Mastery Update Review

Today's patch included a bunch of changes to Character Mastery. Typically, these changes come with drawbacks, and today's set was no different. Read on to learn what changed, as well as what the deeper implications are.

What's New?

The Mastery track was totally rearranged! It still hands out prizes and ends at level 30. However, some prizes were moved to another level, some were removed, and some are new to the track.

Moved

• Foil Metallic Finish and Steel Metallic Finish move from levels 11–19 to 2–9
• Galactic Storm Finish moves from levels 21–29 to 2–9
• Galactic Storm Flare, Green Embers Flare, and Blue Embers Flare move from levels 21–29 to 11–19
• The Reaction Set moves from level 30 to 12

The obvious consequence of these moves is that you can now unlock these Finishes and Flares sooner. That's an awesome change if you seek these on your Splits.

Unfortunately, there's a hidden consequence to moving up Finishes and Flares. Ink, Gold, and Krackle are now rarer at lower Mastery levels. The effect vanishes at high Mastery levels (when you would have unlocked the moved Finishes and Flares before).

The tables below compare the rates from the previous time they changed to today. They start at level 10 because Ink, Gold, and Krackle unlock after your third Split – at which point you have enough XP to be at least level 10.

Ink and Gold have identical rates, so you can use the Ink tables to see the rates for Gold.

The effect may look small – just a 3% drop in Inks! However, it translates to 80% as many Inks on Split #4.

Reaction Sets used to be the grand prize of Mastery. They're dramatically easier to unlock now – requiring only five Splits instead of 26 (that's without any XP from Variants)! I'll personally go from owning six to 222.

Removed

These Finishes and Flares were cut from the Mastery track completely:

Finishes

• Bananas
• Rays (x6 colors)
• Frosted Glass
• Water

Flares

• Bananas
• Bubbles
• Rainbow Confetti
• Snowflakes

These cuts won't affect Splits at all. Every one of them had already been cut from Splits in past Mastery updates. However, these cuts mean you'll no longer be able to unlock these Finishes and Flares for your Custom Cards. At all. Your cards that already have Frosted Glass will keep it – but it'll be impossible to get on new cards.

Added

There are several additions, but none of them are new Finishes or Flares.

• Level 4: 30 card-specific Boosters
• Level 8: 20 Wild Boosters
• Level 12: 30 Wild Boosters
• Level 17: 1 Split Reroll Coin
• Level 22: 1 Custom Card Slot
• Level 27: 1 Unowned God Split
• Level 30: 50 Wild Boosters

Additionally, some new fallback rewards:

• Finish or Flare: 5 Wild Boosters
  • this is relevant for cards where you reach a level but the game can't give you a new Finish or Flare because of the ones that were moved and removed
• Reaction Set: 30 Wild Boosters
  • generally, this should only apply to cards that don't have Reaction Sets, for instance, Sandstorm, Spider-Sense, and Techno-Organic Virus
• Unowned God Split: 100 Wild Boosters
  • it's insanely unlikely but technically possible to own all 16 combinations before level 27

Boosters

Gosh, these are a massive disappointment. 130 Boosters for taking a card from level 1 to 30?! That's not even enough for a single Split. I'm so irritated by how stingy Second Dinner is being with Boosters on the Mastery track. Level 30 should reward 155 Boosters (to say nothing about the earlier levels) – enough for a Split. Credits already bottleneck Splits!

Split Reroll Coin

You can use these instead of 100 Gold to reroll Finish or Flare during a Split, after spending your free reroll. It's a fine prize, but again, I'm surprised by how stingy Second Dinner is being with them. The vast majority of my rerolls hit a Finish or Flare I wasn't chasing. Like, it'll be nice to do a few extra "free" rerolls, but handing out only 1 on the entire Mastery track means you'll hardly ever get the chance.

That said, this would be a great prize to distribute in other ways. Wouldn't be surprised at all to see them show up on LTGM prize tracks, or even to replace Gold Tickets on the Collection Level track.

