We've got a round of balance changes coming in a patch this week and Blizzard has given us all the details!
Card Nerfs
We've got five cards receiving nerfs in the upcoming patch.
- Refreshing Spring Water now costs 5 mana (Up from 4).
- First Day of School now costs 1 mana (Up from 0) but also gives you 3 1-cost minions (up from 2).
- Hysteria now costs 4 mana (Up from 3).
- Crabrider now only gains Windfury on its first turn on the field.
- Olgra, Mankrik's Wife now summons a 7 Health Mankrik, Consumed by Hatred (Down from 10).
We're including First Day of School as an overall nerf due to how important its 0-cost was to Paladin's early game.
Card Buffs
Ten cards will be receiving buffs (?!) in the patch.
- Razorboar now has 3 Attack (Up from 2).
- Dark Inquisitor Xanesh now reduces the cost of Corrupt and Corrupted cards by 2.
- Unbound Elemental now has 3 Attack (Up from 2).
- Tidal Surge now costs 3 mana (Down from 4).
- Lilypad Lurker now has 5 Attack and 6 Health (Up from 4/5).
- Fiendish Circle now costs 3 (Down from 4).
- Deck of Chaos now costs 5 (Down from 6).
- Whirling Combatant now has 3 Attack (Up from 2).
- Shieldmaiden now costs 5 mana (Down from 6).
- N'Zoth, God of the Deep now costs 9 mana (Down from 10).
What do you think about all the upcoming balance changes? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Full Patch Notes + Dev Commentary
Quote From Blizzard Refreshing Spring Water
- Old: [Costs 4] → New: [Costs 5]
Dev Comment: Spell Mage currently exhibits many explosive turns, with Refreshing Spring Water playing a significant role. By nerfing Refreshing Spring Water to 5 mana, we're aiming to lower the frequency of extreme turns where Refreshing Spring Water draws cards and gains you mana in the process. By lowering the frequency of those gameplay sequences, we believe the deck's range of possibilities will be more in line with other current options.
First Day of School
- Old: [Costs 0] Add 2 random 1-Cost minions to your hand → New: [Costs 1] Add 3 random 1-Cost minions to your hand.
Dev Comment: As we look at Paladin's continued strong performance across multiple archetypes, we're nerfing First Day of School in order to hit Paladin's early-game strength. By bumping up First Day of School's mana cost and the amount of 1-Cost minions generated, we are moving the card to fit a value role rather than its initial position as an efficient curve enabler.
Hysteria
- Old: [Costs 3] → New: [Costs 4]
Dev Comment: At 3 mana, Hysteria becomes an option before opponents really have the opportunity to consider how to best interact with it. Pushing Hysteria to 4 mana gives more space for those board-committal decisions to occur and also allows cheaper removal in Priest/Warlock to have a more distinct purpose.
Crabrider
- Old: Rush Windfury → New: Rush Battlecry: Gain Windfury this turn only.
Dev Comment: Crabrider is too efficient in some of our board-based decks, clearing minions and dishing out a lot of Windfury damage. By changing Crabrider's Windfury to only last until end of turn, we're pulling back on the lethality it poses if left alone for a few turns. We aim for Crabrider to still remain a solid option for decks looking to swing back the board, especially when combined with buffs.
Olgra, Mankrik’s Wife
- Old: Casts When Drawn Summon a 3/10 Mankrik, who immediately attacks the enemy hero. → New: Casts When Drawn Summon a 3/7 Mankrik, who immediately attacks the enemy hero.
Dev Comment: We are lowering the Health on Mankrik, Consumed by Hatred to soften the effect of an early Olgra draw. At 7 Health, the token will be more in reach of the mid-game removal that's available throughout turns 4-6.
Refreshing Spring Water, First Day of School, Hysteria, Crabrider, and Golden Mankrik will be eligible for a full dust refund for two weeks after Patch 20.2.2 goes live.
Dev Comment: We're issuing a number of buffs in 20.2.2, mainly focused on bringing up struggling classes and archetypes. One of our goals for a meta is to provide deck diversity: not only different class options, but also attractive deck options that play markedly different from one another. These buffs follow that goal, as each one is targeted at helping out an underrepresented archetype or play pattern.
