In a stream with his daughter this evening, Mike Donais may have just leaked two of the upcoming card changes!
A private message appeared on stream between Jared Noel, a former member of Hearthstone Analytics at Blizzard, which mentioned two changes.
- Conjurer's Calling being increased to 4 mana.
- Extra Arms being reverted to 3 mana.
Mike stated later in the stream that he "doesn't know" what changes are coming but not to expect more than 10 cards since they don't change more than that. "We aren't announcing nerfs today, at least not intentionally" comes after his announcement on reddit late last night that we may see nerf announcements this week.
Happy Birthday, Mike!
Chatlog Screenshots
Comments
Changes for the sake of changes are bad.
Especially in a game that requires resources, bought with gametime or real money.
And the community is not asking for changes afaik, just more frequent content release, which is another story.
The game needs good changes, not just changes.
If one can't answer a t2 extra arms, they should adjust their decks accordingly. The card is strong now, but definitely not as broken as to be unanswerable.
That's the whole point.
If you think that randomly buffing or nerfing cards without thinking is good, than you should look at how are most of the time correctly handled such problems in bigger games like MTG (it even happened that they printed a new card that was banned from certain format even before its release). What Team5 is doing seems like random changes without any kind of knowledge about what would be the consequences and that is a poor choice in term of design, because it show how little they care about balance.
The game should stay fresh because players should have many different things to do, so that their experience is different and hardly boring allowing them to switch from one mode to another as they please (different formats with their own restrictions, auto-tournaments for those who want a very competitive environment, costume matches and so on). Not just shake the meta by making pointless buffs/nerfs to cards because they've got no better idea.
You're contradicting yourself: nerfs and buffs allow Team5 to actually control the meta, deciding which archetype should be abandoned and which ones should rise. So they can indeed force the meta if they want. They've also clearly stated that when they printed Drakonid Operative back in the days, saying that they wanted Dragon Priest to shine again before it rotated out of Standard no matter what so they've decided to make a clearly OP card exclusivly for it.
The meta should keep evolving because players keep thinkering with a well balanced and interesting new set of cards to find new meta-breakers. It should not change just because Team5 has decided what players should play to be competitive.
Turn 1 Northshire Cleric into turn 2 Extra Arms is a really good start against any deck. Having a 3/5 on board on turn 2 is hard to kill for almost every deck in the meta. But I have to say that I liked Extra Arms as a viable card in a combo priest and I'd rather not nerf it.
Tech options do exist though. Ironbeak Owl and Spellbreaker can put a damper on any combo priests day.
Most decks just aren't built to deal with combo priest well since its a recent deck.
Ah the good ole "just run silence" option. As others have said, there's very few decks that can answer a 3/5 on turn 3. Actually hardly any decks can. Oh wait, there is ONE class that can quite efficiently remove a 3/5 on turn 2. IT'S PRIEST (Shadow word pain).
Silence against a buff priest deck doesn't do a whole lot of anything. And your suggestion of using ironbeak owl is just dumb. A 2/1 silence, that the priest trades with easily with the silenced cleric?
The spellbreaker is a more viable option, but at turn 4 you're most likely going to be dealing with a 3/5 cleric and/or a 3/4 lightwarden. In either instance, silencing only stalls you and gives you a turn to possibly even the playing field, but by no means is it going to just "win you the matchup"
Shall we just ignore the fact that you completely ignore the power of poison? Venomizer, Deadly Poison , Toxfin , Emperor Cobra , Plaguebringer and many more.
Let alone the power of Hex , Polymorph , Shield Slam , Execute and many more.
There are many ways of dealing with [Hearthstone Card (Northsthire Cleric) Not Found] buffed by Extra Arms .
Yes, but almost none of those are immediate turn 2 non pre-requisite answers.
Venomizer requires a mech on board to be used immediately. Deadly poison requires a weapon already equipped. Toxfin requires a murloc already on board. Cobra is 3 mana, and takes a turn to actually be used (so it wont actually attack until turn 4). Plaguebringer requries a minion on board, AND is 4 mana.
Hex, Poly are also 4 mana. Shield slam on 2 is impossible unless the warrior is going 2nd, and even then that's impossible to gain 5 armor on turn 2 with cards in the current set. Execute requires damage to be on the minion.
Again, if you read what I typed. There are VERY FEW classes that can answer a turn 2 3/5 buffed cleric immediately. Except priest itself with shadow word pain.
You say Venomizer requires a mech on board and Deadly poison requires a weapon. Well, this combination requires to have Northshire cleric on board. So there goes that. It's not that Norththire Cleric at turn 1 and Extra arms at turn 2 is a given. You have to be lucky to get that combo going.
