A few days ago, Hearthstone Developer Alec Dawson talked about a future incoming balance patch that will address some of the problems that are currently afflicting the meta. While they didn't mention that these changes will address both Standard and Wild, we know from a recent Q&A held on Iksar's Twitter (here's the full transcript in case you missed it) that some archetypes are under close observation.
While we wait for Team 5 to do their job and find the best way to improve the game, let's try to predict some of the moves we may see in a couple of days. In this article, we'll showcase a list of nerfs we (or the Hearthstone community) deem likely to happen.
Beware: We're not saying all these cards should and will be nerfed, but rather that each of them appear to be problematic in some way. In fact, our intention is not to murder Paladin a class, but rather identify what will be the next targets on Team 5's list.
Tickatus
Suggested change: Cost increased from 6 to 7 mana.
Probably the most hated card in the current Standard meta. While it's easy to understand why players hate to play against a deck that is able to melt a third of your deck, it has to be said that Control Warlock isn't definitely a top tier archetype, and people are overestimating the game-play impact of Tickatus: in fact, most of the times burning 5 cards from your deck doesn't stop you from going face and kill your opponent: unless you're playing Control Priest player, Tickatus should not represent a problem most of the times. However, the psychological impact seems to be a totally different topic: players love to play Tick even though it's bad and players hate to see their deck milled even though they're probably still going to win.
If a change is going to be delivered, and with each day that passes we're becoming more and more convinced that Team 5 will be forced to intervene, it is very likely going to be because of the feeling this card delivers to the offended and not because of meta-relevant reasons.
Control Warlock is already a slow deck, but bumping Tickatus up to 7 mana will definitely question players whether it's really worth running it and, if the answer is yes, they're going to find even less success with it.
The Non-Game Duo
Suggested changes:
- Mindrender Illucia: Cost increased from 3 to 4 mana.
- Il'gynoth: Cost increased from 4 to 6 mana - stats should be increased accordingly.
For this suggestion, we have to thank Ridiculous Hat and Zach_O from Vicious Syndicate, who discussed the upcoming balance changes in the last episode of their Podcast - go check them out if you have the chance! Now, for what regards the topic of this article, if Tickatus gets hit as we suspect and Control Warlock will (finally) decrease in popularity, then Lifesteal Demon Hunter and Control Priest will have an easy life, given that one of their most difficult matchups is the one against Gul'dan.
Tickatus is a key card in winning matchups against a combo deck like Il'gynoth DH and Control Priest cannot really generate much board pressure, so the fatigue game is quite relevant. Based on this scenario, there amount of non-games you'd face on ladder would exponentially increase: if you couldn't stand Tickatus Warlock and No-Minion Mage, then you won't appreciate this hypothetical meta. However, you can't really nerf a card without touching the other as well. Therefore, these changes would be preventive rather than aimed at solving current metagame issues.
Il'gynoth - Getting killed from 30 on turn 7 is not fun, especially if until that point you're the one winning the game. Il'gynoth is quite a unique design and synergizes very well with the tools Illidan has at his disposal, but the amount of cycle the deck has, and the (very likely) decrease in popularity of Tickatus Warlock will greatly increase this deck's performances. We, therefore, suggest to completely change the role of the card: keep its effect as it is right now, but bump both its stats and mana cost so that it will become more of a snowballing threat to remove at all costs rather than a potentially unstoppable combo piece.
Mindrender Illucia - Increasing her cost to 3 mana a few months ago has not stopped the card from seeing play, being very relevant and triggering a large portion of the community. With Illucia playable, players often lose their ability to plan resources ahead of time or save up some answers for later in the game - you just swap hands, dump most of the threats your opponent is saving up and you're good to go: you don't care if your opponent will get rid of your Holy Smites or your Condemns, as he won't be able to be dangerous to you from that point and that will allow you to bring the ball on your side of the field.
While trying to increase Mindrender Illucia to could be a rather simple, yet effective solution, famous Wild player Corbett has another suggestion: what do you think?
Quote From Corbett Thinking about incoming nerfs: change I’d like to see for Mindrender Illucia is something like “Battlecry: Replace both players’ hands with copies of their opponent’s until you next turn.”
Takes away some of the most extreme polarising aspects of the card, but keeps the initial flavour.
Crabrider
Suggested change: Health decreased from 4 to 3.
Another change people have been begging for quite a lot, and day after day even the most hesitant players (including myself) are beginning to agree. Even though it's undeniable that a decent chunk of Crabrider's strength comes from the ability to insta-buff it in order for it to snowball out of control in the very first stages of the game (yes, Hand of A'dal, we're looking at you), there's no way that this minion isn't an outlier by itself.
