pretty much what everyone expected. It's fair, it does the job and it keeps the card alive for future shenanigans while removing it as the mandatory buildaround for all Rogue decks.
Now excuse me while I forcibly insert Gral into every Rogue deck until the game throws me out of Rank 5 as punishment.
Y'all talking about nerfs, but I'm syced to see the Selfless Hero change. I love that card in Battlegrounds, but it always makes me super annoyed when my Divine Shield minions get hit by its Deathrattle, especially when it's golden.
I wanted to come here and say this. I am excited about the battleground changes. Really changes the power level of some of the heroes and definitely awesome to see the change to Selfless Hero. It just felt bad when a creature with divine shield would "get it" a second time
It's just too much at this point. Galakrond Shaman has pretty much been shot from every angle. It was too strong, that much is true, but the Dragon's Pack change should have been enough.
Now the Frog build is essentially pointless because there's no good 1-mana spell to replace this to fuel the train, meaning without the draw power it all goes back to running Mana Tide Totem and hoping to draw into your powerplays in time before your opponent'S snowball you to death.
I'm saying this, because this is the only expansion where Shaman still has most of its powerful legendaries like Shudderwock and Electra Stormsurge. Without those Galakrond Shaman basically turns upside down, from a deck that was too good at everything at any time, to a deck that accomplishes almost nothing most of the time.
Either way, Frog Galakrond was fun while it lasted, now I guess we go back to boring midrange builds.
Arena: The appearance rate of cards in the draft has been updated to ensure class balance remains close to the ideal 50% win-rate. Specifically, the win-rate of Druid, Hunter, and Paladin should now be decreased. The win-rate of Priest, Rogue, Shaman and Warlock should now be increased. Card appearance rates for Mage and Warrior remain untouched.
I wonder why haha. Druid, Hunter, Paladin ... Dragon Explorer Classes. Who would have thought they would be strong xaxa :)
Holy crap, never thought any warlock cards would get nerfed, but I guess warlock is pretty strong right now, The nerf made me a little sad, but I will definitely stick with it.
Galakrond Warlock is a t1 deck and the new deck that uses sac pact seems a bit over the top. Hopefully this will tone everything back a bit
I played Galakrond Zoo quite a bit at launch and it just doesn't seem that strong...I mean, not compared to anything else.
This is also the weirdest piece to hit...like, surely, Veiled Worshipper is the powerhouse of the deck.
It's already a pretty clunky card that only really gives you an edge against very passive decks. If this was +1/+1 but right now I fail to see the point. This is just a worse Dreamway Guardians for twice the cost whenever you're not ahead.
I'm not huge on Galakrond Zoo, but I was at the very least happy to see it not suck completely so seeing it having its legs snapped right away feels kind of...bad.
If they really wanted to fix this, they should have extended the nerf to ANY cards that CAN generate themselves.
Having it on just one card feels incredibly clumsy, and absolutely counterintuitive with how RNG has ALWAYS worked in HS.
have you considered for a second that it's for the explicit reason of there being only a handful of dragons in the pool and that potential of her infinitely cycling into herself (with a double chance, mind you). This is a card that reads: "If your deck has no duplicates, play 2 additional dragons". this is what people expect and can reasonably play around. They cannot play around twice that amount for absolutely no reason other than "lul random".
This is the best fix to a card that isn't even super op in most other contexts. In fact, this change should be applied to MORE cards, because infinite value generation by virtue of RNG looping is stupid.
Did not expect this one and I think it really won't matter much as this is still the best play on curve after dragonblight cultist. But I guess you can't play this twice or with cultist before turn 4 anymore, so veiled worshipper won't be active but that's really fine.
It's a good change, although I haven't experienced this situation enough times to be asking for this nerf. It's good they did this before any high level tournaments take place.
