Blizzard has announced that the upcoming Buffs and Nerfs patch that was teased on Tuesday is making its way out today!
Buffs
- Sky Mother Aviana - Now Costs 5 Mana (Down from 6)
- Frost Lich Cross-Stitch - Now Costs 4 Mana (Down from 5)
Nerfs
- Awakening Tremors - Worm now has 3 Attack (Down from 4)
- Tigress Plushy - Now Costs 4 Mana (Up from 3)
- Deputization Aura - Now gives +1 Attack (Down from +3)
- Shroomscavate - Now Costs 2 Mana (Down from 3) but no longer gives Windfury.
- Thrall's Gift - Now provides a Lightning Storm instead of Lightning Bolt.
- Aftershocks - Now Costs 5 Mana (Up from 4)
- Odyn, Prime Designate - Now Costs 9 Mana (Up from 8)
- Zilliax Deluxe 3000 (Ticking Module) - Module now costs 5 Mana (Up from 4)
Additionally, Battlegrounds has recieved updated to quests, quest rewards, and minions! Check out the full patch notes below for more information.
Quote From Blizzard Patch 29.0.3, launching today, includes the following balance changes to Standard and Battlegrounds.
Hearthstone Updates
Dev Comment: We hope you’re enjoying Whizbang’s Workshop so far! We’ve seen you experimenting with lots of new cards and archetypes across most classes—and finding a few outliers. This patch is mostly to weaken those outliers and to offer a couple higher-confidence buffs based on early data.
The following cards have been adjusted to be weaker:
Tigress Plushy
- Old: [3 Mana]
- New: [4 Mana]
Deputization Aura
- Old: Your left-most minion has +3 Attack and Lifesteal. Lasts 3 turns.
- New: Your left-most minion has +1 Attack and Lifesteal. Lasts 3 turns.
Shroomscavate
- Old: [3 Mana] Give a minion Windfury and Divine Shield. Excavate a Treasure.
- New: [2 Mana] Give a minion Divine Shield. Excavate a Treasure.
Dev Comment: Paladin is the biggest power outlier since launch, with lots of damage from hand and healing. We like the overall play pattern of the deck, but we’re making these adjustments to tone down those two overperforming aspects of it.
Awakening Tremors
- Old: Get three 4/1 Worms. They cost (1).
- New: Get three 3/1 Worms. They cost (1).
Dev Comment: Hunter is another class that has overperformed in the early meta. Awakening Tremors is a card that has been played in almost all Hunter decks for some time now, and which can make for some really early snowballs. Shaving a little power from it should help keep other decks from falling too far behind as early as turns 1-2.
Thrall’s Gift
- Old: Discover a temporary Lightning Bolt, Hex, or Bloodlust.
- New: Discover a temporary Lightning Storm, Hex, or Bloodlust.
Dev Comment: Nature Shaman is primarily a sentiment outlier, with access to a lot of damage very early in the game. However, it’s also expected to get a better matchup spread after the other changes being made in this patch. This change removes some of that burst damage and redundancy in the deck. We think Lightning Storm is another good and flavorful option for Thrall’s Gift, weakening this specific deck, but offering options to other Shaman decks that weren’t there before.
Aftershocks
- Old: [4 Mana]
- New: [5 Mana]
Odyn, Prime Designate
- Old: [8 Mana]
- New: [9 Mana]
Dev Comment: Warrior is another class that is looking very strong in the early meta, and which is likely to get even stronger after the other changes in this patch. Aftershocks combined with Acolyte of Pain to let Warrior draw too quickly through its deck for its powerful late-game cards. We’re making these changes to make that endgame a little slower and less consistent.
Zilliax Deluxe 3000 (Ticking Module)
- Old: [4 Mana]
- New: [5 Mana]
Dev Comment: The reception to Zilliax Deluxe 3000 has been just about… perfection. We love all the different variations people are trying, but Ticking Module was proving to be a bit too efficient. We hope this change will bring this Zilliax more into line with overall power level and also encourage more continued Zilliax variety.
The above craftable cards will be eligible for a full dust refund for two weeks following Patch 29.0.3.
The following cards have been adjusted to be stronger:
Dev Comment: We don’t usually make buffs this early in a meta, but this time we were able to see a couple buff targets even in the very early data. We’ll keep an eye on these changes and look out for more opportunities in our next balance window, when we’ll have more data to inform these types of changes.
Sky Mother Aviana
- Old: [6 Mana]
- New: [5 Mana]
Frost Lich Cross-Stitch
- Old: [5 Mana] Deal 4 damage to a character. If it dies, summon a 3/6 Water Elemental that Freezes.