The 4 Health stat is remarkable by itself when attached to a 2-drop (Shadowjeweler Hanar and Efficient Octo-bot send their regards), and its even crazier when it's combined with two keywords that go incredibly well together. Reducing Crabrider's Health total to 3 will make it a lot easier to manage, as there are a lot of ways to instantly kill it even if played on curve on an empty board; Holy Smite, Drain Soul, Soul Shear and Quick Shot are the most common examples, but we can definitely go on.
Paladin's early game is definitely too strong at the moment and, even though this card is Neutral, it should get hit in order to nudge down Uther's power level and to prevent Crabrider itself to become problematic in the near future, maybe with another class since it sees solid amounts of play outside of Paladin too.
Conviction (Rank 1)
Suggested Change: Attack buff decreased from 3 to 2 or Cost increased from 1 to 2 mana.
Hand of A'dal is not the only card that pairs up well with Crabrider. While Conviction (Rank 1) is pretty much a worse (but not terrible) Blessing of Might, once it gets upgraded at rank 2 it's basically a 1 mana Bloodlust which is pretty damn good f we can say so, especially with an early game as consistent and as efficient as the one currently at Uther's disposal.
We're uncertain about what solution would be better for this case: while reducing the buff to +2 Attack would slow down the card, we are afraid that increasing its cost would be too much of a hit towards Conviction (Rank 1)'s viability.
Spell Mage
Suggested changes:
- Incanter's Flow: Cost increased from 2 to 3 mana.
- Refreshing Spring Water: Cost increased from 4 to 5 mana or Mana Crystals refreshed reduced from 2 to 1.
Deck of Lunacy's nerf took away the feeling of helplessness from a match against No-Minion Mage, but that hasn't changed the deck's ability to generate insane tempo swings. Late March's massive rotation together with the release of some new and powerful toys are more than enough for Mage to still be competitive and borderline problematic.
Incanter's Flow - Getting a Flow (sometimes even two if you're lucky skilled) on curve creates the deck's consistency as well as makes it very polarizing. I don't remember where I read it, but someone rightfully observed that not hitting Incanter's Flow makes No-Minion Mage feel like playing a bad Arena deck, which is a feeling we totally agree with. While the most reasonable change would be increasing this spell's cost to 3 mana in order to prevent its Prince Keleseth-like effect, people also suggest giving it the Summoning Portal treatment: Keep Flow at 2 mana but don't let it reduce the cost below 1 mana.
On a side note, this card is also a centerpiece of one of Wild's current tyrants, APM Mage - a deck that relies on cycling through the deck, playing Sorcerer's Apprentice and Flamewanker and burst down the opponents out of thin air. A change to Incanter's Flow can be potentially beneficial for our Wild friends too!
Refreshing Spring Water - This card seemed bonkers during the reveal season and ended up being even more insane when Forged in the Barrens was released back around a month ago. Not only it is a Pot of Greed in No-Minion Mage, but if you previously discount it with Incanter's Flow you actually gain mana, which is fun but very, very powerful. Assuming Flow won't get touched (which is very unlikely, since reducing Flow's power level will also adjust RPW), there are two reasonable changes for this card: you either decreased the Mana Crystals refreshed or increased its cost - in both ways, the card won't be able to "pay for itself" when cast, and will slow down Jaina's relentless cycling through her deck looking for burst.
Mankrik
Suggested change: Mankrik, Consumed by Hatred's Health reduced from 10 to 6 (or 7).
Quite the interesting change here. Just to make sure we're on the same page, we're not talking about Mankrik because we think he's an overpowered card that is able to break the game by itself alone. However, this minion is played in pretty much every single deck that can afford running it (probably the only exception is No-Minion Mage for obvious reasons): we're talking about a 3/4 for 3 mana, which is basically a Spider Tank; on the other hand, it brings an upside that needs no deckbuilding restrictions and doesn't consume your draw (there's even neat synergy with Barak Kodobama.
The problem is when Mankrik, Consumed by Hatred comes into play in the very early stages of the game: not only it deals a nice chunk of damage to the opponent's face, but it also brings a remarkable 3/10 body, which is very difficult to get rid of and forces most aggro decks to sink quite a lot of resources into it.
Even though the card is not incredibly problematic right now, we think that lowering Pissed Mankrik's Health to 6 or 7 won't harm the unit's power level but will just make sure that it won't cause too much of a swing if you happen to immediately find her wife's corpse.
Other Nerf Nominations
Here is a shortlist of some other cards players happened to dislike for various reasons and, even though they are not particularly problematic right now, they might become in the future:
The overall quality of 1-drops has spiked since March's rotation, and this spells grants Paladin extremely solid early games as well as targets for Hand of A'dal.
Be honest, playing it on Blademaster Samuro is a 2-card Reno Jackson with an Overload-less Lightning Storm attached to it.
