I disagree. The parallel between Incanter's Flow and Wild Growth is not quite correct I think because the cards work differently. Wild Growth on 2 allowed you to skip from 3 mana straight to 4, which allowed you to cut a lot of the mediocre garbage on 3 and go more heavy on 4 drops, which Druid had an abundance of (Oaken Summons, Branching Paths, now Overgrowth). Wild Growth also only had value until players reached 10 mana crystals, so with Wild Growth a turn slower, its mana benefits decreased. But there's a world of difference between having 1 extra mana crystal for 6 turns or 7 and discounting 24 cards by 1 mana or 23. You still cheat way too much mana for way too little investment. With Flow you're not really changing the design and curve of your deck, you don't get to skip to a specific power turn ahead of schedule since what you really want to do with your mana is draw draw draw, without on-board progress, and if you're literally doing nothing on turn 2 with Flow nerfed, you're building your deck wrong. You can still prepare a Conjure Mana Biscuit, kill something off with Runed Orb, power up an Ignite, ping off a one-drop to slow down the opponent, in Wild you'll take that opportunity to play Ancient Mysteries before you hard-draw your Ice Blocks.
The turn-to-turn play pattern changes very slightly but the overall game-wide pattern remains the same: Control can't stop you and aggro is your counter. That hasn't changed. Aggro might have a slightly bigger window now but control is not in any better position than it was. Same goes for Darkglare. Sure, you slow the deck down a turn. It may pack a bit more removal, be a bit more defensive. Control still can't beat it. By the time they get to answer the Darkglare it will have cheated 3-4 mana (making itself essentially free, like Flow), made dramatic progress on the quest, and once the quest is online, it's over for control. Between Flow and Darkglare, the cost to complete the quest, or simply the cost to do broken stuff is too low because both cards allow that cost to go into the negatives. Mana cheating will never be balanced because if your opponent mana cheats, the only way you can keep pace with them is to either mana cheat even harder, or kill them real fast.
The devs had the opportunity to put a stop to this mana cheating pattern that has been a problem in both formats pretty much since the cards' introductions. Instead they let cheating continue and bumped it one mana. The meekest change they could have made and also one that is most prone to result in relapses in brokenness.
People are again underestimating the impact of mana cost increase on cards. Combo decks need mana reduction to make their combo work. When the pieces have their cost increased this causes a chain reaction within the whole deck as the discounts aren't efficient anymore. The 2 mana increase on Il'gynoth just breaks Lifesteal DH. They will be forced to run both the quest and Skull of Gul'dan to have a better chance at making their combo work without having to wait for turn 10+. More card draw means less healing and less defense which makes them more susceptible to any kind of aggression and not just hyper aggression. The increased stats still allow the card to be played in other decks but they don't matter as much for combo because it is just to risky for a combo deck to drop their main combo piece on the board without having their otk ready. If the main combo piece is destroyed then it's an automatic loss. Tempoing the main combo piece just because of higher stats is still way too risky.
Darkglare is back to its original 3 mana 3/4 stats and that's a good thing. Reducing the cost during the original nerf was a mistake. The card is slower now and mana cheat is at its best when it is super fast. Even a 1 mana increase can make a huge difference. Same applies to Incanter's Flow. They didn't provide any compensation for mage so they are definitely going to feel the blow.
Kolkar Pack Runner being slower also allows board based strategies to have a better chance at pushing Hunter off the board. We already know that 3/4 stats for 3 mana isn't anything special nowadays.
Granite Forgeborn with Yeti stats was extremely silly so the nerf was needed. It isn't even that big of a hit. Just one less health. Easier to remove but the mana discounts are still there.
Battleground Battlemaster deserved a stronger nerf but they are also nerfing Paladin which was the main abuser. It shouln't be that easy to abuse it in very fast strategies anymore but the fact that is still playable is very worrisome. This card just doubles the damage output of 2 minions. It is still an extreme threat in any deck with sizeable minions or buffs (in hand or board). So, i believe it can still be problematic. I hope i'm wrong.
Conviction (Rank 2) at 2 mana is a bigger blow than expected. When cheap cards have their cost increased they lose a lot of flexibility. I don't think the card is unplayable but it is a lot worse because any attempts at comboing it with Battlemaster have been delayed by 2 turns (1 mana on each card).
