You're running Mechathun. Your plan is to draw your whole deck anyway. It's not like you're going to combo your opponent to death on turn 9. It will disincentivise the use of Hemet, but most variants don't run that. About the biggest opportunity cost is the one deck slot. And of course, the telegraphing that you have Mechathun in hand for any Dirty Rats roaming around. With having to pop 2 Galvanizers and a Thaurissan on Mechathun to go for that combo without Bloodbloom, you give opposing control ample opportunity to catch you with low minion count in hand.
In the Ungoro Expansion Guide, the image of the Maiev Shadowsong hero portrait is now a golden Maiev Shadowsong instead. I'm sure this happened in a lot of places where the portrait image was posted.
As someone who quite enjoys the idea of Quest Mage, even I have to admit it's gotten way out of hand lately, to the point where a nerf or a good way to counteract them is needed. My guess is the requirement for quest completion will go up to 8, which will leave aggressive and midrange decks enough room to kill the mage off, thus dropping their winrate and, as a result, their attractiveness for spike players. At the same time, this slowdown will mean other combo decks will have more time to get their thing done, and control decks might be able to power up enough to a point where a board of Giants might not be enough for a secure lethal as often as it is now (though that will require some mana cheating on the control deck's part), or at least maybe squeeze in some disruption to mess up the mage's plan.
With Darkest Hour, I'm pretty surprised it's Bloodbloom they're looking at, and not Darkest Hour itself. Obviously, Bloodbloom is the card that allows them to do that dirty thing they do much faster than many decks can answer it (especially if all board-clear suddenly costs 2-4 mana more), but at the same time the card is an integral part of one of the few other Warlock decks that are good right now. The nerf I imagine they might do is restrict Bloodbloom only to spells that cost 4/5 or less mana, to essentially prevent Darkest Hour from existing completely. That I'd be fine with, as that deck simply feels utterly miserable to play against if you lose and completely toothless if you win. My issue is that if they were to nerf the card in this way, it essentially tanks Bloodbloom's conceptual usefulness to almost nothing. You get a two mana discount on a spell this turn at the cost of an extra card and some life. That looks like a terrible deal. Previously, the spell could be included in some niche control warlock builds for surprise emergency Twisting Nethers or to accelerate the Rin rituals (when those were still relevant) etc. Simply put, the card had potential. I don't feel it deserves to be the scapegoat for what is first and foremost a design blunder in the Darkest Hour card itself.
Kinda sad, that someone had to complain about the power level of this deck on Iksaar's wedding picture and to flame the devs there, in order to accelerate the nerf patch. If only this was avoided.
Blizzard: What cards are everyone loving but no one really wants to play the counters for them?
Panel: Oooh! Right now Mage is a pain with their quest deck. Oh OH OH! Warlock is seeing a lot of spotlight too because someone figured out how to get big minions out in one turn.
Blizzard: Great! Let's make everyone playing those types of deck hate the game and play something else that they really won't like. Anything else?
Loner on the Panel: Well, players have been complaining about Big Priest for the past few years and.....
Even back in the days of vanilla HS Jaraxxus was a situational card to play, and that was without the reach of hyper aggresive finishers/aggro we have today. You pretty much have to have a massive taunt or be way ahead on board to even play him. Play him against mage and you could easily be dead in 2 turns, and leaving up 1 or 2 minions against any other class can also easily be game.
The reasons the actual good hero cards saw play is because most of them had extremely powerful battlecries that actually impacted the game right away. Jaraxxus is the opposite of that and even the value he brings is an incredibly 'slow burn' of value. 6/6s without taunt/rush/charge/lifesteal in the late end game really don't mean a whole lot in the HS of 2020.
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.
On the sac pac change I'm more or less neutral on it (but will miss the memes of old).
However, if you think the change will suddenly make Jarraxus consistently playable I'd think again. A 9 mana 'Do nothing' hero that permanently caps you at 15 health has always been a win-more gamble.
There's a reason cards like Alexstrasza or Fireball, for control and aggro/burn effectively, are so good at closing out games on opponents at low health.
