Although Scholomance Academy has only been out for a day, we have seen the emergence of many powerful decks defined from these meta-breaking cards. Thus, let's get our prediction blindfolds on and predict the top 10 cards that Blizzard will nerf over the upcoming weeks!
In the consideration of this list, the cards judged are not judged based solely on their power level, but on how polarizing it would be to face against these cards specifically in these decks. Without further ado, let's jump right into it!
Disclaimer: Do note that due to the meta instability, it is highly recommended not to craft any cards currently.
OutOfCards is not responsible for any dust lost in crafting these cards if Blizzard chooses to buff Desk Imp instead!
#1 and #2 - Twilight Runner and Guardian Animals
While these cards are powerful individually to play on curve, the synergistic value of both effectively breaks Guardian Animals as an Ultimate Infestation 2.0.
| Properties | Ultimate Infestation | Guardian Animals (summoning Twilight Runner and Teacher's Pet) |
| Mana Cost | 10 | 7 |
| Damage | 5 | At least 9 damage to minions due to damage if Twilight Runner and Teacher's Pet are summoned. |
| Cards Drawn | 5 | 2 cards from Guardian Animals that is played for free. 2 cards from Twilight Runner. |
| Armour | 5 | Nil |
| Minion Body | 5/5 Ghoul | If both minions survive, at least a 5/1 and a 4/1 body. |
It is worth noting that although draw RNG can ruin the Guardian Animals combo, the payoff is tremendous if you are able to pull it off. Who knew recruiting Beasts and giving them Rush could be so strong? I'm sure Possessed Lackey did.
Deck Spotlight
Nerf Predictions
- Twilight Runner will get the Ancient of Lore treatment and get its card text changed to "...draw one card" instead.
- Guardian Animals' Mana cost will go up from 7 to 8.
Other Comments
- Survival of the Fittest - In our opinion, the card is balanced for its mana cost if played on curve. However, it is worth noting that the card is the huge payoff of cheating the card out earlier due to other cards such as Kael'thas Sunstrider. Thus, we believe that it will not be touched by the nerf bat this expansion.
#3 - Lightning Bloom
Looks like the community was right all along! As the second most-top rated card of the set in our Community Compendium at a score of 83, who knew that pre-nerf Innervate. which was used in every Druid deck in existence, would now be used in every Druid AND Shaman deck instead?
Deck Spotlight
P.S - List of decks containing Lightning Bloom is non-exhaustive, considering that every Shaman and Druid deck is playing it now.
Nerf Predictions
- Lightning Bloom's effect will get changed entirely. Blizzard, may we suggest that it be changed to "Deal 3 damage, gain 1 Mana Crystal this turn. Overload: (1)" instead?
#4 - Secret Passage
Standing as the king of the set in our Community Compendium with a score of 85, we have... this. Drawing 5 cards at 1-mana is pretty absurd, as it is able to trigger Combo cards that you have drawn as well to act as a finisher. This card is an auto-include in every Rogue deck currently, ranging from the hyper-aggressive Stealth Rogue to Tempo Rogues.
Deck Spotlight
Nerf Predictions
- Secret Passage's effect will get reduced from "... 5 cards from your deck" to "... 4 cards from your deck".
#5 and #6 - Raise Dead and Flesh Giant
As card-game professionals will say, Health is just a resource until there's one hit point remaining. We'd argue that the cost of Raise Dead, at 3 Health currently, is too little for its' effect of adding two great minions to your hand. Furthermore, it synergizes with the Soul Fragment mechanics and the support cards, which would result in an easily-discounted Flesh Giant early on.
Deck Spotlight
Nerf Predictions
- Either Raise Dead's Health cost will go up from 3 to 5, or its' card effect will be changed from "Return two friendly minions..." to "Return a friendly minion..." instead.
- Flesh Giant's Mana cost will go up from 8 to 10.
#7 and #8 - High Abbess Alura and Goody Two-Shields
The effects of both cards' Spellburst is insane in gaining tempo on the board, which is why they make it onto the list of potential nerfed cards.
For Alura, we'd say that even her low-roll of First Day of School isn't too bad if she is played on curve, while her high-roll spells such as Libram of Hope could essentially end the game if the opponent has no way to deal with it.
For Goody Two-Shields, if played on-curve, her 4-Attack could potentially trade into 3 early-game minions with the Spellburst'd Divine Shield, thus setting up the board heavily in the Paladin's favour in the mid-game.
Deck Spotlight
Nerf Predictions
- High Abbess Alura's Mana cost will go up from 4 to 5.
- Goody Two-Shields' Attack will go down from 4 to 3.
Other Comments
- Blessing of Authority - While the effect of buffing minions by +8/+8 signifies a threat that your opponents must be dealt with immediately, currently, our view is that Pure Paladin has too many good cards in the current rotation to add Blessing of Authority into the list.
#9 and #10 - Tour Guide and Voracious Reader
Slow decks hate them while Aggro decks love them! Tour Guide offers Hunters an early shot at shooting your opponent's face, while Voracious Reader allows you to draw at most 3 cards a turn if you have managed to hit your opponent in the face successfully with all of your cards. All in all, if the Hunter is really lucky with their game, they could close the game up before their Mana hits 8!