- New: [4 Mana] Deal 3 damage to a character. If it dies, summon a 3/6 Water Elemental that Freezes.
Battlegrounds Updates
Quest and Quest Reward Updates
The following Quests have been made easier to complete, but can no longer be paired with low-requirement Quest Rewards:
- Follow the Money
- Pressure the Authorities
- Dev Comment: These changes should reduce the frequency of Quest-Reward pairs that feel too easy or too difficult to complete.
The following Quests have been removed from the Quest Pool:
- Exhume the Bones
- Sort it All Out
- Dev Comment: These Quests had too many situations where they were either very difficult or trivially easy based on your early board, rather than the Reward they were paired with. Removing these two from the Quest Pool will make Quest-Reward pairings smoother and more consistent across games.
The following Quest Rewards have been made easier to earn:
- Splitting Scroll
- Gift of the Golden Kobold
- Temporal Tampering
- Anima Bribe
- Cooked Book
- Wondrous Wisdomball
- Boom Squad
- Bloodsoaked Tome
The following Quest Rewards have been made harder to earn:
- Sinfall Medallion
- Stable Amalgamation
- Tumbling Disaster
- Turbulent Tombs
- Gilnean War Horn
The following Quest Rewards have had their effects updated:
Sinfall Medallion
- Old: After you play a minion, give 2 other friendly minions of its Tier +2/+2.
- New: After you play a minion, give 2 other friendly minions of its Tier +4/+4.
Minion Updates
Moroes, Steward of Death
- Old: 5/1. Reborn. Deathrattle: Give your Undead +1/+5.
- New: 5/2. Reborn. Deathrattle: Give your Undead +2/+5.
Felboar
- Old: [Tier 6] 3/8
- New: [Tier 5] 2/6
Tichondrius
- Old: 4/4. After your hero takes damage, give your other Demons +1/+1.
- New: 3/3. After your hero takes damage, give your Demons +1/+1.
Living Azerite
- Old: [Tier 4] 4/4
- New: [Tier 3] 3/3
Wildfire Elemental
- Old: [Tier 3] 6/3
- New: [Tier 4] 8/4
Bream Counter
- Old: 5/5. While this is in your hand, after you play a Murloc, gain +3/+3.
- New: 6/6. While this is in your hand, after you play a Murloc, gain +2/+2.
Bug Fixes and Game Improvements
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Shudderblock couldn’t deal damage to the enemy hero if played and then its effect was not consumed.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Warsong Wrangler could buff the King Krush hero skin. You can’t wrangle the King!
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where there were different versions of Air Elemental in Core and Journey to Un’Goro. Now, both versions will have 3 Attack.
- [Battlegrounds] Cloning Conch will remain removed from the Tavern Spell pool with this patch.
- [Battlegrounds] Fixed a bug where Turbulent Tombs, Gilnean War Horn, Secret Culprit, and Ghastly Mask had the wrong completion difficulty modifiers (sometimes making them too easy to complete, sometimes making them too hard to complete).
- [Battlegrounds] Fixed a bug where Free-Flying Feathermane’s effect could trigger during the Recruit phase.
- [Progression] Fixed a bug where the “destroy Jepetto Joymancer” condition didn’t progress the Toymaker’s Trouble Event Quest.
- [General] Fixed various localization issues across languages.
![All The Great Dark Beyond Card Reveals for October 23 - Day 13 [Finished]](the-great-dark-beyond-day-13.webp)
Comments
They buffed Frost Lich Cross-Stitch's Mana cost, but quietly dropped the damage by a point as well. Couldn't just straight-up buff it; no, had to be a trade off of some kind :/
My take on the changes;
Shroomscavate and deputization aura effectively got nuked, because I cant see them see any play for their effects anymore. Its is really kind of funny, how shroomscavate doesnt really have any shaman connections anymore and is now just a vanilla exacavate card. Probably one of the weakest excavate card now.
Other nerfs are fine. Odyn needed a nerf because if it wasnt it'll probably continue to dominate warrior decks until it rotates. Im not exactly sure how anything can rock it off warrior's boat, except printing out more and more disgustingly powerful cards because at its base Odyn is just the perfect warrior card.
Aftershocks though, a bit of a hard nerf just because it does well with drawing. Effectively this card is just trash now, because there's simply much better clear tools than this.