Wow. Just wow. Previously the nerfs were a big thing and now they just casually nerf half of the new expansion with no additional explanation of the nerfs. I'm not saying I disagree with them, though. I don't think any of the nerfs were unnecessary, except maybe invocation of frost. I don't think it's that relevant of a change either. It's funny how they nerfed all of the galakrond shaman cards except for the galakrond itself, as though they haven't even tested its power level. My only concern is that the change on scion of ruin will not matter that much as it's still a pretty strong card for a low cost.
those battleground changes are garbage. Literally no nerfs to any significant minion. Cobalt Guardian is still way too op at tier 3, as is Spawn of N'zoth at 2. Beasts are still basically playing russian roulette because if you don't highroll into Mama Bear or Godrinn you get run over. Not gonna touch that mode anymore until the next patch because right now it's basically just casino with very little to do outside of highrolling.
now the nerfs:
Fiendish Rites is probably the most puzzling. Like...it's a good card, way better than anyone could have expected...but seriously? Galakrond Zoolock is a good deck, but it's not nearly impressive enough to warrant nerfs right now....At least I don't think it does. Maybe they have data that proves me wrong. Either way, this really seems unnecessary,
Scion of Ruin is more than justified given how many ways there are to make more copies of the damn thing. Also helps that Galakrond Warrior can no longer luck into this on turn 10 with the Galakrond and instantly swing the board.
[Hearthstone Card (Ancharr) Not Found] I expected a mana change, but this also makes sense and emphasizes Upgrade and Hoard Pillager in the builds. At least I get my dust back, Pirate Warrior is boring as hell.
Dragon's Pack should have happened the first round and is still more than fair given the Arsenal Shaman still has...although it certainly will drop the deck's winrate by quite a bit, especially with the other Shaman nerf.
Invocation of Frost seems to be overdoing it. Not only does it ruin the Frog build because we don't have a good 1-mana spell anymore, but also the spell itself isn't even that broken. It's strong, sure, but it's not overpowering. It's a strong card that helped enable a load of even stronger cards in a deck that now has been gutted twice....and no I'm not salty because I had likie 10 of these and I dusted them thinking there's no way they'd ever nerf a spell as simple as this.
Necrium Apothecary is both deserved and fair. It breaks that immediate curve from Necrium Blade and it also delays the powerplay by one turn giving you more time to pressure (especially since Apothecary itself needs a turn to proc usually). This makes me really happy because it doesn't kill the card and keeps it around for future fun but doesn't make it a mandatory strategy for all Rogue decks anymore. Go Gral.
Dragonqueen Alexstrasza makes me unbelievably happy, simply because it finally breaks the taboo of changing card-specific mechanics for balance (I guess the echo changes did that already, wahtever). I hope they apply this fix to a lot more cards with a similar mechanic, but I guess this is just the most abusive one so far.
Overall a mixed bag. I wonder if they plan on reverting some of them if they go to far. Kinda regret crafting Zentimo now, didn't think they'd nuke Galakrond Shaman this hard again.
Now that the nerfs are announced, I'd like to express my opinion on the upcoming balance changes.
Dragonqueen Alexstrasza - when I first saw the article, I got really scared by seeing Alex in the thumbnail. Fortunately for us, this is technically a nerf, but actually no: Dragonqueen into Dragonqueen shouldn't have been possible from the beginning. Since the chance to highroll is so little, we can say that this change won't make her worse. We're gonna miss (or not) some insane highlights, but that's it: that's the capacity of this nerf. Still insane, still metadefining. Won't disenchant her.
Necrium Apothecary - deserved, nothing to discuss here (and I'm saying it as someone who's played like 350ish games with Rogue since DoD). I don't actually know if this nerf will kill the card but at least now you won't always keep it in your mulligan. And that's a start.
Dragon's Pack - Still very good, but not as clearly broken as before; I completely agree with this change. Indirect buff to Kronx Dragonhoof: now Annihilation will clear the board.
Invocation of Frost - fifth nerf (sixth if we consider Faceless Corruptor, but that card was run in every deck, so...) to Galakrond Shaman: will it be enough this time? God I really hope so. 1 mana was not enough, but maybe 2 will be too much. We'll see. I'm just glad that my face won't be frozen on turn 1 anymore and that I'll be able to make my 1 drops live for more than 1 turn.
Scion of Ruin: another deserved nerf. I'm confident that this card will still see play (4 mana 9/6 is still pretty damn good right?).
Ancharrr - reasonable nerf. This change will leave behind a more playable card than an hypothetical bump to 4 mana (consider that it's played in an aggro deck, and you can't afford spending 4 mana in such archetypes for just 2 damage and a couple draws).
