We're getting a new balance patch for Hearthstone early next week and its going to be hitting 10 different cards including many changes to Demon Hunter.
Within these 10 card changes, 9 of the changes are nerfs and 1 is a buff to Libram of Justice. We don't yet know what the changes will be, but this is the hardest a single class has ever been hit upon the release of the new expansion. We can give Blizzard a pass on that though, it's good to see them quickly reacting to their new class.
Quote From No Author Specified The second Ashes of Outland balance patch is planned for early next week. Looking to make changes to Battlefiend, Altruis the Outcast, Glaivebound Adept, Kael'thas Sunstrider, Bad Luck Albatross, Frenzied Felwing, Open the Waygate, Bloodbloom, and Sacrificial Pact. Details will come later on official channels.
This update will also include a buff to Libram of Justice and a nerf to Millhouse in BG. We'll continue to monitor live game data and player feedback and make any further changes as necessary.
Upcoming Card Nerfs
How do you think these cards will be changed?
Upcoming Card Buffs
Could we see a cost reduction on Libram of Justice?
Comments
Battlefiend: Probably changed to a 1/2. I never had any problems with this card because 2 health is easy to deal with but i can see it being highly frustrating if you have no answers. Btw, if this change happens and it works than it proves that the Mana Wyrm nerf was totally wrong. At 2 mana that card is completely unplayable.
Altruis the Outcast: No longer deals damage to face. That's enough for this one.
Glaivebound Adept: Reduced stats. Probably 5/4. It should still be playable but not a big deal anymore.
Kael'thas Sunstrider: To be honest, i have no idea how they will change this without killing it. Bumping its cost to 8 mana surely slows it down but it doesn't stop its 0 cost spell nonsense so it doesn't help a lot. Changing the discount will certainly kill it as a combo tool though. Maybe, instead of 0, the spells should cost 1?
Bad Luck Albatross: Stats are good for its cost which allows it to be played in any type of deck without any drawbacks. It will either be changed to a 2/3 or have its cost increased to 4. That makes it bad outside of its purpose as a tech card.
Frenzied Felwing: Cost will be increased. Lowering its stats are going to kill it for sure. At 5 or 6 mana, it shouldn't be a big deal anymore and still be playable. Maybe...
Sacrificial Pact: Affects friendly demons only. This one is certain.
Open the Waygate: I don't play wild but i know how mages have a very easy time generating tons of spells (and many of them are really cheap) which makes completing this quest a no brainer. The requirement should be increased to 10 (minimum) or 12 (safest option).
Bloodbloom: A mana cheat card that enables another mana cheat card (Darkest Hour) that is borderline unplayable without a proper enabler. Both of these cards are relatively fine on their own but Bloodbloom could become an issue with other cards in the future so i believe they are targeting the right card. Probably changed to 4 mana. Btw, DHour also needs other enablers (like Rafaam's Scheme) because it's useless without targets to sacrifice. It's fine as long as there are no ways to use it too early.
Libram of Justice: The effect is perfectly fine so i believe they are reducing its cost to 5. Probably not enough to help Paladin though.
I agree with everything you said. I think the change to Kael'thas Sunstrider will probably make it so that only the first third spell you cast this turn costs 0, otherwise they would have to completely change its design and kill its combo potential. The ideas that you wrote are also viable changes, maybe even a combination of those, since 6 mana is pretty cheap for a card like that.
Battlefiend - Just make it a 1/2 and it's fine. This card really makes me wonder what they were thinking. Unless powercreep is about to make 1 mana 2/2's with a special effect the norm. But right now, this is just too much.
Altruis the Outcast - They'll probably remove the face damage. and just make him a good board clear legendary.
Glaivebound Adept - Just look at Fire Elemental to see why this card is getting nerfed. The "if your hero attacked this turn" is too easy to pull off to justify such blatant powercreep. Especially since Glaivebound is part of the basic set. I'm guessing this drops to a 5/6/3.
Kael'thas Sunstrider - Probably just getting bumped to 8 mana to slow down any ridiculous turns, but not kill the card completely. Bumping him to 8 mana though just makes it even more difficult for the classes without any 0-mana spells.
Bad Luck Albatross - this card needs to stop being in so many decks... probably just getting bumped to 4 mana.
Frenzied Felwing - Earlier this week, I saw how pretty the golden version of this card is, and I thought "fuck it, this card is in a lot of decks I play, I'll craft this in golden!". The next day was the Reddit AMA.... Whatever they do, I hope they don't kill this card completely. This has honestly been one of the best mana cheat cards ever printed. Hunter was the only one who could get this out super early thanks to Blazing Battlemage and hero power. Now Demon Hunter has abused and ruined it... Hopefully just getting a bump to 5 mana to slow it down a little bit.
