We've got a patch confirmed for next week and with it comes two card nerfs headed towards Mages. Hmm, I wonder if we'll be seeing an expansion pre-order and maybe a new game mode then next Thursday...
- Evocation now costs 2. (Up from 1)
- Solarian Prime now costs 9. (Up from 7)
Both cards will disenchantable for their full value for 2 weeks. For Solarian Prime, this means Astromancer Solarian.
Quote From Kerfluffle Hey everyone,
We’ll be making the following balance changes in a patch to be released towards the end of next week:
Evocation
- Old: [Cost 1] → New: [Cost 2]
Astromancer Solarian
- Old: Solarian Prime [Cost 7] → New: Solarian Prime [Cost 9]
Both cards will be eligible for a full dust refund for 2 weeks after the patch has gone live.
Additionally, Alec Dawson had a few words to say about the changes.
Quote From Alec Dawson Very very excited for the news next week (see the teaser if you haven't yet). Balance changes will also be coming next week (before the MT).
While looking at the current environment and future metas, Evocation helped enable a lot of early game swings that could feel insurmountable. We want to smooth that out. At 2 mana, it's not as fluid with Sorcerer's Apprentice and won't be generated from Wandmaker/Spellkin.
For Solarian Prime, we stepped back and evaluated where it stacked up compared to the other Primes. With that and some of the power spikes it can generate, moving it to 9 mana felt appropriate.
On our side, we are continuing to discuss opportunities to bring up some of the weaker classes and/or touch up other play patterns in the near future. Thank again for your feedback, we read all of it (no matter how long that twitlonger is).
Comments
I will remember fondly that one game where I played Solarian Prime and he casts Potion of Illusion, I played the 1/1 copy and that casts Potion of Illusion again, giving me two more 1/1 copies. The game ended that turn.
Great change on Invocation. Would have preferred a softer nerf of 8 on Astromancer, but I think it's still good enough to see play so not a huge deal.
So we are nerfing a class that has a middle of the road winrate on HSREPLAY?
Cause people whined about and thats more important that then actual baance aperenty
Fun fact in a lot of games (lol in particular) the game designers talk a lot about how winrate isn't the thing they look at most. Eg in League tanks can have a 55% winrate because when it is that high it doesnt feel oppressive. But when an assassin has a 49% winrate but they can single handedly win the game it feels more oppressive. Both solarian and evocation may not have high winrates but when they go off they effectively they end the game a lot of the time.
Hence nerfing a below 50% deck. You want the game to feel good.
and the feel good is incredbly subjective.
And people whine witht the same argument for last 6years aboout anyd ekc they osoe to/dont like(basicly evrt meta deck ever)/
I feel they need to start considering breaking costs up depending on format. 7 mana for Solarian Prime can make or break a game in Wild but in Standard 9 mana makes more sense since the options available are much more limited. This is going to hinder my Reno Mage deck that I've been using to climb the ladder as of late. Made it all they way to Diamond 9 so far with it and Solarian has won me games against all the aggro decks of the past and current formats. Shame on Blizz giving aggro more of a chance, aggro kills incentive to play fun decks.
Sorry, i don't think this will ever happen where there will be 2 different versions of a card active in the game at once.
7mana solariam prime is absolutly fine in WILD, if should be enrfed in only 1format it should be in standard not Wld where never has been a issue at all.
Yep! Never an issue in Wild. Hopefully when she rotates out they'll un-nerf her.
unnerfing when goes to wild should just be standard thing ,and thye should unnerf/buff alot of cards that are wild only espcially.
Kind of disappointed with this nerf. If you survive to turn 7 vs a Demonhunter then it's the only chance a mage has against aggro. I have been having a major problem against aggro builds lately so this nerf is just going to give more aggro that even more edge against us more controlly players.
As a wild player I do not find these nerfs to be necessary. Mage as a whole is not that strong and none of these two cards were overpowered from my point of view. I did not realize that they must have been problematic in standard.
