Gods Unchained x Superpower Balance Testing

As you may have already read, Infinite Mana (8M) will be providing balance playtesting for Gods Unchained. As players who love this game like many of you, we're really excited to give back and help improve the state of balance.

We're here to make sure nothing slips through the cracks in the next patch that might cause some major upset or exploits down the line.

We are community members, just like you, and have our ears close to the ground when it comes to balance frustration. Players also get really upset with the marketplace when they purchase an OP card one day then the next day it gets nerfed, especially when this happens over and over. Hopefully, our presence reduces this sort of market volatility so players can feel more confident with their purchases.

I also want to use this opportunity to explain what this partnership is not. We're players, not game designers, so we're not stepping into Bryn's or TrueDawn's shoes. We aren't going to have the final say on what gets into the next patch.

There's been chatter about how much time the GU balance team should commit to playing the game. Personally, I think that's missing the point. Their job is in game design—and they do it exceptionally well. People were having this argument to begin with because it was clear Gods Unchained lacked the personnel who could grind hours of GU at the highest competitive level. To ask the game designers to also do this would distract them from their real work.

Who is Infinite Mana? Why us?

So that's where we came in. 8M is comprised of the highest-performing Gods Unchained players across all competitive metrics: Tournament winnings (even when adjusted for F2P-friendly tournaments), Weekend Ranked top 10s, Ranked Constructed win rate, and sheer number of games played. We're really proud of the team we've built and if Gods Unchained is looking for pros who eat, sleep, and breathe GU, we're here for it.

We have an unparalleled track record of contributing to the GU community as well. I was given one golden rule when I was recruited into Infinite Mana as a player/coach back in 2019: "This team exists to make Gods Unchained better." Since then, Infinite Mana members have been responsible for most of the content you might've consumed in GU, across YouTube videos, daily Twitch livestreams, written articles, hosting major tournaments, live ladder rankings, and more.

Most importantly, Infinite Mana members have been some of the most vocal critics of Gods Unchained over the years as well. We're all $GODS hodlers, long-time players, and we've all individually spent thousands of hours on the game. We absolutely want the game to succeed.

So if Bryn wants to change X, Y, or Z, he can now ask us to put in the hours of testing and report our findings back to him. We hope to not only provide valuable insights on the balance spectrum but also provide a second pair of eyes to make sure the game is still fun at the end of the day.

Preventing insider trading and leaks - Introducing Superpower

At the forefront, our major concern was ensuring that we could prevent insider trading and leaks.

In order for any of this to be possible, Immutable needs to make sure the partners they work with are acting in good faith. As a result, I've created Superpower.

Superpower is a consultancy that helps studios with balance testing and content creation for their games and the official entity in partnership with Immutable. Superpower now owns team Infinite Mana and has strong legal contracts in place with all of its players, binding them to the same disclosures and responsibilities Immutable asks of Superpower.

In addition to adhering to the same internal insider trading restrictions Immutable places on their own employees, we’ve also willingly volunteered extra restrictions, like an embargo on trading any cards directly related to the subject of our balance tests. Moreover, trades that our testers plan to make will undergo a disclosure and internal audit process by both Superpower and Immutable.

To ensure we're doing everything we can to improve the state of balance in Gods Unchained, Superpower is also bringing in pro players outside of 8M for fresh perspectives. We’ve also created a data/engineering team, which aims to deliver a data-driven approach to our balance feedback. This approach will allow us to surpass the results of typical pro testing and is part of the reason why I think we are well-equipped for this task.

Lastly, on top of a 2-week tournament embargo for Immutable-sponsored tournaments, our players will be regularly rotated in and out of playtests to minimize the chance of gaining a significant competitive edge through early content access and to mitigate potential biases.

We're really happy with what we've built, so much so that I'm proud to say Gods Unchained won't be the only major game Superpower will balance test for—but we'll reveal more on that later.

Interested in what we're doing?

Come hang out with us on the Infinite Mana Discord server.

We're also looking for pro/competitive players (also outside of TCGs!), content creators, data/engineering and business development folks, and other game industry veterans who are interested in working with us on a per-project basis. Come play games and do wacky stuff with us, click here to apply for a role at Superpower.