We're getting some card balance changes in Hearthstone next week! Blizzard is giving us all a heads up due to the Masters Tour Undercity event that will be taking place next weekend. Here are the changes:
- Renew - Cost decreased to 1 Mana (From 2).
- Razormane Battleguard - Health decreased to 2 (Down from 3).
- Arcanist Dawngrasp - Provides +2 Spell Damage (Down from +3). (Questline reward from Sorcerer's Gambit)
- Garrote - Shuffle 2 Bleeds into your deck (Down from 3).
All these changes are going to live in a balance patch next week. The card nerfs will all be eligible for a dust refund for two weeks following the patch, but Renew won't be since it is a buff, Sorcerer's Gambit will be the disenchant target for the Dawngrasp nerf. Once the patch notes arrive next week prior to the patch going live, we'll get to see the dev commentary for why these changes are being made. Read on for the official post.
Quote From GnomeSayin Hello all,
We will be making some card changes in a patch going out early next week that we wanted to let you know about, to give players time to prepare for Masters Tour: Undercity, taking place from November 19-21. These are the cards that will be changing:
Razormane Battleguard
Old: 2 Attack, 3 Health → New: 2 Attack, 2 Health
Arcanist Dawngrasp (Mage Questline final reward)
Old: Battlecry: For the rest of the game, you have Spell Damage +3. → New: For the rest of the game, you have Spell Damage +2.
Garrote
Old: Deal 2 damage to the enemy hero. Shuffle 3 Bleeds into your deck that deal 2 more when drawn. → New: Deal 2 damage to the enemy hero. Shuffle 2 Bleeds into your deck that deal 2 more when drawn.
Renew
Old: [Costs 2] → New: [Costs 1]
The first three cards will be eligible for the normal full-dust refund for two weeks following the patch. Renew, which will go up in power level, will not get a dust refund. Keep an eye out for Patch Notes early next week for dev comments on these balance changes and more.
![All The Great Dark Beyond Card Reveals for October 23 - Day 13 [Finished]](the-great-dark-beyond-day-13.webp)
Comments
Hey uh while they're at it could they also nerf Highlord Fordragon and Lothar I mean I'm just like getting absolutely destroyed by them every match it's totally not because I have both of them and desperately need the dust.
I would also approve a Lothar nerf, but only because I don't want my opponents to constantly face my golden Version of him.
i have fun to play quest control mage with Unexpected Result, fun time , fun deck. this nerf is fine
Arcanist Dawngrasp was such a toxic card. Great nerf.
Is this the only time a "bad" deck has been nerfed due to player perception (the first being Quest Rogue)?
I'm surprised they didn't wait until next expansion to pull the trigger seeing how the deck could easily be outclassed by a variety of decks, but hey, I'm not complaining. 1600 dust for free and no more instant concedes whenever I decide to play Warrior (or any deck that isn't Quest Hunter really). I'M wondering whether they would consider unnerfing it next year when most of the stuff that made the deck such a garbage experience (Flow and Cram Session) are gone from Standard. Either way, maybe there'S now some room for other Spell Damage decks that aren't as degenerate.
Battleguard nerf is fine and expected. It's a must-kill target and having it at 3-health is kind of ridiculous because most decks only have a single card that deals that much damage on turn 2.
Good Garrote nerf. Fuck that deck. I hope it chokes on itself and dies. Realistically it might actually. That's around 8-12 damage just gone that you have to compensate for by either running a 2nd Guild Trader or just hoarding ressources even harder which makes the deck less flexible. With this, the absolute max damage you can do is 6 x 8 (double Trader + double Augmerchant which requires ouble Octo-bot on at least some of the pieces) which means Warrior is now basically a guaranteed counter (unless they fail to get over 50 health, which they usually shouldn't). Without double trader you're only gonna get to 6 x 6, which kills most, but not all decks and can conveniently be mitigated by a single Armor Vendor). I really hope the deck just fucking evaporates from existence. Rogue doesn't need this cheap single player bullshit when they have a perfectly fine Quest deck to play.
Interesting Renew unnerf though. I'M not really sure if there's really a point to it, but maybe they have something next expansion that really needs it. The nerf was only an emergency solution to an unforseen meta shift anyways.
Deck is not the best, but it ain't bad by any means. 3 out of top 8 players in masters tour had it in their line up. Meta just warped so that we only have counters to age and garrotes that is why we don't see such a high winrate from them
Dont be too surprise if garrote rogue is still a valid deck that basically populates legend until the next expansion. The nerf was handy, but all it essentially does is to raise the bar a little further, because you really only need a +3 spell damage to pull of the 30 damage OTK. The warrior matchup will suck even further, but that has never really been questioned, and warrior still needs to play against other decks too.
Not to say that garrote shouldn't be nerfed, but I'd rather play against garrote rogue all day than even a mere game against quest mage. At least with garotte you're allowed to play the game and your opponent has to actually have a brain in his head. Quest mage at its best deprives you of both a game and the thought that your opponent may actually be an neglected 8 yr old with poor concepts of sportmanship.
