EDIT: I posted this two days before the new nerfs were announced. I actually agree with most, if not all, of these. Not sure about Execute though...
First, this is a long post. The general idea behind the post is that I think Blizzard is bad at nerfing cards and deciding when nerfs are necessary. Please tell me what you guys think. (There's a small summary paragraph at the bottom)
I wanted to discuss the history of Blizzard's nerfs to various cards in the game and why they often do the following:
Overnerf cards, rendering them unplayable
Ignore problem cards that are just as powerful or uninteractive as cards previously nerfed for those same reasons
Have nerfed multiple cards because they are auto-includes in all archetypes of a class, but allow many cards of this nature to exist
I will start by listing their most notable nerfs (post-beta), the reasons behind them, and why I think they are good or bad.
1. Unleash the Hounds - Changed from 2 mana to 3 mana. At the time of the nerf, this was to counteract the combo with Starving Buzzard. This combo allowed hunters to weaken the enemy board while simultaneously drawing large amounts of cards. This nerf was understandable in my eyes, as it was a staple in all hunter decks.
2. Starving Buzzard - Changed from a 2 mana 2/1 to a 5 mana 3/2. This nerf was ridiculous and is the first example of Blizzard overnerfing a card. The +1/+1 to the stats meant nothing because a 5 mana 3/2 is just as bad as a 5 mana 2/1. Now you cannot get the desired combo effect until 3 turns later. Even making the card a 3 mana 2/1 would have been sufficient, as the card is still really bad without Unleash the Hounds in your hand and would be hunter's ONLY good card draw. Compare a 3 mana 2/1 Starving Buzzard to the currently unplayed Cult Master, and you start to see that the two are almost equal in power level when comboed with Unleash the Hounds.
3. Leeroy Jenkins - Changed from 4 mana to 5 mana. This change is fine based on the reasons that Blizzard often gives for card nerfs. One of their reasons is to reduce cards and combos that are not "fun and interactive". Burst damage is not fun and interactive, so it was nerfed.
4. Gadgetzan Auctioneer - Changed from 5 mana to 6 mana. Blizzard doesn't like drawing your whole deck at once in the mid-game, as seen with the Starving Buzzard + Unleash nerf. This nerf seems fine and is consistent with that philosophy.
5. Undertaker - Now gains +1 Attack when you summon a deathrattle minion instead of +1/+1. The reason for nerfing this card is that it was "frustrating to play against". This nerf made the card unplayable, but was necessary given its power level. Their reason for nerfing this card perplexes me. They nerfed it because it was a 1-drop that was far too powerful and could sometimes stick on board until the mid-game, but they allow other similar cards like Tunnel Trogg and Mana Wyrm to stay unchanged. These cards can feel unfair and snowball out of control if played on turn 1, especially when placed behind a taunt like Mirror Image or Feral Spirit.
6. Warsong Commander - Changed from "Whenever you summon a minion with 3 or less attack, give it charge" to "Be totally unplayable forever". Why, Blizzard? All you had to do was change one aspect of the card, and it would have been a great but fair card. It could have read "Your minions with 3 or less attack have charge". This way it can't be used for OTKs with Frothing Berserker, is still a good option with Grim Patron, and doesn't limit the future design space of warrior. One question I have to ask, is why did Blizzard nerf Warsong Commander, but Raging Worgen + Charge combos are perfectly okay? Why is one OTK okay, but another unhealthy for the game? Freeze mage is okay too, no nerfs there since Pyroblast in beta. Anyfin Can Happen paladin? Totally fine.
7. Molten Giant - Cost increased from 20 to 25. Did anyone want this? Blizzard's reasoning was that it was too easy to create 0 mana giants...then they printed Arcane Giant. As the meta has shifted more towards aggro/aggressive midrange, I don't think that the old Molten Giant would even currently be viable. Even if it was viable, it certainly wouldn't be top-tier. This change completely broke Handlock and Echo Giant Mage (in wild), which seems uncalled for considering those were two very interesting and fair control decks.
