We've got a round of balance changes coming to Standard... and WILD on January 25.
Although the changes themselves have not been confirmed yet, they will be included within the patch notes on January 20 (that's next week) with the patch itself coming out on January 25. This is a major Hearthstone patch that will also be introducing Battlegrounds changes, a "huge" Duels update, new Mercenaries, and more! We'll get to see some Battlegrounds reveals prior to the patch notes coming out, so stay tuned for those!
Quote From PlayHearthstone The Battlegrounds reveals will lead into the full patch notes on 1/20 and the patch itself on 1/25!
This patch will include our big Battlegrounds update, balance changes for Standard and Wild, new Mercs, a huge Duels update, and more!
We want to hear your guesses! Let us know what cards you think (or want) will be changes in the comments below. Rogue has been naughty recently in Standard...
![All The Great Dark Beyond Card Reveals for October 23 - Day 13 [Finished]](the-great-dark-beyond-day-13.webp)
Comments
I'm a bit late to the "party" but my nerf predictions are:
- Standard:
Rogue: I might be a burgle rogue fan, but this... monstrocity in standard is NOT a burgle deck. It just abuses Wildpaw Gnoll and destroys the "burgle" rogue name. So i hope it gets nerfed...HARD. My guess is from 5 to 7 mana. A +1 mana cost nerf would change nothing, just look at the Flesh Giant nerf some time ago. I'm pretty sure they wont change the effect, because that would make Maestra of the Masquerade useless. (And they would have to give Maestra a full dust refund as well) The other nerf is 100% going to be Shadowcrafter Scabbs. Last time a 7 cost hero card had a high winrate when kept IN MULLIGAN was during the Dr. Boom, Mad Genius RoS days. And a 7 mana hero card being kept IN MULLIGAN is i.m.o. not healthy for the game. My guess is probably a +1 mana cost nerf. Would prefer +2 mana cost, but it's a hero card from the newest expansion, so they wouldn't nerf it this hard.. yet.
Mage: Mozaki, Master Duelist probably. It's not the best deck, but it generates a lot of "feels bad" moments. My guess for the nerf is either +1 or +2 mana cost.
Warrior: Defias Cannoneer either down to a 2/2 or it only shoots 1 cannon instead of 2. Connoneer getting nerfed would nerf both standard and wild pirate warrior.
- Wild
Sorcerer's Apprentice: Apprentice got it coming for a long time, but i really hope they wont KILL the card completely. Personally i hope for a +2 mana cost nerf. Apprentice at 4 mana means that Archmage Antonidas OTKs are still possible, but it would kill a lot of Flamewaker mage decks. Also at 4 mana apprentice wont work with Drek'Thar in turn 4-5 OTK decks. Also with Apprentice decks gone, the cheaters will lose their "favorite deck". Which i.m.o. is always a good thing.
Raid the Docks: Banned from wild. This will make Pirate Warrior a bit weaker, but not too much. It was a tier 1 deck before stormwind, so i bet it will remain tier 1 even without Raid the Docks. Also i don't think they will nerf Raid the Docks YET. i would love to see it nerfed, but they wont nerf it just because of wild.
Last of all, ODD Hunter has to be addressed. But i feel like Banning Defend the Dwarven District is unnecesary atm. Instead i expect Rapid Fire to get nerfed from 1 mana to 2 mana. ODD Hunter without Rapid Fire will need more time to complete the quest and OTKing their opponent without Rapid Fire is going to be a lot harder. Especially considering Rapid Fire is the highest winrate card in ODD Hunter. (According to HSreplay it has a 73.9% Winrate when kept in mulligan, 72.3% drawn winrate and a 72.1% Played winrate. Which makes it the best card in the deck in terms of winrate. Most other winrates are around 67-68%.)
Just wanted to comment on two parts of your prediction;
- Wildpaw Gnoll at 6 is significant, because that means without Secret Passage shenanigans, its going to be 4 mana without further support, which means the card is just vanilla with rush. At 7 mana, it's just plain weak without an extra reduction at which point its just vanilla. In other words, 7 mana is overkill. With secret passage due to disappear in 3 months, I doubt team5 would ever go that far.
Especially if their intention is also to nerf scabbs. They'll never do two nerfs to thief rogue, and even if they do, the nerf will never be as far as you suggest.
