Patch 18.4 will be live in an hour, and it will bring us a couple of much-requested balance changes.
While some parts of the Hearthstone community were asking for more targets to be dealt with (Languagehacker was hoping for Priest and Mage's card generation to get hit; J_Alexander expected some rework for Evocation), it is our opinion that these changes will be enough to see a decent shakeup in Standard (and in Wild too).
Nerfed mainly because of community feedback rather than anything else. By itself, Pilgrim is a very good card in Highlander/Big Spell lists (allowed and will allow to cheat out impactful spells while giving some presence on the board with the 5/5 body - Flamestrike, Luna's Pocket Galaxy and Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron are the most popular targets), but since Potion of Illusion was released it created a specific archetype - Turtle Mage of course - everyone should be very familiar with. While the deck was quite skill testing and fun to play, it was such a nuisance for its opponents, to the point where people were feeling almost helpless against a Mage with his combo assembled - the combination of your friendly half of the board being continuously frozen while your opponent keeps dealing damage to your face with copies of Cloud Prince, Sunreaver Warmage or Wild Meteorologist is as deadly as it appears.
Now the questions everyone's asking - will Tortollan Pilgrim ever see play again? Yes, the card is still good because of its mana-cheating effect and, as long as there will be Control Mage archetypes around, it will be relevant. Will Turtle Mage see play after the nerf patch? Well...
A nerf many people expected to go live in early September's patch (together with Secret Passage and Darkglare to name a few), but that was not the case. Guardian Animals has been an incredible card since the beginning of the Scholomance meta: Overgrowth and Lightning Bloom (sometimes with Nature Studies'aid, another very well-performing card) gave Druid easy and consistent access to massive ramp, which allowed big board swings and, most of the times, hand refill shenanigans because of Twilight Runner and, if you didn't hit GA on curve, Overflow. Guardian Druid was not overpowered and definitely had some hard matchups (especially Bomb Warrior) but was so well-rounded that a change (maybe not particularly severe, but a change nonetheless) was necessary.
Now that Guardian Animals will cost 8 mana, it will be quite less impactful since it will come down later and it will give room for Aggro decks to challenge Malfurion in his attempt to ramp as fast as possible. We think that the cards still have decent chances to see some play in Standard, while it will probably be too slow to make the cut for Wild. But let's be honest: who gets the short end of the stick is not Druid, but Hunter - Guardian Animals has seen little to no play with Rexxar, and now the chances are even thinner.
What do you think about these two balance changes? Were you expecting some more or are you satisfied?
Comments
the Tortollan Pilgrim nerf destroys an entire archetype, and hits the card SIGNIFICANTLY. Pretty sure most highlander mages might even consider not running it anymore. Highlander mage mainly used this so they can cast a spell twice, but now that use is gone. At least you can still get out Luna's Pocket Galaxy with Tortollan Pilgrim. Sure turtle mage was annoying to play against, and i personally have 0 experience playing the deck, but this nerf seems really harsh to me. Why didn't they lower Tortollan Pilgrims cost by 1 to compensate? Well we will have to see if the cards still any good..
Guardian Animals nerf is VERY justified. huge mana cheating, removal, often draw and/or cleaves with rush. Extremely powerfull card that HAD to be toned down a bit. That being said, i'm glad it's a mana nerf, instead of an effect nerf like Tortollan Pilgrim. Imagine if they changed GA to only draw beasts that cost 4 or less, that would have killed the card. Guardian Animals is still going to be an insane card at 8 mana. This is a great nerf, because now druids can't turn 4 Overgrowth into turn 5 Guardian Animals! This is a flat out 1 additional turn they need to wait to get Guardian Animals out. This mana nerf to Guardian Animals is a huge blow to guardian druid and Malygos druid, but it was necessary, in order to get the game in a more healthy state. There might be new decks that show up now that their biggest weakness got nerfed, just looking at some of the predictions Trump made, this next meta might be a lot more interesting.
I had a golden Tortollan Pilgrim so that was easy dust. I'm not sure about what to do with my Guardian Animals yet, I don't play the deck much but it's nice to have at least one viable Druid deck.
I'm a Wild player. Honestly, at times likes I feel that Wild and Standard should have separate nerfs/buffs. I was beginning to see a rise of Odd Druid using the Guardian package. Now it's dead before it's fruitation. I've tried the deck too and found it surprisingly good. Sad that it wouldn't get recognized.
