A few days ago, famous Hearthstone streamer Jambre (here are his Twitter and Twitch) started an interesting discussion on Twitter regarding the possibility of implementing balance changes in today's Standard meta.
Many notorious voices from the community decided to answer that post and what we got is an interesting picture about how the pros would like some cards to be changed. It is also important to notice that while some classes are clearly over the top right now, what most players (like Casie) suggested is buffing rather than nerfing - something we've been seeing since Ashes of Outland (when Torrent, Shattered Rumbler and The Lurker Below received a power-up) and that we'd love to see again.
Here is a recap together with our personal takes.
Disclaimer: the following cards are the ones that feel problematic in some ways - the fact that more cards from a single class appear in this list doesn't mean that they should all get nerfed. Nerfs should weaken a class, not destroy it.
Twin Slice
Suggested change: Second Slice grants +1 Attack instead of +2.
Twin Slice has been a crazy good card since its release, it doesn’t matter which of its two forms you’re talking about.
When it was 0 mana it allowed crazy turns like Battlefiend The Coin Battlefiend Twin Slice for a turn 1 4/4 with very little chance to get the board back; turn 5 Twin Slice into Glaivebound Adept; or massive Altruis the Outcast swings (mandatory Kibler’s clip from a while ago).
On 1 mana, it grants more damage, the ability to get generated by Wandmaker and high synergy with cards like Aldrachi Warblades, Bladed Lady and Blade Dance (a card we’ll talk about in a second).
This balance change, suggested by Ridiculous Hat, could weaken both Aggro and Soul Demon Hunter, buying the opponents a bit more time to close or stabilize the game.
Blade Dance
Suggested change: Cost increased from 2 to 4 mana.
This change is mainly suggested so that Blade Dance won't be played for free after Skull of Gul'dan anymore. As Blizz stated a long time ago, large minions should be Demon Hunter’s weakness; however, Illidan can easily get a huge amount of face attack and a 2 mana fully charged Cascading Disaster is quite the polarizing move.
My personal suggestion would be that Blade Dance should consider only the equipped weapon's attack (but that would make it a very terrible card) or should consume the player's face swing for that turn.
Shardshatter Mystic
Suggested change: Cost increased from 3 to 4 mana.
Quote From Ridiculous Hat Soul DH needs one board control card […] to move by one mana
3 mana Duskbreaker for Demon Hunter is not bad, huh? Pretty much what the quote up here says: even though Demon Hunter should be about face damage, it has way to efficient board clears for (who would have guessed) too small mana investment. This is probably an aut aut: either Blade Dance bites the dust, or Shardshatter Mystic does.
Overgrowth
Suggested change: Cost increased from 4 to 5 mana.
Quote From Jambre Feels like Druid has been getting more extreme with every set. Would hate to see Malfurion get a set of nerfs, be dumpster for this expansion and then give it a set like Librams/K&C Warlock (obviously not that powerful) to build on for next year.
We've all come to personally experience that when a Druid hits Overgrowth on curve the win chances dramatically shift in their favor: the card is so good that it is able by itself to determine whether Malfurion will be able to make it to the end game and play the big stuff (Survival of the Fittest, Carnival Clown and Ysera, Unleashed) or just succumb to aggro.
The fact that Overgrowth will stay in Standard for more than a year means that it will surely need a rework at some point: even though Guardian Animals just took the bullet in its place, why not now?
Little upside of this change is that Anubisath Defender would become more relevant, Steel Beetle could return to see some play and Bogbeam/Ironbark could be casted in the same turn Overgrowth is played.
Boggspine Knuckles
Suggested change: Cost increased from 5 to 6 mana.
I have to be honest with you: this is a suggestion I didn't see coming. Shaman has been unplayable throughout the entire Year of the Phoenix and now that the Old Gods gave Thrall some decent tools to play with, someone's not okay with it. Jokes apart, the main concern seems to be that the class is able to cheese out early highrolls because of Lightning Bloom, creating gamebreaking curves that can close the match on the spot. Even though the cards are different, this is the same problem Shaman showed around a year ago, during the Doom in the Tomb event: early Evolve highrolls are unstoppable most of the times; even more when your opponent can just bypass taunts thanks to Revolve.
Bladestorm
Suggested change: Cost increased from 3 to 4 mana.
Quote From Ridiculous Hat Bladestorm is going to be around [for more than a year] and both Bomb and Control Warrior need to get worse.”
It is funny, because when Bladestorm got released people thought it was a reverse (and much worse) Defile: little did they know, since then it's been an auto-include in every Warrior deck that is not sheer aggro.
Even if it doesn't clear the board, Bladestorm is a better Lightning Storm most of the times (and without Overload: (2)!) and it can remove big threats out of Shield Slam's reach that could otherwise be a headache (Edwin VanCleef is a good example). Unless, of course, a minion manages to get over 30 Health :)
Given its effectiveness, it is easy to see why the community would like to see a change to this spell.
Risky Skipper
Suggested change: Cost increased from 1 to 2 mana or Health decreased from 3 to 2.
