Details have arrived on this week's Hearthstone balance changes. We do not have a date confirmed yet.
- Seven cards are getting nerfed in constructed.
- Patches and Pyramad are both returning to the Battlegrounds hero pool.
- Shudderwock, Queen Togwaggle, and Infinite Toki have all had their hero powers adjusted.
- Golden Soul Juggler now deals 3 damage to a minion twice instead of 6 damage once.
- Arena received some card appearance adjustments.
- Druid, Hunter, and Paladin winrates in Arena should be decreased.
- Priest, Rogue, Shaman and Warlock winrates in Arena should now be increased.
The Card Nerfs
All will become disenchantable for full value when the nerfs hit for 2 weeks.
- (Discuss Nerf) Fiendish Rites cost is now 4 (up from 3).
- (Discuss Nerf) Scion of Ruin cost is now 4 (up from 3).
- (Discuss Nerf) Ancharrr durability is now 2 (down from 3).
- (Discuss Nerf) Dragon's Pack now gives +2/+2 (down from +3/+3).
- (Discuss Nerf) Invocation of Frost cost is now 2 (up from 1).
- (Discuss Nerf) Necrium Apothecary cost is now 5 (up from 4).
- (Discuss Nerf) Dragonqueen Alexstrasza can no longer generate herself.
Quote From Kaeyoh Welcome to a new year in the tavern, everyone! We have a balance update in the works that will go live later this week which includes the following changes, primarily for Standard and Battlegrounds:
Warlock
- Fiendish Rites: Mana cost increased from (3) to (4).
Warrior
- Scion of Ruin: Mana cost increased from (3) to (4).
- Ancharrr: Durability reduced from (3) to (2).
Shaman
- Dragon’s Pack: Now reads, “…If you’ve Invoked twice, give them +2/+2.” (reduced from +3/+3).
- Invocation of Frost: Mana cost increased from (1) to (2).
Rogue
- Necrium Apothecary: Mana cost increased from (4) to (5).
Neutral
- Dragonqueen Alexstrasza: Battlecry effect can no longer generate Dragonqueen Alexstrasza.
Once the update is live, adjusted cards will be eligible for a full Arcane Dust refund for two weeks.*
Battlegrounds
This update includes several adjustments and gets more Heroes brawling in Bob’s Tavern than ever before! Further Battlegrounds balance changes are coming very soon, in addition to the exciting new content we have in the pipeline… we’ll have more to share in the near future!
Heroes
- Shudderwock
- Burbling: Cost reduced from (2) to (1).
- Queen Wagtoggle
- Wax Warband: Give a random friendly Mech, Demon, Murloc and Beast +2 Attack. (instead of +1 Health)
- Infinite Toki
- Temporal Tavern: Cost reduced from (2) to (1). Now reads, “Refresh Bob’s Tavern. Include a Minion from a higher Tavern Tier.”
- Patches the Pirate
- Has returned to the Battlegrounds Hero Pool.
- Fire the Cannons!: At the start of next combat, deal 4 damage to two random enemy minions. (increased from 3 damage)
- Pyramad
- Has returned to the Battlegrounds Hero Pool.
- Brick by Brick: Give a random friendly minion +3 Health. (increased from +2 Health)
Minions
- Golden Soul Juggler
- After a friendly Demon dies, deal 3 damage to a random enemy minion twice. (instead of 6 damage once)
Bug Fixes and Game Improvements
- Battlegrounds: Selfless Hero’s Deathrattle will now only affect minions that do not already have Divine Shield.
- Arena: The appearance rate of cards in the draft has been updated to ensure class balance remains close to the ideal 50% win-rate. Specifically, the win-rate of Druid, Hunter, and Paladin should now be decreased. The win-rate of Priest, Rogue, Shaman and Warlock should now be increased. Card appearance rates for Mage and Warrior remain untouched.
Comments
Whatever happened to Reno? Must be one hell of a visual bug.
I already commented about the nerfs in their threads so I will only talk about battlegrounds here:
Shudderwock: much welcome buff the hero was really clunky to use specially since it's a single use hero power.
Queen Wagtoggle: while it's one more stat point with the removal of Nightmare Amalgam it's much harder to go menagerie, also on this mode hp is much more valuable that attack, might be different though cause Nightmare Amalgam was removed (yes, I mentioned it both as a pro and con) cause less comps have poisonous minions.. (only murlocs and sometimes beasts).
Infinite toki: is this an almost revert? I know it gives you one less option but the lower cost just makes it much better.
Patches: still bad
Pyramid: the problem is not the effect but the word RANDOM.. get rid of that word..
Soul juggler: dunno didn't play in a while aren't daemons really good? why was it buffed?
Selfless hero: appreciated now the card is more playable.
