Our Thoughts on the Post-Worlds Balance Update - Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, Warrior, and Neutrals

Hello everyone and welcome back to our breakdown of the constructed changes in the most recent patch! If you missed the first article where we covered the changes to Death Knight, Druid, Mage, Paladin, and Priest, here is a link to it! Since we still have quite a bit of cards to cover, let us just jump straight into the other changes, starting with Rogue!

The Azerite Scorpion

Spells given now are reduced for each time excavated, but not less than 1 (Previously would reduce to 0 after excavating 8 times)

Even with the buffs to some of Rogue’s other excavate tools, the reward proved to be too situational for the deck to see some success. Now, instead of needing to play 8(!) excavate cards to get a strong payoff similar to that of the other classes, playing The Azerite Scorpion the second you get it is much better. As of right now, the average cost of a spell in standard is around 2.85~ and so it's pretty expected to get a bunch of spells that you can cast for 1 mana. The patch notes mention not wanting to have the Azerite Scorpion slot in as just more fodder for Necrolord Draka and Sinstone Graveyard but even if the spells cost 1, that's still 4 extra cards in addition to whatever other nonsense the rogue player could cast earlier. It is still up in the air on whether Miracle Rogue should consider running the excavate cards, but I definitely feel that the Azerite Scorpion is a good enough payoff for that archetype and it will just boil down to whether that style of deck can afford to run the necessary package to reach it. Even beyond miracle decks the value of 4 relatively free spells is still very good and it just works so much better with the tools Rogue was already playing with.

Velarok Windblade

Now requires you to play one card from another class (Down from 3)

Another rogue archetype that is getting some love this patch is Burglar Rogue, notably with its newest legendary. Velarok Windblade is a weird card that requires you to jump through a hoop for it to suddenly become very powerful, but we’ve seen this type of card in the past be very strong with stuff like Vendetta. Going from requiring 3 cards to 1 card to transform is a huge buff and it allows the card to be more easily splashed into and not as reliant on draw RNG. I’m not sure what direction Rogue would want to lean into to properly support Velarok, but the requirement going down to 1 card suddenly opens the door for already decent cards to suddenly enable it, such as Shadowjeweler Hanar and a secret package or Hazy Concoction and that whole group of cards. Whether this is enough to bring Miracle Rogue, Secret Rogue, or Burglar Rogue into viability, I’m not too sure, but I can at least say that I wouldn’t be surprised to see Velarok pop up in decks not entirely dedicated to generating random class cards as for pretty much any Rogue deck it can slot in very easily.

Shell Game

Now costs 2 (Down from 3)

The other Burglar Rogue card being buffed in this patch, Shell Game is now much more similar to Jackpot! in the “1 card that generates a bunch of garbage” camp. Jackpot! is probably still better overall since it has a more niche pool that can be abused more easily with stuff like Swiftscale Trickster, but spending 2 mana to generate 3 cards is pretty good value. In my opinion, decks like Burglar Rogue don’t need more value and instead need more consistency and as much as I’d love to look through every single common, rare, and epic to determine whether Shell Game is going to be ridiculous or not, I think that is a lot of effort to come to the conclusion that its funny and gives more garbage to spew out of your hand, but not much more. It's still weaker than cards like Kaja'mite Creation and Swashburglar, but I can see people running it just for the sheer amount of stuff it gives.

Doctor Holli’dae

Staff of the Nine Frogs now has 1 attack (Down from 2)

While Highlander Shaman has been a more or less healthy card in the metagame, the shear strength of Doctor Holli'dae proved to be a huge outlier. While this is to be expected as a payoff for gimping your entire deck, Doctor Holli'dae took this to the extreme boasting around mid 70% win rate when played before the nerf, which for a card that can be played as early as turn 5 is a pretty big sign that something is a bit unbalanced. This nerf makes the weapon no longer 18 damage ignoring the frog portion of it, which definitely hurts the card, but the inevitability and pressure the frogs apply should still make the card very strong. Honestly the biggest issue with Doctor Holli’dae is that there is not a whole lot of strong weapons to justify running weapon removal in the main deck. Having to rely on E.T.C., Band Manager isn’t the worst for fetching weapon destruction, but a lot of decks that struggle with Staff of the Nine Frogs cannot afford to run a durdly 4 drop. Overall the card is still very good, it just won’t win games completely by itself anymore.

Barrel of Sludge

Now costs 3 mana and deals 4 damage (Up from 2 mana and dealing 3 damage)

So after fiddling around with Sludge on Wheels, it looks like Blizzard is finally addressing barrel in the room. Compared to the buff the deck got a week ago, this one is looking a lot more sizeable, specifically only for Warlock though as classes that were running Tram Mechanic (literally only Mage) are going to struggle more with casting it and 1 more damage doesn’t justify the increased cost. Four damage is going to do a significantly better job at clearing most threats and suddenly being able to turn turns where your opponent has no creatures into a huge amount of burn with something like Fracking dealing 8 damage or Waste Remover dealing 12 on top of being a 4 mana 7/7 is definitely nothing to scoff at. When the deck hits Disposal Assistant and Sludge on Wheels, it's going to have a ludicrous amount of burst, but ultimately the mechanic still feels like it might be a bit clunky still. I’m hoping that it works out since I’ve been a fan of Sludge Warlock since I saw the concept, but I’m still hesitant while we still only have 2 cards that put it on the bottom of the deck.

