The Warrior QL nerf is likely going to matter in the new Wild meta after the hit to Kael and the ban of Switcheroo. It was previously one of, if not the strongest decks in Wild. Now nerfing or removing two of the decks that would beat it means it would likely jump back up to the top. So while it may not seem needed right now, it should help create a better Wild after these other nerfs.
Kael revert to the nerf likely means the deck still sees play but is slowed down. Personally I think the long term problem for Blizzard when it comes to Druid is going to be Druid's ability to get 20 max mana, and as long as this is the case Team 5 will continuously find themselves having to nerf cards to limit Druid.
Also, because of how many "draw three" cards Druid has I wouldn't be opposed to Miracle Growth being either "draw two" or even "draw a card".
And lastly, Priest will be just fine! They are losing a shenanigans high roll deck, but they can go right back to playing Aggro Shadow Priest, Big Priest, or just regular old Inner Fire Priest. It's a shame that Switcheroo has to be hit like this because overall it's a cool concept, that had a lot of potential. I actually wanted to use it in a Mind Blast OTK Priest simply as a 3 mana draw two minions like you mentioned Priest needing above. But obviously the Switcheroo Boar deck was a bit too consistent on it's high rolling or they wouldn't have had to ban it in Wild or alter it to stop the abuse of the card in Standard.
Pirate Warrior wins all too often without even completing the questline, but at least they hit Pufferfist as well.
Switcheroo change is perfect -- it's still a usable card, but now the nightmare can finally end.
And, of course, LOVE the Kazakusan change. This is what it should have been in the first place. Did they really think the empty-deck strategy wouldn't be abused, especially by a class like Druid that has 20 mana and tons of card draw effects to spend it on?
Switcheroo ban in wild feels bad, just print a 3 mana draw 2 minions for priest, we dont need gimmicks, thats just such a nice draw for priest which has been lacking forever. Kael nerf is good and I can see it still being played for cheating UIs and not just insta wins anymore. Pirate warrior nerf wasnt needed in wild but I cant complain. Miracle growth nerf didnt matter for wild as it was always being cheated with kael anyways but if kael is cut then it probably goes with it. Seems good overall but rip priest.
RIP Darkglare Priest, my latest favorite Wild deck :(
I think the Standard nerf would be sufficient for Wild as well. Boar Priest would need to run Inner Fire or Bless to do the combo, but the extra combo piece and more mana needed would push the deck out of the meta. And Darkglare Priest would stay playable.
Edit: I just remembered Topsy Turvy exists, that would also be playable, but the deck is already quite inconsistent.
wasnt a mistake tho, theres plenty of disruption to beat kael'thas and switcheroo needs to be nerfed, not banned. theres no point in killing darkglare priest when the 20/20 boars are the problem
Given how often this comes up, I think the only reasonable balance change to wild is to switch it to a format that gets to a random assortment of expansions which switch every month. Keep whatever the current core set is, and make the most recent expansion plus 3-5 others legal each month. Rotating sets make it like a weird version of standard, which might be enough to attract me to th mode.
As more expansions come out, the problems of broken decks and degenerate wombo combos are only going to get worse. It's just entropy at work. Nip it in the bud with rotations.
Kazakusan? How about slight change, make him discover a treasure for each dragon played that game. You play only him? You will discover one treasure. Played ten dragons? You got a 20 card new deck with 10 treasures.
Given how often this comes up, I think the only reasonable balance change to wild is to switch it to a format that gets to a random assortment of expansions which switch every month. Keep whatever the current core set is, and make the most recent expansion plus 3-5 others legal each month. Rotating sets make it like a weird version of standard, which might be enough to attract me to th mode.
As more expansions come out, the problems of broken decks and degenerate wombo combos are only going to get worse. It's just entropy at work. Nip it in the bud with rotations.
Maybe removing Mr. Smite from discovery pool, I don't mind him very much, what tilts me is my enemy discovering him from warrior quest reward of from Nellie, the Great Thresher
The card is decently statted for a 3 mana minion, so there is no hard downside from playing it compared to something like Big Game Hunter.
Currently there are so many minions with the beast type in arena and fairly powerful ones at that, that drafting it is usually a good choice anyway and rather frustrating for the enemy when their 4 mana 7/7 (Selfish Shellfish) is eaten by a 3 Mana Pirate.