Now, the truly puzzling one is Flesh Giant. A 1 mana increase on a card that is very easy to discount isn't going to do a whole lot. Not in Warlock anyway. This is a bigger blow on Priest as the class already can't discount the card fast enough to make it impact the game when it is most relevant (early to mid game). Non Shadow Priest decks already suffer from a lack of proactive plays. This card was one of the few that was worthwhile attempting to build around for a more proactive playstyle for Control Priest. A 1 mana increase just makes it a lot worse for the class. Warlock still has tons of self damage and healing so the one mana increase only makes things slightly worse. I think the most relevant hit here is Battlemaster. Now other decks have one extra turn to find a way to deal with the giants. The nerf on Darkglare should help as well.
All of them with the exception of Elysiana were still very good cards and widely used... sure, it helps to lower the overall power levels of the cards but we need way more than "slight adjustments" to change the meta into a healthier direction
Kolkar Pack Runner and Darkglare shouldn't be 3/4. Minions should either have premium stats or premium effects, not both. Ignoring Aimed Shot and Stealer of Souls is a bad idea. The former should only be able to target minions, and the latter needs at least a 1-mana nerf short of a rework. They also missed the mark on Il'gynoth decks. Mo'arg Artificer needs to have its effect not stack, similar to how "your Battlecries trigger twice" text on cards doesn't stack. I see no difference or contradiction in Artificer's text functioning the same way (damage is restricted to doubling, not multiplying).
I think like a glass coffin, the remains to be seen. Incanter's Flow may hurt a little in the early part of the game, but still being able to knock down the spells in your deck to 1's and 0's is still there. This card will still see play.
Conviction (Rank 1)will now see play in Even Paladin and perhaps other builds, but will certainly be less of a threat for early games.
Darkglare's nerf isn't surprising, but it will definitely hurt the more aggro versions of these decks. Flesh Giant also will be delayed slightly, but the power balance just isn't there.
Battleground Battlemaster didn't get what needed to happen. It is still a threat that makes the board very beatsticky. It only needs to survive the turn it's dropped and makes the player rely on having a board to abuse it. I stand by my original post saying that this needed to be a Battlecry effect to make it less abusive. It will still help to win games, but will be less devastating for sure.
The only other card change that is worthy to note is Kolkar Pack Runner. This will slow down face hunter substantially, which is kinda needed as the current meta is getting pounded in the face with Face Hunter right now.
The other card updates are less than thrilling and I honestly think are more filler and complain based rather than power balancing.
Incanter's Flow at 3 mana now makes it so that aggro decks have more time to smorc it down while doing nothing for control decks, as usual. You can still complete the quest by turn 5/6 of course, so I'm not sure what this nerf was even supposed to do.
Flesh Giant now can't be dropped on turn 4! Wow! What a great change! Now I only have to deal with 2 8/8s at turn 5.
Haven't seen much Elemental Shaman, but Forgeborn does essentially nothing, with the biggest problem coming from the consistency of Doomhammer honestly. I guess it just makes it a worse 4 drop.
Conviction nerf is expected and kind of long overdue. I expected a nerf to something like +2 attack, but lets just increase the cost by 1 because balancing is hard.
Battlemaster is still a pretty huge problem, and putting it at 6 cost won't change anything, at the least it becomes a garbage arena card. I expect they don't want to change the actual text of the card because when it inevitably shows up in the Battlegrounds content patch, it could cause some confusion.
The cost/stat changes were also pretty interesting I guess. They keep trying to sweep Darkglare under the rug, but just like a really annoying cockroach, I doubt this will kill it.
Il'gynoth can honestly go to hell because the DH otk deck is such a braindead strategy that I hope it gets killed off entirely (of course it won't.... but one can dream).
Kolkar was a whatever kind of adjustment as well, it just barely slows down Hunters by removing a good 2-drop, but I expect their swarm of 1-drops to be able to fill in that hole easily.
If i am not mistaken this is the first Demacia removal spell that doesn't require you to already have a unit on board. Will it be good enough to run? I can't tell for now. At least it's a better Sunk Cost.
Edit: I just noticed that this card is actually a Bandle City card and not dual region one, the confusion came from this image
Outside of the obvious Wild stuff, Conviction (Rank 1) is no longer in Odd Paladin which I like (card was bonkers from the start). However, Flesh Giant to 9 and not 10? This hurts Even Warlock the most :(
One thing to keep in mind in that this can target any unit not just your own, so you can use it to protect your own unit's from removal or deny your opponent an Atrocity or a big overwhelm/elusive attack.
But the Control build doesn't run Darkglare. The Control build runs Soul Rend and tries to scam with Flesh Giants + Battlemaster while not giving a shit about the actual quest reward unless everything else fails.
