The Battlecry Meta is Over! How Will Patch 21.3 Affect Hearthstone Duels?

As promised by Hearthstone Associate Game Designer Ates 'Tabayrak' Bayrak a few days ago, Patch 21.3 will also include a handful a Duels-related changes.

The upcoming patch will look at some of the most problematic interactions in the current meta, and will give them a (we think) temporary solution, waiting for the big update coming in this expansion cycle. Here are all the changes that will go live:

• Voidtouched Attendant - is now banned from deck creation.
• Rally the Troops - has been moved from Passive Treasure Pool 2 to Pool 2 Ultra Rare.
• [Hearthstone Card (ooops, all spells!) Not Found] - has been moved from Passive Treasure Pool 2 to Pool 2 Ultra Rare.
• Party Replacement - has been moved from Passive Treasure Pool 2 to Pool 2 Ultra Rare.
• All Together Now - has been move from Passive Treasure Pool 1 to Pool 2.

But that's not all: the balance changes implemented for Constructed will also have an impact on the Duels meta, and we'll discuss about these too! As a reminder, here are all the nerfs and buffs that will go live soon:

• Irebound Brute - Cost is now 8 mana (Up from 7).
• Mindrender Illucia (redesigned) - Now swaps your hand with a copy of your opponent's.
• Command the Elements - Tame the Flames now takes 3 Overload cards to complete (Up from 2).
• Perpetual Flame - Cost is now 2 mana (Up from 1).
• Runed Mithril Rod - Cost is now 4 mana (up from 3).
• The Demon Seed - Each step now takes 8 self-damage to complete (Up from 6, 7 and 8). It is also banned in Wild.
• Leatherworking Kit - Cost is now 1 mana (Down from 2).
• Selective Breeder - Now has 3 Health (Up from 1).
• Mordresh Fire Eye - Cost is now 8 mana (Down from 10); stats are now 8/8 (Down from 10/10).
• Wildfire - Cost is now 1 mana (Down from 2).
• Bloodsail Deckhand - Now has 2 Health (Up from 1).
• Stonemaul Anchorman - Now has 6 Health (Up from 5).
• Stormwind Freebooter - Now has 4 Health (Up from 3).

Voidtouched Attendant is now banned from deck creation.

Let's start by talking about what this change means: as most of you may have understood, from now you won't be able to include Voidtouched Attendant in your starting deck, but you'll be able to find it in mid-run buckets and generate it during the game through cards like Divine Illumination. This means that this nerf is not a straight up deletion of the card from the Duels game mode, but it just heavily deceased the chances of Voidtouched Attendant to significantly impact the game.

Being recently introduced in United in Stormwind, Voidtouched Attendant brought the already well performing Miracle Mind Tether Priest to a whole other level. Doubling each Mind Tether ping, as well as Fireshaper and Shadow Word: Void's Voidfiends was just too much, especially in a game with with Health total that start from 20 and increases bit by bit.

To be completely honest, we're surprised that this is the only change directed to Miracle Priest: we expected at least some change to either Mind Tether (giving it the Outlander treatment) or Shadow Word: Void (increasing its mana cost or setting to 2/3 the number of summoned Voidfiends). We genuinely fear that Miracle Priest will still be a meta tyrant after the patch, and will have even less competitors to challenge. Time will tell if we're wrong or not.

All Together Now has been moved from Passive Treasure Pool 1 to Pool 2.

Rally the Troops has been moved from Passive Treasure Pool 2 to Pool 2 Ultra Rare.

For as much as many people are going to miss it, the Battlecry meta seems to be finally over. The combination of these two Passive Treasures and the ability to successfully find and combine both of them created such high levels of synergy, card draw and mana cheating that you could lose only to even more broken combos (see below for some examples) or other ATN/RTT decks.

With All Together Now moved to Passive Treasure Pool 2, the mana cheating will start later, and your starting deck will require more importance, as you won't be able to consistently discount it by 1 mana.

Rally the Troops moved to Passive Treasure Pool 2 Ultra Rare means that it will have a 1% chance to appear in the bucket, just like other powerful tools like Stargazing, Manastorm, Captured Flag and Robe of the Magi. This means it will definitely be a much rarer sight and it will probably happen only in the late matches of your runs.

All in all, a set of changes that will help Duels to become a healthier environment: again, the main issue was the consistency of getting both Treasures, which made almost every other strategy other than 'Battlecry' inferior by default.

[Hearthstone Card (ooops, all spells!) Not Found]

Both have been move from Passive Treasure Pool 2 to Pool 2 Ultra Rare.

Both introduced prior to United in Stormwind launch, both insanely strong and both arguably needed to be addressed in some way. With the ATN/RTT combo gone, it was only natural for these Passive to be addressed as well, otherwise they would've just taken the spot as the 'format tyrant'.

For as much as we appreciate the efforts directed towards expanding Duels, we are yet to understand why a visibly broken Passive like [Hearthstone Card (ooops, all spells!) Not Found] was introduced as a common tier 2 tool: sure, it was more difficult to fetch than the Battlecry synergy, but it always caused major problems and encouraged builds made of just cycle/burn spells, which made the encounter with this Passive even more frustrating.

Khadgar's Scrying Orb was, is and will be one of the best tier 2 Passive, and [Hearthstone Card (ooops, all spells!) Not Found] powercrept it for no apparent reason: seeing it becoming an Ultra Rare Passive makes us more confident in the future Duels meta.

