Originally announced as being a thing last Tuesday, the Hearthstone nerfs have officially been detailed! We were promised nerfs that targeted Mage, Paladin, Rogue, and Neutral Cards and we were not disappointed.
- Deck of Lunacy now costs 4 mana (Up from 2).
- Sword of the Fallen now has 2 durability (Down from 3).
- Jandice Barov now costs 6 mana (Up from 5).
- Pen Flinger can now only attack minions.
- Far Watch Post now has 3 health (Down from 4)
- Mor'shan Watch Post now has 4 health (Down from 5)
All these changes arrive in Patch 20.0.2 which hits Hearthstone tomorrow, April 13.
Quote From Blizzard Deck of Lunacy
- Old: [Costs 2] → New: [Costs 4]
Dev Comment: Deck of Lunacy moves up to 4 mana, removing its ability to provide a game-warping effect on turn 1 or 2. When we create cards like Deck of Lunacy, we're aiming for an experience that lets you do wacky, over-the-top things at the cost of power. There's a large audience for that (Spell Mage's play-rate shows!), but Deck of Lunacy very clearly crosses the power threshold we set for these types of cards.
Sword of the Fallen
- Old: 1 Attack, 3 Durability → New: 1 Attack, 2 Durability
Dev Comment: Sword of the Fallen is not only powerful, but also creates early-game situations with too many Secrets in play. We're moving Sword of the Fallen down to 2 durability to reduce the overall value of the card and make those turns against 3-4 Secrets less common.
Jandice Barov
- Old: [Costs 5] → New: [Costs 6]
Dev Comment: Jandice Barov benefitted greatly from the Core Set refresh and the rotation of weaker 5-Cost minions. Looking ahead, we don't intend to dilute Jandice's pool of summoned minions and that's not something we'd want to rely on for her balance. With that in mind, we are nerfing Jandice Barov to 6 mana where her total stat output is much more appropriate.
Pen Flinger
- Old: Battlecry: Deal 1 damage. Spellburst: Return this to your hand. → New: Battlecry: Deal 1 damage to a minion. Spellburst: Return this to your hand.
Dev Comment: Pen Flinger equips some classes with large amounts of chip damage, whether it be to minions or to the opposing hero. This flexibility makes Pen Flinger an attractive option for many decks, but when that utility is combined with repetition it takes over the story of a match. Pen Flinger takes out your minions, might deal 10 damage to your face over multiple turns, and even had the gall to call you names throughout all of it. We're nerfing Pen Flinger to now only target minions, positioning it as a removal option rather than a dual-threat card.
Far Watch Post
- Old: 2 Attack, 4 Health → New: 2 Attack, 3 Health
Mor’shan Watch Post
- Old: 3 Attack, 5 Health → New: 3 Attack, 4 Health
Dev Comment: Watch Posts are meant to act as an interesting tech-package when dealing with certain gameplans. Currently though, they act as go-to options in many classes, sporting quite high winrates for disruption-based cards. In order to cut into their power, we're reducing the Health of both Far Watch Post and Mor'shan Watch Post. This change will make them easier to deal with on turns 2 + 3, lowering the investment barrier for removal to better match the options available on those early turns.
Comments
Can they change the voice line too? Hearing "Hey loser!", "Wasn't me!" 20 times a game gets a little old
They could at least make more voice lines for him (there are minions with multiple attack lines)
- Hey loser, - Hey sucker, - Hey dud, - Hey you failure, - Hey wrecked
Evil Heckler is still one of my favourites for that and it wasn't even that good a minion
Pretty happy with everything but where's the Pen Flinger voice line change nerf? lol
A personal opinion of mine, but I dont thinm the Lunacy nerf matters, since the problem is the pool of spells
I have been playing some of spell mage recently, and I rarely ever play it on turn 2 or even for 2 mana. The deck just cheapens itself out and generates so much value, that Lunacy was rarely a play which would cost me tempo.
Watchposts are a fair nerf, but I dont think it'll make them less frequent or a lot weaker, they'll still be strong, which I guess it means it was a good nerf?
Lunacy being nerfed to 4 mana at least keeps absurd highroll scenarios off the table like Lunacy on 2, Arcane Intellect on 3, Spring Water on 4. I think sanding down that edge will make a big difference. And if you pull Lunacy off an early Runed Orb then you can't use it on the next turn.
Oh those are very fair points :0
I can agree with that!
Mor'shan Watch Post have been destroyed with that nerf, but Deck of Lunacy Will still see play for sure.
Some of these nerfs are fairly predictable, but I really did not think they would nerf the watchposts honestly.
The change to Deck of Lunacy and Sword of the Fallen were expected, as these are high win rate cards. While I think we'll still be seeing lunacy mage in some form, it would likely no longer be a viable competitive deck since you can no longer mulligan your whole hand for this card without suffering some repercussion. As for SotF, its still a good card and will still play its role, its just a little weaker. There's a definite zero chance for this card to get axed from decks with secrets in it, given how much paladin needs the draw.
