Let's Speculate: Upcoming Balance Changes
Expansions introduce more than 100 cards to Hearthstone a handful of times a year, and it’s beginning to seem inevitable that a couple in each set will be, in the common parlance, broken.
I say inevitable because I appreciate the difficulty and inhuman level of foresight required to achieve balance in a game of so many combinatorics. Say what you will about Patches the Pirate — I’m staying away from that one for now — but Blizzard has been good in the recent past about listening to the community’s grievances and implementing changes. Last time, not only did they explain in detail their reasoning for specific changes, they also shared alternatives considered along the way.
Just the other day, Hearthstone Game Director Ben Brode announced a February update to the game. He confirmed only that the update would add “cool” new events, but did tease that if the team indeed decides to implement balance changes, that would be the earliest they would appear.
So now it’s time to speculate, isn’t it? Instead of problem Basic and Classic cards, the community seems most at odds with a suite of cards from the Kobolds and Catacombs expansion. We’ll look at a few of the most clamored for candidates for nerfs and the Hall of Fame, and then invite you to add to the discussion.
Ice Block
Blizzard seemed ready to send Ice Block to the Hall of Fame a few months ago. Addressing the topic, they all but said, “you’re gonna have to wait.” This move seems likely, considering how the card stifles interactivity over consecutive turns, which they don’t want for the Standard format.
From Blizzard’s blog announcing the last round of balance changes:
“We’ve seen discussions about moving Ice Block to the Hall of Fame. As previously mentioned, moving cards to the Hall of Fame occurs at the start of the Hearthstone Year, which will occur with the first expansion release in 2018. Our general stance regarding Hall of Fame is that we want to avoid moving cards mid-year.”
The hope is that moving Ice Block will free the Mage class from the one-turn-kill class identity its been known for from the jump. I can get behind that.
Gadgetzan Auctioneer
Helplessness: it’s one of the worst feelings in Hearthstone.
We all have watched as this little green goblin spent 75 seconds cycling through the opponent’s deck to a win condition. It’s not fun. And its ubiquity in certain classes (looking at you, Rogue) stifles creativity in the deck-building process, which Blizzard really tries to discourage when they implement balance updates. Depending on the number of cheap spells in the new set, Gadgetzan Auctioneer could be a Hall of Fame contender, too.
Corridor Creeper
Remember Azure Drake? The Classic set’s five-mana dragon saw play in most decks because of its versatility and power in almost any situation. A strong body, spell power, and card draw on turn five was too good for too many archetypes. Players picked up on this and considered the card an auto-include across most classes and archetypes. In Blizzard’s own words: “There should be more five drop options for players, rather than considering Azure Drake an auto-include.”
Corridor Creeper is the new Azure Drake in this sense — it’s just bigger and often costs little or nothing. The sleeper of the Kobolds and Catacombs set has become the most oppressive, an auto-include in any deck that cares the slightest bit about tempo. Putting minions into play for little or no mana is very strong in Hearthstone. The result is a meta in which some match-ups feel at the whim of drawing Corridor Creeper, getting the necessary reductions, and playing them for tempo before your opponent.
What do you do about that? The minion could be bumped to ten mana (forcing it to bog down the player’s hand for more turns), or perhaps it would make sense to reduce the mana cost only when a specific player’s minions die, rather than both. But this seems like it would ruin the card entirely. No matter what the particulars are, the big worm is the only card besides Ice Block I’m confident we will see shuffled around in some way. Expect it.
Spiteful Summoner
I understand the furor over a card capable of such insane power on turn six. I can see it being bumped to seven mana, even. But the spell it pulls is random, which creates an interesting constraint for creative deck-builders — one we’ve seen worked out in tempo decks featuring Mind Control and even Ultimate Infestation. The minion it summons is random, too, which makes the effect much less reliable in decks that don’t limit themselves to only 8- and 10-mana spells.
All that said, I believe its randomness in tandem with the constraints it puts on decks makes Spiteful Summoner a fine card. I would be surprised to see any change at all, but a 1-mana increase to address such an early swing wouldn’t be outlandish.
Psychic Scream
Psychic Scream is a key card in one of my favorite creations of the Kobolds era: Weasel Priest. But that doesn’t blind me from the card’s enraging effect for one less mana than Twisting Nether, a card that does much less. Psychic Scream also shuts down resummon effects and Deathrattles, typically the best counter to AoE. That’s really good.