Party Replacement was the least flashy of the three Tier 2 Passives that were nerfed in this patch, but it wasn't less problematic by any means. Summoning an Adventurer at the beginning of each of your turns generated so much tempo that gave you time against aggressive decks and a steady flow of value in the attrition matchups. Again, it wasn't as strong or warping as Rally the Troops or [Hearthstone Card (ooops, all spells!) Not Found], but with these two (almost) gone it was only natural for Team 5 to address Party Replacement as well.

Constructed Changes

Patch 21.3 will also include a significative number of changes directed to address some issues of the Standard and Wild formats. Said balance changes will also have several implications for Duels, and we'd like to discuss them with you.

If you're interested to know what the Constructed consequences of these changes, make sure to check the dedicated article.

Cost is now 8 mana (Up from 7).

Final Showdown Questline Demon Hunter was a playable deck prior patch, but it was all about cheap spells to combine with Outlander for massive face damage, and Irebound Brute has never been core to that build. Long story short, Duels won't be affected at all by this change.

Redesigned - Now swaps your hand with a copy of your opponent's.

Pretty much the same reasoning of Irebound Brute: currently there isn't a single deck interested in Illucia, mainly because most of the times your cards are going to be better than your opponent's (you choose Passives to boost yours strength, and throwing away that synergy would be all but smart).

Questline Shaman

Command the Elements - Tame the Flames now takes 3 Overload cards to complete (Up from 2).

Perpetual Flame - Cost is now 2 mana (Up from 1).

Questline Shaman was a decent Duels archetype: nothing too crazy, but it was able to boast some consistency, especially thanks to particular synergy with certain Passives and Chaos Storm. While the nerf to Tame the Flames won't kill the archetype, it will definitely be more difficult to complete Command the Elements in the first few matches of the run, since you have a deck with just 15 cards and you'll be asked to play 9 with Overload - quite the task if you ask us.

Just like in Standard, Perpetual Flame is still going to be good, since its functionality hasn't changed and 2 mana is what it should've costed from the very start.

In the end Instructor Fireheart took a rather painful blow, considering that Elemental and Murloc Shaman heavily relied on the ATN/RTT combo and that Command the Elements is going to be harder to complete.

Questline Warlock

Runed Mithril Rod - Cost is now 4 mana (Up from 3).

The Demon Seed - Each step now takes 8 self-damage to complete (Up from 6, 7 and 8).

Runed Mithril Rod saw play just in Dark Arts Warlock, a recessive Hero Power in favor of Soulcial Studies, so we think that this nerf doesn't represent too much of a loss for Duels overall, but this can't be said for The Demon Seed.

In fact, Questline Warlock was a quite popular build: it never reached great population density, but you could still encounter a couple of them during your runs. However, we dare to say that this change completely kills of the current iteration of Seedlock: you start at 20 Health and you're asked to deal 24 damage to yourself while fending off your opponent's aggression - quite unpractical we'd say.

Archwitch Willow will have to hope for a slower meta and for archetypes like Discard or Corrupt to return popular, otherwise the class may be in a bit of trouble.

Leatherworking Kit - Cost is now 1 mana (Down from 2).

Selective Breeder - Now has 3 Health (Up from 1).

People started experimenting with Selective Breeder in Deathrattle Hunter in order to get more copies of Deathstrider, so this buff pushes Selective Breeder even more into the competitive environment. However, we should mention that the latest iterations of Deathrattle Hunter carried very few Deathrattles and a decent amount of Battlecries just to get access to powerhouses like All Together Now, Rally the Troops and Battle Totem, but since two of these three are going to be nerfed the players will need to revise some previously made choices.

Leatherworking Kit has never seen play in Duels, and the current card pool makes us question whether this change will have any impact at all.

Mordresh Fire Eye - Cost is now 8 mana (Down from 10); stats are now 8/8 (Down from 10/10).

Wildfire - Cost is now 1 mana (Down from 2).

Even though we're not sure how strong it will be, it appears that Mage will have another starting strategy to play with after the patch goes live. Mordresh Fire Eye looks even juicier in Duels than it already looks in Standard, given that you have access to a 1 mana ping in Frost Shards and Wand of Dueling is a Signature Treasure available for the class. Battle Totem is obviously going to be insane, but for now we'll just say that is seems to be a change that can leave a mark in the format.

However, you may want to pick Embercaster as your Signature Treasure for Hero Power Mage, since getting additional copies of 1 mana Wildfire feels crazy good, at least on paper. It's also a Fire spell, so Flame Waves becomes more than just a niche Passive. Is Fire Hero Power Mage going to be a thing?

All three now have one more Health point.

Pirate Warrior's position in the upcoming meta is going to be quite particular.

On one hand, these three buffs are going to help Rattlegore a lot, especially since Bruising value trades are going to be even easier to make. Pirate Warrior is going to be more dominant on board and is going to push more damage in the early turns.

On the other hand, Warrior is one of those classes who heavily relied on that sweet sweet Battlecry synergy, and now that it has been dampened a lot, we think that picking strong and synergistic Passives that amplify your strategy is going to be harder.

Pirate Warrior, like many other archetypes, will be asked to rethink itself if it doesn't want to vanish from the format or be relegated to the 'meme' tier. Not that everyone will be sad about it.

What do you think about the changes? Are there any other cards you would've liked to see nerfed? Let us know in the comments below!