Razorboar
- Old: 2 Attack, 2 Health → New: 3 Attack, 2 Health
Dark Inquisitor Xanesh
- Old: Reduce the Cost of all Corrupt cards in your hand and deck by (2). → New: Reduce the Cost of all Corrupt and Corrupted cards in your hand and deck by (2).
Unbound Elemental
- Old: 2 Attack, 4 Health → New: 3 Attack, 4 Health
Tidal Surge
- Old: [Costs 4] → New: [Costs 3]
Lilypad Lurker
- Old: 4 Attack, 5 Health → New: 5 Attack, 6 Health
Fiendish Circle
- Old: [Costs 4] → New: [Costs 3]
Deck of Chaos
- Old: [Costs 6] → New: [Costs 5]
Whirling Combatant
- Old: 2 Attack, 6 Health → New: 3 Attack, 6 Health
Shieldmaiden
- Old: [Costs 6] → New: [Costs 5]
N’Zoth, God of the Deep
- Old: [Costs 10] → New: [Costs 9]
Comments
I'm still surprised how much people underestimate mana curve nerfs. The nerf to First Day of School is devastating to all tempo decks for Paladin. The main purpose of the card was to enable a turn 1 play when they don't find their main 1-drop. The most busted thing about it is that it simply didn't cost any card advantage whatsoever. They simply spent no mana to gain an extra card and played one of those cards while maintaining their starting hand size and enabling their early game curve. The fact that they can't play this on turn 1 and drop a minion on the board means that they will have a really hard time curving into some of their strongest early game plays (1-drop into Hand of A'dal). This will buy a lot of time for other decks to pressure them or find answers to their plays. I can't say much about the other changes as i'm no longer playing constructed and i haven't played against those cards. I'll still share my opinion on the buffs though.
The buffs won't help Shaman. If the class is struggling because of card draw, making those cards better Tempo plays means absolutely nothing when you can't draw consistently enough to have them available on curve every game.
Lowering the cost of N'Zoth is okay but what the card needs mostly is a better selection of cards to summon. That will come with later expansions but the buff will help a lot once the pool of minion is slightly better.
Xanesh could be interesting to experiment with but it probably won't be a big deal because Priest's own corrupt cards are completely whatever which makes Y'sharrj not very attractive as a win condition.
The change to Deck of Chaos could be scary if it wasn't a Warlock card. The card suffers from similar issues as Luna's Pocket Galaxy before its buff. Only when that card got buffed and broke the game that people realized that the pay off was worth the risk of skipping a turn to enable it. The main difference in this case is that Warlock just slowly kills itself with the Hero Power throughout the game which makes the class even more vulnerable to aggression than Mage. Greedy cards like this are more easily punishable in Warlock so lowering its cost probably won't do anything to improve its viability. Also, Fiendish Circle won't save Zoolock unless they plan on releasing some powerful token synergy cards with the mini-set.
Shieldmaiden is a lot better as a 5-drop. It's now a decent card to play on curve that also comes with a small health boost to mitigate damage from incoming attacks. Whirling Combatant was already a good card and now is a premium defensive 4-drop. Slower Warrior decks are going to benefit a lot from these buffs.
My opinions. I'm trying to keep things short, so I apologize in advance over the crappy writeout.
Some of these changes I was not expecting, like how Crabrider is nerfed. Basically this card is niche now, as a sort of tempo clear option, but in no way ever going to be good enough for an aggro deck since the attack is simply too low. That unfortunately means you won't be seeing this small guy anywhere anytime soon, except as a surprise clear option.
Others are pretty much in line with expectation. Nerfing Refreshing Spring Water was necessary and expected, though with flow still at 2 means the deck is by no means dead, just much slower. Mankrik's wife is now 7 health, which is still a good, so no changes here. First Day of School hit is brutal, might spell the death of this card, because this is no longer a turn 1 play. We might still see it, perhaps in slower paladin decks like librams.
And finally the best surprise nerf today; Hysteria. Basically this card is reactive, so much hasn't been said on how bs this card can be. In so many cases this card is simply too good, so I'm glad they're finally hitting warlock where it hurts - the removals - instead of where it doesn't (Yes Tickatus, that's you)
Buffs. Nzoth, Whirling Combatant, and Deck of Chaos is interesting. The others are pretty meh. Nzoth's mana reduction means that its a genuine threat on curve now, instead of being just another turn skip (because anything that doesn't kill you by turn 10 is likely to be able to either ignore or deal with it).