People have been asking for ages for a change to Risky Skipper: since its release in Galakrond’s Awakening, it didn’t take much time to pros to exploit its Wild Pyromancer-ish effect and win games. The fact that it can be tutored with Ancharrr makes its swing turns extremely reliable and consistent: even in Wild people tend to play the Skipper-Ancharrr-Armorsmith package just to shut down aggro boards and gain a ton of armor at the same time. Back in July, Skipper likely dodged the nerf because the devs were afraid that it would have killed Warrior, but maybe now that Garrosh has received new cards from Scholomance and Darkmoon Faire the situation might be different.
What do you think of these suggestions? Do you agree with them? Are there any other cards you'd like to see nerfed?
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Comments
Both Shaman and Druid its Lighting Bloom that needs the nerf. I think this card was a mistake to print. It's too powerful.
I find lighting bloom to be more annoying at shaman than druid
I would prefer Twin Slice First slice costs 2, second slice 1
Boggspine Knuckles Why? Shaman right now is the only class that makes a good aggro player trade on the board.
Better leave it alone as it rotates after darkmoon faire.
What?
Twin Slice is from the demon hunter initiate.
Boggspine Knuckles is from Ashes of Outland
[Hearthstone Card (Skull of Gul’dan) Not Found] - reduce cost of cards drawn by 2
Soulshard Lapidary - gain +4 attack
Blade Dance - after your hero attacks a minion, deal the same damage to it’s neighbours.
Twin Slice - +1 attack, add second slice (no change to second slice, or vice-versa)
Libram of Hope - restore health + summon a 6/6 with divine shield. (No taunt)
Lightforged Zealot - 2/2 equip the 4/2 weapon.
Voracious Reader - cost changed to 3- mana
But bladestorm isnt a problem at all.
Twin slice doesnt need a change if anything if wanna chaneg Revet it t 0ùmana and chaneg atruis to onyl hti face or only minion(its why twin slice isnt 0 anymore)
Blade dance to 4 is overkill, if ner 3 is where should be. If bladed lady deserves a nerf way mroe then either.
Overgrowth should just be let alone imo you cant nerf it without killing it really espcially wiht mana cost Change.
Skipper shouldnt be Nerfed Not when its gonba rotate afert darkmoon faire(which twin slice and blade dance aswell since theyre part of intiatte set which roattes with year of dragon cards)
Bogspine nerf also makes it unplayable i dont think needs a nerf. And would just make shaman unplayabe again likly and if nerf it should buff other shaman stuff.
The mytsic nerf is good but id prolly make it a 3/3 like dusbreaker.
I dotn think cards that are about to rotate should be nerfed and if do thye should get unnerfed when rotated.
But id say Buffs to weak and terrible classes(like warlock ) shoud happen before nerfs, Im.
Bring the terirbyl weak up to a more normal /reasonable ompetive level and then see if anythign ahs to change, plus is a mini set comign which culd change meta and deck thats say 5% above second best now could still be best but by only 1 or 2% for example and nto require nerfs.
i dont think healthiest would be to buff the weak first and see what the mini set gives And then see if nerfs are needed after a few weeks. And best would be to avoid nerfing thats about to rotate aswell. And if soon to rotate cards are nerfed they should be unnerfed when then actully rotate
There are two issues with buffs over nerfs (though I'm not trying to say they are always worse). First, it is harder to know if they will have any impact on the meta. You can buff a weak deck into an OK deck and still nobody would play it. Compare to nerfs, where you have a much better idea of what will change.
The second issue is that impactful buffs tend to amplify power creep, while nerfs help to keep it in check. At a time when the cost of the game is a cause of many complaints, I'm not sure fully adopting a strategy that enhances power creep (and thereby pushes people to buy even more packs) is really a good idea.
That said, buffs can be done well, and I agree with you that several of the cards on the list are fine to leave until they rotate out.
Some nerfs suggested here seems a little too far, like Bladestorm and Boggspine Knuckles which isn't really problems on their own, especially bladestorm since its just so easy to play around it.
Evolve shaman is currently very strong, not merely because the weapon is more consistently drawn now, but because of Revolve, and mana cheating (again, why isn't Lightning Bloom on this list when its a greater problem than even overgrowth). Revolve can be defensive (removing buffed aggro boards), or offensive (used at 4 with the rabbits) but at its best it destroys aggro's board while giving you a decent advantage via cards like Mogu Fleshshaper. And that turn swing can happen as early as turn 4, which in most cases if you are unable to fully remove shaman's board by then they usually snowball on you hard. In my opinion, I expect the archetype to calm down a bit on rotation since both desert hare and fleshshaper will be gone. The knuckles are hard enough to equip as it is, and really doesn't need nerfing.
I'm honestly not really up in arms over warrior in general, though I think the ETC combo having no playaround is a little harsh considering how good warrior is at control. Of course, giving warrior one of the best cards in this expansion in Sword Eater may have something to do with why they're so good. Maybe bump this card by 1 mana would weaken warrior's defense but keep the deck viable? I think its perhaps the best, if we're nerfing it at all.