Open the Waygate - Whatever they do, it's not going to be nerfed hard enough. Wasn't an issue until Archmage Vargoth (I remember complaining back in RoS how broken that interaction was and that it was eventually going to break Wild. I hate when I'm right...) Cast 10 spells that didn't start in your deck won't be enough. Just nuke this damn card already, or it will just come back to haunt you again.
Bloodbloom - paying for the sins of Darkest Hour.... I really fear they are only going to slow down Darkest Hour, and completely kill Mecha'thun... Ideally, the should just make Bloodbloom only work on spells that cost 5 or less. But, they're probably just going to bump it to like 4 mana and call it a day. Why care if another completely balanced deck gets nuked in the process?
Sacrificial Pact - Paying for the sins of DH... another card that really had no issues until there was another class that ran a lot of demons. Just make it friendly demons only and move on. Give Jaraxxus a small buff.
Libram of Justice - This just further proves my point that they have no idea what they are doing with Paladin anymore. A buff to this card is going to do NOTHING for Paladin. I feel they had this printed at 4 mana, but felt it was going to be too powerful, so they bumped it to 6 at the last second. Can we all agree that Paladin needs a basic set rework next?
Libram of Justice for sure didn't cost 4 mana because of Equality. And Libram can be discounted to 0. Personally I think this card is fine, but they will probably completely rework it.
Jaraxxus is dead anyway. In wild you have DK Gul'dan and Jaraxxus is too slow in standard.
Battlefiend obviously should cost 2 mana (or even 3). It's 2/2 + snowballing ability, like Questing Adventurer.
Given Blizzards "awesome history of nerfing cards and having them still be playable", this is what I am predicting:
Battlefiend - Starts as a 1/1. Still will be playable, but will obviously be less viable as the loss in health will make it a target to get a booger flicked on it and die... horribly.
Altruis the Outcast - Will only target minions. Still playable and a great way to circumvent "evasive" minions, but obviously substantially reduced in power.
Glaivebound Adept - Becomes a 4/4. For a core card, this would be totally fair. Having a 7 attack on something that can drop on turn 4 and dish out 4 damage to boot is a bit ridiculous.
[Hearthstone Card (Kael'thas Sunstrider) Not Found]- "Every third spell costs (3) less". Most of the abuse that this card sees is dropping 8+ mana cards for free. Reducing them by 3 still gives a discount and potential to do a number of things, but takes away the OTK potential of this card.
Bad Luck Albatross - I'm almost solid that this is going to result in 1 Albatross being shuffled into your opponent's deck. While this seems like a decent nerf, the whole reason why people are running in "mandatory" in every non-highlander deck is to hurt highlander which is the most popular type in the meta... this nukes the purpose of this card being in the deck at all. And, much like Battlefiend, this card will become completely useless and nigh unplayable.
[Hearthstone Card (Frenzied Felwing) Not Found]- Reduced to a 2/2. Just like what happened with Corridor Creeper, a few decks will still see it play, but not many and mostly not above tier 2. Granted a "free" 2/2 is better than nothing... there are other cards that can fill that void now. RIP awesome demon, you were too awesome for Blizzard, so now you must die... horribly.
Open the Waygate - Double the number of spells to activate. Given the number of cards that generate spells that didn't start in your deck that are available now, this is MUCH more reasonable for this deck to play. When this was printed, there were only a handful of cards that did that. Now, you have Mana Cyclone, which alone can do more than Cabalist's Tome, Primordial Glyph, and Kabal Courier could ever do before. Still playable, just a lot more reasonable for what it will do to you.
Bloodbloom - 4 mana. This is only in Wild where other cards exist to lower the cost of the cards you play. Making this card less easy to enable the OTK with Mecha'thun or drop tons of demons on the board with Darkest Hour. Barely still playable, but this is Blizzard... so this card will die... again horribly.
Sacrificial Pact - Again, another great Warlock card that was situational at best sees the light as something viable in the current standard meta and gets kicked to the face. I'm sure that this will be errata'd to only target friendly minions. While still playable in certain formats, it will be null and void in standard where it is needed. It will die... horribly.
I just have more faith in gas station sushi in the middle of Arkansas at 2 AM on Sunday than I do in Blizzard being able to nerf a card and not obliterate it's usefulness. The only exception that I can think of was The Caverns Below which was beat up multiple times and still sees "some" play. These are just my assumptions, take it for what it's worth.