Strategy tip: rerolls have a higher chance of succeeding the less diluted the Finish/Flare pools are. In other words, if you're chasing Ink/Gold/Krackle, your rerolls are more effective on Splits #4–10 than Splits #14–20.

Custom Card Slot

This is pretty much what it sounds like – a second Custom Card. Now you have two in your collection you can customize however you want. You can still only mark one as your favorite, but swapping between the two is pretty quick and easy. I'm not one to fiddle with my Custom Cards, but this is a killer prize for players who do.

Unowned God Split

This will be an Ink or Gold Finish with a Krackle Flare. It does not actually give you a new split; it's just a new combo for your Custom Cards.

Notably, this singlehandedly counters the reduced rate of Ink, Gold, and Krackle at lower Mastery levels (caused by some Finishes and Flares being moved to lower levels on the track).

While it sucks to get fewer hits before Mastery level 27, the cards you take this far will come out slightly ahead instead (versus the rates before today's patch).

Retroactive Prizes

There were some bugs as the patch rolled over (all my Unowned God Splits turned into Wild Boosters), but they were quickly addressed, and I would expect SD to make it right eventually. Let's focus on what SD intended.

All cosmetics on the track were retroactively rewarded. That includes stuff like:

• Galactic Storm Finish by level 9
• Reaction Sets at level 12
• additional Custom Cards at level 22
• Unowned God Splits at level 27

Card-specific Boosters were not retroactively rewarded at all. Wild Boosters and Split Reroll Coins were, but with extremely small caps. Players could receive up to 400 Wild Boosters and 5 Split Reroll Coins based on their Mastery progress. Additionally, all players received a flat 400 Wild Boosters.

The flat 400 is great. The caps on retroactive Wilds and Reroll Coins seem punitively low. Long-term players might be "worth" something like 8,000 Specific Boosters, 10,000 Wild Boosters, and 75 Reroll Coins. Of course those numbers will vary based on real-money spending – but they're dramatically higher than the cap. There's only so much resource-hoarding a player can do (30,000 Credits and unlimited Collector's Reserves), but it's hard not to feel like SD is punishing players for investing in their cards.

I don't know if it's wrong for SD to apply a cap, but I definitely think the caps they chose are too low. It feels the same as the small Booster/Coin quantities they picked for the Mastery track. Just… needlessly stingy.

Conclusion

The patch notes say a new Mastery reward is already planned for the next patch. That makes me wonder why not hold today's changes (which come with bad news like aggressively comped retroactive rewards) for the next patch when it could come with more positives alongside it.

It all just feels a little careless. I'm tired of Mastery updates always feeling like two steps forward, one step back. They've once again hurt the odds of Ink, Gold, and Krackle – which are commonly the Finishes and Flares that players chase. They've completely removed some Finishes and Flares from the track. I know players who like Frosted Glass!

I really like the addition of Wild Boosters and Split Reroll Coins! It's just that their quantities seem ridiculously low. Why?! It takes 26 Splits to take a card to level 30. You'd think they could hand out enough Boosters along the way to cover a few of those. As somebody who won't spend Gold on rerolls, the Coins are a fun way to give me a little extra dopamine hit. I just… don't expect that very many will actually land a Finish or Flare that I'm chasing.

The additional Custom Card Slot and Unowned God Split are both great prizes! I don't see myself enjoying the extra Custom Cards much myself, but I've already seen other players who are loving them. I think it's pretty interesting to have "God Split" canonized as an official term in-game. I've had cards that don't hit a good split before level 27, so this bonus roll with much higher chances is awesome.

I'm glad to see Mastery tweaked, but disappointed that it's a mixed bag again. Of course, every player has different goals with Splits and Mastery. That means how good or bad this patch is for you depends on what you value. Personally, I think this patch hurts me overall. My own goals are to hit Krackle, which is now a bit harder to hit before level 27 (and it usually hits by then).

Thanks for reading! Consider joining our Discord, where you can share your awesome Splits, your terrible Splits, and your thoughts on the new Mastery changes!