The pen throwing bastard is down, but not out. In fact, I'm having trouble imagining this card getting axed in any deck but aggro. Its still going to do what it usually does, which is to kill boards. Its definitely still going to be included into paladin decks, all it does is to ensure that paladin's game plan is now 100% board, with only Libram of Judgment being the sole viable burst damage option. Its likely still going to be in rogue decks, because octobot is still here, and rogue can now drop some of the watchposts post-nerf.
So what's going to change? Watchpost rogue is likely gone, and in fact I think Far Watch Post is now so easily removed it'll likely be nothing more than an annoyance rather than a genuine threat. In its place I expect the new Alex combo version to come in. Libram pally might shift things up a bit, since lunacy mage is no longer a threat, but will still likely be the no.1 deck. With lunacy mage finally gone at last, we can expect to see more board based tech choices like ooze, Death's Head Cultist, and mage itself would likely experiment with either burn or ping mage.
Expect some bump for warrior, with priest likely to take its place in the bottom of the tier list. I still expect to see paladin, mage, rogue, and hunter battle it out for top 3.
I remember getting mad by getting a golden Deck of Lunacy when it's expansion was released, now I am happy.
thought the same when they buffed and later again when they nerfed Luna's Pocket Galaxy, then realized that I already dusted it during the boomsday expansion thinking it would never become viable. Looking back it's kinda ironic that it also had "Luna" in its name.
Jandice nerf is perfect.
Sword nerf is fine, but Paladin has plenty of other problematic elements.
Flinger nerf is fine, but I wouldn't have minded something that utterly destroyed it.
Lunacy nerf may not go far enough. Turn 1 or 2 Lunacy was never that deck's biggest problem (a big one, but not the biggest). The real problems are the small spell pool and the ridiculous mana discounts.
Watch Post nerfs are completely stupid and unnecessary. I get that they have high win rates, but a lot of that is because people are still bad at playing against them. Far Watch Post, for example, can be ignored a lot of the time, but people needlessly sink a bunch of resources into removing it. I hate it when they fix players' ineptitude with a nerf.
I really like to agree with you on the watchpost, in that the nerfs are kinda harsh. But honestly, I think the change was necessary.
Because these watchposts has attack values, dealing with them will almost always put you behind on tempo and the effect is disruptive enough that it basically shuts down decks according to watchposts and archetype, like how control warlock has a 0 percent chance of countering a Far Watch Post without any minions. It's not entirely true that these can be ignored either; it puts some decks on a great disadvantage. Control decks are often one mana away from wiping the board, hence why Cult Neophyte continues to see play.
That said, I still think team5 has pre-empted the nerf on Mor'shan Watch Post, because in my opinion only far watch post should be nerfed.
I think its still playable, but perhaps only in dhunters and rogue decks, as these are perhaps the only classes that can easily deal with tempo and keep those posts running as long as possible.
I can't believe you're trying to support your argument with a sob story about control warlock, of all things. If you truly think watch posts were keeping that deck down, get ready to agree with me hardcore on the nerfs.
Mor'shan nerf was necessary because of how solid the Watch Post package as a whole is which leads to it, almost accidentally, completely kick Zoo decks (and just generally minion based midrange decks) out of the meta.
If I play Zoo and my opponent drops Watch post on curve and I can't kill it on board I'm just locked out of the game. At least now I could at the very least run Shadowbolt and kill it off clean.
as you said, Watch Posts shouldn't be playable in just any deck but rather in decks that can actually keep them alive
A non-zoo midrange deck should have a balance of minions and removal, though. If you don't have spells, you're running a zoo deck by definition. That's what zoo means -- all your effects come from minions.
And let's not pretend there are no battlecries in the game that can deal with Mor'shan. I can think of three without even opening my collection.
Watch Posts are broken and deserved to be nerfed. They have vanilla stats +1 meaning they usually cannot be removed with equal mana and often need more than one card to be dealt with meaning that regardless of whether you ignore them or deal with them you will always end up behind in tempo or ressources while the watch post player sacrifices absolutely nothing unless they absolutely require minion pressure (in which case they probably wouldn't be running watch posts anyways).
Yeah, that's kind of the whole point of them. That's exactly the tradeoff for "Can't attack," and it's not unfair. It's just something people aren't used to, so they are acting like a bunch of babies.
This nerf is going to make them unplayable.
but it's not a tradeoff, that'S the point.
It's like saying the tradeoff for Pen Flinger is that you need to run a lot of cheap spells. It's not exactly a downside if the power level is already this high.
The tradeoff for can't attack is the punishment for your opponent playing or drawing cards. No need to overstat the card, it already basically has taunt