Partially the same issue of Crabrider: being a 2 mana 1/4, you have little to no chances to see it killed right off the bat, especially if on coin. In this case, Octo-Bot's Frenzy is almost always guaranteed to trigger, with very few cards denying the mana discount (Devolving Missiles is the most prominent example).
What do you think about these suggestions? What cards would you like to see changed? Let us know in the comments below!
Comments
It's always amusing to see just how many downvotes get thrown around on these nerfing articles.
It is probably one of the topic that brings out the most conflict among the community members lol - definitely agree with you.
Maybe just removing windfury from Crabrider is enough. It keeps the solid stats to trade and be buffed, and doesn't do insane damage.
"We're not saying all these cards should and will be nerfed,"
Article is called Cards We Would Like to See Nerfed.
Normally, you choose the title of the article in order for it to be short and representative of the content it showcases.
It does contain nerf suggestions, it does contain cards we'd personally like to see changed - even though you'd like Paladin to be hit, there's no way Team 5 will nerf 4 of the cards Uther currently plays.
In other words, the article showcases a list of possible way to change (and possibly improve) the meta: it is fair to assume that, even though we nailed quite a few predictions in the past, we don't have neither the means nor the abilities to be perfect.
In the end, this kind of article is aimed at creating a form of discussion between the community members: do you see something you agree with us? Great, we're on the same page! Do you see something you're totally against? Tell us why!
I'm not sure now, maybe there is a difference between "would like to see" and "think it should". But it was the should part I was talking about, not the will part.
I suggest making Tickatus a symmetrical effect! Making it a 7 cost card does nothing, it will still destroy control decks and just be even worse than it already is in aggro matchups. This way at least both players still technically have the same amount of cards and fits in with the Warlock theme of being bad hitting themselves.
Also Control Warlock is really strong right now, why do people say its a tier 4 deck? It beats Priest, Paladin and Warrior easily (the top meta contenders) and its only bad matchup is Face Hunter which is also much rarer these days.
Tickatus will still destroy control decks in his current form even at 9 mana, but the question is, how much are Ctrl-lock players are willing to lose to get those few power trip plays? 7-mana Tick is going to be dead a lot of the time, so it basically relegates him to a counter-control option for extremely greedy metas.
Also, people say Ctrl-lock is bad because it is. VS' latest meta report gives it exactly 5 good matchups in all categories, which are Control Priest, Miracle Priest, Control Warrior, Libram Paladin, and Mill Warlock. Of those, only Libram Paladin and Control Priest are popular enough to make it onto the meta score chart. If your pocket meta is somehow all those decks, then yes, Ctrl-lock is a great choice, but it seems unlikely that that would happen.
This is so dumb and shows either thread creator is a control priest fanboy or has no opinions and listens to the loudest complainers.
Control priest is tier 1 right now, but you are suggesting nerfs to a tier 4 deck that beats it? It generates multiples board clears, heals and and has no counterplay beyond mage and warlock. I would like to see hysteria moved to 4 mana. I would like to see a rework to how the discover mechanic works so that it can no longer be chained into more card generation.
Legendary spells shouldnt be discoverable either otherwise what is the point of limiting the in the first place?
Right now priest destroys aggro, midrange and control. Mage dealing 60 burn isn't even a free win. The priest class is extremely unhealthy. It only loses to its own badluck on the card generation. You can't effectively pressure the class with minions and you can't out value them without tickatus. They have answers to everything but tickatus.
Somebody needs to say it, so I will. I know priest being bad is a meme, but the class is tier 1 now and thoroughly unenjoyable to play against. This isn't a control problem, this is a card generation problem. Let me be clear on that.
Discover effects allow extreme flexibility, let's put a lid on the power of them now. Right now it's still playing by the rules of LoE and the game has changed so much that even the ability to not discover the same spell isn't a good enough limiter on the power of discover.
First of all, thanks: you don't even know me or my personal tastes but labelling me as a "fanboy" is far easier, right? Sure. Not that I really need to justify myself, but since I track my wins I can tell you that since January I've won just 18 Priest games and spoiler: they were all while achievement hunting.
For the second point, the article does not represent the cards I would like to see nerfed, but rather, and I copy-pasted this from the intro:
After reading your whole comment, more than me being a Priest fanboy you seem to be the average Priest hater, which is quite far more common.
No one is saying Priest is fine and should not be touched, no one is saying Priest is bad, no one is saying Priest is overpowered and should be pummeled to the ground.
If you have an opinion on how you'd like to improve the meta, you're more than welcome to express it, since this is a discussion article whose goal is promoting interaction between the community members. Your suggestion about limiting chained Discoveries is quite interesting, but to be fair I would've preferred you to focus on that and express it better rather than jamming blows to me. Be better.