You do realize that the Il'gynoth change means that you can't actually do a reasonable combo without getting discounts...which are pretty much random (unless you run Felscreamer, which is clunky as fuck)
You're severely underestimating how hard the Flow nerf is going to hit. Not being able to Flow on two is huge. You get one less discount because you have to wait an additional turn and you spend one more turn doing nothing.
You also can't go Flow into Intellect anymore, which was a great way to shore up cheap ressources.
Basically Flow was the card that enabled mage to win unfavored matchups because it was just that unfair. Now they give their opponents and extra turn of early pressure. This is literally the Wild Growth nerf again and that basically turned a must-play on turn 2 into an optional card that's only played in very greedy ramp decks.
I doubt that Mage will even be around after this (unless some other archetype picks up the scraps). Their only purpose now is to beat slower control deck that don't currently exist (outside of maybe Shaman).
Flesh Giant is too low though, I agree. I've played copious amounts of Warlock at this point and most of the time you're either 1-mana short or have the discount overcharged anyways. With Battlemaster only at 6 it makes no difference for the Soul Rend decks while the other two builds are basically dead thanks to the Darkglare nerf.
Also you seem to have no real grasp on how much of a difference a single mana crystal makes. Darkglare is now basically unplayable in Standard because you can't discount it to 0-mana anymore and it requires way more mana to pop off. Also it's way less useful when it comes out of Raise Dead now.
A 1 mana 2/1 that generate a token. This card has lot in common with Treasure Seeker and since that card is run in pretty much every Shurima deck, we can safely assume that this will turned out be a great card in most Bandle City decks.
With the ability to generate great value with her permanent buffs and crazy level up Poppy is looking to be a solid addition to both Bandle City and Demacia
This is extremely disappointing. They pretty much made the smallest possible change they could have made to these cards without actually fixing the issue.
Incanter's Flow: They had the opportunity to make a stand and say that they don't want mages to play this way. It's uninteractive and obviously broken. The card is still essentially free. You pay 2 mana for it, 3 mana for it, whatever. If your deck is stuffed full of spells, it takes 2-3 spells for you to break even on mana, every spell after that turns Incanter's Flow into a free Innervate. The amount of mana you cheat with this over the course of the game is unreasonable. So yeah, you slowed down the discount by one turn. The deck is going to play the exact same way and require the exact same response: kill them as fast as possible, before they enter solitaire mode. They still have Refreshing Spring Water, which is a cheaper, one-sided Research Project. Once they've discounted the cards they can still draw just as fast and start going off on mana cheating as they did before. They had the opportunity to axe this playstyle, and even finally nerf Sorcerer's Apprentice, which, much like Aviana + Kun of old just enables like 5 different combos, and they chose not to.
Flesh Giant: Again, the smallest possible adjustment. It's still cheaper than most other giants (Mana Giant is the only one cheaper) and it's still one of the easiest to discount. It also now can't go into Even Warlock for some godsforsaken reason. So yeah, goodbye to that deck I guess. This change is barely gonna do anything. Making it cost 10 was the expected minimum, and they didn't even do that. Also worth noting that, once again, Animated Broomstick remains untouched somehow.
Darkglare: Who would have guessed it, the smallest possible adjustment. Similar to Mage, they once again could have finally said enough is enough and axed the ridiculous mana cheating and they didn't. They chose to keep the card just as broken as it was. Is it broken a turn later? Yeah, sure. All that does is promote aggro, force people to try to kill the warlock before the mana cheating becomes too much, same as they did with Incanter's Flow. They have not opened any new opportunities for control. Doesn't matter if Darkglare costs 2 or 3, or if the giant costs 8 or 9, control is not even gonna make it to turn 8. And apparently, they're perfectly fine with that. Why finally balance Raza Priest when they can just render it irrelevant. Note that Raise Dead once again also remains untouched.
As for the complete annihilation of Il'gynoth...I honestly have no explanation. I get that they don't balance for Wild specifically, but it's hilarious to me that they're ok with Mages blowing people up at incredible speed, in Wild hiding behind Ice Block and cheating insane amounts of mana with Incanter's Flows and Sorcerer's Apprentices, while DH with its one measly, noticably weaker and more vulnerable OTK gets nerfhammered by 2 mana on its key minion. Apparently DH is only supposed to do mindless aggro, nothing else is allowed. It's not like the Il'gynoth combo was even fast compared to how many other decks uninteractably kill the opponent.
The Demon Seed is a super flexible questline (as evidenced by the number of different archetypes it showed up in), so I wouldn't be surprised to see that some version of it remains Tier 1. But I think you might be underestimating the impact of Darkglare going from a 2 mana 2/3 to a 3 mana 3/4. I know it only impacts the deck at the margins, but slowing down a Control Questlock just a bit can leave room for slower, midrange decks to win, which may in turn decrease the popularity of the deck.