Most others are fair enough. Blade dance in especially can go crawl under a ditch and die. Team5 should start reviewing their own design for dhunter, because its starting to get to the point where they're practically capable of doing just about anything, from drawing cards, silences, to dealing with boards, to healing. Even taunts don't get a say against Illidan apparently. What's their weakness again?
Don't take Sword Eater away come on.
I'm not in favor of nerfing warrior, since I can't imagine it as being too strong to defeat. And it keeps aggro at bay.
But even I have to admit that sword eater is just too good a card not to be part of any warrior decks until it rotates. The only deck it doesnt naturally fit in at the moment is in bomb warrior, for obvious reasons.
I think Bladestorm is weak tbh, especially in this meta where there is usually a 1 health minion on board in DH, Shaman, Hunter and Paladin.
Meanwhile Risky skipper is meta defining for Warrior. Nerfing it in any way will make Warrior crap imo.
I mean you still run Bladestorm because you can combo it with Barov or Brawl
I don't like any of these nerfs. The Demon Hunter Initiate cards cycle out in a few months anyway. Druid needs more help if anything. Warrior and Shaman just got back into the middle of the pack.
Warrior has been good the entire year...
Warrior just got back? Warrior has been on the top of the meta for pretty much the entire year (maybe except some short periods like the Corsair Cache nerf before Scholomance release)
I still like my original suggestion to nerf Twin Slice. Make Twin Slice cost-1 and give +1. Have Second Slice cost-0 and give +1.
I'll just copy paste a comment I made on Reddit: "Twin Slice is quite tricky to balance since DH has a lot of attack-related cards: making it cost 0 allows insta-procs of Battlefiend, Satyr Overseer and Glaivebound Adept; making it cost 1 allows big damage and great synergy with the likes of Bladed Lady, Blade Dance and [Hearthstone Card (Aldrachi Warbaldes) Not Found]."
Maybe your suggestion falls in the middle ground and is the most reasonable one, but I'm curious to see if and how the devs will solve the puzzle.
Twin Slice is going to be good as long as it is a cheap Twinspell; I think making it give only +1 attack for each slice keeps it playable but not auto-include in every DH list.
Blade Dance is one of the egregious cards to me for DH because there are so many ways to get ridiculously high attack for DH. I like the idea of changing it to be "Deal damage equal to your hero's Weapon to 3 random enemy minions." while keeping the mana cost the same. This change keeps the card as cheap removal, but requires weapon usage; moreover, it lets Team 5 experiment with a large attack "control" weapon at some point to have synergy with the card.
Shardshatter Mystic is definitely very strong, and I don't see why they power-crept on Duskbreaker, so it seems appropriate to make it a 4-mana 3/3, especially considering cards like Arcanosaur and, more recently, Fire Breather exist, which are obviously way worse than Shardshatter Mystic.
Mana-cheating only has potential to break the game, so I think nerfing Overgrowth to 5-mana is appropriate; it also gains new synergies in the process which would be cool and probably prevent the card from becoming unplayable. Maybe it should also draw 2 cards if you have 10 mana crystals?
I don't think Boggspine Knuckles is the problem, but rather the way the transform/evolve mechanic works. As many have suggested in the past, I think the evolve mechanic should be based on the mana-cost of the minion when it is played rather than what the card text is. Obviously, this method can complicate the coding of the game or in-game understanding, but it seems like using the green/red modifiers for text that they already use for when a card's stats change would work in this context. I think this change makes transform/evolve higher skill while feeling less high-roll-y.
Bladestorm is definitely good, but not sure it warrants a nerf. It doesn't feel nearly as strong as other versatile board clears that have existed (e.g. Defile, Warpath), and it also doesn't feel horrible to play against.
As for Risky Skipper, I think changing its mana cost or its health makes the card unplayable. At 2 mana, it can't stop aggro and probably acts only as a weird combo card for armor. At 2 health, it can only stop the smallest of aggro boards and likely turns exclusively into a combo card similar to what happened with Bloodsworn Mercenary after its nerf. I believe the best change to the card that doesn't kill it is simply removing the Pirate tag. From a flavor standpoint, I hate this change, but from a competitive standpoint, it removes the abundant Pirate synergies in Warrior--specifically the targeted card draw--all while keeping the power of the card on the board.
In addition to these changes, I also think Libram Paladin is in dire need of changes. The problem with the package is not that it's strong, but that it is oppressive, infinite, versatile, and excessive. The package supports aggro, tempo, mid-range, control, and combo! If you want constant board buffs, Librams have you covered. If you want board clears, Librams have you covered. If you want defense, Librams have you covered. If you want tempo curve plays, Librams have you covered. The package desperately needs some kind of re-work, but I don't suspect we'll ever get it.
I agree with you on all points except a few:
DH is supposed to be an attacking class, not strictly a weapon class, so Blade Dance shouldn't be too much similar to Blade Flurry. I think the proposed mana change is reasonable given the reasons written in the article.
Overgrowth already draws a card at 10 mana, so I don't see why a buff that would make it too similar to Nourish would be required.
Also, I'm surprised none of these nerfs mention Aggro DH, the deck that shifted the entire meta in the state it currently is, the way I see it at least.