We've got a round of balance changes coming on January 25 in Patch 22.2.0, here they are ahead of schedule!
Blizzard has not yet commented on these changes. We will likely see commentary on them in the patch notes. It looks like Rogues are toast though!
Reminder that datamined information is subject to change before release of content. Until Blizzard officially confirms changes, consider these to be a word in progress.
Wild Card Nerfs
- Sorcerer's Apprentice Now Costs 4 (Up from 2).
Wild Card Changes
- Rapid Fire Now deals 2 Damage (Up from 1). Now Costs 2 (Up from 1).
Standard Card Nerfs
- Incanter's Flow Now Costs 4 (Up from 3).
- Create a Distraction Now requires 3 Pirates to be played (Up from 2).
- This is the second part of the Raid the Docks questline.
- Shadowcrafter Scabbs Now Costs 8 (Up from 7).
- Wildpaw Gnoll Now Costs 6 (Up from 5). Now has 3 Attack (Down from 4).
- Cloak of Shadows Now Costs 4 (Up from 3).
Standard Card Buffs
- Rokara, the Valorous Now has 10 Armor (Up from 5).
All these collectible cards should be disenchantable for their full dust values after the patch releases on January 25 and be available for those full refunds for two weeks.
What do you think of the changes? Is Roguestone over?
![All The Great Dark Beyond Card Reveals for October 23 - Day 13 [Finished]](the-great-dark-beyond-day-13.webp)
Comments
Wow, if these are the real changes, I like them very much!
It is a "hard nerf" to Quest Hunter, but doesn`t "kill" the deck (maybe T2 or T3 after the nerf). I have to farm the rest 50 wins for my 1.000 wins at the weekend. ^^
The nerf to PW is ok, I think. PW is very strong in Wild but at last for me didn`t feel "op broken". This nerf slows down the deck a bit and we have to see, if this is enough.
The Mage nerf would kill some combo decks - and I would love it! Maybe Secret Mage can step back in the meta? Yeah, it is no beloved deck but no where near "too strong" in the current Wild meta.
Can’t believe they’re not going to change Maestra’s interaction with gnolls and undercover agent. I mean, they’re generally good at nerfing what needs to be nerfed, so I foresee a much better meta than the current roguestone, but as long as Maestra still finds a place in rogue decks I’m gonna be pissed. For me, it’s simply not fun when I’m facing an opponent and they turn out to be a rogue. All in all, even though the changes will likely be sufficient, I’m not satisfied with them.
My guesses why they didn't change this interaction is because:
1. This would mean they had to push out a Maestra of the Masquerade dust refund as well.
2. This would possibly kill the whole Burgle rogue archetype completely, and they don't want to completely wreck a "brand new" archetype. This would be bad from a $$$ standpoint.
3. This change would make it so rogue only has the questline, Garrote or weapon rogue as their only viable archetypes. 2/3 of them are completely un-interactive and unfun to play against. At least a nerfed Burgle rogue is an interactive deck, because you actually have to fight for board. They probably don't want to return to stormwinds uninteractive OTK vs OTK meta if i had to guess. Also some of the Questline rogue decks also run Maestra because it's more of a fun deck, and for the "haha i'm sus" meme. So that would also mean that maestra still sees play.
I understand that this might be a bit less fun for you to hear, but there is a very large community that absolutely loves Maestra of the Masquerade no matter if she is good or bad. People just really like the flavor she brings, which means that she will always see play as long as she disguises players as a hero of another class. After all, other cards with insane flavor like Unite the Murlocs still see play no matter how good or bad it is, just because of its flavor. And that's the same with Maestra of the Masquerade. She will see play in any burgle rogue deck as long as she is in standard, even if the effects interaction was changed. All i truly hope for you is that these changes make it so you encounter less rogues with Maestra in their deck.
Is Rogue really so damaged? The old Poison rogue was just delayed one turn in my view ...
Honestly expected a bit of a bigger hit to Pirate Warrior but even this might be enough to give decks some breathing space. The hit to Odd Hunter is nice, not only do they lose a spell from their arsenal, which is already kinda having to make do with some suboptimal cards, but they just so happen to lose the best spell they had. That said, there are plenty of games where Odd Hunter doesn't get Rapid Fire and they still do quite fine. I'm hoping this might make the non-Odd version of the deck a lot more competitive, as that one feels a lot more midrangy and fair.
Also happy with the Incanter's Flow nerf, even though that only sees fringe play in Wild. It's almost as if effects like Incanter's Flow, Stealer of Souls, Darkglare or Runed Mithril Rod shouldn't be printed, given the thorough nerfing all of these cards received (and Runed Mithril Rod is still insane at 5).
