Endless Descent: Increase the damage of all Champions by 50%
• Zariel Global Perks
  • Holy Redemption: Increase the healing taken by Good Champions by 5%
  • Veteran of Avernus: Increase the damage of all Champions by 10%

Between these updates and Fen helping you complete challenges quickly, we hope you'll find Patron challenges to be fun, rewarding, and fast! If you are new to Patrons and want to find out more, details can be found in the game or in our Patron Blog.

More To Come

Details about all these updates can be found in the game's Changelog! And make sure you keep an eye out for more January updates that we'll announce here!

As always we would love to hear your feedback! Leave messages on the Idle Champions Subreddit, on the Steam forums, or on the Official Idle Champions Discord!