The Bad Luck Albatross isn't a shock and neither is Sacrificial Pact. One card all but completely hinders the meta's current major theme by putting two copies of a card in your opponent's deck. The other is a free gain 5 life to kill your opponent's Demon Hunter strategy.
The fact that they nerfed Corridor Creeper should be a foundation of WHY they are looking at Frenzied Felwing. It is going to be hard to not nuke the potential for these three cards without making them totally useless. What I'd like to see if these three are definitely on the chopping block would be:
Albatross increased cost
Pact increases in cost
and Felwing has stats change to 2/3
Anything other than that and I honestly feel like it would render these cards useless.
Bloodbloom I can understand. As a player as and against Mecha-Thun Lock I know how fast and powerful the deck is. Plus, even with the nerf to bloom all you need to do is swap out Bloodbloom for Drakkari Enchanter and let thaurassan tick twice with Mecha-Thun and Cataclysm in hand to accomplish the same thing. So the deck wont' be dead, but it understandably addresses the annoying near insta-lose of playing against DH Warlock so early on in the game.
Open the Waygate seems baffling to me. Just seems like the old philosophy of hating on any form of non-meme otk deck. If anything from mage would be nerfed in wild it should've been something from Secret Mage (e.g. Flamewaker) than a combo mage I honestly don't see as much in wild as its burn variant.
Bloodbloom I can understand. As a player as and against Mecha-Thun Lock I know how fast and powerful the deck is. Plus, even with the nerf to bloom all you need to do is swap out Bloodbloom for Drakkari Enchanter and let thaurassan tick twice with Mecha-Thun and Cataclysm in hand to accomplish the same thing. So the deck wont' be dead, but it understandably addresses the annoying near insta-lose of playing against DH Warlock so early on in the game.
Open the Waygate seems baffling to me. Just seems like the old philosophy of hating on any form of non-meme otk deck. If anything from mage would be nerfed in wild it should've been something from Secret Mage (e.g. Flamewaker) than a combo mage I honestly don't see as much in wild as its burn variant.
Kinda surprised but really glad that they're thinking of nerfing Albatross. It seems a relatively innocent card unless you're playing Highlander, but it's actually pretty problematic. Not necessarily because of what it does, but because of the price of including it in your deck. That price being...pretty much nothing. It's such a well-statted card for what's supposed to be a niche hoser that aggressive decks can include it no problem and it doesn't even particularly impede their tempo and strategy. Remember when you had to pay 6 mana for your 4/6 if you wanted a hoser? Or risk giving your opponent a massive minion with an ill-advised Dirty Rat? Albatross laughs at all of that. At worst you get a 3 mana 4/3 which isn't going to set the world on fire but isn't going to lose you the game either. In the better case, you prevent your opponent's key power swings/failsafes, or force them to essentially not draw a card at random at the start of their turn. All for the low low price of having a 4/3 in your deck. Even with relatively mild Highlander presence in Wild, Albatross sees play in Odd decks, some Secret mages, almost all aggro decks (demon hunters, warriors, hunters), highlander decks, slow control decks, Deathrattle decks. It might actually be more concise to list the decks that don't run it. And I honestly have trouble thinking of a deck among those that wouldn't at least consider it (except Res Priest).
This card is slowly making its way into every single list. It does more than disable highlander decks. With most of the classes having such limited card draw, top decking a useless bird is detrimental and extremely unfun. What was put in the game as a counter to highlander, has become a staple in almost any deck list. If all the classes had more card draw, it wouldn't be an issue. But they are set in making some classes bad at drawing cards, and the win rate of those that can draw vs those that cannot is very evident right now.
Hand and deck control has been a thing in both MtG and Yu-Gi-Oh (e.g. Delinquent Duo and Yata-Garasu just to name a couple). Bad Luck Albatross is vastly inferior in comparison. Plus, the trade-off of drawing a bird for the opponent later, can be argued that you're playing a relatively low tempo minion earlier in the game that only pays off if/when the games continues long enough for the opponent to draw a bird.