- Defias Cannoneer nerf is unnecessary, as long as the idea is to ban or do something with Raid the Docks for wild. The most dangerous card in standard pirate warrior is actually Bloodsail Deckhand and Harbor Scamp, the former of which is particularly dangerous because the Whetstone Hatchet becomes immediately online, helping with keeping tempo.
Of all the top standard aggro decks, I consider quest pirate warrior the least threatening, the easiest to play around, and is stopped largely by taunts. In other words, its good but fair. I think if team5 nerfs this deck at all, it'll more likely be a stat revert to Stormwind Freebooter.
I'm going to be honest here, when i did my prediction i still had Secret Passage in mind but i forgot the part where it rotates in 3 months. So yeah i completely agree that nerfing Wildpaw Gnoll by 2 mana is overkill, 1 mana should be more than plenty. The main reason i did my +2 mana prediction was also a bit of a burgle rogue "bias", because i would love to see "burgle" rogue go back to an actual burgle package.
I still think that its possible that they could nerf both Gnoll and scabbs. +1 mana on Gnoll alone would have a decent impact, but doesn't solve the problem that people keep Scabbs in their hand during mulligan AND have a high winrate by doing that.
I will also agree that a Defias Cannoneer nerf might be a bit too early. I still think it should be nerfed someday, but this might not be the time. The main reason i thought of this nerf prediction is because of all the "feels bad" moments it generates, especially when summoned by The Juggernaut.
For Wild, I'd nerf Ignite to shuffle itself at the end of your turn instead of on cast, [Hearthstone Card (Twin Fire) Not Found] to 2 mana and 2 dmg per use so that it cannot be used in Quest Hunter that runs Baku, and [Hearthstone Card (Parachute Brigade) Not Found] to remove the amount of cheap stats Pirate Warrior generates in an instant.
I'm not nerfing Sorcerer, since she's... too integral to Mage. Yes, we had Secret Mage not rely hard on the card, but I am certain a lot of appeal for Wild Mage players IS otk combos with her. I just think she needs to stay only within realms of OG Quest Mage, sometimes Flamewaker Mage.
I wonder why the herocard Cariel is in the header of this article. I don't think that needs nerf? Libram Paladin basicly relies on it.
She's cute.
Agreed. I like how she clenches her teeth
based
Please throw ignite mage to the garbage bin. That deck is the worst deck to play against in my entire time of playing hearthstone.
I have no clue what to address in Standard but for Wild, there are two very different lists of changes in my head. One that I wish would happen and one that is likely to happen.
What's likely to happen is they just lengthen the time it takes to complete the Warrior and Hunter questlines by a card or two and be done with it. It's rather boring, unimaginative, and, more importantly, doesn't really fix the format. It's likely to just usher in an age of OTK, with the possible exception of Freeze Shaman, if that survives the downfall of Questline Warrior it used to farm.
If they just nerf the two questlines, the meta doesn't really improve that much. Cause if it won't be the two questlines destroying you, it''ll be just normal Pirate Warrior, which even without the Questline has still been supercharged by the last few expansions. In that respect, they'd have to nerf the entire Neutral "free" pirate package (Patches + Parachute Brigand), otherwise Pirate aggro will always be the best type of aggro. If it's not that, it'll be Shadow Priest (also pirates) or the various Drek'Thar aggro decks (many, like Embiggen Druid, also running Pirates). But hey, those, at least, are good old-fashioned aggro decks that can be run out of resources by control. Or they would be, if control wasn't D.E.D. in Wild. Flamewaker Mage, Ignite Mage, Mozaki Mage, Pillager Rogue, Alignment Druid,. Mechathun Lock, Owl Lock, you name it, they all make control mostly unplayable if they're given room to breathe by the absence of the two Questline decks. And even if you were to nerf ALL of that. Wind the clocks back two years. You're right back to control being D.E.D. because Raza Priest can exist again and makes all control irrelevant. In that respect, so many nerfs would need to happen. Scabbs Cutterbutter + Spirit of the Shark is broken in Rogue, Sorcerer's Apprentice is broken in Mage, Runed Mithril Rod, after two mana nerfs, is still like 10 net negative mana. So is Incanter's Flow and Darkglare, btw, it's just that when it comes to mana cheating, the two respective classes have better options to cheat right now. Alignment + Anakondra is what Sorcerer's Apprentice is to Mage, what Kun Aviana used to be to Druid. Shadowreaper Anduin + Raza is just as unreasonable as it's always been, it's just unplayable right now due to the inevitability present in the meta right now. They would need to nerf/kill almost all of the mana cheating to truly, meaningfully improve the Wild format. Otherwise, they're just kicking two oppressive decks in the nuts to make room for other oppressive decks those two were holding back. That's not really addressing the core issue they've been gradually creating since Scholomance.