8. Force of Nature + Savage Roar - Another OTK that Blizzard axed from the game because it was not fun and interactive. I agree with this one, but only because of the existence of Innervate. With Innervate in the game, you could get burst down from almost full health when the enemy druid had little to no board. I personally would've just liked to see the cost of Savage Roar go up to 4 (reducing the frequency of double combo) , but their decision to eliminate the combo entirely is understandable according to their "we hate OTKs" policy.
9. Keeper of the Grove and Ancient of Lore - These are both examples of cards that were nerfed because they are auto-includes in most druid decks. They were nerfed because "Keeper of the Grove shouldn't be a default choice for all Druid decks, so we changed it from a 2/4 to a 2/2" and because "We'd like players to that other cards can compete with Ancient of Lore, so we've reduced the number of cards drawn from 2 to 1". If cards being auto-includes in all archetypes means they should be nerfed, then why are auto-includes so prevalent? Shaman, Rogue, Druid, and Hunter are the biggest culprits of auto-includes across all archetypes, mainly because there are so few archetypes for these classes.
10. Blade Flurry - Nerfed from 2 mana and dealing damage to all enemies to 4 mana and dealing damage to enemy minions. I'll never understand this stupid change. They don't want it to be used as burst damage, fine. But 4 mana? NOBODY agrees with this. This is just another example of an overnerfed card.
Given their reasons for nerfs in the past, it seems that quite a few are currently needed to improve the health of the game. Blizzard nerfs cards that give too much advantage too quickly (Starving Buzzard + Unleash the Hounds, Undertaker, Gadgetzan Auctioneer), are unhealthy burst damage/OTK tools (Leeroy Jenkins, Warsong Commander, Force of Nature + Savage Roar, Blade Flurry), or are uncontested auto-includes within an archetype when deck building (Ancient of Lore and Keeper of the Grove in druid, Knife Juggler andLeper Gnome in aggro). Based on this history of nerfs, I believe there are several cards today that meet these same criteria and are in need of nerfs (I won't mention which ones, but I'm sure you can think of some too). Although I fear that Blizzard might kill the cards if they nerf them.
That's really all I have to say about the nerfs. What do you guys think? Does Blizzard overnerf? Are nerfs currently in order for the same reasons they've nerfed cards in the past?
Snake Trap + Starving Buzzard. It used to be crazy. Paladins still has a ridiculous card draw though as it was not seen as powerful.
Huh, never heard of that. As you can obviously tell, I didn't play HS before the Starving Buzzard nerf and I didn't see any mentions of Snake Trap when I was researching for this post. But yeah, I see how that would distinguish Starving Buzzard from Cult Master. Still not sure if it justifies the full nerf though.
The difference between undertaker and trogg/wyrm was the health buff. You can't 'heal' your wyrm with new spells while the undertaker got more and more HP with every rattledrop. Making him hard to kill.
@warsong commander:
before it gave only charge to 1-3 attack minions it gave charge to every minion. So basically this card was nerfed twice. And that's ok. This card was cancer.
Most nerfs have been to vanilla cards. Cards that rotate out have a much lower chance of being nerfed, though if i had to pick one yogg would be at the top of the list.
9. Keeper of the Grove and Ancient of Lore - These are both examples of cards that were nerfed because they are auto-includes in most druid decks. They were nerfed because "Keeper of the Grove shouldn't be a default choice for all Druid decks, so we changed it from a 2/4 to a 2/2" and because "We'd like players to that other cards can compete with Ancient of Lore, so we've reduced the number of cards drawn from 2 to 1". If cards being auto-includes in all archetypes means they should be nerfed, then why are auto-includes so prevalent? Shaman, Rogue, Druid, and Hunter are the biggest culprits of auto-includes across all archetypes, mainly because there are so few archetypes for these classes.
This cards were nerfed right before Fandral Staghelm was released.
At the current state Fandral Staghelm is very powerful when he is for 2-3 turns on board.
I don't understand what you mean. After all the "soul" of the card was preserved in all cases. Now I think we can all agree that the fact that those cards rarely saw any play after the nerfs is just a coincidence (it couldn't be because Blizzard nerfed them).