Fiendish Rites - The one I'm feeling the less comfortable with, but I guess they playtested (OMEGALUL) the future meta and saw Galakrond Warlock being too dominant.
In the end, a good round of changes, which will solve most (if not all) the problems on ladder. It's just sad that all the seven cards (and two out of four in the December patch) are from the latest expansion. How haven't they seen it coming?
Holy crap, never thought any warlock cards would get nerfed, but I guess warlock is pretty strong right now, The nerf made me a little sad, but I will definitely stick with it.
I am sad to inform you, that I don't play hs anymore, so I don't know what the current wild meta looks like. If I were you, I would replace some niche cards with more suitable tech options. The current list aimed to bully Big Priest, but that was before Secret Mage got überbuffed, so the deck is really outdated.
7 Hearthstone Cards are Getting Nerfed! The January Hearthstone Balance Patch Notes with Battlegrounds Changes
I played that card a lot and got here like 4-5 times through here battlecry. Maybe it was just bad luck.
Card Nerf - Necrium Apothecary
pretty much what everyone expected. It's fair, it does the job and it keeps the card alive for future shenanigans while removing it as the mandatory buildaround for all Rogue decks.
Now excuse me while I forcibly insert Gral into every Rogue deck until the game throws me out of Rank 5 as punishment.
7 Hearthstone Cards are Getting Nerfed! The January Hearthstone Balance Patch Notes with Battlegrounds Changes
I wanted to come here and say this. I am excited about the battleground changes. Really changes the power level of some of the heroes and definitely awesome to see the change to Selfless Hero. It just felt bad when a creature with divine shield would "get it" a second time
Card Nerf - Fiendish Rites
Why would they hit that Card? Do they expect Gala-Zoolock to become to powerful after the Nerfs?
Or maybe the Devs want the Meta to shift more towards control. Wild guess, but the Nerfs do seem like it to me.
Card Nerf - Invocation of Frost
Too much.
It's just too much at this point. Galakrond Shaman has pretty much been shot from every angle. It was too strong, that much is true, but the Dragon's Pack change should have been enough.
Now the Frog build is essentially pointless because there's no good 1-mana spell to replace this to fuel the train, meaning without the draw power it all goes back to running Mana Tide Totem and hoping to draw into your powerplays in time before your opponent'S snowball you to death.
I'm saying this, because this is the only expansion where Shaman still has most of its powerful legendaries like Shudderwock and Electra Stormsurge. Without those Galakrond Shaman basically turns upside down, from a deck that was too good at everything at any time, to a deck that accomplishes almost nothing most of the time.
Either way, Frog Galakrond was fun while it lasted, now I guess we go back to boring midrange builds.
Fan Community Spotlight - linkblade91's "The Trials Within Us"
Ayayay :D But all good, Linky is great and his set is pretty awesome. I absolutely love the Trials mechanic and the final version of it :)
7 Hearthstone Cards are Getting Nerfed! The January Hearthstone Balance Patch Notes with Battlegrounds Changes
I wonder why haha. Druid, Hunter, Paladin ... Dragon Explorer Classes. Who would have thought they would be strong xaxa :)
Card Nerf - Dragon's Pack
Solid nerf, much needed, should have happened in the first round.
Still a great play on curve and insane with Electra, but at the very least it doesn't completely outclass Oasis Surger anymore for half the effort.
7 Hearthstone Cards are Getting Nerfed! The January Hearthstone Balance Patch Notes with Battlegrounds Changes
Galakrond Warlock is a t1 deck and the new deck that uses sac pact seems a bit over the top. Hopefully this will tone everything back a bit
Card Nerf - Ancharrr
Pretty mild nerf actually. I feel like a mana increase would have hit harder, especially givven that Hoard Pillager and Upgrade exist.
Either way, it should make Pirate Warrior feel less unfair when they get it in the mulligan....and I get my dust back. Sweet.
7 Hearthstone Cards are Getting Nerfed! The January Hearthstone Balance Patch Notes with Battlegrounds Changes
Damn! When they said they're gonna balance some Cards, I didn't expect them to hit all of the potential candidates and some more!
That's defenitely gonna leave a giant mark on the Meta. I'm still hoping for Galakrond-Priest to become finally somewhat viable.
BTW: Remember when during Reveal-Season everyone said that this might be the most powerful set ever?