Why the others are meh to me? Lilypad Lurker's additional +1+1 wouldn't change anything. If you're playing elementals, you'll play this card for a tempo swing. A 4/5 is already a decent body. The problem has always been the elemental chain, and there being no good targets for the hex effect on 5. Playing Unbound Elemental means you're playing overload cards, which are generally not good, Razorboar's additional attack really doesn't do anything since the best deathrattle deck in my opinion plays big not small. Shieldmaiden is still too slow, Fiendish Circle is still too weak, and Xanesh's buff looks more like an April fool's joke come around rather than substantial.
So what will change? Paladin's getting its best early game wrecked so I'm expecting less aggro and more librams from them, with secrets. Warlock and priest just got their best clear option nerfed, priest might still include it in but warlock might cut it out. Mage got its best card taken out, but with Incanter's Flow untouched means its essentially doing little else but slowing down the deck's offense. My prediction would be tempo dhunters go up, priest comes down, druids go up, mage go down, rogue go up (secrets especially), and shaman stays at the bottom until the midset because I'm certain the buffs did fk all. On top would be hunter, paladin, and warrior.
pffft ain't no one playing Fiendish circle at 3 mana
Well my horrible reviews of the nerfs and corrections buffs*
Nerfs first i guess.
Crabrider: Crabrider NEEDED to get nerfed, it was way too strong. This nerf is WAY more then i could have imagined, i thought it would have been -1 hp or something. This nerf honestly kinda feels like it killed the card, this nerf SEEMS way too harsh. At least it now actually functions as a "control tool" that clears some small minions/tokens. A.k.a. it now functions the way the HS team first invisioned this card.
Refreshing Spring Water: This seems like a almost pointless nerf to me. Don't get me wrong, it's still nice that it got nerfed, but THE MAIN PROBLEM was Incanter's Flow and that didn't get nerfed. Which means that spell mage won't be that much weaker, AND APM mage can still do absolutely broken things in wild.
First Day of School: This is a "nerf" to aggro paladin, but to Libram/midrange paladin i think it's a big buff. 1 more minion increases the change to get strong 1 drops like Babbling Book, Blackjack Stunner, Gibberling, Prize Plunderer and Wand Thief. Honestly i.m.o. this is more of a buff than a nerf....
Mankrik: Fair nerf, that summon was WAY to hard to remove. Great nerf.
Hysteria: And we continue with MURDERING anything control related. Hysteria was one of the best tools to actually stay alive in the early game with Priest and Warlock and now it's gone. Why is it "gone" well because it costs 4 mana, which means you cannot run Hysteria alongside Kazakus, Golem Shaper. This nerf effectively killed Kazakus control Priest, which already had to sacrifice Xyrella and Blademaster Samuro. My guess is that the deck will now run a list without kazakus, but still it's unfortunate that they decided the nerf one of the only GOOD control decks... Sometimes i wonder if they actually spin a wheel to decide on nerfs...
For the buffs: (Only the ones worth mentioning, at least to me.)
Razorboar: Might help deathrattle DH, but from my experience playing the deck A LOT Razorboar was horrible and was cut from popular versions of the deck a lot. With +1 attack i don't think it will be good enough, but hey now that it might trade a bit better it might finally see play.
Dark Inquisitor Xanesh: this isn't a buff, it's a correction because this is how the card should have ALWAYS worked. I have played a lot of corrupt Priest and honestly this buff won't change anything. Why? Because priest still lacks card draw and unless they get better draw you will still have a lot of "dead" cards in hand, or cards that feel REALLY bad to play uncorrupted...
Deck of Chaos: Does absolutely nothing. I have played a lot of Deck of Chaos Warlock as well, and it's REALLY unreliable. Sure you can now play Deck of Chaos 1 turn earlier... BUT it still means that you have to draw it first. "But Warlock has a lot of draw!" you might be thinking right now, well look at how Deck of Chaos has performed so far. Even with all the draw you can get, your still going to be unlucky most of the time and not draw it. At least it's now a miniscule bit easier to complete achievements that need Deck of Chaos... (Man i hoped this buff would have been so much better...)