On the Fandral Staghelm comments. I don't think it is fair to talk about how broken a card would be when comboed with him. Besides you usually wouldn't even be able to combo Ancient of Lore with him anyway (and even if you do all you get is a measly 5 heal, which is not that big of a deal for an aggro deck considering you are putting no taunt into the board to prevent direct face damage). I also can't understand what that nerf achieved since now Nourish sees play in a lot of decks instead (you need a lot of card draw since ramping depletes your card advantage quickly). So do we nerf that next? With that logic Blizzard should have just introduced core sets that rotate (meaning moving classic to wild) on top of expansions and adventures.
Then we have Blade Flurry, which was a very stupid nerf. Blizzard "reasoned" that this is to clear design space for better weapons. Two add-ons later and we find ourselves with Deadly Fork (very creative, but how is a generic 3 mana 3/2 a good weapon. All similarly statted weapons are much better). On top of that since Rogue has no heals they have to spend a lot of their turns using their spells as single target removal (so yeah bumping flurry to 4 mana was unnecessary and made it harder for Rogue to compete).
This is also the reason why I always say that cards shouldn't be nerfed. A blizzard nerf means the card may as well as not be in the game at all (which would also be a hidden buff to Renounce Warlock and Peddler Rogue).
UTH was nerfed to 4 mana at first, and then buffed to 3 mana. Also the very first Buzzard design was:"whenever you PLAY beast..." and it would be good.
Numero 7 is spot on. Even in original form, Molten Giant is no match for Arcane Giant. You can put Arcane Giant into just about any deck, and reasonably expect it to cost 4-6 mana. In Druid and Mage, it will most likely cost 0-2 mana, with little health lost
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9. Keeper of the Grove and Ancient of Lore - These are both examples of cards that were nerfed because they are auto-includes in most druid decks. They were nerfed because "Keeper of the Grove shouldn't be a default choice for all Druid decks, so we changed it from a 2/4 to a 2/2" and because "We'd like players to that other cards can compete with Ancient of Lore, so we've reduced the number of cards drawn from 2 to 1". If cards being auto-includes in all archetypes means they should be nerfed, then why are auto-includes so prevalent? Shaman, Rogue, Druid, and Hunter are the biggest culprits of auto-includes across all archetypes, mainly because there are so few archetypes for these classes.
This cards were nerfed right before Fandral Staghelm was released.
At the current state Fandral Staghelm is very powerful when he is for 2-3 turns on board.
Well it's not like "choose both" is a particularly devastating effect on either of those cards. The vast majority of the time you need to either silence or damage, not both. And the 11 mana combo with AoL isn't exactly game breaking. If fandral is left up for a turn in the midgame, it's very likely the druid just wins anyway against decks where healing matters (i e against mainly aggressive decks).
I m o AoL should've been nerfed to 6 mana, draw 1 card. The current nerf just made it unplayable. Keeper should probably have been nerfed to a 2/3. Both of those changes would've rendered the cards playable, but far from auto-includes and the effects with fandral would still have been very lackluster.
Speaking of nerfs what do you guys think of the just announced nerfs? Here is my comment for that article.
Mostly reasonable changes. Not sure yet about Call of the Wild and Execute. Also I feel like the overload part (that will come in a future update) for Yogg is pretty excessive, while the part where if its not on the board it stops casting spells is pretty good (after all Yogg rarely survives himself). I like all other changes, but I still feel shaman will be strong until the next rotation (they still have Tunnel Trogg and Totem Golem), however, the current changes should make the class less frustrating to play against.
Rockbiter Weapon - I feel it might not see play in the regular midrange anymore, but it is a nice nerf to Doomhammer + Rockbiter combo. Certainly still a good card if you build a windfury combo deck.
Yogg-Saron, Hope's End - I really don't know what to think. It's still very random, but it's less likely to do that thing where it clears the whole board and then fills yours up, draws 6 cards, deals 15 damage to your opponent, and gives you 17 armor. I guess it's a good nerf. We'll see.