Additionally as Rogue you can even tutor it with Cutlass Courier.
Does this justify a ban of the card? Imo no, but it limits your choices while deckbuilding.
It would be far better to finally remove Ysera the Dreamer and Raid Boss Onyxia from the discover pool, or limit their discover rate. Also Abominable Lieutenant that is already banned in Arena should be removed from the discover pool as well.
- There has got to be a nerf to Kazakusan. I dont mind druids playing big stuff because that's what ramp is supposed to get to, but having kazakusan at the very end makes it nearly impossible to outlast druid in any late game scenario. In fact, the best way to deal with kazakusan in general is to eat it with Mutanus. The conditions is too flimsy and as we have seen, druid can easily just play it in a non-dragon deck and still manage to play it.
The most elegant way is to give it the hooktusk treatment and require 8 dragons be played before he even becomes active.
- Im actually thinking about a nerf hit to Whetstone Hatchet instead of Defias Cannoneer and Pufferfist. Having vipered their weapon before, I find quest warrior gets really bad really fast without a weapon in hand. Maybe increase its costs to 2? Worth speculating.
- Im not sure what they can do about Mr. Smite. The card isn't as broken as it looks, but being able to discover multiple copies of the card is like being able to play more than one leeroy per game. If we're not hitting this, then Gorehowl has got to go, because the weapon pool is small enough that I think getting hit with more than 15 in one turn because of rng is getting way too consistent to be fair.
- Switcheroo banned in wild. Kael'thas nerfed to what it once was.
Well, their final response was "we have no way to grant you any sort of compensation and if you keep messaging us we'll punish you" so I've just put in a BBB complaint. Guess they have no interest in taking care of users.
One thing about the Whirlpool achievement. It's the only Nature spell in Priest as of now and Florist exists, so if you get the spell in hand get out florist and then use ressurection and copying shenanigans to keep getting more discounts until it's cheap enough for the Mad Summoner combo.
Don't know how consistent that is because I completed the thing by accident, but it's probably better than just hoping for a best case scenario with Nazmani discounts because those will always be random.
Some of your revisions get there, but I do think you are underestimating some of your cards. Odin's AoE is 1-sided and does so much damage that it practically says 'destroy all enemy minions'. Add in the +10 armour, which will keep you alive for quite a while, and significant board presence, and he's a lot more powerful than a "sometimes better Twisting Nether".
For Freyja, there are lots of cards you can use as reference points. Most of them are in rogue, e.g. Vilespine Slayer, Flik Skyshiv, Bootstrap Sunkeneer, but warlock also has Keli'dan the Breaker. Other than some situational cases with Flik, all of these are significantly weaker than your Freyja, even before the discover effect is included. Furthermore, this is an effect that rogue is designed to be the best class at, so a warlock card really shouldn't be pushing the power level that far.
On the class design side, DH is meant to be pretty bad at dealing with big minions too. Jormungand being 10 mana might stop it seeing play in practice so it becomes a non-issue, but I'd still be hesitant to put destroy effects in that class if it wants to feel like a DH card. This is something tricky for card design: you simultaneously want cards to do something new, while feeling consistent with the old cards in that class.
Ratatoskr is pretty cool, but yes, it would need a mana increase. I'd guess to 3-5 if we want to avoid him being too much of a high-roll. Design-wise its biggest problem is that he's a bit too complicated. If it only had one of the 3 effects (whichever one best fits the messenger flavour) then I could absolutely believe its a real HS card.
I'm not sure where I stand on Thor, though certainly I don't think a Consecration + bigger Cariel Roame is too weak at 6 mana. If he feels too basic, you might consider switching out the AoE for an effect giving you Mjolnir? That could mean something simple like how Tirion Fordring works, but with Mjolnir itself having some fancy lightning-based effect? That could just add extra steps to what already exists, but at least it would feel more interesting.