N'Zoth, God of the Deep: Wow, this is a perfect example of "how do we murder a cards flavor with 1 change." Old gods have always been 10 mana with a big powerfull effect, and to see N'Zoth, God of the Deep go to 9 kinda hurts me a bit. Sure now you can play it alongside Animated Broomstick, but the problem still is that when you play N'Zoth, God of the Deep you probably have a full board of minions. Also playing N'Zoth, God of the Deep on 9 still isn't good enough because it has no immediate effect. When you play N'Zoth, God of the Deep your probably behind and need to play it in order to survive, and just summoning some stats isn't good enough these days.
Personally i would have LOVED it if they changed N'Zoth, God of the Deep from "Battlecry: Resurrect a friendly minion of each minion type." into "Battlecry: Resurrect a friendly minion of each minion type, give them rush". Right now it's a 2 card combo AND you need to have 1 space open for Animated Broomstick... which seems kinda weird considering N'Zoth, God of the Deep is supposed to be this BIG card/wincon you build your entire deck around... If it gave the minions rush on it's own it would actually make the card pretty good. (Of course if would cost 10 mana again with the build in rush.)
The "nerfs" and "buffs" this time around don't feel that great, and honestly i don't think anything really changes... Which is kinda sad, i REALLY hope that these changes suddenly give rise to more variation/fun in the meta but so far i don't see things changing that much. Sure aggro Pally decks might be a bit weaker, but we still got plenty of aggro decks. Oh and the only really good control deck got nerfed as well, so for people that like control decks (like me) it will just feel worse. Man i WISH we got buffs to some control cards like: removing 1 overload from Lightning Storm, and +1 dmg dealth or -1 mana cost on Rancor.... (Sure Control Warrior got some "buffs" but i'm not really excited about those changes...)
I just want to mention, a lot of people struggle to see it when a control card is overpowered. This was a turn 3 board clear most of the time. it absolutely deserves a nerf.
You can tog scheme nzoth now but in the words of jontron: "but why? Why would you do that? Why would you ever do that?" Nzoth costs more than 3 mana so rogue wont play it.
Demon Hunter going to wreck with these buffs 🤣
my question is, will otk dh be more viable, since paladin has been toned down? im expecting face hunter to see an uptick in play aswell, since it was already good and it didnt get it by any nerf
I don't play OTK, I play Aggro DH
Okay, I get most of these nerfs and buffs, it would certainly help a tiny bit... BUT WHY IS FIENDISH CIRCLE GETTING BUFFED. WHAT. WHY. In what world, does this ever see play? I am expecting it to have something to do with the mini-set but like, what!?
I approve of pretty much everything on this list. Honestly, only people who were only exploiting the brokenness of these cards will complain.
Alright time for my shitty review of the nerfs and buffs.
Crabrider this is nerfed in a way I did not expect it. I kind of like it though. It loses its burst potential but keeps it low cost and high health.
[Hearthstone Card (Refreshing Springwater) Not Found] Why they didn't nerf Incanter's Flow is beyond me. But hey, I have two golden copies of this card. This was a very good draw card in a class that has very good draw already. All it does it makes Spell Mage more inconsistent.
Mankrik Fair
First Day of School this card effectively took the role of a one drop in the time that Paladin sorely lacked 1 drops. Now they have 1 drops I don't think this nerf is as effective as it would have been. But we shall see.
Hysteria I did not expect them to nerf this card. Now don't get me wrong. This card is the single best removal card in the game. It is so efficient and most of the time it just clears your opponents board. It is a broken card at 3 and you won't be able to convice me otherwise.
Now onto the buffs in general they seem to be small changes here and there.
Razorboar Not a very big change, but atleast now it will be able to trade better with 1 more attack.
Unbound Elemental , Tidal Surge and Lilypad Lurker are all good buffs that are not going to matter in the slightest. With that I mean in a vacuum it is a good thing, Unbound Elemental Should have been at 3/4 to begin with, and it might see play in an overload centric deck now, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Tidal Surge should have never been 4 mana. In what world is it reasonable that you pay 2 mana more for 1 more damage than Penance and Drain Life [Hearthstone Card (.Lilypad Lurker) Not Found] good card without useful synergy becomes a better card without useful synergy. What Shaman is lacking sorely is card draw. These are all good buffs in a vacuum, but not what Shaman needs.