The limited draw issue also only exists in standard. While you could argue most nerfs just due to a standard format issue most of the time it still remains incredibly unlikely that the next 1-2 expansions released to standard will not have at a couple new forms of card draw, at the very least. So should we really be nerfing a mid power level tier card for something that will most likely get remedied the next expansion with some basic card draw additions? Imo nerfs should not just be made with only the immediate card pool in mind, but if the devs know a soft remedy is coming soon that should weigh into the conversation.
These changes are long overdue and very appreciated, but the more I play quest mage, the more I realize that sorcerer’s apprentice is the problem card. The quest is too easy to complete, but the fact that I can borderline kill someone with sorcerer’s apprentice and flame waker turn 4 has nothing to do with the quest. Out of the 10 matches I won today, 3 of them I won without even casting quest, thanks to sorcerer’s apprentice.
also, open the waygate is a wonderful change, since the requirement was far too easy to earn, and bloodbloom is quite possibly the strongest card they hadn’t nerfed yet. It’s effect is disgustingly powerful
Probably not up to par with other submitted cards, but here is my attempt.
Show Spoiler
Sadly I think this would get disqualified since it does nothing to help Fire Plume's Heart, and it doesn't interact with your Taunt minions. Good rule of thumb, if your card summons Taunt minions, it will probably get disqualified.
I strongly disagree, that Mr. J. needs another weakness beside setting our health to 15. The last time I've played with him was back in RoS and let me tell you, that he was a perfectly fair card. I didn't do anything crazy or game breaking with him. In fact, oftentimes I had difficulties playing him on an empty board and when I did, I lost some games either because the opponent had burst in hand or I didn't have good answers for their next threats.
Now, I won't deny the fact, that warlock gained some fantastic removals since then (plague of flames, dark skies, nether breath, keli'dan etc) and that Leeroy got hof-ed recently, but even w/o Sac Pac Mr. J. feels like a perfectly balanced win-condition. You can overwhelm the opponent with your HP, but that takes time and during that time you are extremely vulnerable to burst and to tempo swings. If you lose board control and can't regain it, you are a goner.
Personally, I can't wait for the nerfs to go live. I am looking forward to playing control warlock in standard. But if you ask me, I don't think people would include that legendary in their decks. There are stronger late-game combos with Betrug and Plot Twist or Galakrond. The latter card can summon 4 demons and equip a 5/2 weapon, if he is fully invoked, and still allow you to do something with the excess mana while not putting your health at risk.
Quest Mage and Darkest Hour Warlock Changes Coming! Expect Changes to Open the Waygate and Bloodbloom
You're running Mechathun. Your plan is to draw your whole deck anyway. It's not like you're going to combo your opponent to death on turn 9. It will disincentivise the use of Hemet, but most variants don't run that. About the biggest opportunity cost is the one deck slot. And of course, the telegraphing that you have Mechathun in hand for any Dirty Rats roaming around. With having to pop 2 Galvanizers and a Thaurissan on Mechathun to go for that combo without Bloodbloom, you give opposing control ample opportunity to catch you with low minion count in hand.
Maiev Shadowsong Hero Portrait now shows minion in Expansion Guide
In the Ungoro Expansion Guide, the image of the Maiev Shadowsong hero portrait is now a golden Maiev Shadowsong instead. I'm sure this happened in a lot of places where the portrait image was posted.
Forgive me brothers...
Are you me? I hit Legend (for the first time!) with Demon Hunter too, and also got King Mukla as my legendary.
Congrats at any rate! Now you can finally play the decks you want for the rest of the month.
Forgive me brothers...
lol the only reason i love dh but hate mages is that mages don't play with minions, they just scam, yeah that's about it.
Quest Mage and Darkest Hour Warlock Changes Coming! Expect Changes to Open the Waygate and Bloodbloom
tbh, big priest isn't that strong in wild ever since the barnes nerf. raza priest is much more powerful that big priest as of now.
