Well, some of these are good buffs. Wild Queen definitely needed it and man is it a huge buff. Cursory tests put her at a lot more consistent, at a trade off of getting less distinct skull hits when she lands sometimes because the board is so full that they link up into massive chains. Definitely viable in certain setups and she might actually be good now (but her trait is still garbage, and a lot of stuff still counters green for whatever reason). Faunessa has an actual role in a team now with quite a big buff, to the point of possibly being a staple in scaled content teams. Elwyn, who was already pretty good early game, is now far more likely to deal lethal hits even on a hero during early game. Also has a starting storm available from traits on a (at least currently) readily available Arcane traitstone.
Satyr Musician probably didn’t need the steal magic buff because silence, but at least now it targets predictably and is less annoying on defense when it (sparsely) appears - this might actually be a nerf to how it was used. Mana Shield on Nax and Fey Touch on Sylvasi were nice little buffs but they might not be all that impactful to their respective kits or give them additional viability in certain teams. Satyr’s armor steal shift to magic sets it apart a bit more from Goblin by allowing it to ramp on damage a bit as an early game troop, which is nice, because it makes the choice between the two a bit more divergent.
A couple… didn’t change much. The steal magic tacked onto these spells helps with ramping and suppression on paper, but, because neither keeps the turn, likely not to any significant degree in either PvP (battles end too quick and doesn’t suppress fast enough) or scaled content (ramping is too slow). Blade Dancer is still going to get progressively (significantly) worse with each cast as he tears through armor and reduces his boost ratio and Silenus still needs multiple casts to threaten lethal, to which the 1-3 magic gained most likely wont even matter either late game (eats a lethal spell chain after dropping the turn) or early/mid game (likely outright lethal or the magic gain doesn’t reach a break point where you need one less cast to kill). I don’t think Blade Dancer was ever really “dealt with” by silencing it, either, but the Alert trait at least makes sense thematically. I can only really see these as being slightly more annoying to deal with on defense in things like Pet Rescue, if you are using slower teams.
The one that stands out as being left in the cold is Bunni-Nog. Why does it, post rework, still have a spell power comparable to several very similar* Epic troops but costs more mana? Its not like the troop type it covers (not to mention two lower spell damage) really warrants this and it didn’t really gain any significant synergy here (it already had “Fast”, so it doesn’t really care about Silenus). And it loses its small, but guaranteed, attack and life gain in the deal as well? Thick Hide helps a bit if you want to skull bash your way through knight teams, I guess, but it won’t be saved if it fails consecutive devours. With the base spell damage this troop has, even a triple damage spell vs knights wouldn’t be lethal on first hit if it didn’t devour. Either that, or higher devour chance may have been in order here for such a hyper-specialized troop. This rework probably also means we never get a “Knight Nosher”.
*Dragon Cruncher, Elf Eater, Gob-Chomper, Monster Muncher, not counting other conditional devourers like Gelatinous Cube and Bulette
tl;dr: Not really what I was expecting from a kingdom “rework”, it is mostly three significant buffs (two being just numbers, only one real “rework”) with a bunch of minor stuff tacked on to existing spells that doesn’t really change how the troops are used, add any new significant synergies, or introduce new board mod. Happy for the couple big changes that actually matter to me (including what is essentially a “new mythic” to play around with), but otherwise kind of disappointed.
Also
please buff Wild Plains*
*With actual significant spell reworks