Fiendish Circle I guess a 3 mana 4/4 isn't to bad.
Deck of Chaos This card will still be an unplayable meme.
Dark Inquisitor Xanesh This is how the card should have been from the start it feels shit being punished for corrupting your cards.
Whirling Combatant , Shieldmaiden both buffs that seems to make control Warrior stronger They are okay I guess?
N'Zoth, God of the Deep I would love for this card to be playable I don't think the problem is cost, but moreso the lack of synergies you get in your deck with play a ton of different tribes.
Where?
Quilboars are spicy... kind of? Yes? No?
But yes, I expected maybe little more from the constructed changes overall.
quick note. they said DH would see more play. i guess its because of the other changes, cause that beast going to 3 attack is not gonna boost DH alone
That could happen. Remember when Shaman was nerfed but actually turned out stronger because other decks had a nerf too.
N'ZOTH CHANGED TO 9 MANA?? B-But muh immersion.
Hysteria nerf is very good. I highly approve every nerf of priest.
Wild perspective:
Surprisingly reasonable patch, all things considered. The Spring Water nerf gives APMage a huge gaping hole on the 4 mana turn, and the inability to draw for free may force the deck to go off a turn later, or may potentially break the combo when they do go off. Doesn't make the underlying brokenness any better though and that's concerning. They did a similar thing with Aggro Token Druid, where the absolutely crazy shit they could do is still possible, they just hurt their refill so people felt demotivated to play the deck. The things the deck did well, it still does just as well and it's still just as uninteractable. And it's only going to take one or two cards to make it just as broken as it was before because none of the key stuff was touched (Flamewaker, Sorcerer's Apprentice, Incanter's Flow in the case of APMage, Embiggen, Pirate package, Gibberling, Adorable Infestation in the case of Aggro Token Druid.)
The wrecking of Crabrider is well deserved, though the fact that Animated Broomstick is still somehow left intact baffles me. There's absolutely no way a Neutral 1/1 for 1 should be doing as much as that thing does. It would be absurd and complained about if it were class-specific, in Neutral it's just unacceptable. Either raise the cost, or make it give Rush to one guy. Doesn't even make sense flavour-wise that an entire board can ride the one damn broomstick anyway.
First Day of School not being literally the single best turn 1 card outside of Pirates is also nice. Now you actually need a reason to play the card (e.g. handbuffing), rather than this being the default.
From the others...the N'Zoth buff would be interesting for Wild if playing a control game was actually possible. You can put it in like an Odd Taunt Druid now or in Reno Hunter but you fold to the plethora of combo decks out there and most aggro is too fast, so why do you bother? And when it comes to control mirrors the two Priests and Warlock have a chokehold on that anyway. Plus it's now the only Old God that doesn't cost 10, which is weird.
The Shieldmaiden buff is nice, but doesn't change anything for Odd Warrior's viability. You don't have the luxury of armoring up for 5 mana against aggro, control laughs at your attempt to develop a board with a 5 mana 5/5, and the lack of any win condition, especially after the loss of Elysiana leaves the deck dead in the water.
Unbound Elemental's improved stats are definitely a step in the right direction, but doesn't fix the fact the card is just awkward to play in an Overload-centric deck, as are all non-Overload cards. If you're playing a classic Overload Shaman curve, you drop Tunnel Trogg on 1, Totem Golem/Jade Claws on 2 and then you're locked out of your Unbound Elemental mana. Essentially, outside of the turn 1 play of Tunnel Trogg or Surging Tempest, you want to string Overload cards one after another. When you play an Overload card, you get a powerful effect for cheaper now at the cost of tempo later. But if you then follow that up with another Overload card, you never really lose the tempo because you never really pay "full mana" for anything. When you start having to weave in non-overload cards like Unbound Elemental, it gets really awkward because you're forced to play them off curve, on turn 4 or 5. +1 attack on Unbound Elemental doesn't fix that. A reduction in mana cost would.
Just want to point out, holistically they don't nerf cards for the state of Wild, so while you may be upset that "APM mage" didn't get touched, it's because unless something is EXTREMELY broken (like tiller/hysteria combo) they don't make those nerfs for wild.