Even crystal caverns don't suck fun at such a rate as sorcerer's gambit. You dont play around quest mage. You pray around quest mage.
I wouldn't underestimate shaving off 6-8 damage from a combo in a deck where flexibility is a big part of its success. Having to hold on to your combo pieces instead of using them for tempo makes a huge difference if you don't have any other way to close out the game. Warrior also isn't the only class that can gain armor, but it used to be the only one that can realistically get over 50 health. NOw that bar is lower. Perhaps there'll be Druid decks that can also get there and further worsen the matchups.
I've actually come to like the Mage matchup as Quest Hunter because you just press hero power every turn and kill off all your own minions and they just don't get to play. I like to consider it karmic justice.
good nerfs but i don't think renew buff changes anything for priest sadly. but i love some miracle priest YEP
Bye Bye quest mage, no one (except quest mage players) will miss you! This quest once got me so mad, that i had to complain about it.... IN THE SALT THREAD. (which is something i almost never do) That's how mad it made me. That deck felt so bad to play against, and i hope it stays dead. Just for questline mage players: Have you seen that markmckz video in which he repeats Time Warp infinitely? Imagine being on the receiving end of that, that's how it feels to play against questline mage. So i hope you now understand why no ones likes playing against questline mage.
Razormane Battleguard nerf is SOO good. Whenever i'm playing against Aggro Druid, i'm always 1 damage short on killing it with most spells, and now it's a lot more easy to kill it. Great nerf.
Garrote nerf is one i'm not so sure off. I don't have much experience with this deck, however i do know that 1 bleed is a pretty big nerf. This means that (with spell damage) garrote rogue will do about 24 dmg instead of 36 dmg. BUT i feel like this problem is easely fixed with more spell damage stuff? And octobot obviously
Renew buff is great, control priest is struggling with healing and value generation is pretty bad in this meta so i'm glad it got reverted. However i feel like control (and questline) priest probably remain pretty bad regardless.
These buffs i.m.o. have been good overall, and hopefully they will allow some other archetypes to shine... And lets hope questline warrior wont become too good, now that Aggro Druid (it's biggest weakness) got nerfed.
This they forgot about the Mr. Smite nerf
Good riddance Quest Mage. Now on to nerfing Ignite as well, just completely gut this garbage.
From a competitive perspective, the Quest mage nerf is bad because the deck's not even that good right now.
From a gameplay environment perspective, the Quest mage nerf is good because the deck is miserable to play against whether or not it's strong, and this nerf puts the nail straight to the coffin.
What are u on, deck's broken af. Good and deserved nerf.
To answer your question, I'm on HSReplay, Vicious Syndicate, Tempo Storm and numerous other competitive hearthstone analysis content provider. They all say the same thing, quest mage is not that good of a deck.
Judging from your recent comments, you seem to have a throbbing hate boner towards that deck. I can't blame you though, it does suck to play against.
Honestly , I think perception/free dust is going to be what kills the play rate. It's -1 spell damage, but Mage can still draw and discount a lot of direct damage spells. When I used to play it, I could kill people sometimes without even playing Dawngrasp. Plus people are going to stop teching for it, making it easier to play. Sure, Pirate Warrior and Druid are probably going to end up dominating the meta, but I don't think Quest Mage is actually that worse off from the minus spell damage. You can still do literally everything you did before with drawing, completing the quest quickly and all of that.
Slap that spell damage on 5-6 spells and suddenly the mage needs an additional damage card to finish you off. Surely this isn’t relevant all of the time but let’s assume for arguments sake, that it will cost you a win every 5th game, you otherwise would have won. That’s a loss of 20% wins or a drop from a 50% to a 40% winrate.
Even if it was only every 10th game, the impact is still there and pulls the deck down a couple tiers.
Decks have died for a single nerfed health point on 1 or 2-drops. It doesn’t take much to be pushed aside…
I think the difference with that is Mage can generate and discount so many spells. When I used to play the deck at the start of the expansion, many times I killed my opponent while still having a lot of direct damage in hand. I killed people without even having to play Dawngrasp. You are going to be doing damage to them before you even drop them too. Remember, this deck was just Spell Mage before it was Quest Mage and it did a good job of killing people then. Now you have infinite ignites.
Honestly I am suprised Warrior did not get a nerf; it is performing really well in both wild and standard.
Warrior in standard at least isn't really all that good. Been destroying warriors left right and center. Playing as warrior, I often get my arse handed to me as well.
The problem with warrior is the same usual issue with having to quest on 1, and depending on the built, is either inconsistently drawing pirates, or having no board clears or healing to sustain against swarming aggro decks.
The current most powerful built of quest warrior is probably control quest, but if quest mage and garrote rogue are being nerfed, it wouldn't be long before this deck losses its best matchups and start struggling.