Quest Mage and Darkest Hour Warlock Changes Coming! Expect Changes to Open the Waygate and Bloodbloom
As someone who quite enjoys the idea of Quest Mage, even I have to admit it's gotten way out of hand lately, to the point where a nerf or a good way to counteract them is needed. My guess is the requirement for quest completion will go up to 8, which will leave aggressive and midrange decks enough room to kill the mage off, thus dropping their winrate and, as a result, their attractiveness for spike players. At the same time, this slowdown will mean other combo decks will have more time to get their thing done, and control decks might be able to power up enough to a point where a board of Giants might not be enough for a secure lethal as often as it is now (though that will require some mana cheating on the control deck's part), or at least maybe squeeze in some disruption to mess up the mage's plan.
With Darkest Hour, I'm pretty surprised it's Bloodbloom they're looking at, and not Darkest Hour itself. Obviously, Bloodbloom is the card that allows them to do that dirty thing they do much faster than many decks can answer it (especially if all board-clear suddenly costs 2-4 mana more), but at the same time the card is an integral part of one of the few other Warlock decks that are good right now. The nerf I imagine they might do is restrict Bloodbloom only to spells that cost 4/5 or less mana, to essentially prevent Darkest Hour from existing completely. That I'd be fine with, as that deck simply feels utterly miserable to play against if you lose and completely toothless if you win. My issue is that if they were to nerf the card in this way, it essentially tanks Bloodbloom's conceptual usefulness to almost nothing. You get a two mana discount on a spell this turn at the cost of an extra card and some life. That looks like a terrible deal. Previously, the spell could be included in some niche control warlock builds for surprise emergency Twisting Nethers or to accelerate the Rin rituals (when those were still relevant) etc. Simply put, the card had potential. I don't feel it deserves to be the scapegoat for what is first and foremost a design blunder in the Darkest Hour card itself.
Forgive me brothers...
Fixed that for you
Quest Mage and Darkest Hour Warlock Changes Coming! Expect Changes to Open the Waygate and Bloodbloom
Kinda sad, that someone had to complain about the power level of this deck on Iksaar's wedding picture and to flame the devs there, in order to accelerate the nerf patch. If only this was avoided.
Quest Mage and Darkest Hour Warlock Changes Coming! Expect Changes to Open the Waygate and Bloodbloom
Blizzard: What cards are everyone loving but no one really wants to play the counters for them?
Panel: Oooh! Right now Mage is a pain with their quest deck. Oh OH OH! Warlock is seeing a lot of spotlight too because someone figured out how to get big minions out in one turn.
Blizzard: Great! Let's make everyone playing those types of deck hate the game and play something else that they really won't like. Anything else?
Loner on the Panel: Well, players have been complaining about Big Priest for the past few years and.....
Blizzard: You're Fired!!!!
Blizzard Believes Sacrificial Pact is Not Fun - Looking at Potential Changes to It and More Cards in Hearthstone's Standard Format
Yeah that's what I just said.
Even back in the days of vanilla HS Jaraxxus was a situational card to play, and that was without the reach of hyper aggresive finishers/aggro we have today. You pretty much have to have a massive taunt or be way ahead on board to even play him. Play him against mage and you could easily be dead in 2 turns, and leaving up 1 or 2 minions against any other class can also easily be game.
The reasons the actual good hero cards saw play is because most of them had extremely powerful battlecries that actually impacted the game right away. Jaraxxus is the opposite of that and even the value he brings is an incredibly 'slow burn' of value. 6/6s without taunt/rush/charge/lifesteal in the late end game really don't mean a whole lot in the HS of 2020.
TAUNT, INSECT! - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
The rule part doesn't mention that it has to help progress the quest, as long as it has Taunt synergies. But fair enough
Quest Mage and Darkest Hour Warlock Changes Coming! Expect Changes to Open the Waygate and Bloodbloom
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.
Top Hearthstone Decks for Each Class in the Early Ashes Of Outland Meta
I got beat up with my priest rez deck by aggro warrior. I didn't think that an aggro deck could do that well, but it got my control deck back to back
Blizzard Believes Sacrificial Pact is Not Fun - Looking at Potential Changes to It and More Cards in Hearthstone's Standard Format
On the sac pac change I'm more or less neutral on it (but will miss the memes of old).