Edit: Guess the variance in wild is just much bigger. Getting Evocation from spell generation effects like Wandmaker is far less likely.
Alright so these are interesting changes. Solarian Prime nerf was needed, as you get A LOT of these because of random discovers. But i feel like a 2 mana increase might be a bit much. Either way it will still see play in nearly every mage deck. Kinda sad this card got nerfed because of [Hearthstone Card (Primordeal Studies) Not Found]. If [Hearthstone Card (Primordeal studies) Not Found] was changed into a 2 mana spell: "discover a spell damage minion. Your next spell damage minion costs (2) less." This "[Hearthstone Card (Invocation) Not Found]" Treatment would have fixed the "you get too many Astromancer Solarians" problem, as the "discover Astromancer Solarian" card wouldn't get discovered by [Hearthstone Card (windmaker) Not Found] and Cobalt Spellkin. But hey the Solarian Prime nerf was needed, but i wish it was by 1 mana, so it wouldn't "block" the use of your hero power.
[Hearthstone Card (Invocation) Not Found] nerf is the most important nerf in this. Now you need to Wandmaker or Cobalt Spellkin into Magic Trick or Arcane Breath in order to discover more. This additional level of RNG lowers the chance you actually get it, which is good. [Hearthstone Card (Invocation) Not Found] is still a nuts card that will still see play in nearly every mage deck, because you can still [Hearthstone Card (Invocation) Not Found] into Power of Creation or Deep Freeze in the worst case scenario. (As mages don't have any 9 cost spells, in both standard AND wild)
Overall some good and needed nerfs. Just a shame that these nerfs happened because the cards got discovered or "created by" too much. I wish they also nerfed the cards that discover them in the first place. (or nerfed those instead) (*ahem Wandmaker and Cobalt Spellkin)
I like these nerfs a bit. Astromancer Solarian is very much an "I win the game" card against a lot of decks and so I'm fine with it being a bit slower to let other classes have a bit more time to close out the game before she inevitably drops. As for Evocation, the card is still great and will see play for sure. The reason why I love this change is that it prevents Evocations from being cast 4+ times with Cobalt Spellkin and Wandmaker, which as far as I'm concerned was the big issue with the card, at least in Standard. I'm not familiar with the WIld metagame right now aside from the fact I've heard from Avalon that Sorc's apprentice is stupid so I'll just take his word that something will still need to happen to it.
Hey, anything that gets Mages off the meta is a win for me. Yeah, the Evocation nerfs may just kill the deck and make it “fair” rather than the batshit RNG madhouse it is right now. I swear, everytime I play Wandmaker or Cobalt I always get an Evocation. Good riddance to that and no more turn 5 Mana Giants.
I love playing Mage. It has been one of my staple classes since I played WoW. I'm SHOCKED that they went the route of Solarian Prime and Evocation instead of [Hearthstone Card (Sorcerer's Apprentice) Not Found]. That is the card that allowed cards like Evocation to be so abused and has been crucial to Exodia Mage builds. I'm not sure what they could do to that card to nerf it without totally killing it like they did with Mana Wyrm, but if Blizzard is trying to manage the source of the problem and not the symptom, then they kinda missed it with this one IMHO.
I think Team 5 is waiting to do any Classic/Basic changes until the evergreen set overhaul that's occurring with the next rotation. I imagine that Sorcerer's Apprentice will be addressed then and any nerfs before then will only be to expansion cards.
The right cards were targeted. Now we shouldn't be seeing 5 evocations or primes per game, but 9 mana for solarian might hit too hard and reduce the playability of the card significantly.
Why the downvotes? Turn 9 is really late for tempo mage and it's a horrible draw anytime sooner. Even when you play it at 9 it won't be as impactful as before. I don't think it will be actually cut from tempo lists, but at the least it won't be an instapick from primordial studies anymore.