Finally, as a slow rogue player, I approve wholeheartedly of your Loki design! The flavour, stats and mechanics fit rogue design perfectly. That said, it might suffer from being too slow to be worth much against aggro, and has too little health to survive any AoE against control. If so, it's in an awkward spot where it's basically never as useful as it looks. Given it's really slow in a class that is anything but slow, I wonder if you could get away with buffing his return to hand effect to a deathrattle? I.e. card text: "Stealth. After this attacks a minion it vanishes. Deathrattle: return this to your hand." Control would hate it, of course, but rogue has a long history of ruining control's day so that might be fine.
Anyway, I've been nitpicking balance but I want to reiterate the designs are cool!
Blizzard Confirms Wild & Standard Balance Changes and Bans Coming on Tuesday - Kael'thas Reverted, Pirate Warrior Nerf & More
The Warrior QL nerf is likely going to matter in the new Wild meta after the hit to Kael and the ban of Switcheroo. It was previously one of, if not the strongest decks in Wild. Now nerfing or removing two of the decks that would beat it means it would likely jump back up to the top. So while it may not seem needed right now, it should help create a better Wild after these other nerfs.
Kael revert to the nerf likely means the deck still sees play but is slowed down. Personally I think the long term problem for Blizzard when it comes to Druid is going to be Druid's ability to get 20 max mana, and as long as this is the case Team 5 will continuously find themselves having to nerf cards to limit Druid.
Also, because of how many "draw three" cards Druid has I wouldn't be opposed to Miracle Growth being either "draw two" or even "draw a card".
And lastly, Priest will be just fine! They are losing a shenanigans high roll deck, but they can go right back to playing Aggro Shadow Priest, Big Priest, or just regular old Inner Fire Priest. It's a shame that Switcheroo has to be hit like this because overall it's a cool concept, that had a lot of potential. I actually wanted to use it in a Mind Blast OTK Priest simply as a 3 mana draw two minions like you mentioned Priest needing above. But obviously the Switcheroo Boar deck was a bit too consistent on it's high rolling or they wouldn't have had to ban it in Wild or alter it to stop the abuse of the card in Standard.
Blizzard Confirms Wild & Standard Balance Changes and Bans Coming on Tuesday - Kael'thas Reverted, Pirate Warrior Nerf & More
Pirate Warrior wins all too often without even completing the questline, but at least they hit Pufferfist as well.
Switcheroo change is perfect -- it's still a usable card, but now the nightmare can finally end.
And, of course, LOVE the Kazakusan change. This is what it should have been in the first place. Did they really think the empty-deck strategy wouldn't be abused, especially by a class like Druid that has 20 mana and tons of card draw effects to spend it on?
Blizzard Confirms Wild & Standard Balance Changes and Bans Coming on Tuesday - Kael'thas Reverted, Pirate Warrior Nerf & More
They could always nerf it again later.
Blizzard Confirms Wild & Standard Balance Changes and Bans Coming on Tuesday - Kael'thas Reverted, Pirate Warrior Nerf & More
Switcheroo ban in wild feels bad, just print a 3 mana draw 2 minions for priest, we dont need gimmicks, thats just such a nice draw for priest which has been lacking forever. Kael nerf is good and I can see it still being played for cheating UIs and not just insta wins anymore. Pirate warrior nerf wasnt needed in wild but I cant complain. Miracle growth nerf didnt matter for wild as it was always being cheated with kael anyways but if kael is cut then it probably goes with it. Seems good overall but rip priest.
Blizzard Confirms Wild & Standard Balance Changes and Bans Coming on Tuesday - Kael'thas Reverted, Pirate Warrior Nerf & More
RIP Darkglare Priest, my latest favorite Wild deck :(
I think the Standard nerf would be sufficient for Wild as well. Boar Priest would need to run Inner Fire or Bless to do the combo, but the extra combo piece and more mana needed would push the deck out of the meta. And Darkglare Priest would stay playable.
Edit: I just remembered Topsy Turvy exists, that would also be playable, but the deck is already quite inconsistent.
Blizzard Confirms Wild & Standard Balance Changes and Bans Coming on Tuesday - Kael'thas Reverted, Pirate Warrior Nerf & More
Something needs to be done about Mr. Smite as well
Blizzard Confirms Wild & Standard Balance Changes and Bans Coming on Tuesday - Kael'thas Reverted, Pirate Warrior Nerf & More
Is the Secure the Supplies nerf enough guys? I feel like one of those 3s should be a 4.