Tuskarr Totemic - THANK YOU BLIZZARD. But I wonder if Tuskarr will see play anymore in regular midrange? Is summoning a basic totem for 1-1.5 mana good enough?
Abusive Sergeant - Love the change. Card is too good. I think, unlike Leper Gnome, Abusive Sergeant will still see play though.
Call of the Wild - Often when playing midrange hunter, I find myself in a situation where a turn 8 CotW saves me the game if I'm in a losing position. 1 turn later, and I'd lose for sure. I admit the card might have been OP, but it feels like it's the only reason that hunter is so good right now.
Execute - The best removal in the game is now....still the best removal in the game? It'll still be 2x in every warrior deck, but I don't really think the change was necessary.
Charge - I understand the whole "limiting design space" argument, but why does Blizzard hate OTK decks so much? :(
The other option for Rockbiter would've been to keep it at 1 and make it so it only targets minions, but I'm fine with what they did.
A whole round of nerfs, and the only card they burned completely to the ground was Charge. I think the rest are still most likely playable, and several are still auto-include even after the nerf. I like these.
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EDIT: I posted this two days before the new nerfs were announced. I actually agree with most, if not all, of these. Not sure about Execute though...
First, this is a long post. The general idea behind the post is that I think Blizzard is bad at nerfing cards and deciding when nerfs are necessary. Please tell me what you guys think. (There's a small summary paragraph at the bottom)
I wanted to discuss the history of Blizzard's nerfs to various cards in the game and why they often do the following:
I will start by listing their most notable nerfs (post-beta), the reasons behind them, and why I think they are good or bad.
1. Unleash the Hounds - Changed from 2 mana to 3 mana. At the time of the nerf, this was to counteract the combo with Starving Buzzard. This combo allowed hunters to weaken the enemy board while simultaneously drawing large amounts of cards. This nerf was understandable in my eyes, as it was a staple in all hunter decks.
2. Starving Buzzard - Changed from a 2 mana 2/1 to a 5 mana 3/2. This nerf was ridiculous and is the first example of Blizzard overnerfing a card. The +1/+1 to the stats meant nothing because a 5 mana 3/2 is just as bad as a 5 mana 2/1. Now you cannot get the desired combo effect until 3 turns later. Even making the card a 3 mana 2/1 would have been sufficient, as the card is still really bad without Unleash the Hounds in your hand and would be hunter's ONLY good card draw. Compare a 3 mana 2/1 Starving Buzzard to the currently unplayed Cult Master, and you start to see that the two are almost equal in power level when comboed with Unleash the Hounds.
3. Leeroy Jenkins - Changed from 4 mana to 5 mana. This change is fine based on the reasons that Blizzard often gives for card nerfs. One of their reasons is to reduce cards and combos that are not "fun and interactive". Burst damage is not fun and interactive, so it was nerfed.
4. Gadgetzan Auctioneer - Changed from 5 mana to 6 mana. Blizzard doesn't like drawing your whole deck at once in the mid-game, as seen with the Starving Buzzard + Unleash nerf. This nerf seems fine and is consistent with that philosophy.
5. Undertaker - Now gains +1 Attack when you summon a deathrattle minion instead of +1/+1. The reason for nerfing this card is that it was "frustrating to play against". This nerf made the card unplayable, but was necessary given its power level. Their reason for nerfing this card perplexes me. They nerfed it because it was a 1-drop that was far too powerful and could sometimes stick on board until the mid-game, but they allow other similar cards like Tunnel Trogg and Mana Wyrm to stay unchanged. These cards can feel unfair and snowball out of control if played on turn 1, especially when placed behind a taunt like Mirror Image or Feral Spirit.
6. Warsong Commander - Changed from "Whenever you summon a minion with 3 or less attack, give it charge" to "Be totally unplayable forever". Why, Blizzard? All you had to do was change one aspect of the card, and it would have been a great but fair card. It could have read "Your minions with 3 or less attack have charge". This way it can't be used for OTKs with Frothing Berserker, is still a good option with Grim Patron, and doesn't limit the future design space of warrior. One question I have to ask, is why did Blizzard nerf Warsong Commander, but Raging Worgen + Charge combos are perfectly okay? Why is one OTK okay, but another unhealthy for the game? Freeze mage is okay too, no nerfs there since Pyroblast in beta. Anyfin Can Happen paladin? Totally fine.