Nice changes - Wagtoggle and Pyramaid are still bad but I think the other 3 (Shudderwock, Toki and Patches) just went from bad to quite good.
Soul Juggler - actually I don't even know if this was supposed to be a nerf or buff. It is now better because it can remove 2 divine shields, but on the other hand, there are some really good targets to hit for 6 damage which won't be killed by a hit for 3 (mainly Mama Bear and Junkbot)
Don't play much battlegrounds but still do from time to time.
Shudderwock hp at 1 mana will help a lot in the late game, with amalgam gone, its a suitable time to buff this.
Reversion of mana cost for Toki's hp might be a big one. Toki was one of the best heroes pre-nerf. Interesting to see whether she'll be back on top after this.
Pyramid was one of the worst heroes to pick, but that was back in the day when amalgam was meta and games had minions at over 40+ hp. Giving 3 hp is kinda a big thing, even if its random. I expect this to be mid tier at least.
Queen and patches buff, not really relevant in my opinion. Rarely seen anyone pick these heroes. Patches doing 4 damage helps out in the early game, especially on turn 3, but past that I just don't see it.
Golden Soul juggler now deal separate damage per demon is actually a buff, considering how prevalent mechs are.
Selfless hero. Lol. I don't really know how to rate this change. I've never seen anyone keep this after going past 3 stars tier.
Hey, I got three top 1 finish with Patches. Overall, I think I have more than 60% winrate (top four finish) with Patches. I love that dude.
I think they will do battlegrounds revamp in couple of weeks, for now it is just minor fixes
Toki is full revert, because before buff she was giving less options too... She just had wrong text...
Very surprised to see Cobalt staying at Tier 3. That needs a fix. Very stoked for the change on Selfless Hero. Wish it was affecting Wild as well, but oh well. Juggler is interesting. I guess it's a nerf, since people were running two even after triple just to get the second knife, but I think standalone he's better, since in theory he can now kill a single shielded Cobalt by itself, if you get lucky
Shudderwock did not need a buff, imho. But I'm excited to see what people do with it.
Queen waggle is a great change, that hero was garbage until this. Might still suck, but we'll see.
Patches? Oof. Don't know if he needed a buff.
I'm so happy for the free legendary and no longer bummed about openingAncharrr :D
Yet again a round of mild nerfs. So here we go;
- Dragonqueen Alexstrasza: Is this a nerf? I'm fairly certain anyone who played this card doesn't do it for a chance at a second alex dropping out. But its nice that blizzard decides to let us dust it for full value anyway where in the past they would not. Anyway, this nerf will not cause anyone playing highlander to stop playing this card; its just good on its own. The second Alex has always been a highroll and never really a strat to begin with. Nevertheless, addressing this issue early is certainly in the right direction.
- Scion of Ruin: The increase of mana is hardly a nerf since it still enables the [Hearthstone Card (barrista lychen) Not Found] combo and at very best simply prevents this from dropping down immediately after playing Galakrond. From my own experience, Scion of Ruin is that value card you play when all that face damage doesn't work anymore, and by not addressing that face damage strat this time round Galakrond warrior will still be as good as it was before this nerf.
- Ancharrr: A decent nerf, but hardly game breaking. Its still going to draw you 2 cards so its still going back into the deck. Will this break pirate warrior? Mostly in wild. And its still busted when getting a second from Hoard Pillager, so this card will still see play.
- Dragon's Pack: 5 health is within the boundaries of a board clear and has been highlighted by Avalon, it enables Kronx Dragonhoof to kill it outright. The 4 attack is decent but will now trade well with 4-5 drops, as opposed to 5-6 pre-nerf. This nerf shouldve been done from the start, and given that my expectations was for this card to dodge the nerf stick, I'm pretty happy to see it didn't.
- Invocation of Frost: Strongest invoke card in the game. Flexible freeze effect. Absolutely busted with Zentimo. Spawns a 2/1 rush minion. So yes I'm happy with this surprise nerf. Breaks the frog chain. Wasn't expecting it, but very glad it happened.
- Necrium Apothecary: Probably the most asked for. Nuff said really. The nerf doesn't destroy the card, but certainly destroy deathrattle rogue as we know it. Maybe from its ashes another type of deathrattle rogue without all those 1 drops can exist. And that's how it should have been.
- Fiendish Rites: Not too sure why this nerf had to happen, but it did. Can't say for certain what this is really going to do to Galakrond warlock, since this card is hardly a finisher. At best it slows it down a little.
Overall, since the nerf did not really touch upon aggro that much aside from Ancharrr, low win rate class champion mage will probably stay there until the 35 cards introduction. Probably Galakrond shaman takes the hardest hit to its win rate, and deathrattle rogue goes back to the meme dimension until it gets a facelift.
