Patch 22.2.2 just went live with a high number of changes directed to balance the power level of Battlegrounds' Buddies. It can't be helped, since we're talking about a brand new mechanic with no precedents, but we're glad to see that Team 5's response was as swift as possible.
Battlegrounds, however, is not the only mode that received attention in this patch: in fact, Duels got a single (but rather impactful) balance change, regarding Vanndar Stormpike's powerhouse, Battle Tactics.
We'll talk about this change in a moment, but before that we want to remind you that, a week ago, another patch went live and brought changes in rarity to certain problematic Passive Treasures (here's an analysis of these changes); however, for some reason, said changes were not reflected in the game, causing these Passives to appear as nothing changed. With patch 22.2.2, things should finally behave as intended.
Quote From Blizzard Duels Updates
Battle Totem, Disks of Legend, and Totem of the Dead were are all moved from Treasure Pool 2 to Treasure Pool 2 Ultra Rare (for real this time).
Now discounts two 4+ Cost Neutral minions in your hand by 2 mana (down from all of them).
Well, well, well, look who it is: 2 mana Overgrowth on a button. During these first two weeks of Vanndar and Drek'Thar in Duels, I've seen people hitting 12 wins with Big Battle Tactics decks at least 20 times. Sure, the number is obviously affected by the fact that we're talking about Duels' new toy and everyone wants to try it out, but this must not distract us from the fact that Battle Tactics was an absolute powerhouse.
Being able to discount your entire hand by 2 mana every turn was as strong as it sounds on paper, especially since the mana-cheat does not apply to a single minion. Therefore, it wasn't strange to see things like Ragnaros the Firelord being dropped on turn 4/5 followed by multiple equally menacing threats. Add to this the fact that Disks of Legend was (until now) rather easy to obtain and boom - your opponents submerged by stats and you suffering from success.
Another rather unusual thing that Battle Tactics forced players into was picking For the Alliance! as Signature Treasure (without ever playing it during the game, because it would've diluted your deck) so that you wouldn't get offered class cards but just Neutral buckets in the mid-run offerings, which were fodder for your Hero Power. Some people referred to this situation as "bad design": we do not want to go that far, but it was surely quite the unprecedented occurrence in Duels, and we are happy it won't happen as frequently from now on.
As for the future, we think that limiting Battle Tactics' mana-cheat to just 4 mana (netting you a total 2 mana-cheat every time you press the button, down from an average of 6) will surely slow down our Vanndar fans out there, and will also decrease the Hero's success in the game mode. However, we wouldn't be so confident in calling Big Vanndar out: the archetype will definitely need to reinvent itself in order to deal with potential "misses" of the Hero Power. For this reason, adopting some for of early game or an alternative win condition (maybe some other Signature Treasure?) are options that players will have to consider.
All in all, a great change that will make Duels a healthier game mode.
What do you think of this single balance change? What impact will it have on the meta? Let us know in the comments below!
Comments
Good changes, It will slow the deck so you can't spew unanswerable boards. Unless you have insane fill you can ran out of resources this way and It will be more fair.
Lately my biggest headache is bomb warriors at the first 3-4 matches. 5 dmg for each bomb is so unfair when you have just 20 health and 16 cards and warrior have insane amount of armor gain It's really hard to have a win against bomb warrior without the treasures. It's good that we got rid of pirate warriors but I'm not sure, I might prefer machine gun priest to bomb warriors :S
I think the nerf will make it better in the first few matches of a run. If they are struggling to get early wins, those Vanndar decks maybe get abandoned to some extend. However, once they get into 30+ health and their survivability increases, it's still going to be a very dominant build. It is far to easy a strategy for it to be abandoned altogether. It's especially obnoxious with For the Alliance! since that makes their build more reliable (and makes Send in the Scout give only coins!), as well.
I just had a Vanndar run half before and half after the patch. With Inspiring Presence and Scepter of Summoning, pretty easy 12 and 2 run (losses were early).
The nerf meant my drops came down one turn later, but by turn 6 or 7, I only had like 2 minions that needed cost reduction anyway.
Still seems like too good a strat and I might not play duels for a bit unless I can continue to farm wins with Vanndar picks. I love the variety of duels, but losing to such a dominant strat always feels bad
Nerfing Battle Tactics is a much needed change but it doesn't feel like enough. This change means you have less options for your insanely OP drop on turn 4 or 5 but it's still a similar procession of board bombs turn after turn.