Card Nerf - Fiendish Rites
This is....puzzling.
I played Galakrond Zoo quite a bit at launch and it just doesn't seem that strong...I mean, not compared to anything else.
This is also the weirdest piece to hit...like, surely, Veiled Worshipper is the powerhouse of the deck.
It's already a pretty clunky card that only really gives you an edge against very passive decks. If this was +1/+1 but right now I fail to see the point. This is just a worse Dreamway Guardians for twice the cost whenever you're not ahead.
I'm not huge on Galakrond Zoo, but I was at the very least happy to see it not suck completely so seeing it having its legs snapped right away feels kind of...bad.
Maybe I'M just underestimating the deck though.
Card Nerf - Ancharrr
Very much deserved IMO
Card Nerf - Dragonqueen Alexstrasza
have you considered for a second that it's for the explicit reason of there being only a handful of dragons in the pool and that potential of her infinitely cycling into herself (with a double chance, mind you). This is a card that reads: "If your deck has no duplicates, play 2 additional dragons". this is what people expect and can reasonably play around. They cannot play around twice that amount for absolutely no reason other than "lul random".
This is the best fix to a card that isn't even super op in most other contexts. In fact, this change should be applied to MORE cards, because infinite value generation by virtue of RNG looping is stupid.
Card Nerf - Fiendish Rites
Did not expect this one and I think it really won't matter much as this is still the best play on curve after dragonblight cultist. But I guess you can't play this twice or with cultist before turn 4 anymore, so veiled worshipper won't be active but that's really fine.
Card Nerf - Dragonqueen Alexstrasza
It's a good change, although I haven't experienced this situation enough times to be asking for this nerf. It's good they did this before any high level tournaments take place.
7 Hearthstone Cards are Getting Nerfed! The January Hearthstone Balance Patch Notes with Battlegrounds Changes
Wow. Just wow. Previously the nerfs were a big thing and now they just casually nerf half of the new expansion with no additional explanation of the nerfs. I'm not saying I disagree with them, though. I don't think any of the nerfs were unnecessary, except maybe invocation of frost. I don't think it's that relevant of a change either. It's funny how they nerfed all of the galakrond shaman cards except for the galakrond itself, as though they haven't even tested its power level. My only concern is that the change on scion of ruin will not matter that much as it's still a pretty strong card for a low cost.
7 Hearthstone Cards are Getting Nerfed! The January Hearthstone Balance Patch Notes with Battlegrounds Changes
alright, so first of all:
those battleground changes are garbage. Literally no nerfs to any significant minion. Cobalt Guardian is still way too op at tier 3, as is Spawn of N'zoth at 2. Beasts are still basically playing russian roulette because if you don't highroll into Mama Bear or Godrinn you get run over. Not gonna touch that mode anymore until the next patch because right now it's basically just casino with very little to do outside of highrolling.
now the nerfs:
Fiendish Rites is probably the most puzzling. Like...it's a good card, way better than anyone could have expected...but seriously? Galakrond Zoolock is a good deck, but it's not nearly impressive enough to warrant nerfs right now....At least I don't think it does. Maybe they have data that proves me wrong. Either way, this really seems unnecessary,
Scion of Ruin is more than justified given how many ways there are to make more copies of the damn thing. Also helps that Galakrond Warrior can no longer luck into this on turn 10 with the Galakrond and instantly swing the board.
[Hearthstone Card (Ancharr) Not Found] I expected a mana change, but this also makes sense and emphasizes Upgrade and Hoard Pillager in the builds. At least I get my dust back, Pirate Warrior is boring as hell.
Dragon's Pack should have happened the first round and is still more than fair given the Arsenal Shaman still has...although it certainly will drop the deck's winrate by quite a bit, especially with the other Shaman nerf.
Invocation of Frost seems to be overdoing it. Not only does it ruin the Frog build because we don't have a good 1-mana spell anymore, but also the spell itself isn't even that broken. It's strong, sure, but it's not overpowering. It's a strong card that helped enable a load of even stronger cards in a deck that now has been gutted twice....and no I'm not salty because I had likie 10 of these and I dusted them thinking there's no way they'd ever nerf a spell as simple as this.