Blizzard Hears Community Feedback on the Need for Wild Hearthstone Balance Changes in Year of the Hydra
Nerf pirate warrior! I can't stand playing in ladder at the moment when I face it so often...
Blizzard Hears Community Feedback on the Need for Wild Hearthstone Balance Changes in Year of the Hydra
wasnt a mistake tho, theres plenty of disruption to beat kael'thas and switcheroo needs to be nerfed, not banned. theres no point in killing darkglare priest when the 20/20 boars are the problem
Glugg the Gulper
GOT SOMETHIN' FOR YA!
Blizzard Hears Community Feedback on the Need for Wild Hearthstone Balance Changes in Year of the Hydra
Dont change wild to that,
New format ONTOP sure.
Changing Wild HELL NO
Blizzard Hears Community Feedback on the Need for Wild Hearthstone Balance Changes in Year of the Hydra
Kazakusan? How about slight change, make him discover a treasure for each dragon played that game. You play only him? You will discover one treasure. Played ten dragons? You got a 20 card new deck with 10 treasures.
Blizzard Hears Community Feedback on the Need for Wild Hearthstone Balance Changes in Year of the Hydra
Given how often this comes up, I think the only reasonable balance change to wild is to switch it to a format that gets to a random assortment of expansions which switch every month. Keep whatever the current core set is, and make the most recent expansion plus 3-5 others legal each month. Rotating sets make it like a weird version of standard, which might be enough to attract me to th mode.
As more expansions come out, the problems of broken decks and degenerate wombo combos are only going to get worse. It's just entropy at work. Nip it in the bud with rotations.
Blizzard Hears Community Feedback on the Need for Wild Hearthstone Balance Changes in Year of the Hydra
Yeah, let's just kill the deck.
Blizzard Hears Community Feedback on the Need for Wild Hearthstone Balance Changes in Year of the Hydra
Maybe removing Mr. Smite from discovery pool, I don't mind him very much, what tilts me is my enemy discovering him from warrior quest reward of from Nellie, the Great Thresher
I would also add a Wildheart Guff Lightforged Cariel nerfs. They are way stronger that Scabs was on previous meta.
And Multi-Strike, that card is insane
Hearthstone Hotfixes Introduces a Duels Mode Fix for Stuck Players, Golakka Glutton Arena Ban, and More!
What about the Bartender/Bazar Bob bug ? is this fixed ?
Blizzard Hears Community Feedback on the Need for Wild Hearthstone Balance Changes in Year of the Hydra
Please don't ban Switcheroo, I like my Darkglare Priest very much :(
Harpoon Gun
Nice Mortal Kombat Scorpion reference!
Hearthstone Hotfixes Introduces a Duels Mode Fix for Stuck Players, Golakka Glutton Arena Ban, and More!
The card is decently statted for a 3 mana minion, so there is no hard downside from playing it compared to something like Big Game Hunter.
Currently there are so many minions with the beast type in arena and fairly powerful ones at that, that drafting it is usually a good choice anyway and rather frustrating for the enemy when their 4 mana 7/7 (Selfish Shellfish) is eaten by a 3 Mana Pirate.
Additionally as Rogue you can even tutor it with Cutlass Courier.
Does this justify a ban of the card? Imo no, but it limits your choices while deckbuilding.
It would be far better to finally remove Ysera the Dreamer and Raid Boss Onyxia from the discover pool, or limit their discover rate. Also Abominable Lieutenant that is already banned in Arena should be removed from the discover pool as well.
Hearthstone Hotfixes Introduces a Duels Mode Fix for Stuck Players, Golakka Glutton Arena Ban, and More!
Not sure why Golakka is getting the ax in arena. Gangplank Diver is the real problem card for arena currently.
Blizzard Hears Community Feedback on the Need for Wild Hearthstone Balance Changes in Year of the Hydra
Mechashark 5 cost 3/3
Blizzard Hears Community Feedback on the Need for Wild Hearthstone Balance Changes in Year of the Hydra
Just pure speculation;
- There has got to be a nerf to Kazakusan. I dont mind druids playing big stuff because that's what ramp is supposed to get to, but having kazakusan at the very end makes it nearly impossible to outlast druid in any late game scenario. In fact, the best way to deal with kazakusan in general is to eat it with Mutanus. The conditions is too flimsy and as we have seen, druid can easily just play it in a non-dragon deck and still manage to play it.