The nerf to Sorcerer's Apprentice I'm torn on. On one hand, I'm happy that they didn't just nerf it by 1, which would have done almost nothing, on the other I wish they just changed the general discounting mechanics the same way they did with Echo. Just no reducing to 0 by static effects. That would nix Anacondra too which I'd be perfectly happy with. This is a pretty clear signal to me that they're just fine with Mechwarper, Sorcerer's Apprentice, Anacondra, Radiant Elemental etc. all enabling busted shit, they'll just slow down the outliers (after 2+ years of complaints). But these types of cards will continue creating problems in the future because the nerf simply doesn't future-proof the game. I am a little sad about losing Apprentice in Parrot Waygate Mage though. That deck was fun.
The nerfs to Rogue are sad for Wild though. It's not like Burgle Rogue or Tempo Rogue really have much going for them in the format, but chances are these will get unnerfed once they rotate and we can have them back. That said, what all this says to me is, with the top decks slowing down and Mage OTKs becoming a lot worse, we're about to see a lot of Pillager Rogues blowing people up by turn 5-6. Maybe they should have touched the other Scabbs as well. Curious what sort of innovation Mage will be forced to push now that they have to play a bit more fair.
nerfs odd hunter quest by nerfing a common, sneaky bastards Microsoft will be proud
apprentice nerf seems because of Drekthar? like yes its a problem but cmon, its like they are saying "hey spells costing 0 aint no problem but the girl being cheated out of the deck is a problem.
glad that kills otk mage and their almost infinte turn timer
I can see you don't play Odd Hunter, or don't know how it works.
The nerf to rapid fire is a pretty big nerf, now you don't have acces to 4 damage spells (or more, if you get rapid fire from tracking), meaning more time to complete the quest, and, if you complete the quest, i'ts 16 less damage (4 from the spell, and 12 from the zero mana hero power)
Now many players can have a liittle breath to stabilize before getting killed.
Nerfing a common is actually the best possible thing for your dust reserves, you usually have a ton of them you can disenchant for 8 times the value (40 dust instead of 5), while its 4 times the value for other rarities. Also doesn't hurt as much to still keep 2 playable copies while netting a nice amount of dust for all your other copies.
I hope these are wrong. Those nerfs help aggressive decks against rogue but not others. Rogue still has too much card draw and too many ways to deal massive damage from hand (Garrote + Guild Trader or Edwin + Mr. Smite). The nerfs mean you have an extra turn before they chain cloak into Scabbs.
Mage has the same problem. Too much card draw and damage from hand with Mozaki (previously the quest-line). Nerfing Incanter's Flow slows them down a bit. I hated the United in Stormwind meta at lower ranks because it was mostly quest-line mage and hyper-aggressive decks that countered mage (face hunter inparticular). Those nerfs would boost hyper-aggro. I hope it would subdue rogue and mage enough to let other decks be playable.
Instead of increasing Wildpaw Gnoll's cost I would be much happier if they fixed the interaction with Maestra. Wildpaw Gnoll is a good pay-off in a thief deck that runs thief cards like Swashburglar, but instead Maestra is used to discount Gnoll and it feels wrong. They could change Gnoll to say non-rogue cards.
Not wrong. These exact changes have been leaked 2 times now, word for word.
You're extremely naive if you think these nerfs only help aggro decks. Given your tone I assume you're a control player. Do you know what happens when aggro can punish rogues harder? More of them will show up.
Do you know what happens when more aggro decks show up? Control decks can start preying on them and gain more breathing room because rogues are kept in check by the aggro decks.
These balance changes seem perfect for the current meta.
Eventually Kurthrus, Cariel, Tamsin and Guff will most likely get touched too, as they're only slightly less busted than scabbs. But that's probably for another time.
When I said the nerfs help aggro I was specifically talking about the match-up, not the overall meta. I explicitly said "I hope it [aggro] would subdue rogue and mage enough to let other decks be playable."
Also, there is no need to talk down to me.
Rapid Fire is listed as a card buff, but it is of course a deck nerf for Odd Hunter. Which is a good thing, since that's one of the Wild decks that you run into way too often, along with Pirate Warrior.
That Rokara buff is neat. The armor total on Hero cards was an underutilized mechanic (only Dr. Boom, Mad Genius had a different amount), so I'm glad to see them experiment with that.
Lightforged Cariel dodged the nerf hammer uh?
Rapid Fire isn't a buff. It's a nerf to Odd Hunter.