We're getting a round of buffs, and nerfs, in Hearthstone next week. But more importantly, we're getting buffs!
Although no details have been released yet, we've got our own ideas on what buffs and nerfs we'd like to see in the next patch and we'd also love to hear from you. What cards do you hope to see get nerfed and buffs? Let us know in the comments below.
Quote From Alec Dawson Had some great balance talks over the last few days. 5 nerfs, 10 buffs in next week’s patch. Looking to bring up some underperforming classes/archetypes, there’s some spicy stuff.
![All The Great Dark Beyond Card Reveals for October 23 - Day 13 [Finished]](the-great-dark-beyond-day-13.webp)
Comments
Alright so since the buffs are supposedly targetting struggling classes and archetypes (instead of just underperforming cards) I feel like we can get a general idea on what they are trying to buff.
Hero Power Mage comes to mind first because that deck is just impossibly slow despite having some pretty decent payoffs. Not even entirely sure how that one could be buffed outside of making Wildfire 1-mana (to scam more out of Wandmaker and also because it's actually unreasonably clunky to actually play the thing without just losing on tempo).
Shaman will obviously get the main share of the buffs, although I'm curious which archetype. I'm also not entirely sure if they can even fix the class since the main issue is the complete lack of draw (The Al'akir Ysera control/combo Shaman would work fine if it weren't for the fact that even Priest gets through their deck faster).
Funnily enough, Paladin might even get some form of buff to the Silver Hand archetype, or even Invigorating Sermon (reducing that to 3 would be huge because it allows you to run Kazakus)
I'm assuming Control Warrior will get some sort of buff since they actually have a decent selection of win conditions, but they just don't have the means of staying alive.
I'm personally hoping that Hunter gets some sort of buff to their value/midrange archetype in a way that doesn't also indirectly buff Face Hunter (Dire Frenzy at 3? Selective Breeder as a 2/2?) It probably wouldn't even take a lot because the general Face Hunter shell can easily be repurposed into something slower, even more if you just cut out the spell package around Pack Runner and use more minions (if only they were useful.
We should also consider that might not even buff mostly new cards but rather retune some of the older ones (like they did with the Boomsday stuff way back when). There's a lot of interesting stuff that hasn't seen play and could be made to work with a bit of investment. Then again, they have said that cards are designed around the year they are released in so I doubt they'd go out of their way to make archetypes from last year viable, although I could be wrong.
I also wonder if they might unnerf a few older cards, especially for Demon Hunter (who is really struggling atm). Would Priestess of Fury be too op if she were back at 6/7? Would she be balanced enough as a 6/6? I feel like most of what DH is missing right now is a way to pressure without having to wait for Inquisitor. Priestess might be able to bridge that gap.
Good gravy, no! Wildfire at 1 mana will just make Odd mage without the odd restriction, and it's not like it's lacking an alternative to Jan'alai. I don't think it is unreasonable at all to pay 2 mana to deal >>3 additional damage over the course of the game. It just needs a bit of a slower meta to have time to do that.
I'd much rather they helped out the control decks that could slow down the meta - automatically helping every low tempo deck in the process - than ensure every deck is high tempo. When tempo is the answer to tempo we get locked into a positive feedback loop that hurts diversity, even if it superficially increases the number of viable decks.
Buffing multiple control decks is a waste of time. Its incredibly hard in this game for multiple control decks to exist at the same time as one will always out value another and push it out of the meta
If they are more or less equal except for the control vs control matchup, then yes one will be squeezed out. But there's normally space for coexisting control decks as long as they have different pros and cons against other decks.
For example, much of the time between Frozen Throne and Descent of Dragons was underpinned by a battle between control decks that had enough dominance over aggro that they could turn it into a value competition instead of who beats aggro best. That let aggro back into the scene and forced control decks to choose who to counter.
I guess the moral of the story is a value deck is a control deck that stopped trying to beat aggro, and lost the right to call itself a control deck. So coexisting control decks ends up meaning a spectrum of decks on the control <--> value axis.
5 Nerfs? Seems like their really hoping the buffs will make a good impact.
My guesses for neutral nerfs are: Crabrider (Probably almost confirmed nerf, that thing is insane.) and Mankrik. (Kinda sad about that, but Mankrik is just really strong and in almost every deck.)
