Originally announced as being a thing last Tuesday, the Hearthstone nerfs have officially been detailed! We were promised nerfs that targeted Mage, Paladin, Rogue, and Neutral Cards and we were not disappointed.
- Deck of Lunacy now costs 4 mana (Up from 2).
- Sword of the Fallen now has 2 durability (Down from 3).
- Jandice Barov now costs 6 mana (Up from 5).
- Pen Flinger can now only attack minions.
- Far Watch Post now has 3 health (Down from 4)
- Mor'shan Watch Post now has 4 health (Down from 5)
All these changes arrive in Patch 20.0.2 which hits Hearthstone tomorrow, April 13.
Quote From Blizzard Deck of Lunacy
- Old: [Costs 2] → New: [Costs 4]
Dev Comment: Deck of Lunacy moves up to 4 mana, removing its ability to provide a game-warping effect on turn 1 or 2. When we create cards like Deck of Lunacy, we're aiming for an experience that lets you do wacky, over-the-top things at the cost of power. There's a large audience for that (Spell Mage's play-rate shows!), but Deck of Lunacy very clearly crosses the power threshold we set for these types of cards.
Sword of the Fallen
- Old: 1 Attack, 3 Durability → New: 1 Attack, 2 Durability
Dev Comment: Sword of the Fallen is not only powerful, but also creates early-game situations with too many Secrets in play. We're moving Sword of the Fallen down to 2 durability to reduce the overall value of the card and make those turns against 3-4 Secrets less common.
Jandice Barov
- Old: [Costs 5] → New: [Costs 6]
Dev Comment: Jandice Barov benefitted greatly from the Core Set refresh and the rotation of weaker 5-Cost minions. Looking ahead, we don't intend to dilute Jandice's pool of summoned minions and that's not something we'd want to rely on for her balance. With that in mind, we are nerfing Jandice Barov to 6 mana where her total stat output is much more appropriate.
Pen Flinger
- Old: Battlecry: Deal 1 damage. Spellburst: Return this to your hand. → New: Battlecry: Deal 1 damage to a minion. Spellburst: Return this to your hand.
Dev Comment: Pen Flinger equips some classes with large amounts of chip damage, whether it be to minions or to the opposing hero. This flexibility makes Pen Flinger an attractive option for many decks, but when that utility is combined with repetition it takes over the story of a match. Pen Flinger takes out your minions, might deal 10 damage to your face over multiple turns, and even had the gall to call you names throughout all of it. We're nerfing Pen Flinger to now only target minions, positioning it as a removal option rather than a dual-threat card.
Far Watch Post
- Old: 2 Attack, 4 Health → New: 2 Attack, 3 Health
Mor’shan Watch Post
- Old: 3 Attack, 5 Health → New: 3 Attack, 4 Health
Dev Comment: Watch Posts are meant to act as an interesting tech-package when dealing with certain gameplans. Currently though, they act as go-to options in many classes, sporting quite high winrates for disruption-based cards. In order to cut into their power, we're reducing the Health of both Far Watch Post and Mor'shan Watch Post. This change will make them easier to deal with on turns 2 + 3, lowering the investment barrier for removal to better match the options available on those early turns.
Comments
I never had a problem with the watch posts but okay
No I didn't play them myself, before anyone goes and says I'm complaining, I'm just confused :/
A little preemptive. Winrates for watch posts were concerning, but they weren't a huge problem because Spell Mage doesn't play minions, and Secret Paladin can usually clear them or ignore them.
it's not really a good sign if the only thing that was keep them in check were two very obviously overpowered decks.
For pretty much every deck other than the two top dogs these things represent must-kill targets, meaning they effectively have taunt, while at the same time having vanilla stats +1, meaning there are almost no removal spells that trade on an even mana cost, meaning you most often have to play two cards to get rid of them, which is already a huge loss in ressources and tempo.
They had the blowout potential of an uncontested Questing Adventurer with nearly double the statline.
I think DoL is still very playable in that slot. DoL will still give things like Nagrand Slam for 7 mana.
Wow, Zeddy predicted all of these nerfs perfectly
he didnt exactly predict them. before the weekend on his stream he said someone from Blizzard leaked him the nerfs. i dont think he said onn his Ytb video that someone told him, but on stream he did. So his predictions arent exactly that, he plain and simply knew what they where
Geeeet FUCKED loser!
Pen Flinger, Watch posts, Sword and deck of Lunacy I got what I wanted. Jandice is way to good so not surprised.
Whaaaaaaat where Crabrider nerf??
Why do you think Crabrider needs a nerf?
because it's a 2-mana 1/4 that can't be removed on curve by most classes (at least not 1 for 1) that has Windfury and scales extremely hard with buffs, meaning if that thing gets coined out on turn 1 and buffed with, say, Hand of A'dal by turn 2 you effectively lost the board and won't get it back for a while.
Not to mention it's still releveant in the lategame because it also happens to have Rush.