The game is not just about having to deal with a minion on the same turn it is summoned or buffed.
Even if this combination is made at turn 2, it doesn't mean that removing it at turn 3 or 4 will be terrible.
I did read what you typed and I don't agree with you at all. And if I read the general feeling of people about Extra Arms on these comments, I see everyone agrees about putting it back to 3 mana is a big mistake.
(1) No you don't actually.
This is assuming you don't initially draw it, that's just purely the mulligan statistic. Consequently your chances of drawing a copy of Extra Arms in the same hand would be 13.6%.
So essentially what we consider the "perfect draw" where you have cleric or lightwarden PLUS Extra arms boils down to about a 1 in 7 chance. This isn't counting OTHER just as decent buff cards like power word shield.
(2) The game isn't about having to deal with minions the turn they are summoned? Uh yes it is. Since the inception of hearthstone, if you don't clear Archmage Antonidas the TURN HE IS SUMMONED. You lose. If you don't clear any card with a progressive power each turn, you lose. Some similar examples that come to mind are Ysera, Armegedillo, Hench Clan Thug, etc etc. These are all minions that if you dont remove them the turn they are summoned, they snowball out of control. A buffed cleric or lightwarden is no different.
(3) You're allowed to disagree with me, but the only thing you've done so far from what I've seen is try to provide the notion that silence, and cards that can remove, but not immediately remove something are considered "hard removal". They aren't. Why do you think noone runs Emperor Cobra in decks? The only reason venomizer is run in mech hunters is because it has MAGNETIZE and can be stuck onto an existing mech for "immediate value".
(3A) As for the possible nerf to extra arms. Where did I say I agreed with moving it back to 3 mana? Please quote me. I said that I think it's problematic with the current scenario of lightwarden/cleric into turn 2 Extra Arms. That means any one of those cards could be the problem. Probably Cleric. But Cleric is a classic card, extra arms isn't. They are hesitant to nerf a core classic card, where nerfing an existing set card that will rotate out in 6 months is a more viable option. Also, everyone? Really. I've reviewed the thread and not everyone in the thread agrees that the card isn't a problem. As for the out of cards community? Microsms don't count. Blizzard has statistics, better than any stat site we publicly have available. I'm not necessarily advocating for an outright nerf to extra arms, but SOMETHING with the combo as I said is a problem. And *something* needs to be done otherwise aggro priest is going to be just as bad as Conj Mage, or Control Warrior for the next 6 months.
The point of tech cards is to have an answer to a specific situation, not to just win the match for you as soon as played. They're meant to mess up your opponent's gameplan and not to just be an istant-win button.
That *used* to be the point of tech cards. In the power-creep economy of Hearthstone currently, in order for a tech card to be even considered viable, it needs to pretty much be a full swing card in your favor. I mean, hell cards like BGH, EMP operative, and the such are actually decent swing cards and they aren't even run. And those cards just FLAT OUT DESTROY a minion under specific circumstances.
What makes you thing a 2/1 body that doesn't even 1:1 trade with the card it silences is going to be viable? Or , even under better circumstances, what makes you think you won't still lose to tempo with a silence from spellbreaker.
I know what tech cards are for. I know what the point is. Do you care to actually contribute intelligently to the conversation or are you just here to stroke your ego and think you are god's gift to card games and YOU are the only one who knows what tech cards are used for?
Edit: noticed you downvoted me without any sort of reply. So I guess the answer is "stroke my ego". Thanks! Cannot wait for OOC to have block/mute feature for trolls like you.
Neither of these changes make sense, Conjurer's Calling at 4 is still strong while Extra Arms doesn't need a nerf. Priest just isn't that strong right now that it needs correcting, except perhaps a slight buff.
You seem to live under a rock, priest is tier 1 atm (and yet I don't see other people tech silence yet...)
One deck for Priest is in Tier 1, and that one deck that is not in anyway oppressive. I love how other classes are have multiple perennial Tier 1 decks, and people are "hey, that's ok!". Priest gets one and "OMG NERF ASAP!".
I think the issue with priest is not that it has a good deck, but that those decks are not fun to play against. I feel like priest, by its very nature, is very frustrating to lose to. whenever priest gets a good deck, it is always very annoying.
What about boar palladin? Otk on turn 4
Lol this is the less consistent deck on earth.
i just dont think it should be possible.
The weirdest thing about this to me is that they are discussing work related stuff in the battle net chat.
I don't think it was unintentional. IMO, I think it was done on purpose to assess the community reaction and, maybe, have some sort of feedback on what they would do.
IMO, hitting Extra Arms would be a stupid move. Priest is barely played with only one good competitive deck in standard.