At the end of the day, I think that's really what these nerfs are trying to do - disincentivize these combos decks just enough to drive their frequency down without nerfing them out of existence, which should in turn make room for slower decks to be successful.
This cards have received cost increases but have also had stats increased to somewhat compensate. Seeing these later in the game should help.
Il'gynoth - Cost is now 6 mana (Up from 4). Stats increased from 2/6 to 4/8.
Darkglare - Cost is now 3 mana (Up from 2). Stats increased from 2/3 to 3/4.
Kolkar Pack Runner - Cost is now 3 mana (Up from 2). Stats increased from 2/3 to 3/4.
I understand they don't want to kill the cards/associated decks outright and want nerfs to be just that, nerfed---not dead. But I feel like these won't do much to curb the quests/solo play.
Flow will be slower, and MAYBE it will be enough, but honestly they just need to print on it: cannot reduce the cost of cards below (1) mana.
Battlemaster a 6 mana 5/5 doesn't do much. It still makes it so you have to constantly clear the board. Battlemaster is a win condition, as such it should be costed like a win condition (7 mana at least IMO).
Out of all the nerfs, the forgeborn nerf is the most compelling because it does make it so curvestone elemental shaman can now be hit with some aoe/removal more effectively.
Pretty sure conviction DID need to be nerfed, but this is going to kill a TON of decks, including the quest paladin deck. I think the only way Paladin was staying relevant as a minion based deck in a solitare meta, was through conviction alone...
Flesh Giant nerf is gonna do nothing...there's too many self-damage spells/minions. And it hurts Priest! Good job Blizz. You managed to make the card WORSE for priest, while effectively doing nothing for Warlock.
Side note: I loved the idea of dual class cards when they were released in Scholo, and hoped it might be an ever-green thing. However, after seeing the cards in play for almost a year now, I can honestly say that the fact that it can hurt the accessability of a card in one class, while doing nothing in another makes me think that dual class is a great idea in theory, but horrible in practice: especially for balancing purposes.
I don't think Ilgynoth being costed more is going to do much. Sure it slows down the combo, but now Ilgynoth with that much in stats (4/8) can just be plopped down on the board a turn prior. There's very few damage spells that can remove a 4/8, and very little direct removal that can just instantly kill a 4/8 (priest can't even death it). Like the insane stats now make it viable for Demon Hunters to just throw it down and essentially challenge removal: and if you don't, you ....still get killed next turn by 8 damage (4 direct + 4 "un-lifesteal") and then whatever else combo spells they have.
Lastly Darkglare and Kolkar may slow down their respective decks, but there's no way in hell the decks drop either card.
Incanter's Flow Nerfed! 8 Card Changes are Coming to Hearthstone This Week - Stormwind Balance Adjustments Detailed
I disagree. The parallel between Incanter's Flow and Wild Growth is not quite correct I think because the cards work differently. Wild Growth on 2 allowed you to skip from 3 mana straight to 4, which allowed you to cut a lot of the mediocre garbage on 3 and go more heavy on 4 drops, which Druid had an abundance of (Oaken Summons, Branching Paths, now Overgrowth). Wild Growth also only had value until players reached 10 mana crystals, so with Wild Growth a turn slower, its mana benefits decreased. But there's a world of difference between having 1 extra mana crystal for 6 turns or 7 and discounting 24 cards by 1 mana or 23. You still cheat way too much mana for way too little investment. With Flow you're not really changing the design and curve of your deck, you don't get to skip to a specific power turn ahead of schedule since what you really want to do with your mana is draw draw draw, without on-board progress, and if you're literally doing nothing on turn 2 with Flow nerfed, you're building your deck wrong. You can still prepare a Conjure Mana Biscuit, kill something off with Runed Orb, power up an Ignite, ping off a one-drop to slow down the opponent, in Wild you'll take that opportunity to play Ancient Mysteries before you hard-draw your Ice Blocks.
The turn-to-turn play pattern changes very slightly but the overall game-wide pattern remains the same: Control can't stop you and aggro is your counter. That hasn't changed. Aggro might have a slightly bigger window now but control is not in any better position than it was. Same goes for Darkglare. Sure, you slow the deck down a turn. It may pack a bit more removal, be a bit more defensive. Control still can't beat it. By the time they get to answer the Darkglare it will have cheated 3-4 mana (making itself essentially free, like Flow), made dramatic progress on the quest, and once the quest is online, it's over for control. Between Flow and Darkglare, the cost to complete the quest, or simply the cost to do broken stuff is too low because both cards allow that cost to go into the negatives. Mana cheating will never be balanced because if your opponent mana cheats, the only way you can keep pace with them is to either mana cheat even harder, or kill them real fast.