7. Molten Giant - Cost increased from 20 to 25. Did anyone want this? Blizzard's reasoning was that it was too easy to create 0 mana giants...then they printed Arcane Giant. As the meta has shifted more towards aggro/aggressive midrange, I don't think that the old Molten Giant would even currently be viable. Even if it was viable, it certainly wouldn't be top-tier. This change completely broke Handlock and Echo Giant Mage (in wild), which seems uncalled for considering those were two very interesting and fair control decks.
8. Force of Nature + Savage Roar - Another OTK that Blizzard axed from the game because it was not fun and interactive. I agree with this one, but only because of the existence of Innervate. With Innervate in the game, you could get burst down from almost full health when the enemy druid had little to no board. I personally would've just liked to see the cost of Savage Roar go up to 4 (reducing the frequency of double combo) , but their decision to eliminate the combo entirely is understandable according to their "we hate OTKs" policy.
9. Keeper of the Grove and Ancient of Lore - These are both examples of cards that were nerfed because they are auto-includes in most druid decks. They were nerfed because "Keeper of the Grove shouldn't be a default choice for all Druid decks, so we changed it from a 2/4 to a 2/2" and because "We'd like players to that other cards can compete with Ancient of Lore, so we've reduced the number of cards drawn from 2 to 1". If cards being auto-includes in all archetypes means they should be nerfed, then why are auto-includes so prevalent? Shaman, Rogue, Druid, and Hunter are the biggest culprits of auto-includes across all archetypes, mainly because there are so few archetypes for these classes.
10. Blade Flurry - Nerfed from 2 mana and dealing damage to all enemies to 4 mana and dealing damage to enemy minions. I'll never understand this stupid change. They don't want it to be used as burst damage, fine. But 4 mana? NOBODY agrees with this. This is just another example of an overnerfed card.
Given their reasons for nerfs in the past, it seems that quite a few are currently needed to improve the health of the game. Blizzard nerfs cards that give too much advantage too quickly (Starving Buzzard + Unleash the Hounds, Undertaker, Gadgetzan Auctioneer), are unhealthy burst damage/OTK tools (Leeroy Jenkins, Warsong Commander, Force of Nature + Savage Roar, Blade Flurry), or are uncontested auto-includes within an archetype when deck building (Ancient of Lore and Keeper of the Grove in druid, Knife Juggler andLeper Gnome in aggro). Based on this history of nerfs, I believe there are several cards today that meet these same criteria and are in need of nerfs (I won't mention which ones, but I'm sure you can think of some too). Although I fear that Blizzard might kill the cards if they nerf them.
That's really all I have to say about the nerfs. What do you guys think? Does Blizzard overnerf? Are nerfs currently in order for the same reasons they've nerfed cards in the past?
Snake Trap + Starving Buzzard. It used to be crazy. Paladins still has a ridiculous card draw though as it was not seen as powerful.
Nerfs in any card game renders the card pretty much unplayable.
See you on the other side...
The difference between undertaker and trogg/wyrm was the health buff. You can't 'heal' your wyrm with new spells while the undertaker got more and more HP with every rattledrop. Making him hard to kill.
@warsong commander:
before it gave only charge to 1-3 attack minions it gave charge to every minion. So basically this card was nerfed twice. And that's ok. This card was cancer.
I think the cards Starving Buzzard, Molten Giant, Keeper of the Grove and Blade Flurry was nerfed to hard - but the rest of them were fair.
Warsong was nerfed a bit too hard too, but it was limiting design space so I'm fine with it.
Most nerfs have been to vanilla cards. Cards that rotate out have a much lower chance of being nerfed, though if i had to pick one yogg would be at the top of the list.
Bad thread confirmed, Molten Giant wasn't nerfed, it was BUFFED. Holy Wrath Paladin here i come.