I"m super bummed about Fiendish Rites being hit, but it makes it a little more balanced, especially for Wild. The others, are a no brainer though. [Hearthstone Card (Necrium Apothecary) Not Found] and [Hearthstone Card (Dragon's Pack) Not Found] needed it.
Not sure where on Wild you're playing but in my experience Zoo Warlock is a laughing stock among top decks (bottom tier 2 as of December). It has little to no flexibility and very poor answers to many other, more powerful decks. Any kind of AoE tends to just wipe it off the board and in most cases, everything Zoolock does, Odd Paladin does better. In a meta of ultra defensive Reno decks, mana-cheating control decks and lightning-fast Secret Mages, Zoolock seems to barely get a word in. And now it just got worse.
I've been playing it steadily since the DoD release from 10-5. It dog walks a lot of control because of it's draw abilities. But that's just been my experience.
Agree, Fiendish Rites nerf might push Zoo lower tier once again.
I wonder why haha. Druid, Hunter, Paladin ... Dragon Explorer Classes. Who would have thought they would be strong xaxa :)
Damn! When they said they're gonna balance some Cards, I didn't expect them to hit all of the potential candidates and some more!
That's defenitely gonna leave a giant mark on the Meta. I'm still hoping for Galakrond-Priest to become finally somewhat viable.
BTW: Remember when during Reveal-Season everyone said that this might be the most powerful set ever?
Wow. Just wow. Previously the nerfs were a big thing and now they just casually nerf half of the new expansion with no additional explanation of the nerfs. I'm not saying I disagree with them, though. I don't think any of the nerfs were unnecessary, except maybe invocation of frost. I don't think it's that relevant of a change either. It's funny how they nerfed all of the galakrond shaman cards except for the galakrond itself, as though they haven't even tested its power level. My only concern is that the change on scion of ruin will not matter that much as it's still a pretty strong card for a low cost.
it seems pretty significant. It means the combos with Breeder and Barista are harder to pull off, you can no longer play 3 Scions in one turn and, most importantly, it eliminates the Galakrond + Scion swing turns
I agree, although I never faced a warrior who played 3 scions in one turn so I didn't even think of that. It's still a great card, you have to admit.
I honestly don't understand why so many downvotes on my comment. I probably misjudged invocation of frost, but compared to previous nerf history, this expansion really seems silly.
alright, so first of all:
those battleground changes are garbage. Literally no nerfs to any significant minion. Cobalt Guardian is still way too op at tier 3, as is Spawn of N'zoth at 2. Beasts are still basically playing russian roulette because if you don't highroll into Mama Bear or Godrinn you get run over. Not gonna touch that mode anymore until the next patch because right now it's basically just casino with very little to do outside of highrolling.
now the nerfs:
Fiendish Rites is probably the most puzzling. Like...it's a good card, way better than anyone could have expected...but seriously? Galakrond Zoolock is a good deck, but it's not nearly impressive enough to warrant nerfs right now....At least I don't think it does. Maybe they have data that proves me wrong. Either way, this really seems unnecessary,
Scion of Ruin is more than justified given how many ways there are to make more copies of the damn thing. Also helps that Galakrond Warrior can no longer luck into this on turn 10 with the Galakrond and instantly swing the board.
[Hearthstone Card (Ancharr) Not Found] I expected a mana change, but this also makes sense and emphasizes Upgrade and Hoard Pillager in the builds. At least I get my dust back, Pirate Warrior is boring as hell.
Dragon's Pack should have happened the first round and is still more than fair given the Arsenal Shaman still has...although it certainly will drop the deck's winrate by quite a bit, especially with the other Shaman nerf.
Invocation of Frost seems to be overdoing it. Not only does it ruin the Frog build because we don't have a good 1-mana spell anymore, but also the spell itself isn't even that broken. It's strong, sure, but it's not overpowering. It's a strong card that helped enable a load of even stronger cards in a deck that now has been gutted twice....and no I'm not salty because I had likie 10 of these and I dusted them thinking there's no way they'd ever nerf a spell as simple as this.
Necrium Apothecary is both deserved and fair. It breaks that immediate curve from Necrium Blade and it also delays the powerplay by one turn giving you more time to pressure (especially since Apothecary itself needs a turn to proc usually). This makes me really happy because it doesn't kill the card and keeps it around for future fun but doesn't make it a mandatory strategy for all Rogue decks anymore. Go Gral.
Dragonqueen Alexstrasza makes me unbelievably happy, simply because it finally breaks the taboo of changing card-specific mechanics for balance (I guess the echo changes did that already, wahtever). I hope they apply this fix to a lot more cards with a similar mechanic, but I guess this is just the most abusive one so far.
Overall a mixed bag. I wonder if they plan on reverting some of them if they go to far. Kinda regret crafting Zentimo now, didn't think they'd nuke Galakrond Shaman this hard again.