Today's reddit AMA has been full of great replies from the Hearthstone team, and that includes talking about the usually forgotten Wild format.
Alec Dawson of the game design team says that we should expect changes to two problematic decks in the Wild format - Quest Mage and Darkest Hour Warlock. This will be done by making adjustments to Open the Waygate and Bloodbloom, the details of which are not yet known but will be announced soon.
How would you change the cards?
Quote From HS_Alec For Wild, we know there has been a lot of very strong reactions to Quest Mage and Darkest Hour Warlock. These decks play in a one-player fashion similar to other decks we've nerfed in the past. There's going to be crazy combos in Wild, but we don't think these two decks in particular are healthy. Expect to see changes to Open the Waygate and Bloodbloom.
Comments
Okay blizzard, but why now? When these decks started getting popular and wild players were heavily complaining, they said they were collecting more data, as usual. The biggest, persistent problem of wild is by far secret mage and I don't see them talking anything about addressing it. Do something about secret mage, please!
Secret Mage isn't as big of a deal as it used to be. The vast majority of Mages I have faced this season, from Bronze to Legend, have been Quest Mages of both varieties (Highlander and non-Highlander), with Secret Mages being a distant second. And unlike Quest Mage, there are fairly decent ways to combat them through deckbuilding or game-plan changes where Quest Mage offers little to none. A Quest Mage's winrate is almost entirely determined by the order in which they draw their cards. And I mean literally "almost entirely", as a good draw on their part leaves the other player so little time to do anything that it is almost impossible to stop them from pulling it off no matter what you draw as the aggressor. They can have their quest done turn 5 and a suite of giants ready in hand before you even break their ice block with some of the most aggressive decks.
Meanwhile, you can beat a farily decent Secret Mage draw with fucking Libram Pure Paladin (done that consistently multiple times), Inner Fire Priests (in 2020?) which I'm pretty sure don't even make it onto the Meta Tierlists, and even if your deck of choice fares poorly against them, you can tailor the list to better suit the matchup. Outside of turn 5 Loatheb into turn 6 lethal past Ice Block, there's little you can do to specifically target Quest Mage. Just pray to god they draw slow enough that you can kill them or put enough obstacles in their way to prevent lethal. And that's coming from someone who got Legend this season with a custom Quest Mage variant. Even my version, which doesn't run many of the popular cards such as Licenced Adventurer, Questing Explorer or Flamewaker, feels pretty unfair to play.
As much as I hate Secret Mage, these nerfs will help Renodecks coming back in meta, and that in turn will keep Secret Mages in check.
How so? The best performing mage deck I played was quest renolock, which already was a reno deck, only now it will become weaker with no alternate win condition other than control. Of course secret mage is not unbeatable, but blizzard is saying what is fun to play against and secret mage is one of the least fun decks to play against, at least for me.
Secret Mage is counterable by a variety of decks, proper counterplays, and even tech cards.
No such thing is true for DHlock and QMage, which is why they were targeted for nerfs.
The nerfed decks are Combo decks, direct counters to Control Reno deck. With less Combo in the meta, Control will rise a little bit, enough to reduce the presence of Secret Mage.
Yea, just kill Open the Waygate, it was never fine.
Finally, a plan to address HS' card dumpster - I welcome such news with optimism
Probably increase Open the Waygate condition to 10. Maybe even 12, judging from how stuff like this is dealt historically.
Definitely 12. Mages can spawn spells and freeze the board pretty well in Wild.
We need a tech card that sets quests back in the next expansion. An epic or lower minion that takes two points away, that will help.
I've only succeeded in using Unseen Saboteur three times against mages who've completed the quest; and Dirty Rat ain't a guarantee in derailing the combo (and I've seen some mages carrying both the Antonidas package and giants).
/been using anti-OTK decks in Wild since Uldum; the trinity of Dirty Rat, Unseen Saboteur and Skulking Geist is VERY useful in wild -- except against Mages finishing the quest in like five turns and Darkest Hour Locks.
Oh no :(
I have a golden Darkest Hour ready to be disenchanted and they are nerfing Bloodbloom
Probably the correct choice. At diamond 5 to legend ~two thirds of players are running these two decks. I just hope they don't kill these decks with overzealous nerfs.
I honestly don't really care if they die. They had plenty of chance to shine. Time to move on.
I’d imagine darkest hour will die since bloodbloom is the entire reason it can pull off the combo so quickly. Even a nerf to 3 mana probably makes the deck borderline unplayable. That being said, the deck was extremely toxic and just a glass cannon with practically no interaction even possible for your opponent to respond to it, which is not the case with quest mage, even if both are very strong
quest mage I think will probably be fine, but Reno quest is certainly dead thanks to a likely increase in requirements.
WHy my Mecha'thun deck getting hit too... you know replacing Bloodbloom by couple of Galvanizers will reduce consistency a lot
You actually only need to replace Bloodbloom with Drakkari Enchanter and look for Mecha'thun and Cataclysm to reduce instead of Bloodbloom.
8 mana Mecha'Thun
2 mana Cataclysm
No need for Galvanizers
maybe... not sure what is more consistent, but that is an idea... Problem with Drakkari Enchanter is that you would have to play her on same turn as Emperor Thaurissan for 9 mana, which is a problem against some decs. While Galvanizer you can just drop after you have drawn Mecha'thun
7 Mana Mecha'thun
3 mana Cataclysm
Might just be easier to weave in into turns, not to mention that Galvanizers will help with Plague of Flames turns
It depends on how it gets nerfed. 1-2 years ago I've made a thread about the possible nerfs to BB in hpwn and one of people's suggestions was being able to use it for spells that cost 5 or less. That would kill a lot of the utility of this spell, but it will preserve the Mechathun deck. In that thread I had also stated that changing the cost of BB would hit only the aforementioned combo deck hard, since you would need more Emperor ticks for the combo, while Big Warlock would cheat out their big minions one or two turns later. None of these suggestions sounded optimal, but what can you do?
I’m assuming the safe bet is 3 mana. The effect is insane, and the workaround cataclysm seems out of character for blizzard, since they rarely encourage combo. Darkest hour will die, and very few people will miss it, including me, since whenever I played it I drew combo before I died maybe 1/5 times. Just a generally bad feeling deck for everyon
Bloodbloom on (3) is far from enough.
You just delay earliest DH turn from 5 to 6, which is really, really not enough as a nerf, considering their survival package.
(4) is a safer nerf point, leaving the deck alive, but vulnerable. Mecha'thun will adjust with Drakkari Enchanter.
Alternatively, the limit to (5) as a Bloodbloom target is also a good idea, but that outright kills DHlock (which I'd be fine with personally).
This is also what I'm most sad about... Mecha'Thun Lock is a very honest and balanced deck, AND fun to play
Darkest Hour Lock is neither, so why not change Darkest Hour??