Other nerfs i think will be: Incanter's Flow and probably Darkglare in order to nerf Darkglare Warlock and APM Mage in Wild. (I think Iksarr did mention that those 2 decks were on their radar for nerfs.) the 3th nerfed card i think will be: First Day of School, because this makes paladin super strong in the early game and it's always annoying to lose to a paladin who got premium 1 drops from First Day of School. I also hate it when my opponent get's Blackjack Stunners 90% of the time from First Day of School... (Also i wouldn't mind seeing a Secret Passage nerf.) :]
For the buffs i think the caravans are possible, but will be hard to balance. (I dont want the paladin caravan to be good lol.) Other buffs could be for Shaman, and i think maybe Mana Tide Totem to 2 mana? Would be very strong (Maybe too strong) but Shaman is bad right now because of their lack of card draw. And buffing Dunk Tank or Tidal Surge to 3 mana would be really cool.
Considering their thinking about buffing underperforming archetypes i would love to see a buff to Hero Power Mage, and i guess maybe self-mill warlock and control warrior could get some buffs?
Buff Idea's for those classes/decks would be: Rancor: either "deal 3 damage" instead of "Deal 2 Damage", or buffed to 3 mana, Shieldmaiden: from 6 to 5 mana, Neeru Fireblade's imps from 3/2 into 3/3s, Coldarra Drake to 5 mana, but it would lose some stats. (Probably -1/-1 or -2/-1) Maybe give Rimetongues 1/1 summons rush? Kolkar Pack Runner has that effect with any spell, so why can't Rimetongue minions have rush? Rimetongue only works with ice spells AND it costs 1 more mana. Sure the tokens freeze stuff, but with a card like Rimetongue that has a very narrow application, it should have at least a decent pay-off i.m.o.
It could also be really cool if they buff Headmaster Kel'Thuzad in some way. (I know this almost certainly won't happen, but I really want to use him without hurting my decks winrate :(
2mana would nto be to strong, can look at caravans how often a 3hp 2drop lives
And drake i dont see it, its only good somewhat in wild even mage and beign 4mana removes that, if anythign it migth get taunt or something so if cant use the effect its more then a boulderfist ogre.
ALso for nerfs SPRING WATER is a bigegr issue then incaters flow
Nerfing Spring Water without Flow is irrelevant. All you're doing is nerfing the scenario where MAge doesn't have Flow on 2 while in any other case Spring Water will still end up as a 0-mana draw 2.
Meanwhile, if Flow is nerfed to 3-mana or something then the early game slows down considerably so Control decks have time to set up and aggro decks get an easier start.
Water is 0-mana draw 2.
Flow is a literal Dungeon Run treasure
So we have two Neutrals of which one is Murloc. So Crabrider is confirmed. The second Neutral could really be Mankrik as @Avalon pointed out. This has not been on my shortlist. Sadly no dust for him :(
So three non-neutral cards left. The first guess is Refreshing Spring Water. 0 Mana (sometimes -1 Mana) draw two is two strong. Additionaly to AI and CS. Mage has too much card draw. Another strong guess is a Paladin card. As other mentioned Hand of A'dal or First Day of School are likely.
For the fifth card there are some possibilites. Either further nerfs for Mage and Paladin (Incanter's Flow or the other Pala spell) or even another class, which could then be too strong. I have the feeling Efficient Octo-bot could lose 1 health point.
Regarding the buffs: I hope they buff Shaman a little bit. The card draw Mage has too much is missing in Shaman... I'm curious how the will make it better. Buffing some stats here and there won't probably help the class.
I agree that the Caravans should be better, but they are hard to buff and not make them broken at the same time.
Octo-Bot would be trash as a 1/3. It would die to so many exchanges and spells on turn 2 or 3 without getting the effect off, and it's basically one of the few cards keeping Rogue together right now (the others being Field Contact, Foxy Fraud, Swindle and Secret Passage). It's basically a worse Incanter's Flow, a card which I think should get nerfed.
Nerfing Hand of A'dal or Spring Water has the same issue: they don't take care of the main cause of the problem. Yes, a 0 mana draw 2 is strong, but a 2 mana make your entire deck cheaper by 1 is even stronger and can basically win the game on the spot. Similarly, Hand of A'dal isn't the problem with Paladin. If they don't have A'dal to buff their Crabrider, then they'll use other cards instead.
A card that I could see getting nerfed is Conviction, a double (and sometimes triple) Blessing of Might is really strong and acts basically like a Fireball or even a Bloodlust in most cases.
I really don't think Spring Water gets hit over Incanter's Flow. You can nerf the Water all you want, if Mage gets Flow on 2 then the game will just be over anyways unless you're playing aggro.
Hand of A'Dal is not worth nerfing if they take care of First Day and Crabrider.