That said, I’m not convinced yet that Psychic Scream is oppressive enough to deserve a nerf. Priest will take on a new dominant identity after the next Standard rotation — Raza the Chained and Kazakus rotate to Wild — and only Blizzard has an idea of what that new Priest looks like. It’s powerful, yes. But the decision to nerf the best AoE in the game will depend not on the current meta, but how it works with and against cards we haven’t even seen yet.
Cubelock
I don’t know how to fix this one. But Cubelock’s power, especially against aggro, can’t be understated: something should probably be done about it, lest we suffer another three months waiting for new cards to shake things up.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy playing Cubelock. It’s intricate and entertaining and complicated, but I feel dirty when one giant Voidlord squashes my opponents chances. Beyond that, it’s powerful deathrattle cards have made Spellbreaker an auto-include in most decks, which probably bothers Blizzard. Of course the new expansion will bring with it new archetypes, but no competitive Standard decks in the current meta stand up to Cubelock quite like Raza Priest, whose time in Standard is almost up.
One of the cards in the Cubelock package deserve a nerf — Dark Pact, Voidlord, or Carnivorous Cube. My guesses are on Dark Pact, because there’s a history of nerfs to high-impact and efficient spells like Execute and Innervate. Who knows — bumping it to two mana might be significant, allowing players an extra turn to rush their opponent down or draw a game-winning Spellbreaker.
Some of the changes in February may be unexpected, as the increase in mana cost for Hex was to many players. This move was preemptive, with them perhaps presuming Hex would be too efficient at countering the myriad silence targets in the meta now: Carnivorous Cube, Voidlord, etc. With this in mind, I suppose we should just expect the unexpected (in addition to Corridor Creeper getting nerfed).
What do you want to see changed in the coming months, and why? Don’t forget that last part!
As long as Voidlord is a demon, warlock will be always OP
It would be nice that Dark Pact would only work with demons
No man, there's already a card for that: Sacrificial Pact.
They should instead buff it to target enemy minions as well...
It would be a higher sacrificial pact :)
I see where you are coming from in terms of Bloodreaver Gul'dan 's late game taking over warlock's late game identity (and you are right that Jaraxxus more or less disappeared from the game since the dk was released).
However, I think it should be pointed out that the idea that Gul'dan will continue to get better with more and more demons isn't completely true. Guldan summons upwards of 7 demons, and N'Zoth up to 6 deathrattles. Including more than those numbers of demons or deathrattles doesn't mean you get more value from those two cards' battlecries since you can't exceed that limit.
Deckbuilding also creates natural constraints in terms of which demons and deathrattles you can afford to put in your deck to take advantage of on turn 10. Eventually we'll hit a point where the quality of demons and deathrattles doesn't really go up, but merely changes the type of board that is generated (e.g. will you have more beefy demons with raw stats that get summoned, demons with more deathrattles, end of turn effects, etc?)
I bet on Corridor Creeper and Dark Pact. Also probably Psychic Scream. Anything different from that and I'd be really surprised.
Hard to get Psychic Scream without turning it into Twisting Nether with the added benefit, or disadvantage, of putting minions back on my deck. Really interested to see how they would work with this one, maybe even turn it into a 9 mana spell!
Coming from a giants player I have to say that regardless of the class you put giants in you will be absolutely decimated by control pally. 4 mana equality combo, Aldors, kodo stalling, Tarim (board clear AND stalling). The deck is by no means unstoppable and I feel that most of my loses come from this deck alone.
Barnes may be quite powerful in wild with more rezzing, but you're ignoring the fact that it is very much a highroll deck. If you don't draw Barnes or a summon by turn 6 you've pretty much lost. That is the weakness of Barnes.
I would like to see Keleseth nerfed.
You can "play around" psychic scream and cards like that, but what can you possibly do when you get keleseted twice with shadowstep? Then you get 1 mana minions that are 3/4 for free. Other decks need to play a card each turn to pump their minions.
I think keleseth should say "+1 attack" and not "+1/+1".
Then i'm sure corridor creeper would be nerfed. Maybe it will say "when a minion you control dies".
If Keleseth goes to +1 attack only it would be nerfed to the ground like Keeper of the Grove making him unplayable
Lock lock lock all you see is lock... meta is so boring i dont want to play HS anymore...
switch to wild so much fun but a lot of aggro too
Some nerfs I understand.. but how powerfull any new card is. They should not be nerfed. it just doesnt make sence to add new cards and the destroy them with a nerf hammer.. because we all know how blizzard nerfes things. They will rotate out eventually just like patches soon.
Have you ever heard of Synergy?