We've got a round of balance changes coming on January 25 in Patch 22.2.0, here they are ahead of schedule!
Blizzard has not yet commented on these changes. We will likely see commentary on them in the patch notes. It looks like Rogues are toast though!
Reminder that datamined information is subject to change before release of content. Until Blizzard officially confirms changes, consider these to be a word in progress.
Wild Card Nerfs
- Sorcerer's Apprentice Now Costs 4 (Up from 2).
Wild Card Changes
- Rapid Fire Now deals 2 Damage (Up from 1). Now Costs 2 (Up from 1).
Standard Card Nerfs
- Incanter's Flow Now Costs 4 (Up from 3).
- Create a Distraction Now requires 3 Pirates to be played (Up from 2).
- This is the second part of the Raid the Docks questline.
- Shadowcrafter Scabbs Now Costs 8 (Up from 7).
- Wildpaw Gnoll Now Costs 6 (Up from 5). Now has 3 Attack (Down from 4).
- Cloak of Shadows Now Costs 4 (Up from 3).
Standard Card Buffs
- Rokara, the Valorous Now has 10 Armor (Up from 5).
All these collectible cards should be disenchantable for their full dust values after the patch releases on January 25 and be available for those full refunds for two weeks.
What do you think of the changes? Is Roguestone over?
![All The Great Dark Beyond Card Reveals for October 23 - Day 13 [Finished]](the-great-dark-beyond-day-13.webp)
Comments
I no longer play, but the mage player in my cries a little. But was bound to happen
Seeing the sorcerer's apprentice get nerfed that hard really, really bugs me. That card was never a problem until Ignite and Sanctum Schandler came into existence, and yet instead of fixing the problem causer they completely destroy a card that has been a part of mages identity for years.
BASED and apprentice-pilled
This card has always been an issue. The only validation to keep it was that it was relatively delicate with only 2 health. The issue though is and always has been is that it is EXTREMELY easy to drop 2 in a turn, copy them a couple of times, and play spell after spell for free or at the very least, substantially discounted. Since your opponent rarely will ever get a chance to kill it, having only a 2 health is negligible.
The issue is combining 0 cost, unlimited draw, and infinite spells into one deck. I'm a mage player and even I hated Ignite Mage. To me Sorcerer's Apprentice has always been a tool to make fun decks, and unorthodox combos work. If it caused problems it wasn't bigger than whatever the hell another class could do. It was only now when two cards out of hundreds could take too much advantage of it that, that Sorcerer's Apprentice received an extremely harsh nerf.
You said it right there. It was the catalyst for unorthodox combos to work. For Exodia, Ignite, Firewalker, and any number of other OTK decks THIS was the one ingredient that would allow those decks to fly off the handle. The idea that you can drop 2+ of them with clones in a turn and go off was the problem. With The Demon Seed in wild, there was a plethora of cards to allow this to go off quickly and annihilate your opponent. Instead of a nerf that would have killed a new card in standard, they just gut kicked it for Wild.
Making it harder to pull of an OTK in early stages of the game is why it was targeted. Not many players keep the apprentice on the board for more than a turn because it is a primary target. So hitting the stats made little to no sense.
I'm pretty happy with these nerfs overall, nothing really stands out except Sorcerer's Apprentice coz it'll also indirectly fix the animation exploit without Blizzard addressing it directly.
I'd probably end up DE all cards, especially Raid the Docks. It'll probably still be playable, but so over playing that deck now.
Time for Dragonbane Questline Hunter?
I was actually thinking they’d just slap the “but not less than 1” stipulation on her, but I’m happier with this because it still makes things like the original Exodia Mage possible, but requires a little more work to set it up.
EDIT: This was supposed to be a response to someone else. Not sure what happened here.
Yesterday I watched a video where Kibler argued that he felt rogues cards were pretty ok, as long as rogues can't cycle through their decks so fast to find all the cards they need in the right time. Today I see blizzard just adjusts the mana cost and the damage of the Gnoll. That's a bit dissapointing imo.
Seems like some folks here are torn because of the Sorcerer's Apprentice's murder?