However, if you think the change will suddenly make Jarraxus consistently playable I'd think again. A 9 mana 'Do nothing' hero that permanently caps you at 15 health has always been a win-more gamble.
There's a reason cards like Alexstrasza or Fireball, for control and aggro/burn effectively, are so good at closing out games on opponents at low health.
Blizzard Believes Sacrificial Pact is Not Fun - Looking at Potential Changes to It and More Cards in Hearthstone's Standard Format
The Bad Luck Albatross isn't a shock and neither is Sacrificial Pact. One card all but completely hinders the meta's current major theme by putting two copies of a card in your opponent's deck. The other is a free gain 5 life to kill your opponent's Demon Hunter strategy.
The fact that they nerfed Corridor Creeper should be a foundation of WHY they are looking at Frenzied Felwing. It is going to be hard to not nuke the potential for these three cards without making them totally useless. What I'd like to see if these three are definitely on the chopping block would be:
Albatross increased cost
Pact increases in cost
and Felwing has stats change to 2/3
Anything other than that and I honestly feel like it would render these cards useless.
Quest Mage and Darkest Hour Warlock Changes Coming! Expect Changes to Open the Waygate and Bloodbloom
YES! Let Open the Waygate DIEEEEE!
Blizzard Believes Sacrificial Pact is Not Fun - Looking at Potential Changes to It and More Cards in Hearthstone's Standard Format
Bloodbloom I can understand. As a player as and against Mecha-Thun Lock I know how fast and powerful the deck is. Plus, even with the nerf to bloom all you need to do is swap out Bloodbloom for Drakkari Enchanter and let thaurassan tick twice with Mecha-Thun and Cataclysm in hand to accomplish the same thing. So the deck wont' be dead, but it understandably addresses the annoying near insta-lose of playing against DH Warlock so early on in the game.
Open the Waygate seems baffling to me. Just seems like the old philosophy of hating on any form of non-meme otk deck. If anything from mage would be nerfed in wild it should've been something from Secret Mage (e.g. Flamewaker) than a combo mage I honestly don't see as much in wild as its burn variant.
Blizzard Believes Sacrificial Pact is Not Fun - Looking at Potential Changes to It and More Cards in Hearthstone's Standard Format
Bloodbloom I can understand. As a player as and against Mecha-Thun Lock I know how fast and powerful the deck is. Plus, even with the nerf to bloom all you need to do is swap out Bloodbloom for Drakkari Enchanter and let thaurassan tick twice with Mecha-Thun and Cataclysm in hand to accomplish the same thing. So the deck wont' be dead, but it understandably addresses the annoying near insta-lose of playing against DH Warlock so early on in the game.
Open the Waygate seems baffling to me. Just seems like the old philosophy of hating on any form of non-meme otk deck. If anything from mage would be nerfed in wild it should've been something from Secret Mage (e.g. Flamewaker) than a combo mage I honestly don't see as much in wild as its burn variant.
Quest Mage and Darkest Hour Warlock Changes Coming! Expect Changes to Open the Waygate and Bloodbloom
No changes to secret mage? are you kidding me?
TAUNT, INSECT! - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
I’ve got 2 ideas so far. One for a late-game Armor buff, the other a way to get some extra Taunts to finish the Quest and protect your face.