My custom cards thread here (53 cards)
Or perhaps if you think Fandral Staghelm was too good with those cards you don't print him or balance him in another way...just sayin.
What about the cards that were removed? I want Auto-Pecker 4000 back!
Devouring ooze would be cool as well
Fade is like incredibly cool
Worldflipper X-50 is like LUL
Kinda like these cards as they are gimmicky and I like gimmicky cards more than rng effects
Just remember the good times!
Still waiting for that Rogue weapon which will justify the Blade Flurry nerf!
Oh wait, we already got it LUL
I don't understand what you mean. After all the "soul" of the card was preserved in all cases. Now I think we can all agree that the fact that those cards rarely saw any play after the nerfs is just a coincidence (it couldn't be because Blizzard nerfed them).
On the Fandral Staghelm comments. I don't think it is fair to talk about how broken a card would be when comboed with him. Besides you usually wouldn't even be able to combo Ancient of Lore with him anyway (and even if you do all you get is a measly 5 heal, which is not that big of a deal for an aggro deck considering you are putting no taunt into the board to prevent direct face damage). I also can't understand what that nerf achieved since now Nourish sees play in a lot of decks instead (you need a lot of card draw since ramping depletes your card advantage quickly). So do we nerf that next? With that logic Blizzard should have just introduced core sets that rotate (meaning moving classic to wild) on top of expansions and adventures.
Then we have Blade Flurry, which was a very stupid nerf. Blizzard "reasoned" that this is to clear design space for better weapons. Two add-ons later and we find ourselves with Deadly Fork (very creative, but how is a generic 3 mana 3/2 a good weapon. All similarly statted weapons are much better). On top of that since Rogue has no heals they have to spend a lot of their turns using their spells as single target removal (so yeah bumping flurry to 4 mana was unnecessary and made it harder for Rogue to compete).
This is also the reason why I always say that cards shouldn't be nerfed. A blizzard nerf means the card may as well as not be in the game at all (which would also be a hidden buff to Renounce Warlock and Peddler Rogue).
UTH was nerfed to 4 mana at first, and then buffed to 3 mana. Also the very first Buzzard design was:"whenever you PLAY beast..." and it would be good.
Numero 7 is spot on. Even in original form, Molten Giant is no match for Arcane Giant. You can put Arcane Giant into just about any deck, and reasonably expect it to cost 4-6 mana. In Druid and Mage, it will most likely cost 0-2 mana, with little health lost
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Speaking of nerfs what do you guys think of the just announced nerfs? Here is my comment for that article.
Rockbiter Weapon - I feel it might not see play in the regular midrange anymore, but it is a nice nerf to Doomhammer + Rockbiter combo. Certainly still a good card if you build a windfury combo deck.
Yogg-Saron, Hope's End - I really don't know what to think. It's still very random, but it's less likely to do that thing where it clears the whole board and then fills yours up, draws 6 cards, deals 15 damage to your opponent, and gives you 17 armor. I guess it's a good nerf. We'll see.
Tuskarr Totemic - THANK YOU BLIZZARD. But I wonder if Tuskarr will see play anymore in regular midrange? Is summoning a basic totem for 1-1.5 mana good enough?
Abusive Sergeant - Love the change. Card is too good. I think, unlike Leper Gnome, Abusive Sergeant will still see play though.
Call of the Wild - Often when playing midrange hunter, I find myself in a situation where a turn 8 CotW saves me the game if I'm in a losing position. 1 turn later, and I'd lose for sure. I admit the card might have been OP, but it feels like it's the only reason that hunter is so good right now.
Execute - The best removal in the game is now....still the best removal in the game? It'll still be 2x in every warrior deck, but I don't really think the change was necessary.
Charge - I understand the whole "limiting design space" argument, but why does Blizzard hate OTK decks so much? :(
The other option for Rockbiter would've been to keep it at 1 and make it so it only targets minions, but I'm fine with what they did.
A whole round of nerfs, and the only card they burned completely to the ground was Charge. I think the rest are still most likely playable, and several are still auto-include even after the nerf. I like these.