Corridor Creeper saw play in Odd Paladin the entire time it was in Standard. That was easily the best deck of 2018. Weird argument to bring up when they fixed that card from a braindead auto-include in every deck to an aggro card that still saw play.
Indeed... it saw play in that ONE deck. I've see this card in several decks... now it will be isolated, at best, to one deck.
There are a lot of cards that have been nerfed and still see play... They've really stopped nuking cards into oblivion with their nerfs now. These are no longer the days of Warsong Commander
I could see Battlefiend becoming "Battlecry: If your hero attacked this turn gain +1 attack" and keep the stat line and mana cost. It feels like any change to those would completely dumpster the card, though im also pretty okay with doing just that
You have to consider that Battlefiend doesn't strictly have an Inspire effect: first of all, Illidan's hero power costs 1, which is much easier to slot in your curve; secondly, DH has a lot of reasonably cheap ways to attack without the need of clicking the button: Twin Slice, [Hearthstone Card (Aldrachi Warbaldes) Not Found], Warglaives of Azzinoth, Umberwing, Shadowhoof Slayer, Chaos Strike.
What I'm trying to say is that if you manage to play Battlefiend and attack in the same turn, you'll have a 1 mana 3/2 on the board, basically a Flame Imp with no downside, that is very likely to scale in the following turns. If its stats will get reduced to be a 1/2, then you'll less likely snowball of out control, or it will take you a bit more.
Consider that Blazing Battlemage is considered to be a very good aggro tool, and it is just a vanilla minion. Battlefiend is not class powercreep: it is just a snowball card that can kill the match (not literally, but I think you can get what I'm trying to say) within the first 4 turns. This is a hard pass for me.
I don't like that card, but I think my change is a lot more reasonable to just make it a worse on average Blazing Battlemage. In the end, Demon Hunter needs to have good cards. Just not blatantly broken.
So, here's my 2 cents regarding nerfs so those cards won't become completely worthless:
Battlefiend - Starts as a 1/2. On an unrelated note, I need to finish my Arena with 3 Battlefiends on my deck.
Altruis the Outcast - Will only target minions. Still a control tool, but much less of an aggro tool this way.
Glaivebound Adept - Becomes a 5/4. 7 attack is so huge for a 5 drop with such an easy requirement to achieve. At 5 attack, it keeps being aggressively stated without chunking out 25% of the opponent's Health with every attack.
Kael'thas Sunstrider - "Every third spell costs (5) less". This card's issue is it's effect along with it's stats, so I'm guessing they will tackle the most unfair part of it's arsenal. the "5 less" part I suggested allows the card to still fulfill it's mana ceating properties without cheating out top end spells.
Bad Luck Albatross - Tough one. Either it will shuffle only 1 Albatross making it a card for resurrect decks only or it will lose it's premium stats aspect, making it a anti-Highlander tech. I'm guessing it becomes a 2/3.
Frenzied Felwing - Becomes a 2/2. Yes, the card will be completely gutted, but it's a snowball effect card, so it's hard to change it without completely killing it. Either that or it becomes something like "If you dealt 5-6 damage to the opponent this turn, it costs (0)"
Open the Waygate - 10 spells as a requirement to finish the quest. The number was just thrown there, it just seems like a much more reasonable requirement.
Bloodbloom - Guessing a mana change. And considering Emperor Thaurissan exists, I'm guessing to 4 mana.
Sacrificial Pact - Only targets friendly demons. Seems an obvious change to give it the fantasy of sacrificing your own board for something.
I have almost the exact same predictions as yo
nah, the effect is not the problem, is more the cost for the stats, maybe a 4 mana changeor a 3/3
That freakin' Demon Hunter class, first time I felt I was back in beta.
Honestly they could have openly called it DH beta and people would be quite happy with that.
Tell you what, Blizzard. Why don’t you instead just delete the freaking Convincing Infiltrator? That is the worst dang card you could ever publish in a class that can just keep bringing it back over and over.
That card is beyond annoying to deal with yeah
i'm just hoping they kill quest mage, anything else is just a bonus
I hope they change the Sacrificial Pact into higher mana cost + only minions cause I do want to play Lord Jaraxxus.
Cause making it "friendly only" would suck in my opinion despite being 0 mana.
And Sacrificial Pact is limited to demons/all after all.
But I can understand if they made it friendly demons otherwise.
I guess the test is how well the card currently performs in Galakrond warlock when up against decks that don't run demons. If it is actually still pretty good then making it only target friendly minions makes good sense. If it is bad even when you have a huge number of expendable 1/1 demon tokens, then perhaps the mana cost and inability to target Jaraxxus is best.
I'm sure HSreplay or similar sites could find an answer to that, though I haven't looked myself.