That one mana bump on Odyn is pretty harsh. I think it's a meaningful change. He comes down later even in an ideal situation and your opening to drop him now needs to be even bigger, plus you can't weave in even a hero power on the turn he drops, making that turn even scarier. I like it.
The Paladin changes are broad but warranted. The deck had almost no weakness: efficient healing and board control to beat aggro, speed to beat combo, from-hand burst to beat control. If the individual tools are weaker then maybe Paladin will be forced to pick a lane.
Is it that hard to make Odyn, Prime Designate to give half the attack ? cost increase doesn't do anything at all.
They wanted to reduce the power level of the deck a bit and I think it will do that: one extra turn is all that some combo decks might need. Personally, I don't think decks that do nothing but stall until they find their win condition are fun and interactive. However, it seems Team 5's goal was to lower the win rate a bit, not to force the deck to be redesigned or retired.
which one extra turn ? I rarely see people play odyn on curve.
I see that they don't want the card to be retired but it is just so much for one card in an archetype like that. I don't care the deck's winrate. I just care how frustrating it is to play against. When milling strategy is being frustrating, or almost all of APM decks are being frustrating or spamming same minion over and over is frustrating (Shattered Reflections) they can easily bury them but this kind of frustration is not being a problem ?
You can't even play on some rounds just because they do nothing but spam armor and draw cards.
If you are tanking, then you are tanking; you shouldn't deal damage like a burst class in the same turn. We all know how combo decks act. They do all of their combination with other cards such as, defensive cards and aggressive cards. They shouldn't be same card, if a combo deck deals its damage, it shouldn't give it also defensive part. That deck's strategy is just ridiculous, they deal 28 damage and gain 28 armor at the same turn. It would be even ok if it is something like Spectral Cutlass that will give only restoration but with odyn, you gain + health, you can have 60hp and deal 30 damage at the same turn. Demon Hunter was doing the same thing with lifesteal but it was not giving him extra health (30+ health). So they were still vulnarable against other otk decks but with odyn, warriors are not because most of the otk decks deal 30 dmg potentially. It is so rare to deal 60 damage in a turn, you need to be so lucky. Odyn's archetype is just that weird like they couldn't even decide they want him in a combo or a control deck.
I'm also ok with that they gain that attack but losing the armor; I mean, transforming all armor into hero attack because otherwise, it doesn't give any chance to the opponent to win after they do that gain 10 Armor and deal 20 damage on 1 turn.
Nerf should have been either gain half amount of attack if they want it to be in control or convert all armor gain into hero attack if they want it to be in combo, otherwise; even you make the card to cost 10 for 1/1 body, it will stay as how broken it is.
I disagree. In my post above I say why I think this change is meaningful.
I disagree that aswell. Most of the time they already have 15+ armor when they drop odyn. if someone drop odyn while have only 10 hp with no armor, then they are probably don't know how to play that deck already. Relying on 2 armor from hero power and +2 attack from odyn is not realistic.
Plus, they have Safety Goggles now which makes this nerf even more meaningless. If we were at the end of odyn's rotation and he would rotate after this expansion, this nerf might be ok-ish but he will stay around for a year which makes the card even more problematic. Giving OTK to a class which potentially can gain 100+ armor with tons of wipe potential is just absurd. On some games against it while you are playing spell heavy control decks, you just burn your cards because he doesn't drop any minion on board. It just spam boardclears + armor, then get forged weapon and drop odyn.
If you really rely on 2 armor from heropower when you drop odyn, just don't play that deck.
Hero power was an example (note the "even" language I used). There are other plays warrior loves to use with Odyn, like Bladestorm, Shield Block, Aftershocks (which also got nerfed but still), even double Verse Riff. All are out of reach now. Given the deck's curve, Odyn might as well cost ten now, because it consumes the whole turn.
Odyn's lack of immediate impact makes that a hard thing to navigate. One of the hardest parts of Odyn warrior is finding your opening to drop Odyn and balancing that with survival. You have to be so far ahead you can basically flush a high-mana turn. The burst damage available these days makes finding that point harder, and it's much harder with a more expensive Odyn.
You seem to be writing from the perspective of spell-based burn or control decks. Those have always been warrior's best matchups, since the days of Vanilla and Freeze Mage, just because of how armor works. But most decks won't let warrior just sit there and armor up, and a more than expensive Odyn makes those matchups noticeably harder.
Not sure why they bother buffing Aviana. It will never be a good card.
I think the fact that its benefit comes relatively late in the game was the main thing holding it back. That might still be the case at 5 mana, but if it was a 1-mana 1/1 with the same battlecry, I think it would see a lot of play.