The devs had the opportunity to put a stop to this mana cheating pattern that has been a problem in both formats pretty much since the cards' introductions. Instead they let cheating continue and bumped it one mana. The meekest change they could have made and also one that is most prone to result in relapses in brokenness.
Incanter's Flow Nerfed! 8 Card Changes are Coming to Hearthstone This Week - Stormwind Balance Adjustments Detailed
The rule of thumb is any of the following is considered a "nerf", and therefore eligible for a full dust refund:
Anything else is considered a "buff", and is not eligible for a refund.
Incanter's Flow Nerfed! 8 Card Changes are Coming to Hearthstone This Week - Stormwind Balance Adjustments Detailed
People are again underestimating the impact of mana cost increase on cards. Combo decks need mana reduction to make their combo work. When the pieces have their cost increased this causes a chain reaction within the whole deck as the discounts aren't efficient anymore. The 2 mana increase on Il'gynoth just breaks Lifesteal DH. They will be forced to run both the quest and Skull of Gul'dan to have a better chance at making their combo work without having to wait for turn 10+. More card draw means less healing and less defense which makes them more susceptible to any kind of aggression and not just hyper aggression. The increased stats still allow the card to be played in other decks but they don't matter as much for combo because it is just to risky for a combo deck to drop their main combo piece on the board without having their otk ready. If the main combo piece is destroyed then it's an automatic loss. Tempoing the main combo piece just because of higher stats is still way too risky.
Darkglare is back to its original 3 mana 3/4 stats and that's a good thing. Reducing the cost during the original nerf was a mistake. The card is slower now and mana cheat is at its best when it is super fast. Even a 1 mana increase can make a huge difference. Same applies to Incanter's Flow. They didn't provide any compensation for mage so they are definitely going to feel the blow.
Kolkar Pack Runner being slower also allows board based strategies to have a better chance at pushing Hunter off the board. We already know that 3/4 stats for 3 mana isn't anything special nowadays.
Granite Forgeborn with Yeti stats was extremely silly so the nerf was needed. It isn't even that big of a hit. Just one less health. Easier to remove but the mana discounts are still there.
Battleground Battlemaster deserved a stronger nerf but they are also nerfing Paladin which was the main abuser. It shouln't be that easy to abuse it in very fast strategies anymore but the fact that is still playable is very worrisome. This card just doubles the damage output of 2 minions. It is still an extreme threat in any deck with sizeable minions or buffs (in hand or board). So, i believe it can still be problematic. I hope i'm wrong.
Conviction (Rank 2) at 2 mana is a bigger blow than expected. When cheap cards have their cost increased they lose a lot of flexibility. I don't think the card is unplayable but it is a lot worse because any attempts at comboing it with Battlemaster have been delayed by 2 turns (1 mana on each card).
Now, the truly puzzling one is Flesh Giant. A 1 mana increase on a card that is very easy to discount isn't going to do a whole lot. Not in Warlock anyway. This is a bigger blow on Priest as the class already can't discount the card fast enough to make it impact the game when it is most relevant (early to mid game). Non Shadow Priest decks already suffer from a lack of proactive plays. This card was one of the few that was worthwhile attempting to build around for a more proactive playstyle for Control Priest. A 1 mana increase just makes it a lot worse for the class. Warlock still has tons of self damage and healing so the one mana increase only makes things slightly worse. I think the most relevant hit here is Battlemaster. Now other decks have one extra turn to find a way to deal with the giants. The nerf on Darkglare should help as well.
Incanter's Flow Nerfed! 8 Card Changes are Coming to Hearthstone This Week - Stormwind Balance Adjustments Detailed
All of them with the exception of Elysiana were still very good cards and widely used... sure, it helps to lower the overall power levels of the cards but we need way more than "slight adjustments" to change the meta into a healthier direction
Incanter's Flow Nerfed! 8 Card Changes are Coming to Hearthstone This Week - Stormwind Balance Adjustments Detailed
Kolkar Pack Runner and Darkglare shouldn't be 3/4. Minions should either have premium stats or premium effects, not both. Ignoring Aimed Shot and Stealer of Souls is a bad idea. The former should only be able to target minions, and the latter needs at least a 1-mana nerf short of a rework. They also missed the mark on Il'gynoth decks. Mo'arg Artificer needs to have its effect not stack, similar to how "your Battlecries trigger twice" text on cards doesn't stack. I see no difference or contradiction in Artificer's text functioning the same way (damage is restricted to doubling, not multiplying).