I would question if control/heal priest is really tier 1. Looking through the HSreplay data, except for top 1000 legend in the last few days, it is solidly tier 2 with a 50% win rate basically any other way you slice it.
Additionally, even if control warlock is the worse deck, it has the higher popularity, again in everything except top legend in the last ~3 days.
But more over in diamond through legend, priest has a 15-16% win rate against warlock. That is not healthy no matter what. A match up between two semi-popular decks that is worse than a 1 in 6 is so bad for the game. It potentially should get several card changes on both sides to improve the that match up but prevent issues with the other matches.
As for the mage match up, priest only has a 40% win rate, which is often seen as the maximum acceptable difference for a match up. So I don't really see how much more of a "free win" it should be.
As for discover its problem is the opposite of what you suggest. Further limiting the pool of card to discover from is just more of the same issue. With the removal of classic and basic, discover and random generation got much better since so many low rolls got removed. Across the board all of the generation needs to have its power reevaluated. Adjust costs, adjust stats since the generation is now worth more.
Lastly, I can't be sure, but you might not be playing the priest match up correctly. I know I hated playing against warlock and Tickatus. I watched some videos where they explained the matchups, the weak points, etc. And you would be surprised how much less you hate a deck when you beat it 5-10% more.
Oh noes, not my precious Conviction and Crabby Murloc.
Anyone who doesn't think the trio of Tickatus/Il'gynoth/Mindrender Illucia is problematic and quite toxic for the game, I would direct to Vicious Syndicate podcast nr 40 as it explains the whys and hows at length. It's not so much the power levels themselves, but how many potential decks and gameplay strategies are being nipped in the bud just due to their current existence.
^ This.
If Warlock gets hit (and I think Tickatus probably has to) Priest should get preemptively nerfed. Apotheosis would be a good hit.
Edit: having just played a couple Priests and having them Samuro + Apotheosis me I can confirm; that combo is very good. Maybe a little too good. I get it that Samuro is a Legendary, but Priest already has access to tons of heal.
I think removing the stat buff from apotheosis is a great place to start. Life steal is extraordinarily powerful and makes games too swing. Comeback mechanics are great but you shouldn't be rewarded with a board clear and full heal for ignoring the board. It would be fine if the priest did not already have some of the best premium removal in the game. Playing around hysteria and soul mirror is already difficult and then they punish you if you go tall or sticky too. Priest needs seriously looked at. Especially if you are going to hit cards like tickatus and Crabrider.
I think priest and warlock are fine as they are rn. Hitting them would not be correct i think.
Why do you think hitting Priest and Warlock would not be correct?
They are clearly not the most powerfull decks. Am i wrong? And nerfing a card just because it feels bad to play against should not be a reason imo.
Well, Priest is definitely among the most powerful decks, with just a few matchups including Control Warlock (which is bad but still sees play because reasons) holding it back.
I agree with the entire article except about Paladin cards (I agree with the Crab Rider nerf). There are three extremely strong archetypes - Secret Paladin, Secret Libram Paladin, and Aggro Paladin. Conviction (Rank 1) is only run in one of those archetypes. The WR data on First Day of School is overwhelming. 70%+ Mulligan WR across all archetypes. Make it 1-mana. It may kill the card, but it's had its time to shine. The minion pool is too small and powerful. Un-nerf it when it rotates to Wild.
Now, don't pile-on the downvotes for bringing up a discussion, but the other Paladin card I think needs to be addressed is Oh My Yogg!. I don't have the data/stats to back this up though. It's usually cheated out by Sword of the Fallen so it's a bad Mulligan selection, and the "played" data is also distorted. But it's on a completely different power-level than the other Paladin secrets. Counterspell is perfectly balanced, and this is a 1-mana version (or 0-mana through Sword) that sometimes wins the game on its own through RNG. Paladin has an easy time getting on the board (First Day of School), and Oh My Yogg! shuts down early-game board clears for 0-1 mana, and might end up buffing the exact things you were trying to kill. Even if it's not as OP as I'm suggesting here, I'd argue the card falls into the same un-fun category as Tickatus, Illucia, and Il'gynoth.
But I'm not sure how you nerf such a unique and complicated effect as Oh My Yogg!. Here's my best suggestion. "Secret: After your opponent plays a spell, cast a random one that costs less."
That means The Coin won't trigger it because spells can't cost less than 0. That means a board clear won't get disrupted, nor any other spell, the Paladin just gets a random free spell afterwards. That means if the opponent plays a 10-mana spell the Paladin can't also get a 10-mana spell, it'll randomly cast a spell that costs between 0-9 - thus avoiding some of the pitfalls of the smaller spell pools at each mana-cost. There's still huge potential game-busting upsides to a 1-mana secret like this, but it won't shut down your opponents' game plan. It'll just make crazy stuff happen, in the true spirit of Yogg.