Hrm, might as well do the Cariel achievements along with miniset achievements then.
Way to late for me.
wish: "but not less than 1" for all aura reductions
real life: gnoll to 4/4, scabbs to 8 gl hf.
In standard, the likeliest to be hit would be Wildpaw Gnoll, Shadowcrafter Scabbs, garrote (again), Cloak of Shadows, Incanter's Flow (at this point they might as well just remove this card from the game), Mozaki, Master Duelist. Probably not all above, but certainly some.
The idea would be to nerf mozaki mage, and disable poison rogue from stealing games, the two most polarizing matchups in the game. Garrote is pivotal in poison rogue, because it sets up inevitability and you can't even taunt them up anymore, and both cloak and scabbs ensure that your opponent must run Rustrot Viper at all costs, maybe even 2, to stand more than a snowball's chance in hell.
Mozaki mage is basically quest mage in stormwind. They dont lose games, they just don't win. Your involvement in the entire match revolves around incanter's flow and mutanus, assuming you even get to turn 7 at all.
Thief rogue is everywhere, but I feel that touching up gnoll slightly would be enough to drastically alter its winrate. Its getting kinda ridiculous too when your opponent Secret Passage on 1 just to hit a 0 mana 4/5. Otherwise, thief rogue is fine to me.
In wild, well, fingers crossed that they would finally do something about quest hunter and warrior. Probably just ban the quest from wild until rotation.
There's also the possibility of buffs in standard. At some point team5 would probably start realizing how weak Rokara, the Valorous really is and buff it to 6. I mean, compared with the other hero cards, rokara is just plain awful. 7 mana equip a 5/2, because not many players tend to play massive minions worth smacking into anyway.
The just need to change the unstoppable force for Rokara into 5/2 (you are immune while attacking). This would do a few things. Make the hero immune to the damage they take while attacking, but still rely on weapon charges. This in turn would encourage ways to gain weapon charges for a brief time (Krastinov perhaps?) and could possibly change the way the hero card is played. Instead of buffing the weapon to 6 (which IMO all that does is promote the warrior to go face instead of trade)
As for the nerfs coming. I won't go into too much depth now as I'm wrapping up things at work, but suffice to say: Mozaki Mage and Thief Rogue both need nerfs, however if they do get nerfed, we'll just have all the flavor of the month players switch back over to questlock/handlock.
I'll just come right out and say it: the hero cards from Alterac feel very fun and mostly balanced (except scabbs, and perhaps guff....I think the current decks we are seeing are borderline oppressive from a control standpoint) ....but the quest cards from Stormwind feel very poorly balanced and should never have been designed the way they were.
Very hard to say honestly. Wild doesn't feel so bad right now imho with the exception of APM Mage. They could do something about the mechanic if Ignite or just deliver the long overdue nerf to Sorcerer's Apprentice. I'd welcome something creative as well: let's try and make SA and Ice Block legendarys! Maybe Hunter and Warrior get their questlines nerfed to 3 ticks for each stage, that might slow them down enough for other decks to breath.
Other than that, I'm convinced Defias Cannoneer is completely OP and will get nerfed one day.
Guesses on the nerfs?
Wildpaw Gnoll - Either increase its cost to 6 mana or change its interaction with Maestra of the Masquerade.
Cloak of Shadows - Cost up to 4 mana. Cloak into Cloak into Scabbs is not something that should be allowed to happen.
Shadowcrafter Scabbs - Not sure Team 5 will nerf a Hero card so close to Alterac day 1, but there's a chance. If I were in charge of the devs, I'd wait some time and see if the nerfs to Gnoll and Cloak worked out, without risking to kill a class.
Incanter's Flow - Cost up to 4 mana. Printing this card was just wrong...
As for Wild... I genuinely do not know, but there are three main contenders for a ban:
I don’t think Apprentice is in Standard now. So if anything it wouldn’t be banned, but nerfed. Likely she’d get the “not less than 1” text added so she can’t reduce spells to be 0 mana.
If that happens… So long OG Exodia Mage deck as well.
”A-HA!!” ~ Tony
Note to self: complete climb to D5 on the Wild ladder after Jan 25th. Got it!