Incanter's Flow Nerfed! 8 Card Changes are Coming to Hearthstone This Week - Stormwind Balance Adjustments Detailed
That's... not a bad idea actually. But it's still considerably slower since it doesn't reduce from healing or non-HP damage.
Incanter's Flow Nerfed! 8 Card Changes are Coming to Hearthstone This Week - Stormwind Balance Adjustments Detailed
I think like a glass coffin, the remains to be seen. Incanter's Flow may hurt a little in the early part of the game, but still being able to knock down the spells in your deck to 1's and 0's is still there. This card will still see play.
Conviction (Rank 1)will now see play in Even Paladin and perhaps other builds, but will certainly be less of a threat for early games.
Darkglare's nerf isn't surprising, but it will definitely hurt the more aggro versions of these decks. Flesh Giant also will be delayed slightly, but the power balance just isn't there.
Battleground Battlemaster didn't get what needed to happen. It is still a threat that makes the board very beatsticky. It only needs to survive the turn it's dropped and makes the player rely on having a board to abuse it. I stand by my original post saying that this needed to be a Battlecry effect to make it less abusive. It will still help to win games, but will be less devastating for sure.
The only other card change that is worthy to note is Kolkar Pack Runner. This will slow down face hunter substantially, which is kinda needed as the current meta is getting pounded in the face with Face Hunter right now.
The other card updates are less than thrilling and I honestly think are more filler and complain based rather than power balancing.
Incanter's Flow Nerfed! 8 Card Changes are Coming to Hearthstone This Week - Stormwind Balance Adjustments Detailed
For the complainers, here is a small collection for cards that got heavily impacted by 1 mana balance changes
Renew
Gibberling
Hysteria
N'Zoth, God of the Deep
High Abbess Alura
Voracious Reader
Jandice Barov
Evocation
Archivist Elysiana
Incanter's Flow Nerfed! 8 Card Changes are Coming to Hearthstone This Week - Stormwind Balance Adjustments Detailed
Incanter's Flow at 3 mana now makes it so that aggro decks have more time to smorc it down while doing nothing for control decks, as usual. You can still complete the quest by turn 5/6 of course, so I'm not sure what this nerf was even supposed to do.
Flesh Giant now can't be dropped on turn 4! Wow! What a great change! Now I only have to deal with 2 8/8s at turn 5.
Haven't seen much Elemental Shaman, but Forgeborn does essentially nothing, with the biggest problem coming from the consistency of Doomhammer honestly. I guess it just makes it a worse 4 drop.
Conviction nerf is expected and kind of long overdue. I expected a nerf to something like +2 attack, but lets just increase the cost by 1 because balancing is hard.
Battlemaster is still a pretty huge problem, and putting it at 6 cost won't change anything, at the least it becomes a garbage arena card. I expect they don't want to change the actual text of the card because when it inevitably shows up in the Battlegrounds content patch, it could cause some confusion.
The cost/stat changes were also pretty interesting I guess. They keep trying to sweep Darkglare under the rug, but just like a really annoying cockroach, I doubt this will kill it.
Il'gynoth can honestly go to hell because the DH otk deck is such a braindead strategy that I hope it gets killed off entirely (of course it won't.... but one can dream).
Kolkar was a whatever kind of adjustment as well, it just barely slows down Hunters by removing a good 2-drop, but I expect their swarm of 1-drops to be able to fill in that hole easily.
Incanter's Flow Nerfed! 8 Card Changes are Coming to Hearthstone This Week - Stormwind Balance Adjustments Detailed
Card changes are nice to see, the meta is not fun. Small changes are important as to not nerf too much.
New Bandle City Spell - Keeper's Verdict
If i am not mistaken this is the first Demacia removal spell that doesn't require you to already have a unit on board. Will it be good enough to run? I can't tell for now. At least it's a better Sunk Cost.
Edit: I just noticed that this card is actually a Bandle City card and not dual region one, the confusion came from this image
Incanter's Flow Nerfed! 8 Card Changes are Coming to Hearthstone This Week - Stormwind Balance Adjustments Detailed
just play Frost Giant instead
Incanter's Flow Nerfed! 8 Card Changes are Coming to Hearthstone This Week - Stormwind Balance Adjustments Detailed
I am not 100% sure, but about 98% sure that changed cards give full dust value too iirc.