Octo_bot would be useless at 3-health. It's not an op card by any means, it's the only reason why Rogue is even able to play the game at this point.
I agree with all your points. Especially about Spring Water, I mean Spring water feels worst when it recovers mana (AKA after you play incanter's)
Incanter's in this case is the trouble card, with Spring Water as the follow up, usually we see the trouble card get nerfed, not the follow up
I agree to all above, that Flow is a trouble card, too. But have you ever played vs. Mage which had Incanter's Flow on T2 but never drew one of the draw cards? That is an easy matchup!
Flow wasn't any problem before. It's the third (and simultaneously most poweful) card draw that put it over the top. Flow would be fine with AI and Cram Session. It found be fine with Spring Water and Cram Session. But it gets broken with Spring Water, Cram Session and AI.
So I would target the card draw first.
Disclaimer: Just talking about Standard here.
5 nerfs seems a little....low?
Off the top of my head Crabrider, First Day of School, Oh My Yogg!, Mankrik, Incanter's Flow are top priority, but then you're still left with stuff like Ogremancer, Alexstrasza the Life-Binder, Tickatus (not op, but I guess people really need a wake up call that Warlock is really terrible and they should stop playing it), Animated Broomstick (I feel like people just forgot that this is still around and is still immensly broken)
Maybe the buffs will balance it out in the long term, but even then I'm not sure.
Whatever, as long as Spell Mage gets yeeted into oblivion and Paladin stops having the best cards for each mana slot I'm going to be alright.
Nerfing Tickatus is a waste of a nerf. The people that continue to complain that it's broken are Redditors who are stuck in Bronze and Silver who oversell their game knowledge by using "advanced terminology" like card advantage or fatigue potential (I'm pretty sure this one is made up). You can't refute that Warlock is trash tier and having 5 of your cards milled is really not that big of a deal most of the time. A 6 mana 8/8 "bring your opponent closer to fatigue" isn't very good when you die in the next two turns. Besides, the class has way better win conditions in the form of Jaraxxus and Neeru (which I genuinely think can be a solid win condition, but the class just can't survive).
I don't want to see Spell Mage "yeeted into oblivion" because I think that even if a deck is very powerful, it's unfair to completely destroy an archetype that people find fun. I think there is a happy balance where the people that enjoy the deck aren't sad that their favourite deck is unplayably bad, and those that don't like playing against the deck are better off knowing it's a much more favourable matchup. Whether or not Blizzard can find that balance, or if it even exists, is a different issue that I am not capable of dealing with.
I remain partial to Paladin since I really love Secret and Aggro Paladin, but I agree that it's definitely way too powerful.
I really dislike Spell Mage purely on the basis of how highrolly it is and how polarizing the matchup spread is. It's just no fun facing a competitive deck, trying your best to play around their burst and having to throw all that away because they randomly generate all their answers while drawing their entire deck at turn 5 because they happened to have Wild Growth on steroids in their opening hands.
It's a deck that was originally designed to be kind of a meme and not meant to actually be super competitive, but now it's just a complete control killer that only really loses to hard aggro.
I don't want the deck to be unplayable, but I do want it to just disappear as a legitimate ladder deck because it'S just so boring to play against.
The real problem with Tickatus is that Warlock just doesn't have a reasonable win condition outside of it so even if it's bad it's still better than everything else. I really hope they finally get Big Demons to work so Willow + Jaraxxus is enough value to just close out games and people finally stop jerking off Tickatus.
I don't need a "wake up call", i know warlock is not the best deck out there.. BUT, it's the only deck that i remotely have some fun in ranked these days. I sometimes i just keep conceding until i get a fair/favorable match, just because i really want to play this shit. Kill the deck and i'll do ranked for the quests only and maybe not even that...
But killing Tickatus doesn't kill the deck, because Tickatus literally only matters in like 3 matchups and even then you can usually win off Jaraxxus anyways.
People just really hate the guy and to be fair, Warlock would be far easier to balance if you take out the Tickatus factor and focus on legitimate win conditions instead.
Giving broomstick an aura effect will likely not solve the problem but make the card more viable, since its just basically a cheaper Magic Carpet now.
I think its easy enough to just bump it by 1 mana. A 2 mana 1/1 that gives out rush is much harder to play out.
The nominations for the Neutral hits are definitely:
In my personal opinion, among the Neutrals we'll see Crabrider and Mankrik changed,
It's just so demoralising to die because alexstrasza just vomited 8 dmg in your face.