Trust me. If you've ever played against an ignite mage, you'll know why this is justified. It is the pinnacle of the "Am I dead?" deck.
as an ignite mage rights activist im deeply hurt by this take
apprentice: extremely depressing, but whatever. ive devoted hundreds of hours to this card and the multitude of strategies it can put forth, and i will never support this nerf. i understand the frustration of getting blown up by apm and ignite mage (regardless of the fair to large degree of skill those decks can require), but this is a card from the history books of hearthstone being ruined. ive said this for a long time, but we would all be better off if blizzard made a second eternal format that could be more heavily balanced so that wild can remain wild. until then, the thousands of combo and tempo mage players that have been working on improving decks featuring the card will just have to find something new, or leave for magic: the gathering where combo decks arent always scalped by the developers.
warrior/hunter nerfs: ....what? just.... what? who on the balance team could have possibly thought that cutting rapid fire out of the equation and adding another pirate onto one step of a questline would just magically fix the wild format that has been completely and utterly DOMINATED by questlines since the day they came out?? and at the same time, nerf the card that so far has been most consistently able to counter those decks (apprentice)??? i was fuming angry when i heard this, but now im just sad. i hope im wrong. i hope this is enough to save the format from the two easiest, overpowered and rng-reliant decks that have ever dominated it. but i dont think so.
standard: i dont play standard as often as wild, but i would like to say that not nerfing the interaction between maestra and gnoll is completely psychotic. the nerfs arent bad, but that seemed like the most obvious unfair mechanic they could've done away with and retain both gnoll and maestra as powerful cards, albeit not as essential. also, because blizzard is too lazy to just make nerfs between the two formats separate, the cloak and scabbs nerfs will be felt in wild rogue decks as well that have been using the cards to deal with decks like pirate warrior. so yeah, kind of shit.
all in all, i desperately pray that im wrong and wild will be fine again after this, but i dont believe it for a moment. overall, this patch just makes me sad. deeply, overwhelmingly sad, moreso than maybe any other balance update thus far (except for turtle mage's unfair execution).
jesus fucking christ, 14 downvotes?? just for sharing my opinion that doesnt happen to align with the majority's??? i dont get it man
It's definitely a sign that your opinion is an actual hot take. But you know what? That's completely fine and valid. You can have an opinion that is severely disliked by the community, as long as you're not being a dick about it. It's a good form of discussion.
Good news, IMO you're quite wrong.
Taking out Rapid Fire is a huge blow for Odd Questline Hunters. Most of the games where they're winning are when they draw at least one Rapid Fire. As for Pirate Warrior, I don't think it's enough but Even Warlock stomps Pirate Warriors and with Odd Questline Hunter nerfed, I can see Even Warlock becoming more popular.
As for your take on Sorcerer's Apprentice nerf, I understand that some people would be sad to see this card go but not only that it's broken right now, but it's also very design limiting. This means with new cards, Sorcerer's Apprentice can only get more degenerate from here so the nerf is necessary.
regarding the apprentice nerf, this is the precise reason why i think another eternal format would benefit the game to such a massive degree. this would give players the ability to run iconic but unfair decks like apprentice/turtle mage in wild and have a more balanced experience in the new format.
theres a huge divide between the people that love to play these decks and the people that hate to play against them and the only method i can see of pleasing both parties is a new format.
I don't think a nerfless wild format would be worth the effort though. The meta will be very stale very quickly since it's going to be hard to beat the decks that are already tier S to begin with, and this will discourage a lot of people from playing it. It might seem like a neat Idea to be able to play the deck that you love at it's fullest power, but trust me people are definitely going to be playing quetline warlock anyways and it's not going to be a fun experience.
My own comments on the changes;
- Apprentice nerf has been one of the most requested and it would seem that team5 have duly delivered after 6 years. At 4 mana no less, likely because of drek'thar rather than anything else. Im fairly convinced that this nerf was meant to kill the card, they didn't even touch up the card's statline. Either way, this might be the end of this poor gnome, who'd pretty much been in mage decks from day 1.
- The nerf to Cloak of Shadows and Shadowcrafter Scabbs is interesting as far as attempting to slow down poison rogue. Personally I think they should've just change how Garrote work so the bleeds dont scale with spell damage, because how many times are we going to dance this tune? I don't have a single problem with poison rogue provided I can set up taunts or deny their weapon, but when they can blow me out regardless of whatever Im trying to do, then we have a big problem. Garrote was a mistake from the start, because its practically a win-con with nary but 3 cards and rogue draws fast anyway
- The change to quest in my opinion is more about bringing down the play population (due to dust refund) rather than attempting to clip the deck. Not that it isn't substantial, delaying the second reward is fairly devastating because pirate warrior needs tempo more than anything else.