Incanter's Flow Nerfed! 8 Card Changes are Coming to Hearthstone This Week - Stormwind Balance Adjustments Detailed
Outside of the obvious Wild stuff, Conviction (Rank 1) is no longer in Odd Paladin which I like (card was bonkers from the start). However, Flesh Giant to 9 and not 10? This hurts Even Warlock the most :(
Incanter's Flow Nerfed! 8 Card Changes are Coming to Hearthstone This Week - Stormwind Balance Adjustments Detailed
also card adjusted are eligible for refund or only nerfed? tks
New Bandle City Spell - Stress Defense
One thing to keep in mind in that this can target any unit not just your own, so you can use it to protect your own unit's from removal or deny your opponent an Atrocity or a big overwhelm/elusive attack.
Incanter's Flow Nerfed! 8 Card Changes are Coming to Hearthstone This Week - Stormwind Balance Adjustments Detailed
But the Control build doesn't run Darkglare. The Control build runs Soul Rend and tries to scam with Flesh Giants + Battlemaster while not giving a shit about the actual quest reward unless everything else fails.
Incanter's Flow Nerfed! 8 Card Changes are Coming to Hearthstone This Week - Stormwind Balance Adjustments Detailed
You do realize that the Il'gynoth change means that you can't actually do a reasonable combo without getting discounts...which are pretty much random (unless you run Felscreamer, which is clunky as fuck)
Incanter's Flow Nerfed! 8 Card Changes are Coming to Hearthstone This Week - Stormwind Balance Adjustments Detailed
You're severely underestimating how hard the Flow nerf is going to hit. Not being able to Flow on two is huge. You get one less discount because you have to wait an additional turn and you spend one more turn doing nothing.
You also can't go Flow into Intellect anymore, which was a great way to shore up cheap ressources.
Basically Flow was the card that enabled mage to win unfavored matchups because it was just that unfair. Now they give their opponents and extra turn of early pressure. This is literally the Wild Growth nerf again and that basically turned a must-play on turn 2 into an optional card that's only played in very greedy ramp decks.
I doubt that Mage will even be around after this (unless some other archetype picks up the scraps). Their only purpose now is to beat slower control deck that don't currently exist (outside of maybe Shaman).
Flesh Giant is too low though, I agree. I've played copious amounts of Warlock at this point and most of the time you're either 1-mana short or have the discount overcharged anyways. With Battlemaster only at 6 it makes no difference for the Soul Rend decks while the other two builds are basically dead thanks to the Darkglare nerf.
Also you seem to have no real grasp on how much of a difference a single mana crystal makes. Darkglare is now basically unplayable in Standard because you can't discount it to 0-mana anymore and it requires way more mana to pop off. Also it's way less useful when it comes out of Raise Dead now.
New Bandle City Card - Yordle Squire
A 1 mana 2/1 that generate a token. This card has lot in common with Treasure Seeker and since that card is run in pretty much every Shurima deck, we can safely assume that this will turned out be a great card in most Bandle City decks.
New Bandle City Champion - Poppy
With the ability to generate great value with her permanent buffs and crazy level up Poppy is looking to be a solid addition to both Bandle City and Demacia
Incanter's Flow Nerfed! 8 Card Changes are Coming to Hearthstone This Week - Stormwind Balance Adjustments Detailed
This is extremely disappointing. They pretty much made the smallest possible change they could have made to these cards without actually fixing the issue.
Incanter's Flow: They had the opportunity to make a stand and say that they don't want mages to play this way. It's uninteractive and obviously broken. The card is still essentially free. You pay 2 mana for it, 3 mana for it, whatever. If your deck is stuffed full of spells, it takes 2-3 spells for you to break even on mana, every spell after that turns Incanter's Flow into a free Innervate. The amount of mana you cheat with this over the course of the game is unreasonable. So yeah, you slowed down the discount by one turn. The deck is going to play the exact same way and require the exact same response: kill them as fast as possible, before they enter solitaire mode. They still have Refreshing Spring Water, which is a cheaper, one-sided Research Project. Once they've discounted the cards they can still draw just as fast and start going off on mana cheating as they did before. They had the opportunity to axe this playstyle, and even finally nerf Sorcerer's Apprentice, which, much like Aviana + Kun of old just enables like 5 different combos, and they chose not to.
Flesh Giant: Again, the smallest possible adjustment. It's still cheaper than most other giants (Mana Giant is the only one cheaper) and it's still one of the easiest to discount. It also now can't go into Even Warlock for some godsforsaken reason. So yeah, goodbye to that deck I guess. This change is barely gonna do anything. Making it cost 10 was the expected minimum, and they didn't even do that. Also worth noting that, once again, Animated Broomstick remains untouched somehow.