Crabrider is basically Speaker Gidra for one less mana and also a neutral with the only downside being that you actually need to run buffs to make it work....and guess which class has a lot of efficient buffs.
2-mana minions should not have 4 health unless they are legendary or at least don't infinitely scale in threat level the longer they remain alive.
Exactly. I'm glad I'm not alone with this point of view. :)
Because it's super hard to deal with when it gets coined out and buffed with Hand of A'dal. Once you've got there, there are several directions you can go. Libram of Wisdom, Blessing of Kings, and so on. You can protect it with Redemption or Righteous Protector, it gets tutored by Crystology and Call to Arms. If you get it out on an empty board on turn 1 or 2, Crabrider can singlehandedly win you a game as soon as turn 4 or 5 with only 2 or 3 buffs. I would have liked to see it nerfed to 3 Health, most classes have something that can deal with that. 4 Health is difficult to remove on turn 2 or 3.
I would have put Lunacy at 5-mana. Just kill it for good. No Minion Mage is likely to still be very strong after this, and I think you'd still run Deck of Lunacy even if you hold off on playing it until the late-game. Refreshing Spring Water needs to be hit.
Watchtower, Pen Flinger, and Jandice nerfs are very good and needed, but they need to hit Paladin harder. Sword of the Fallen is still an S-tier card with 2-durability. They need a bigger hit on their early game. First Day of School still has a 70%+ Mulligan WR in every kind of deck. Just make it a 1-mana card already, even if that probably kills it. Aldor Attendant should be reverted to a 2-drop, and Aldor Peacekeeper should probably be a 4/5. I wouldn't even mind seeing Libram of Justice go back to 6-mana. Right now the deck is simply too versatile at every stage of the game.
NO aldor shouldnt be reverted, not shoudl peacekeeper be nerfed.
I think that a nerf should bring card's power level back to where it's supposed to be, not kill the card - just because a card is too good now it shouldn't be made unplayable later.
No minion mage was my favourite deck up until Barrens - wacky, interesting, and borderline Tier 3. It was kinda fun to play and wasn't overwhelming for the opponent. Right now it's oppresive and I hope they nerf it to the point where it is actually a fair deck.
What I think you don't realise is how significant Pen Flingers are for paladin and how that might impact the deck. Even if that doesn't hit that hard, it might create enough space for other decks to emerge and create diverse meta without killing a class. If not, hey, there can be another round of nerfs soon.
Your presented solution for paladin is "kill every good card for the class". I understand your hate for paladin right now, but every class has some better, outstanding cards, but only some see play, even if those are really good on paper. Why? Because meta is not in a vacuum and those cards depend on other cards and what is popular at that time. Why nuke pally if few minor nerfs might do the trick? Devs have much more data on cards winrate and emerging archetypes than we do and they decided that this is enough for now.
Besides, I don't think there is anything wrong with no-minion mage and libram palladin to still be Tier 1 decks. I just think they shouldn't be Tier 0 decks that opress meta. Good decks should be allowed to exist as long as there is enough space that ladder isn't comprised of only 2 classes.
All of that said, f**k lunacy mage as a top tier deck, I think hearthstone has much more to offer than that :P
I hear you, but I think the data is overwhelming on First Day of School even if the card doesn't "feel bad" compared to others. Ditto for Aldor Attendant. Knight of Anointment is a fantastic turn-1 play. They don't need 3 excellent turn-1 choices. Right now their very early game is overwhelmingly consistent and powerful.
As for No Minion Mage, it's very good right now, and I think it's still very good if Refreshing Spring Water refreshes (1) for each spell drawn. That makes it strictly better than Arcane Intellect in that archetype which is the real purpose of the card. 0-mana draw 2 is just stupid, let alone the cases when it's even better than that via Incanter's Flow.
I know that these cards are powerful and I think devs should look closly at them. IF paladin/mage continue to opress the meta I think those might be great targets for nerfs. I would still rather have it nerfed slowly in a 2 week cycle rather than bringing down whatever stands out right now as history has shown us even one card nerf can be enough for meta to shift.
As for mage, as someone who used to play mage a lot, the biggest downside of the deck was consistency and catching up without pulling some BIG RANDOM BS from Yogg box or poof!ing board with Reno. If Lunacy is going to be too slow, no-minion mage might have a bigger problem pulling multiple tempo swings and even Pot of Greed might not help the lack of big, endgame high value cards that lunacy provides. I think actual outcome will be somewhere in the middle between broken and helpless - just as the deck used to be, just a little less random and actually viable.
I think current policy of more frequent, yet a bit more subtle approach to nerfs is much better than what we had in the past and I believe there is a light at the end of a tunnel, it just might not look like everyone is expecting it to be.
Justice for Pen Flingers!
Not nerfing Refreshing Spring Water is insanity. The ridiculous value of draw 2 cards for 0 has caused me far more anger than Lunacy.
I would have liked the heal+summon 8/8 Libram to lose taunt too but you can't have everything.