The most elegant way is to give it the hooktusk treatment and require 8 dragons be played before he even becomes active.
- Im actually thinking about a nerf hit to Whetstone Hatchet instead of Defias Cannoneer and Pufferfist. Having vipered their weapon before, I find quest warrior gets really bad really fast without a weapon in hand. Maybe increase its costs to 2? Worth speculating.
- Im not sure what they can do about Mr. Smite. The card isn't as broken as it looks, but being able to discover multiple copies of the card is like being able to play more than one leeroy per game. If we're not hitting this, then Gorehowl has got to go, because the weapon pool is small enough that I think getting hit with more than 15 in one turn because of rng is getting way too consistent to be fair.
- Switcheroo banned in wild. Kael'thas nerfed to what it once was.
Reminder: Short Dust Refund Window for Hearthstone Cards - Sir Finley, Sea Guide and Golden Ambassador Faelin
Well, their final response was "we have no way to grant you any sort of compensation and if you keep messaging us we'll punish you" so I've just put in a BBB complaint. Guess they have no interest in taking care of users.
How to Complete Sunken City's Priest Achievements for Rewards Track Experience - Great Deck Lists!
One thing about the Whirlpool achievement. It's the only Nature spell in Priest as of now and Florist exists, so if you get the spell in hand get out florist and then use ressurection and copying shenanigans to keep getting more discounts until it's cheap enough for the Mad Summoner combo.
Don't know how consistent that is because I completed the thing by accident, but it's probably better than just hoping for a best case scenario with Nazmani discounts because those will always be random.
A Norse God expansion would be cool. Here are some ideas.
Some of your revisions get there, but I do think you are underestimating some of your cards. Odin's AoE is 1-sided and does so much damage that it practically says 'destroy all enemy minions'. Add in the +10 armour, which will keep you alive for quite a while, and significant board presence, and he's a lot more powerful than a "sometimes better Twisting Nether".
For Freyja, there are lots of cards you can use as reference points. Most of them are in rogue, e.g. Vilespine Slayer, Flik Skyshiv, Bootstrap Sunkeneer, but warlock also has Keli'dan the Breaker. Other than some situational cases with Flik, all of these are significantly weaker than your Freyja, even before the discover effect is included. Furthermore, this is an effect that rogue is designed to be the best class at, so a warlock card really shouldn't be pushing the power level that far.
On the class design side, DH is meant to be pretty bad at dealing with big minions too. Jormungand being 10 mana might stop it seeing play in practice so it becomes a non-issue, but I'd still be hesitant to put destroy effects in that class if it wants to feel like a DH card. This is something tricky for card design: you simultaneously want cards to do something new, while feeling consistent with the old cards in that class.
Ratatoskr is pretty cool, but yes, it would need a mana increase. I'd guess to 3-5 if we want to avoid him being too much of a high-roll. Design-wise its biggest problem is that he's a bit too complicated. If it only had one of the 3 effects (whichever one best fits the messenger flavour) then I could absolutely believe its a real HS card.
I'm not sure where I stand on Thor, though certainly I don't think a Consecration + bigger Cariel Roame is too weak at 6 mana. If he feels too basic, you might consider switching out the AoE for an effect giving you Mjolnir? That could mean something simple like how Tirion Fordring works, but with Mjolnir itself having some fancy lightning-based effect? That could just add extra steps to what already exists, but at least it would feel more interesting.
Finally, as a slow rogue player, I approve wholeheartedly of your Loki design! The flavour, stats and mechanics fit rogue design perfectly. That said, it might suffer from being too slow to be worth much against aggro, and has too little health to survive any AoE against control. If so, it's in an awkward spot where it's basically never as useful as it looks. Given it's really slow in a class that is anything but slow, I wonder if you could get away with buffing his return to hand effect to a deathrattle? I.e. card text: "Stealth. After this attacks a minion it vanishes. Deathrattle: return this to your hand." Control would hate it, of course, but rogue has a long history of ruining control's day so that might be fine.
Anyway, I've been nitpicking balance but I want to reiterate the designs are cool!