Deck Spotlight
In MrYagut's words... "Face, face, we just need to go face."
Nerf Predictions
- Tour Guide's Mana cost will go up from 1 to 2, or its' card effect is changed to "Your next Hero Power costs (1)" instead.
- Voracious Reader's Mana cost will go up from 2 to 3.
Honourable Mention - Kael'Thas Sunstrider
The high-roll potential of getting a 0-cost Guardian Animals or Survival of the Fittest makes the match very un-fun for the opponent. Furthermore, the design of the card poses a card design limitation on printing interesting high-cost spells. Thus, we predict that in this expansion cycle, Kael'Thas will once again receive the aforementioned Nerf Bat from our disciplinarian... not that he's been hit hard enough in the Outlands.
Nerf Predictions
- Kael'Thas Sunstrider will get The Caverns Below treatment and get its' card effect changed from "...every three spells" to "...every four spells" instead.
We can't wait to see how many of our predictions turn out to be... right? Currently, our prediction rate is 100%, considering that we have never done this before!
If your nerf list synergizes or differs from ours, do post a comment down below and let's discuss!
Comments
Kael'Thas Sunstrider
Every third spell you cast each turn costs (0).
Every third spell you cast each turn costs (1).
I wrote a forum item about this. I love Secret Passage, but as it stands, it is just too powerful. Nerfing it to (2) mana would make it less abused across the board. Raise Dead should probably be changed to get (1) minion back. With Priest's rez abilities already through the roof, this is absurd. As for Flesh Giant I've cheated him out so quickly in suicide lock it's not even funny. Pretty much all other "giants" cost around (10) so I could see that being changed.
Kael'thas Sunstrider has been a broken card for a long time, and the original nerf probably wasn't sufficient. That said, I think it's way too early to discuss the nerfs on these other cards, and I think the nerfs are going to be particularly complicated for the dual-class cards because the degree to which they're "well tuned" varies by class. Because of that, I expect that if Blizzard decides to start nerfing class archetypes, they will be far more likely to nerf supporting class cards rather than dual-class cards.
Guardian Animals is probably the best example presented here - nerfing Survival of the Fittest and Twilight Runner would go a long way to decreasing the power level of the Big Druid decks without making Guardian Animals even worse for Hunter. Similarly, I think Raise Dead and Flesh Giant are both pretty fair in Priest, so the best approach to fixing the Self-Harm Zoolocks will probably be to weaken any of Darkglare, Diseased Vulture, or even the Soul Fragments mechanic (perhaps by making them only heal for 1).
Goody Two-Shields is far from OP once the meta knows how to deal with it (basically a double ping) AND Paladin needs strong cards.
Same thing goes for High Abbess Alura.
I mean, it's not like the game lacks single-target removal, and efficient ones too. Or just silence.
As for Secret Passage and Tour Guide, the meta will soon adjust against hyper-Aggro, as with any expansion. In particular, Secret Passage is only abusable with an extremely low curve, which means a really fragile game for Rogue, which has no solid low cost minion to stabilize board. Nerfing the card to (2) as some suggested means making the card unplayable, and unnecessarily so.
I am still unsure about Voracious Reader, but I tend to think the same as above: it's draw 3 only if you have a very low curve, which often implies a high risk of getting out-Tempoed and out-Valued (eg I bet a properly adjusted Enrage Warrior can deal with the majority of the Aggro decks above).
Now, what about Trueaim Crescent and Ace Hunter Kreen, as well as Mindrender Illucia and Sorcerer's Apprentice?
Thanks for the detailed comment! Really do appreciate it for discussion haha.
With regards to the Kreen and Trueaim Crescent, truth be told, while Kreen can get you a good 1-turn tempo in taking out minions, what held me back was that against a Demon Hunter, you're already trying to stabilise the board to control it by removing their minions. Thus, oftentimes, Crescent just becomes a 1-damage ping that doesn't do much.
Both cards feel more like a "win-more" kind of card, which don't do as much if you're behind on the board.
Mindrender Illucia's on the other hand, is such a pain to deal with and unfun to play against. I had considered her on the list, but even then, her effect is such a headache to deal with and balance.
Kael'Thas should've never been printed and should've been nerfed much harder long ago. Absolutely broken card.
Great article! Thanks.
Listen, nerf Survival of the Fittest. And Overgrowth. I'll just go ahead and email Blizzard a list of all my golden cards I opened. They're problematic.
But seriously, it seems like so far everybody has something fun and new to do that just gets wrecked by Druid.
Wild streamer, Roffle, highlights a deck made by Corbett that is killing opponents by turns 2 and 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsU6JpEUiFQ. Something's definitely got to be done about druid, particularly Kael'thas Sunstrider.
That Roffle video is insane!
I'd say that for Survival of the Fittest, Blizzard will most likely nerf the surrounding cards around it, similar to the time when Grim Patron was nerfed out of existence due to the changes to pre-final nerf Warsong Commander. I'd say it's an alright payoff for playing ramp decks, but gosh does Druid have a lot of over-powered mid-range tools this expansion to reach there.
Case in point, I had a much tougher time dealing with Druid's that are following Charon's list - which is a mix of Dragons and Beasts while cutting away Survival of the Fittest. Gosh does that deck hit so badly in the mid-game.