We're getting a round of card changes next Tuesday, September 8 with Hearthstone Patch 18.2.
- Secret Passage: Replaces your hand with 4 cards (down from 5).
- Cabal Acolyte: Has 4 Health (down from 6).
- Totem Goliath: Has 5 Attack (up from 4) and Overload: (1) (down from 2).
- Archwitch Willow: Changed to a 8-Mana 5/5 (from 9-Mana 7/7).
- Darkglare: Changed to a 2-Mana 2/3 (from 3-Mana 3/4) and only refreshes one Mana Crystal (down from 2).
Quote From Blizzard Card Balance Updates
Secret Passage
- Old: Replace your hand with 5 cards from your deck. Swap back next turn. → New: Replace your hand with 4 cards from your deck. Swap back next turn.
Cabal Acolyte
- Old: 2 Attack, 6 Health → New: 2 Attack, 4 Health
Totem Goliath
- Old: 4 Attack, 5 Health. Overload (2) → New: 5 Attack, 5 Health. Overload (1)
Archwitch Willow
- Old: [Cost 9] 7 Attack, 7 Health → New: [Cost 8] 5 Attack, 5 Health
Darkglare
- Old: [Cost 3] 3 Attack, 4 Health. After your hero takes damage, refresh 2 Mana Crystals. → New: [Cost 2] 2 Attack, 3 Health. After your hero takes damage, refresh a Mana Crystal.
Secret Passage, Cabal Acolyte, and Darkglare will be eligible for a full dust refund for 2 weeks after the 18.2 patch goes live.
Game Improvements & Miscellaneous Updates
- Newly created decks will now automatically appear at the top of My Decks in the Collection Manager instead of at the bottom.
- The Kael’thas Sunstrider login reward will now be granted if you own a pack from Ashes of Outland and go to the Open Packs menu.
- Transfer Student will now have the appropriate board effect when Discovered or transformed.
- Galakrond will now be upgraded correctly when invoked while using Secret Passage.
- Kingsbane drawn by Secret Passage will no longer be returned to your deck if played then returned to hand via Doomerang.
- Copies of cards drawn by Secret Passage will no longer be returned to your deck at end of turn.
- Copying a silenced minion with Faceless Manipulator will no longer temporarily activate card text effects that buff other minions.
- Dormant minions created by Shadow Reflection no longer disappear if you change your Hero after playing them.
- Fixed a visual issue with Devolving Missiles when transforming a target into a Dormant minion.
- Fixed a crash in the final One Night in Karazhan encounter when playing as Kel'Thuzad.
- Fixed a visual bug where Spellburst icons could disappear while the minion had not activated its Spellburst.
- Headmaster Kel’Thuzad’s Spellburst will now resurrect minions that are destroyed by spells that swap Attack and Health, and spells that have been granted Poisonous by Professor Slate.
- Summoning a cat will no longer allow Headmaster Kel’Thuzad’s Spellburst to trigger on the opponent’s turn. The Headmaster just gets really excited about cats…
- Manafeeder Panthara’s Battlecry will now properly trigger after using your hero power and then Invoking Galakrond or switching to a different hero power.
- Fixed a card text display issue with Master Scheme, Hatred Reactor, and E.V.I.L. Promotion.
- When refilling an existing mana crystal below 10 mana, you now receive a temporary mana crystal instead. This fixes an interaction where Forest Warden Omu would not grant the correct amount of mana.
Comments
That Darkglare Nerf was really needed! Getting clubbed to Death by 4 Giants on T4/5 isn't a lot of Fun.
The Nerf to Secret Passage probably won't do much. 1 Mana draw 4 is still fantastic.
The Nerfs were needed. Too bad that this nerf very well make Darkglare unable to play again. Yes it comes out quicker, but in order for it to be viable again, it will need some serious buffs. This isn't going to be really difficult, but it luckily will slow that deck down substantially.
As for Secret Passage, I'm pretty sure that it will get another nerf. Pulling 1 less card does hinder it, but the fact that you can still knock out 4+ card in a turn without impacting your current hand is still going to be dominating. I honestly think that the best nerf that they could do with this is would be increase the mana cost to (2).
As for the Buffs, I'm hoping that it will make these cards more playable, but not likely for Archwitch Willow. Knocking back the cost by 1 but beating the hell out of her stats makes it seem awful.
I'm glad SP was nerfed in the only possible way without killing the card.
I hope I can still profit from it in Miracle and Oil.
The card is busted. Honestly, I think that they could have left it at 5 cards, but increase the cost to (2). Doing this would make it still abuseable, but you'd have to include things like Counterfeit Coin, ways to get The Coin, or Preparation making a little more difficult to pull off in early game. Late game it doesn't matter how many cards or how much it costs
How is it busted, when the decks running the card are even dropping from tier 1?
It's just a powerful card and where's the problem in having a powerful and fun card? It's a deck enabling card to make Aggro Rogues work, instead of that garbage Galakrond. The power in HS increased overtime, especially with arrival of DH and many great early game tools... and SP is just another tool of that kind to help classical Rouge game-play stand a chance, be existent at all, in current the environment.
It's not simply - draw 5 - sometimes you brick, find nothing and can play only one of them, or you play 2 or 3 cards. I don't even play the class, but it hasn't been oppressive to play against and Rogues are easily counter-able. Rogues currently are the worst best decks in HS history, and are even dropping to tier 2 as I write. I mean, it's totally fine to nerf it (and the nerf is okay; power decreased, card playable), but telling the card is busted like nothing is silly.
I am excited to see the buffs to Totem Goliath and Archwitch Willow!
I don't think the changes are going to be strong enough for either to be competitive, but they will be fun to try out nonetheless.
I was so happy to read Archwitch Willow on the nerf list! Since i have a golden one, i would finally be able to make something! But then, it was a buff... well, i will continue just playing battlegrounds then, i guess... :/
Nice to see a few buffs amidst the nerfs.
And thank god they didn't overlook wild and actually nerfed Darkglare.
I'm kind of curious about the Cabal Acolyte nerf though. Priest didn't seem that strong, and even if it did, I'm not sure this card is the reason.
According to Tempo Storm, Priest has been VERY good at higher legend ranks. Maybe the best class, according to them. One of their strong plays is, and will honestly continue to be, Cabal Acolyte into Wave of Apathy. This card combo against an enemy with a single, big minion on board basically guarantees you can steal anything, because the Spellburst happens after the enemy minion(s) is reduced to 1 attack.
While in theory this further randomizes a steal of a wider board, my personal experience is that my Priest opponents always manage to steal my one big minion and dodge the four-six smaller ones when they make this play. LOL
Tempo storm has never been a good meta indicator. They're not very reliable or accurate.
vS just came out with their report and standard seems to be extremely healthy right now with not a single deck being tier 1 at top legend. More than 8 classes all have competitive tier 2 decks which seems unprecedented. I wonder if these standard balance changes were a little too early.
The wild one (Darkglare) was much needed though, so I'm really glad about that one.
I got excited when I saw Totem Goliath in the list, but then realized it was a buff. I got excited not because he needs a nerf, the buff is nice actually, but instead because I have a golden copy of the Goliath and I want that full dust value, baby! :)