Furnace Fuel

Now costs 3 mana (Down from 4)

Furnace Fuel also saw a pretty decent buff, now becoming at worst an Arcane Intellect and at best 2 free cards for playing an already decent card. The fact that both Barrel of Sludge and Furnace Fuel cost the same amount of mana does lead to some awkwardness with things like Trolley Problem, but it feels pretty silly to say that this isn’t a strong buff just because of that. Furnace Fuel’s largest issue has always been that drawing it sucks, and playing it sucks even more, so making its lows not as bad while keeping its high roll potential seems pretty solid. 

Pop’gar, the Putrid

Now reduces Fel spells by 2 mana (Up from 1)

More of a buff to make it still work well with Barrel of Sludge, Pop'gar the Putrid discounting Fel spells by two instead of one also coincidentally makes another fairly decent Fel spell leagues better. Crescendo and some of the “take fatigue damage early” cards to help make it stronger is unsurprisingly very strong when it has lifesteal to offset any fatigue damage on top of costing 0. Because of this, Pop’gar is going to be a lot more explosive than it once was. Unfortunately there are not too many other Fel spells that can really take advantage of this discount, but between the other buffs Sludge Warlock has gotten this patch and being able to use Crescendo better, I think the archetype might be able to see a bit more of the light of day.

Slagmaw the Slumbering

Now awakens in 6 turns (Down from 8)

Excavate Warrior is also receiving some more buffs following after last week’s initial ones. Starting with one of the more exciting payoffs for the archetype, Slagmaw the Slumbering is decent if played on curve but quickly becomes a dead draw as the game goes on. Warrior does not have an unlimited amount of cycling or ways to replay cards in the same way that the other excavate classes have, so even on later turns Slagmaw just becomes 4 mana do nothing. Making the dormant last 2 turns less translates directly to needing less excavate cards and is going to help remedy some of the issues of it being an awful late game draw. That problem is still going to exist of course, but hopefully this will lessen that blow to make it playable.

Khaz’gorath

Now has 5 health (Up from 4)

Another fairly minor buff, Khaz'goroth's ability to be immune when attacking makes the one extra health not matter a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. It lines up better against the newly buffed Barrels of Sludge, and if you use the health and armor mode a 4/10 is a pretty difficult body to clear for a good chunk of decks, but this can also be said about its pre-buff 4/9 stat line. I don’t think this is going to push any new Warrior decks to include the card but I’m all for seeing more Titans stay viable since they are all pretty neat conceptually.

Horseshoe Flinger

Now costs 2 mana 1/1 (Down from 3 mana 2/2)

There are two main things to consider when looking at Horseshoe Slinger, its own ability and its strength off of being randomly generated. This is the type of card that you would never include for its body before the buff, so having it be 1 less mana to directly compete as a neutral Thornveil Tentacle is pretty decent. It gives every class access to some form of somewhat decent removal that becomes much better if quickdrawn, which while not the best, is at least an option for decks that want to take things a bit slower. The other angle is to consider with Flint Firearm. Horseshoe Slinger was not one of the cards that would clog up Flint’s pool, but it's still a buff nonetheless. All in all this is to say that I don’t think this card is going to be playable still, but at least for people doing some goofy off meta stuff there are now more options.

Wrapping Up

Overall another pretty solid set of buffs and nerfs. Besides the Pyrotechnician ban, I’m a pretty big fan of pretty much all the changes. Nothing feels too heavy handed and while that might lead to some decks still sitting at the top of the meta game (looking at you Paladin), I’d much rather them help bring up underperforming archetypes like the Excavate decks and Sludge Warlock then just continue to beat down the top tier decks nonstop.

Before wrapping up I do briefly want to take a look at the rest of the meta game and see if there's any notable outliers. While obviously the meta game has been shaken up quite a bunch from the fact that 23 cards were changed, it looks like the buffs have done a pretty good job shaking things up. Both Rogue, Priest, and Warlock have some interesting decks brewing around the buffed cards, with Rogue seeming to be performing very well. Last week I also brought up Demon Hunter’s play rate discrepancy and while it's still bad, it's slowly been creeping up to a reasonable level. Blindeye Sharpshooter continues to lead this charge, being a terror in higher ranks while being virtually nonexistent at lower ranks and I’m not sure how best to fix this issue without just killing the deck completely.

That's all for this patch and most likely year given how the holidays are going to be starting soon. How have all y’all been enjoying the newly buffed cards? I know I’m having a field day with the newly buffed Barrels of Sludge and I’m interested to see if there's been any other cool new decks popping up. Let me know in the comments below!