- Wildpaw Gnoll change means no more turn 1 bs. You'll have to wait at least until turn 2 before you can secret passage for a 0 mana gnoll, and with this rework it doesn't even kill 3 drops now. A substantial change to be honest, one that will likely drop thief rogue from the top tier 1 to tier 3 at least. Unfortunate, because Im okay with thief rogue being on top, at very least we're still playing hearthstone, unlike the bs that is poison rogue and mozaki mage.
- Which brings us to Incanter's Flow. Like this is the third nerf, seriously. Just admit this was a mistake and retire the damn thing.
- The change to Rokara, the Valorous is interesting because it practically means where ever you can play this hero card, you can probably also play Captain Galvangar somewhere as well. Or this is a preemptive change for the upcoming mini set, only time can tell. For now though, it'll likely not mean much at all, certainly nowhere near the levels of what dawngraps accomplished after that buff.
Sorcerer's Apprentice: YES. They didnt brutally murder Sorcerer's Apprentice completely, Archmage Antonidas OTKS survive! That's a relief, and now you cant use Sorcerer's Apprentice alongside cards like Drek'Thar. This means that Flamewaker like OTKs (And Ignite Mage) are taking a HUGE blow. Those decks wont be able to OTK anymore on turn 4-5, instead your probably happy around turn 8-9 which is a huge deal, now most aggro decks can completely stomp those decks.
Rapid Fire: Nice. Defend the Dwarven District is NOT a problematic card in wild i.m.o. because it relied HEAVELY on Rapid Fire. Rapid Fire was the best card in ODD Questline Hunter, and now it lost its best card. ODD Questline Hunter really relied on Rapid Fire and now the deck will be slowed down a LOT, which will weaken it against aggro decks. It will also run out of fuel a lot faster too, which means less burst damage. Also this change also makes it so that Rapid Fire can't be generated from Wandmakers, Which might affect some non-ODD Questline Hunter decks. Really good chance.
Incanter's Flow: Great change, this nerfs Mozaki, Master Duelist decks, AND it's another HUGE blow to Wild Turn 4-5 OTK decks such as Ignite mage and Wild Mozaki, Master Duelist mage.
Raid the Docks: Good change. Sure Questline warrior isn't that strong in standard currently, but it's VERY popular around bronze-gold. This change will make it so your not taking 4 damage face as quickly, and it might make it so some of your minions might survive more often. This is i.m.o. just a solid change. (And probably from blizz POV this nerf was to prevent Questline warrior from running amock after rogue is basically gone.)
Rogue nerfs:
Cloak of Shadows: Good. 2x Cloak of Shadows into Shadowcrafter Scabbs wasn't fun, but this entire thing is still possible, but has been delayed by 1 turn. Which opens up more opportunities to deal some more damage or end the game. Solid change. This will really affect Weapon Rogue and Garrote rogue.
Wildpaw Gnoll: As a burgle rogue enjoyer, i love that Wildpaw Gnoll got nerfed. The "burgle" rogue deck we saw before wasn't a Burgle deck, it abused Wildpaw Gnoll while being a normal tempo deck. There was no "Burgle" in "burgle Rogue". Now i really hope the deck returns to an actual burgle shell. The 1 extra mana is pretty big, because if i'm right you can't scam it out as early with Secret Passage anymore. Also Secret Passage rotates next expansion, so it would have been nerfed too hard with a +2 mana change. Also the -1 attack will also be a lot more important than most might think. Now it will be a lot harder to remove your opponents minions, that 4 attack was a pretty big breakpoint.
Shadowcrafter Scabbs: Deserved. If you looked at Shadowcrafter Scabbs stats on a site like HSreplay, you could see that it had a 70+% Winrate when kept IN MULLIGAN. That's the biggest red flag there is. Just for reference, the last time we had a 7 cost hero card with such a high mulligan winrate, it was Dr. Boom, Mad Genius during the Rise of Shadows control warrior meta.
Buff: Rokara, the Valorous: Good chance. This makes Rokara a lot better. Rokara wasn't that good mainly because the only way to gain life with her is by getting a honorable kill, which let's be honest is a keyword that isn't that good. But now Rokara will have a bit more lifegain, which is nice. This will boost the cards winrate a bit... i think. Tbh i was expecting a weapon rework but this is fine. (My guess was: make the weapon infinite durability just like Lightforged Cariel in exchange for a "Can't attack heroes" effect, or a stat nerf such as less attack.)
I really hope these datamined changes will go through, because they look solid to me... And i really hope this returns "burgle" rogue back to the fun ACTUAL burgle deck it was before. (With cards like Contraband Stash)