Darkglare: Who would have guessed it, the smallest possible adjustment. Similar to Mage, they once again could have finally said enough is enough and axed the ridiculous mana cheating and they didn't. They chose to keep the card just as broken as it was. Is it broken a turn later? Yeah, sure. All that does is promote aggro, force people to try to kill the warlock before the mana cheating becomes too much, same as they did with Incanter's Flow. They have not opened any new opportunities for control. Doesn't matter if Darkglare costs 2 or 3, or if the giant costs 8 or 9, control is not even gonna make it to turn 8. And apparently, they're perfectly fine with that. Why finally balance Raza Priest when they can just render it irrelevant. Note that Raise Dead once again also remains untouched.
As for the complete annihilation of Il'gynoth...I honestly have no explanation. I get that they don't balance for Wild specifically, but it's hilarious to me that they're ok with Mages blowing people up at incredible speed, in Wild hiding behind Ice Block and cheating insane amounts of mana with Incanter's Flows and Sorcerer's Apprentices, while DH with its one measly, noticably weaker and more vulnerable OTK gets nerfhammered by 2 mana on its key minion. Apparently DH is only supposed to do mindless aggro, nothing else is allowed. It's not like the Il'gynoth combo was even fast compared to how many other decks uninteractably kill the opponent.
Incanter's Flow Nerfed! 8 Card Changes are Coming to Hearthstone This Week - Stormwind Balance Adjustments Detailed
The Demon Seed is a super flexible questline (as evidenced by the number of different archetypes it showed up in), so I wouldn't be surprised to see that some version of it remains Tier 1. But I think you might be underestimating the impact of Darkglare going from a 2 mana 2/3 to a 3 mana 3/4. I know it only impacts the deck at the margins, but slowing down a Control Questlock just a bit can leave room for slower, midrange decks to win, which may in turn decrease the popularity of the deck.
At the end of the day, I think that's really what these nerfs are trying to do - disincentivize these combos decks just enough to drive their frequency down without nerfing them out of existence, which should in turn make room for slower decks to be successful.
Incanter's Flow Nerfed! 8 Card Changes are Coming to Hearthstone This Week - Stormwind Balance Adjustments Detailed
I understand they don't want to kill the cards/associated decks outright and want nerfs to be just that, nerfed---not dead. But I feel like these won't do much to curb the quests/solo play.
Flow will be slower, and MAYBE it will be enough, but honestly they just need to print on it: cannot reduce the cost of cards below (1) mana.
Battlemaster a 6 mana 5/5 doesn't do much. It still makes it so you have to constantly clear the board. Battlemaster is a win condition, as such it should be costed like a win condition (7 mana at least IMO).
Out of all the nerfs, the forgeborn nerf is the most compelling because it does make it so curvestone elemental shaman can now be hit with some aoe/removal more effectively.
Pretty sure conviction DID need to be nerfed, but this is going to kill a TON of decks, including the quest paladin deck. I think the only way Paladin was staying relevant as a minion based deck in a solitare meta, was through conviction alone...
Flesh Giant nerf is gonna do nothing...there's too many self-damage spells/minions. And it hurts Priest! Good job Blizz. You managed to make the card WORSE for priest, while effectively doing nothing for Warlock.
Side note: I loved the idea of dual class cards when they were released in Scholo, and hoped it might be an ever-green thing. However, after seeing the cards in play for almost a year now, I can honestly say that the fact that it can hurt the accessability of a card in one class, while doing nothing in another makes me think that dual class is a great idea in theory, but horrible in practice: especially for balancing purposes.
I don't think Ilgynoth being costed more is going to do much. Sure it slows down the combo, but now Ilgynoth with that much in stats (4/8) can just be plopped down on the board a turn prior. There's very few damage spells that can remove a 4/8, and very little direct removal that can just instantly kill a 4/8 (priest can't even death it). Like the insane stats now make it viable for Demon Hunters to just throw it down and essentially challenge removal: and if you don't, you ....still get killed next turn by 8 damage (4 direct + 4 "un-lifesteal") and then whatever else combo spells they have.
Lastly Darkglare and Kolkar may slow down their respective decks, but there's no way in hell the decks drop either card.
Questline Druid (Season 89 - Legend)
Another day and this build gained yet another solid 1% winrate increase. Keep up the good work fellow Druids, stay strong!
Let us see whether the announced nerfs will bring down the Questline Warlock population enough to impact our winrate.