We've got cost increases coming for a couple of cards in today's Hearthstone patch which aims to knock down Warlocks a bit on the ladder.
- Stealer of Souls - Now costs 6 mana (Up from 4). Now has 4 Attack (Up from 2).
- Flesh Giant - Now costs 10 mana (Up from 9).
Even with these changes, Stealer of Souls will remain banned in wild. Stay tuned for our discussion on the nerfs.
Quote From Blizzard Stealer of Souls
- Old: [Costs 4] 2 Attack, 6 Health → New: [Costs 6] 4 Attack, 6 Health
Dev Comment: While the winrate of decks including Stealer of Souls isn’t particularly high, the games where these decks win are often won in an extreme way. This change, like our philosophy in the first Stormwind balance patch, is aimed at slowing the down the speed of Stealer of Souls and softening those extremes. Note: Stealer of Souls will remain banned in Wild alongside this change.
Flesh Giant
- Old: [Costs 9] → New: [Costs 10]
Dev Comment: We’re moving Flesh Giant up another mana to further reduce the speed at which comes down in the average game. After monitoring the initial balance to change here, we believe it was a bit too soft and are adjusting Flesh Giant accordingly.
The cards listed above will be eligible for a full dust refund for 2 weeks after the 21.2 patch goes live.
Comments
Weeell...I wouldn't say a lot of those cards are unproblematic. Animated Brromstick and Raise Dead both are absurdly busted and have been for ages. Though Warlock has been abusing them the most, it's also because Warlock has had the best deck in the format for over a year. Raza Priest was right up there with Warlock and has been abusing Raise Dead just as much. Nothing on that card is reasonable. Broom has been shitting on people's boards pre-Quest already in Darkglare and Handbuff Paladin. And again, the card is obviously broken. No reason for it to cost 1, hit your whole board (one minion should be the max), have Rush itself AND be Neutral. You could cross off two of the things about Broom and it would still be good. Board tempo used to mean something, now it's just about who can give Rush to bigger stuff from their hand. And you rarely beat 0 mana 8/8s in that fight.
It's arguable Plague of Flames has been overperforming for a long time too, since Warlocks have been doing this 1-mana spam thing for a while, and combined with Kobold Librarian and Raise Deads they seem to have infinite ammo to destroy massive boards for almost free while churning through their decks. The mana cheating with Glare and now Mithril Rod has just been making that a bit more obvious.
Nerfing at least these cards in particular along with Mithril Rod and Darkglare (yes, again, they just need to change the damn effect) would at least mean Warlocks have to play the game at the same costs and pace as everyone else. As it stands they churn out 21 self damage for quest progress, play out 8+ cards and draw a third of their deck in like 4 turns and that's with skipping turn 1 to play quest. They're too efficient and too mana cheaty. You'd think it would all come at a cost to tempo but once they've spent their time doing all that, they then get to instantly upend any board progression the opponent has made with 0 mana giants and broomstick, which they then bring back for free with Raise Dead. It's a pattern they've been abusing in Darkglare for ages, it just found a new home. They are at the same time extremely greedy on resource generation (draw and raise dead), extremely efficient, and super safe cause the board is theirs whenever they wish and they have tons of 1 mana heal 4s and 1 mana removal.
Sigh...seriously? This shit again? Quest Warlock is two tiers above everything else in Wild right now and they're still meekly bumping Flesh Giant another mana, while not touching any of the 0-1 mana hyper-efficient shit Warlock is routinely doing. Place your bets people, how many times will they have to nerf Warlock this expansion until they finally get it right?
Good thing Battlegrounds is getting a big update I guess, cause I'm not touching constructed until they actually do something about it and not just pretend to be doing something about it.
Is this an out of season April's Fool joke?
Pathetic nerfs. All slow decks are still dead. And aggro didn't need any help.
And I'll still not be playing wild except the bare minimum to complete my quests.
This season will be the first in 2-3 years I've not hit Rank 5/Diamond 5 or better. Sill in platinum I think - another pack and epic not worth it for me.
I haven't played Constructed since week one. I've been doing all my quests in Tavern Brawls.
Questlines were the biggest design mistake since Genn and Baku, mark my words. This has easily been the least fun meta in Hearthstone.