edit - I might rework Bone Armor to be on a Taunt minion instead
Blizzard Believes Sacrificial Pact is Not Fun - Looking at Potential Changes to It and More Cards in Hearthstone's Standard Format
Kinda surprised but really glad that they're thinking of nerfing Albatross. It seems a relatively innocent card unless you're playing Highlander, but it's actually pretty problematic. Not necessarily because of what it does, but because of the price of including it in your deck. That price being...pretty much nothing. It's such a well-statted card for what's supposed to be a niche hoser that aggressive decks can include it no problem and it doesn't even particularly impede their tempo and strategy. Remember when you had to pay 6 mana for your 4/6 if you wanted a hoser? Or risk giving your opponent a massive minion with an ill-advised Dirty Rat? Albatross laughs at all of that. At worst you get a 3 mana 4/3 which isn't going to set the world on fire but isn't going to lose you the game either. In the better case, you prevent your opponent's key power swings/failsafes, or force them to essentially not draw a card at random at the start of their turn. All for the low low price of having a 4/3 in your deck. Even with relatively mild Highlander presence in Wild, Albatross sees play in Odd decks, some Secret mages, almost all aggro decks (demon hunters, warriors, hunters), highlander decks, slow control decks, Deathrattle decks. It might actually be more concise to list the decks that don't run it. And I honestly have trouble thinking of a deck among those that wouldn't at least consider it (except Res Priest).
Blizzard Believes Sacrificial Pact is Not Fun - Looking at Potential Changes to It and More Cards in Hearthstone's Standard Format
Hand and deck control has been a thing in both MtG and Yu-Gi-Oh (e.g. Delinquent Duo and Yata-Garasu just to name a couple). Bad Luck Albatross is vastly inferior in comparison. Plus, the trade-off of drawing a bird for the opponent later, can be argued that you're playing a relatively low tempo minion earlier in the game that only pays off if/when the games continues long enough for the opponent to draw a bird.
The limited draw issue also only exists in standard. While you could argue most nerfs just due to a standard format issue most of the time it still remains incredibly unlikely that the next 1-2 expansions released to standard will not have at a couple new forms of card draw, at the very least. So should we really be nerfing a mid power level tier card for something that will most likely get remedied the next expansion with some basic card draw additions? Imo nerfs should not just be made with only the immediate card pool in mind, but if the devs know a soft remedy is coming soon that should weigh into the conversation.
Quest Mage and Darkest Hour Warlock Changes Coming! Expect Changes to Open the Waygate and Bloodbloom
These changes are long overdue and very appreciated, but the more I play quest mage, the more I realize that sorcerer’s apprentice is the problem card. The quest is too easy to complete, but the fact that I can borderline kill someone with sorcerer’s apprentice and flame waker turn 4 has nothing to do with the quest. Out of the 10 matches I won today, 3 of them I won without even casting quest, thanks to sorcerer’s apprentice.
also, open the waygate is a wonderful change, since the requirement was far too easy to earn, and bloodbloom is quite possibly the strongest card they hadn’t nerfed yet. It’s effect is disgustingly powerful
TAUNT, INSECT! - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Sadly I think this would get disqualified since it does nothing to help Fire Plume's Heart, and it doesn't interact with your Taunt minions. Good rule of thumb, if your card summons Taunt minions, it will probably get disqualified.
Blizzard Believes Sacrificial Pact is Not Fun - Looking at Potential Changes to It and More Cards in Hearthstone's Standard Format
I strongly disagree, that Mr. J. needs another weakness beside setting our health to 15. The last time I've played with him was back in RoS and let me tell you, that he was a perfectly fair card. I didn't do anything crazy or game breaking with him. In fact, oftentimes I had difficulties playing him on an empty board and when I did, I lost some games either because the opponent had burst in hand or I didn't have good answers for their next threats.
Now, I won't deny the fact, that warlock gained some fantastic removals since then (plague of flames, dark skies, nether breath, keli'dan etc) and that Leeroy got hof-ed recently, but even w/o Sac Pac Mr. J. feels like a perfectly balanced win-condition. You can overwhelm the opponent with your HP, but that takes time and during that time you are extremely vulnerable to burst and to tempo swings. If you lose board control and can't regain it, you are a goner.
Personally, I can't wait for the nerfs to go live. I am looking forward to playing control warlock in standard. But if you ask me, I don't think people would include that legendary in their decks. There are stronger late-game combos with Betrug and Plot Twist or Galakrond. The latter card can summon 4 demons and equip a 5/2 weapon, if he is fully invoked, and still allow you to do something with the excess mana while not putting your health at risk.