I'm sure Darkglare shares your sympathies.
But its just not workable, since both wild and standard shares the same collection manager. Would be kinda awkward to recreate it just because a few cards are different across modes.
No Evocation, sad.
Still waiting for the update on android. Anyone get it yet?
The most thing I disliked of Turtlemage was that the game was over turn 9. There was only a small hope that the Turtle player misplays. But it took to turn 20 to realize that it will not not happen. Such a waste of time for both players.
Honestly, I am only remiss that I crafted Lorekeeper Polkelt, Sphere of Sapience, and 2 Tortollan Pilgrims yesterday to make the deck. I love combo decks, but even I think that deck is close to the bubonic plague. The turtle will see play with highlander and big mage, but that will be the end of combos with it.
As for Guardian Animals, 1 mana difference with the mana ramping Druid won't be as impactful I think. Yes, it makes it much more difficult to yank a couple of potentially buffed minions out of your deck and throw them into your opponent's minion wall. However, if they wanted to make this more viable, they would have kept it at (7) mana and made it pull (4) cost or lower minions.
But hey, that's just my opinion.
If you love combo decks, I'm sure you'll find more decks to play Polkelt and Sphere in. Polkelt is even playable in aggro decks, to draw the high end of the deck on turn 5+.
I've been using Polkelt to draw Galakrond + Kronx in a tempo priest deck, to give it just a bit more reach. Adding Polkelt means that you are more likely to be able to use Kronx for his devastations rather than to draw Galakrond.
Nerf to Guardian Animals is more impactful than one might think, since playing Overgrowth on curve left you with exactly 7 mana on the next turn to perfectly curve into GA. Unless druid has coin or Lightning Bloom in hand, there is no optimal play for 7 mana turn anymore.
The turtle: good riddance. It takes something truly special to make me remember Shudderwock on day 1 of Witchwood and thank it for only making me wait 5 minutes for it to inevitably kill me.
Guardian Animals: I like the nerf, though I do wonder whether Twilight Runner isn't the bigger problem. I'm sure they designed that card specifically to be great with GA, so are reluctant to raise its mana cost, but it is really one of those cards where you have to think they were pushing a little too hard even when it isn't recruited with rush.
Shudderwock was even worse, since the animations would draw out the game to ridiculous lengths. Turtle Mage is more like Freeze Mage, Fatigue Warrior or Control Priest where there is a sliver of hope that the opponent makes a mistake or runs out of resources, but they hardly ever do.
While pros are saying it's a pity that a high-skill deck is killed, the problem is that over time more and more players get skilled enough to play it and its popularity on ladder will grow. That happened with Quest Rogue (The Caverns Below) as well: in the first week it had terrible win rates because the lists were unrefined and people were playing it poorly, but a few weeks later the only thing you could do was hope your opponent drew poorly.
I like that the Turtle nerf specifically kills the combo, while leaving the card playable in other decks. In combination with Luna's Pocket Galaxy, the change is even an improvement, since it's unlikely you'd want to draw that spell after casting it.
The nerf to Guardian Animals on the other hand makes the card pretty much unplayable in non-ramp decks, which includes all Hunter decks. So I think they hit the wrong card with the nerf bat.
Twilight Runner could have been nerfed by lowering its attack or making it draw only one card. I know they prefer to adjust cost instead, but this is a card that's less than two months old, so it's not like returning players will be confused by it working differently.
Overgrowth is the card that enables the archetype and probably the most overpowered card. But there may not be a way to nerf it that doesn't immediately kill the deck.
Ysera, Unleashed is another card they could have nerfed: I've noticed that the games I win versus Guardian Druid are usually the ones where Ysera is very deep in their deck, so the opponent either doesn't find her at all, or summons a board full of dragons and still dies if none of them have taunt. Ysera is also easy to nerf, by changing the number of portals shuffled into the deck.
I love both the nerfs, the nerf to turtle means that the combo is dead (not that i mind too much, to be honest) but the card still can be used as it always have been.
Guardian animals is one of those cards that are too important in a deck that there is a huge difference when you draw it and when you don't, i don't have any respect for this kind of cards.
I don't think that hunters are more penalized than druids for a nerf to a card that most of the time they don't even play, while for druid is the only important one card that enables some druid decks (which is stupid as it sounds); but dual class cards being mostly a one class cards is a common theme of this expansion