FINALLY. Oh, right, we're supposed to remain indifferent.
Blizzard has announced that five card nerfs will be coming next Monday, August 26, including a wild-only nerf!
The Nerfs
Five cards are getting changed with two of those cards (Luna's and Extra Arms) being reverted back to their values before the Rise of Mechs event.
- Conjurer's Calling now costs 4 mana (Up from 3)
- Luna's Pocket Galaxy now costs 7 mana (Up from 5)
- Dr. Boom, Mad Genius now costs 9 mana (Up from 7)
- Extra Arms now costs 3 mana (Up from 2)
- Barnes now costs 5 mana (Up from 4)
Discuss the Nerf
Discuss the Nerf
Discuss the Nerf
Discuss the Nerf
Discuss the Nerf
Blog Post
Quote From Blizzard Now that Saviors of Uldum is live, new cards have been introduced and powerful decks have started to surface. To make for a better ladder experience for Hearthstone players in this new expansion, we’ve decided to make the following card adjustments in an update next week:
Mage
While Conjurer’s Calling is a powerful tool that’s found in a number of Mage decks, when used in decks focused around cards like Mountain Giant and Sea Giant, it was creating extremely powerful board states at a point in the game where opponents didn’t have effective answers.
Increasing the mana cost of this card will make using both copies of the Twinspell card in a single turn significantly more difficult, postponing these potentially overwhelming turns until later in the game when the Mage’s opponent has more available resources to react to the board.
Buffing cards with the Rise of the Mech event was a big change in philosophy for us. While we are happy with the overall outcome of the changes, Luna’s Pocket Galaxy has proven to be an exception.
An early Luna's Pocket Galaxy can often leave opponents feeling helpless if late-game minions were drawn in subsequent turns. This has occurred more often than we had intended, therefore we're reverting its mana cost back to its original value of 7, as was the case before the Rise of the Mech event.
Warrior
We’d still like Dr. Boom, Mad Genius to be a great option for control Warrior decks looking to close out games, but right now the card gets played a bit too early. Increasing the mana cost to 9 should make it more difficult to find a good turn to play Dr. Boom, giving opponents time to make powerful plays as well.
Priest
During the Rise of the Mech event, Priest was one of the weaker classes in the game. Buffing Extra Arms gave Priest a powerful spell for the early game to enable some of their board-focused strategies.
With the release of Saviors of Uldum, Priest has access to many more powerful early game minions and has seen a large jump in both popularity and winrate. Between all of Priests buff spells and heal effects, it can be hard to fight for the board against them early in the game. Increasing the mana cost of Extra Arms back to 3 should give room for other decks to challenge them early on, while leaving the powerful Priest minions and combos untouched.
Neutral
Barnes has been a hot topic in Wild format discussions for quite some time now, especially regarding how oppressive this card can feel when facing certain Priest decks.
While we’re okay with Wild having a higher power level in general, Barnes stood out as too consistently powerful early in the game. Increasing his mana cost by 1 will let opponents have an easier time reacting, but still lets Barnes retain its identity as a way to summon specific minions early in the game.
Comments
So there’s a feeling among some players that dominant decks should be castrated to unplayability. I’m much more for precision nerfs that allow the deck to continue but with a lower % of wins. So my Assesment....
Dr.Boom: seems spot on. Eliminates the hero power on top turn which can be ugly. It delays boom a few turns. Still strong, I expect control warrior to still be tier 1, just with more breathing room for other classes to close the gap. 5/5
Extra Arms: I have to assume they internally tested changes and came up with this. Priest is strong, but not dominant. If the meta included more silence the deck would suffer a lot. I know they don’t want to be constantly adjusting card power often but I felt this was a pre-nerf. Maybe warranted but I really would like to see the meta without this first. 2/5
Conjurer’s Calling: This felt like the low hanging fruit. The giant cards always seem to be a problem in standard. A trip to the HOF seems like a more permanent solution. The power level of CC seems ok for wild when it rotates in its un-nerfed form. There was also some cool ways to use it early game that are now dead. It’ll be an effective bandaid but coupled with the Luna nerf it could kill the deck. 2.5/5
Luna’s Pocket: Would trying it at 6 mana really have been too much before reverting it back to useless meme status. We know it’s not competitive at 7. I think the suspected 6 might still be a problem but with CC at 5 now there isnt too much in the way of over the top tempo plays. 1/5 for too much at once
Barnes: I know there’s a strong feeling that Big Priest has oppressed wild for too long. Those who feel that way wanted the deck gutted. Instead they went specifically after the decks ability to create a disgusting early board. I think this will be more effective than others give it credit. 1 mana nerfs have gutted decks in the past, think this will not be that bad but will lessen the power against aggro a lot. 5/
Dumb to double nerf mage. Haven't they learned from when they pulled that crap with druid and killed the class
Guess we're back to yet another expansion with Hunter on top
They went after some core design elements in the evergreen set of Druid that was giving them a constant state of tier 1. Mage was really targeting 1 deck. Mage is still powerful
at least they didn't nerf classic cards as with the Druid, so I think Mage will still be all right
instead of changing how the cards work, once again they go with the classic "lets change the mana cost instead!" Sure, that works sometimes, but I don't see it working with Barnes, even for 5 mana, it's incredibly strong. Luna's galaxy is probably back to unplayable, and I still feel that Dr boom is good enough to be run on 9 mana. 2 mana gain 7 anyone?
By the way they nerfed 3 legendaries and 2 rares, where everyone were like "Nah the will not nerf so many legendaries, because dust refunds"
I really hated Conjurer’s Calling, as soon as I saw those giants..... I knew the game was lost.
I like all of the changes except Barnes. It doesn't fix the problem with Big Priest, it just makes its bad matchups vs aggro worse. Big Priest in general is just an awful deck to exist in the game; it's extremely polarizing and repetitive to play against.
I don't think Extra Arms was dominant enough to be reverted to 3 mana. If the devs still wanted to nerf it, I think either only Extra Arms or [Hearthstone Card (More Arms) Not Found] should get changed, not both (Blessing of Kings, but one mana more in exchange for flexibility).
It's kind of broken in Wild when paired with Radiant Elemental. Perhaps they were also considering this.
I'll just DE Lunas Pocket Galaxy. I cannot see that ever getting played again.
Some decks might still be willing to use it with Naga Sand Witch.
Well this change to luna is a nerf right? Meaning we are gonna get the dust out of it at the end of the day. #thankyoublizzard
Aw man, the Barnes nerf hasn't made priest much weaker, but it made Spell Hunter (including my now favorite deck Deathwing Spell Hunter) is much worse :(. Sure, it somewhat deals with the problem, but they could have made the nerf different. Well, at least Big Priest is weaker now
Jaina : Bye bye 1 mana Tony, it was pleasure meeting you.
Garrosh : better late than never
Anduin : Hero power on 2. Oh not again. Whatever I still got Barnes
Rexxar : Cruel Laughter
Luna's Pocket Galaxy is now back to limb
Dr. Boom should be OK now, I guess. You won't hero power for 7 armour as soon as you play it.
All I see is 1600 free dust from Luna's Pocket Galaxy's flip flop. Me likes :)
Pocket Galaxy will be still playeble because of Naga Sandwitch.. Can be played on turn 5 with coin or on turn 6 as many people want to have the cost of Luna
on the flipside this would require you to run Naga Sandwitch....which you don't want to