Great news everyone! The slime is flowing again! Wait, wrong era.
Hearthstone's Alec Dawson has confirmed that if more nerfs or buffs are required after this month's Masters Tour event, we'll be seeing a round of them after! Masters Tour Orgrimmar is up next on the Esports schedule taking place from April 30 through May 2, and that'll be just over two weeks of the new meta once they decide if Paladin, or anything else, needs to be changed.
Although not confirmed, that secondary potential balance patch may be the last one of the first part of Forged in the Barrens. With a miniset arriving sometime around the end of May or the beginning of June, which will contain 35 additional cards for the Forged in the Barrens pool, it wouldn't be worth making large adjustments as we get close to that release because those cards should make a swing of their own.
Do you think the nerfs arriving later today are going to be enough to give breathing room in the meta? Let us know below!
Quote From Alec Dawson The nerfs coming out tomorrow are focused on providing more room for the meta to develop. After the next MT, we'll see if more changes are necessary (nerfs or buffs). Thank you again for the feedback over the last few weeks, we value all of it.
Are you able to give any insight on the rationale behind only touching sword in Paladin, given how potent its winrates were across the board (vs say hitting multiple cards when DH was overbearing)?
Pen Flinger nerf changes a lot of how the deck is constructed. If Paladin is still dominant afterwards, there will be additional balance adjustments. Other changes (watch posts) will have a broad effect on what’s playable as well.
Comments
Still playing all Paladins and Mages. Very cool nerfs!
Deck of lunacy power did not come from being played at turn 1 or 2 it came from the cards it generated for 4-5-6 mana and since it is not likely any other deck will kill you until turn 5 , i expect that deck will be with us.
Getting the pen flinger to the face waa annoying but not the reason it was played. they provide such a good board control that you basically never lose the minion battles and eventually grind out whoever is opposing you
They are saying that Tickatus is not a problem according to their stats but rarely does anyone on ladder play against Tickatus to the end or even till Tickatus is even played. The inevitability is already known and people move on to the next game. Only people that play have either an answer or are within killing distance so the statistics are misleading in my opinion.
Blizzard has killed of the really low cost aggro decks and is now scrambling to get the high value end game control decks to be on par with each other. Blizzard please allow the hyper aggro decks to exist since they are essential for the health of the meta because they prevent these hyper value oriented decks to get out of control in terms of population.
Team5 does do their own play testing, and most pros tend to agree that tickatus decks are generally bad. From my own experience (and I never concede on seeing this card, not even after its played twice) and from the commentaries provided by high legend players, I think I can believe it when they say the stats are showing that the card is simply not that good.
Tickatus needs setup, and then it takes 6 mana to play it without also dying because this thing doesn't have taunt or rush. Not to mention that 5 cards burned is not the end of the world, and as long as you're keeping up tempo, its possible to still win even after its played.
The calls for this card to be nerfed is not so much that its good, but because its unfun. But that's hardly a reason to ever nerf cards, not in my opinion anyway.
Hearing about potential buffs is most interesting, because it's still such a rare occurrence.
Buffs and unenrfs(espcialyl ones before card rotates out of standard) should be more standard/common in general.
A few hours ago, as I was reading through the comments regarding the nerfs, I saw many comments that it won't be enough. I have the same expression. But than I thought: perhaps this is just a first round of two. They try to target the big powerhouses and look whether it is sufficient to shake up the meta. But they have a watch list of nerf candidates already prepared (Broom, Tickatus, Spring Water, Librams...). They are aware that those crads are borderline broken, but they refrain from nerfing them now because their winrate is currently carried by the nerfed cards. If it turns out, that the meta does not change much, they'll ship the second part.
I believe they did it with the DH nerfs accordingly.
I'll bet my left nut that Paladin will still outperform the other classes by a considerable margin. There's just no other deck that can keep up with that 1-2-3-4-5 curve. Not even buffs will fix that.
Really depends cause if it's just mage getting out of the way, warlock will be on par with pally cause the match up is favorable...
Paladin will keep its top spot because its actually playing good minions on curve, but honestly there's plenty of ways things can go awry for paladin.
Not going first and your opponent has a 1 drop. That alone can already decide the game. Paladin is strong, but linear. And its that linearity that prevents it from ever truly ruling the roost the higher the skill level goes. I mean, paladin has been tier 1 since scholomance, and its only at the tail end of darkmoon (after plenty of nerfs to other classes) that we really ever saw anyone bringing it in GM or masters tour.
Now that they can't even cheese the end game with a handfull of librams and 2 pen twirling dicks, I'm having second thoughts as to whether Lady Liadrin is still a mandatory card to have. Might be that libram pally gets canned in favor of aggro pally, not too bad in its own right.
The problem I have is that despite being linear they still have plenty of comeback mechanics (mainly involving Libram of Justice and Pen Flinger shenanigans).
Basically it plays like Midrange Hunter except without any of their actual weaknesses and that's the problem.
The main problem is that it's just so hard to establish any kind of foothold against them.
Well, you guys covered exactly what I was going to say: Paladin gets a little worse, but it'll still be fine. Play green cards.
I, personally on an emotioknal level, think they need another hit. And another. I'm very tired of their libram garbage. The pen Flinger nerf goes a long way toward curbing that power. Now it's just about getting under the Hopes and probably that damn Book.
Paladin? While Mage got a nerf, it wont stop no minion mage. The deck is strong without deck of lunacy. At 4 mana it will fit right in with the curve as the best spells it gives are 5 mana and up.
Paladin is strong for sure, but I really dislike No Minion Mage. I really hope that people will get seduced by the idea of getting full dust and disenchant Lunacy, and the deck loses its popularity.
Refreshing Spring Water is the most problematic card imo. I know it's hard to balance card games while trying to print exciting cards, but that card was a mistake. I'd like to see it get hit in the next round of nerfs.
Yeah, lunacy's nerf was really a joke.
Without Deck of Lunacy the deck literally dies to anything that plays minions on curve because there's only so much you can clear from the board before you run out of stuff. I would be surprised if anyone would try mulliganing for DoL that's only playable at turn 4 and would require you to skip that turn while playing it.
I think after two weeks of playing I've only ever died to lunacy mage that played no DoL once, and considering that at least 30% of the meta is playing it that really says something. I don't think the deck can survive a tempo matchup trying to play a 4 mana do nothing card.
Yup. I've won a couple of the Lunacy-less games, so there is something to the deck. But if the meta changes back to early minions, Spell Mage is in a bad spot. So why nerf Spring Water when it's the only thing that deck has now? Let's wait and see.
Then boom! Get them while they're down!
"That was unexpected!"
Nah they have been like that for over a year, so it is not unexpected anymore
Eh, it was mainly a Professor Putricide reference, hollering back at Flux's opening statement ;)
I know... but still =)