Necrium Apothecary is both deserved and fair. It breaks that immediate curve from Necrium Blade and it also delays the powerplay by one turn giving you more time to pressure (especially since Apothecary itself needs a turn to proc usually). This makes me really happy because it doesn't kill the card and keeps it around for future fun but doesn't make it a mandatory strategy for all Rogue decks anymore. Go Gral.
Dragonqueen Alexstrasza makes me unbelievably happy, simply because it finally breaks the taboo of changing card-specific mechanics for balance (I guess the echo changes did that already, wahtever). I hope they apply this fix to a lot more cards with a similar mechanic, but I guess this is just the most abusive one so far.
Overall a mixed bag. I wonder if they plan on reverting some of them if they go to far. Kinda regret crafting Zentimo now, didn't think they'd nuke Galakrond Shaman this hard again.
7 Hearthstone Cards are Getting Nerfed! The January Hearthstone Balance Patch Notes with Battlegrounds Changes
Now that the nerfs are announced, I'd like to express my opinion on the upcoming balance changes.
Dragonqueen Alexstrasza - when I first saw the article, I got really scared by seeing Alex in the thumbnail. Fortunately for us, this is technically a nerf, but actually no: Dragonqueen into Dragonqueen shouldn't have been possible from the beginning.
Since the chance to highroll is so little, we can say that this change won't make her worse. We're gonna miss (or not) some insane highlights, but that's it: that's the capacity of this nerf. Still insane, still metadefining. Won't disenchant her.
Necrium Apothecary - deserved, nothing to discuss here (and I'm saying it as someone who's played like 350ish games with Rogue since DoD). I don't actually know if this nerf will kill the card but at least now you won't always keep it in your mulligan. And that's a start.
Dragon's Pack - Still very good, but not as clearly broken as before; I completely agree with this change. Indirect buff to Kronx Dragonhoof: now Annihilation will clear the board.
Invocation of Frost - fifth nerf (sixth if we consider Faceless Corruptor, but that card was run in every deck, so...) to Galakrond Shaman: will it be enough this time? God I really hope so. 1 mana was not enough, but maybe 2 will be too much. We'll see. I'm just glad that my face won't be frozen on turn 1 anymore and that I'll be able to make my 1 drops live for more than 1 turn.
Scion of Ruin: another deserved nerf. I'm confident that this card will still see play (4 mana 9/6 is still pretty damn good right?).
Ancharrr - reasonable nerf. This change will leave behind a more playable card than an hypothetical bump to 4 mana (consider that it's played in an aggro deck, and you can't afford spending 4 mana in such archetypes for just 2 damage and a couple draws).
Fiendish Rites - The one I'm feeling the less comfortable with, but I guess they playtested (OMEGALUL) the future meta and saw Galakrond Warlock being too dominant.
In the end, a good round of changes, which will solve most (if not all) the problems on ladder. It's just sad that all the seven cards (and two out of four in the December patch) are from the latest expansion. How haven't they seen it coming?
7 Hearthstone Cards are Getting Nerfed! The January Hearthstone Balance Patch Notes with Battlegrounds Changes
Holy crap, never thought any warlock cards would get nerfed, but I guess warlock is pretty strong right now, The nerf made me a little sad, but I will definitely stick with it.
Card Nerf - Dragonqueen Alexstrasza
Draconic Lackey doesn't generate itself, and generates just the one card through Discover. This and other cards generally don't also then cost 0 mana.
It's just a FeelsBadMan when you face a chain of powerful, mana-cheating cards. Inconsistent maybe, but this is a change I can support.
Card Nerf - Scion of Ruin
Have you ever played a fully buffed Scion of Ruin on turn 3/4 tho? I did it once, and I climbed like 4 ranks with it.
7 Hearthstone Cards are Getting Nerfed! The January Hearthstone Balance Patch Notes with Battlegrounds Changes
I see, thank you for the explanation.
Card Nerf - Ancharrr
It was a legendary though so you cant always get it when you need it.
Fohtun-tellin 101 (feat. Madame Lazul)
gl
I am sad to inform you, that I don't play hs anymore, so I don't know what the current wild meta looks like. If I were you, I would replace some niche cards with more suitable tech options. The current list aimed to bully Big Priest, but that was before Secret Mage got überbuffed, so the deck is really outdated.