Six Card Nerfs Coming - Naga Sea Witch, Spiteful Summoner, and More!
We'll see six card nerfs in a Hearthstone update sometime after the HCT Summer Playoffs. They will all be disenchantable for full dust value one the patch arrives. Please do not disenchant these cards until that patch!
- Naga Sea Witch - Cost is now 8, up from 5.
- Spiteful Summoner - Cost is now 7, up from 6.
- Dark Pact - Now restores 4 Health, down from 8.
- Possessed Lackey - Cost is now 6, up from 5.
- Call to Arms - Cost is now 5, up from 4.
- Crystal Core - Effect now makes all minions in your deck 4/4, down from 5/5.
We've got dedicated threads available to discuss each card nerf.
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Reviews on Today's Nerfs Announcement
Here are some community thoughts on the nerfs in video format.
Announcement Blog Post
Quote from BlizzardIn an update that will arrive some time after the HCT Playoffs are complete, we will be making balance changes to the following cards:
Naga Sea Witch – Will cost 8 mana. (Up from 5)
In update 9.1, we introduced a rule change to increase the consistency of Hearthstone game mechanics. The change affected precisely when Naga Sea Witch’s cost change was applied to cards. This allowed it to be combined with the cost reduction effects on giants, and as a result, it became fairly easy to reduce their mana cost to 0.
We think Hearthstone is better all around when interactions are consistent, and we like the fact that a Naga Sea Witch giants deck archetype exists. That said, we also understand that, with its current functionality, this deck can generate early board states that are unreasonable for most classes to deal with. By increasing the cost of Naga Sea Witch to 8 mana, the deck’s concept remains intact, but the combo is delayed until later in a match when more decks are likely to have the tools to handle the arrival of so many giants.
Spiteful Summoner – Will cost 7 mana. (Up from 6)
After set rotation arrived with the Year of the Raven, Spiteful Summoner became more powerful and consistent when used in decks containing 10 mana cost spells. This is because the pool of 10 mana cost minions in Standard is smaller, so players could more reliably count on getting a powerful minion from Spiteful Summoner’s effect. Even considering the deckbuilding sacrifices that an effective Spiteful Summoner deck requires, we think that increasing the card’s mana cost to 7 is more in line with the powerful outcomes that are possible when it’s used alongside cards like Ultimate Infestation.
Dark Pact – Will restore 4 Health. (Down from 8)
There are two aspects of Dark Pact that make it powerful. At a cost of 1 mana, it’s easily used alongside cards like Carnivorous Cube, Possessed Lackey, and Spiritsinger Umbra for big combo turns. It also gives Warlocks enough healing potential so that aggressively using Lifetap and playing cards like Kobold Librarian and Hellfire feel less consequential. We left Dark Pact’s cost intact so it can still be used as part of interesting combos, but lessened the healing it provides so Warlocks will need to more carefully consider how much damage they take over the course of a match.
Possessed Lackey – Will cost 6 mana. (Up from 5)
Some of the card combos involving Possessed Lackey present situations that are too difficult to deal with in the early-to-mid stages of the game. Increasing its mana cost to 6 delays some of those powerful card combos to turns that are easier for opposing decks to overcome.
Call to Arms – Will cost 5 mana. (Up from 4)
Currently, there are three popular Paladin decks: Even Paladin, Murloc Paladin, and Odd Paladin. Among the three decks, Even Paladin and Murloc Paladin have consistently been the most powerful two archetypes over the first few weeks since the release of The Witchwood. Call to Arms moving to 5 mana restricts it from being used in Even decks and reduces its power somewhat when used in Murloc and other Paladin decks.
We expect that players will experiment with Call to Arms at 5 mana in Odd Paladin decks, but we don’t expect this card to have much of an impact. This is because Odd Paladin can’t access 2 mana minions (meaning Call to Arms could only ever summon three 1 mana minions if played in that deck).
Note: As a result of this change, we are adjusting the “Greymane’s Alliance” deck recipe. It will now have two copies of Saronite Chain Gang in place of Call to Arms.
The Caverns Below – The quest reward, Crystal Core, will read: For the rest of the game, your minions are 4/4. (Down from 5/5)
The Quest Rogue deck uses a strategy that’s strong against slow, control-heavy and fatigue decks, but struggles against most other deck archetypes. There’s a fine line between being powerful against very slow decks and being powerful versus virtually all non-aggressive strategies. By changing the quest reward to make the resulting minions 4/4 instead of 5/5, Quest Rogue should still be a reasonable option versus slow, extreme late-game decks, but offer a less polarized matchup with more moderate control decks.
The biggest surprise to me is no Bloodreaver Gul'dan in this list is way too powerful, also i believe Spiteful Summoner should cost 8 mana. Sunkeeper Tarim take the hit with Call to Arms being nerfed i guess but it's another very oppressive card (one of the strongest in entire game and they know that), better keep an eye on it.
Too soon to tell if Spiteful Summoner nerf will be enough, but I agree with Bloodreaver Gul'dan and Sunkeeper Tarim, Gul'dan should deal and heal for 2 and Tarim should be a 3/6.
I think there's a good chance that some cards are still on the radar, those two included. I guess it depends on how both Warlock and Paladin develop over the next couple months and the next expansion.
Well... I'm not too happy, to be honest. On the one hand, I think the right cards were targetted, on the other hand, I disagree with many of the new versions.
Naga Sea Witch is a card that, admittedly, did not see much play before the interaction was changed and the Giants strategy became possible. However, for the few decks that tried to go for a "big" strategy, it was also an interesting card, as it could provide significant cost reduction to late game minions. The new version limits it to ONLY the giants strategy. Outside of cheating 0 Mana giants, the card is completely useless now, and in addition to that, the strategy itself is not entirely resolved. It's quite possible that the strategy will be dropped, but I think the new version is too limiting for anything else that might come up in the future. I would have preferred if she had a limit to cost alteration like Summoning Portal. But I am happy that Wild Mode gets a bit of fresh air with this change.
Call to Arms is not really done well. It is unplayable for Even Paladin, and it is most likely not good enough for Odd Paladin, but still very powerful for any other Paladin deck. My main problem is, that the effect itself is a bit too strong. I think, the better solution would have been to reduce the effect to 2 minions. I suppose this was mainly done to make Even Paladin significantly worse, without changing the cards identity, but 5 Mana is still a bit too reasonable for any kind of Paladin that works without Even/Odd, such as Murlocs.
Crystal Core bothers me the most, honestly. Yes, the quest is poblematic and makes for very polarizing matches, but designing an entire deck around the quest, just to get 4/4s? I admit, I have no better solution in mind, but this just isn't worth it anymore. You might as well delete the card when you make it so lousy.
As for Possessed Lackey and Dark Pact, I really don't know. I don't know if this will make Cubelock bad enough for it to drop in popularity, and I don't know if it makes Cubelock bad enough for other decks to stand a much better chance now. But I'm sure, Control/Cube players will tell that this makes the deck borderline unplayable. I honestly lack the insight. But what mostly concerns me here is, I honestly don't know if it's a good time to nerf Cubelock. Granted, I despise the deck passionately, but out of all the aggressive decks, the only one that's gonna take a hit is Even Paladin, which is actually the least aggressive one. I really don't know if this was the right move.
Spiteful Summoneris the only card I can completely agree with. At 7 Mana, the card is still very strong, but for the mana curve, this is really pushing it and will make Druid and Priest a lot worse.Maybe it's enough to end all Spiteful decks, but if not, these decks will be quite a bit slower, which is already their biggest weakness.
All in all, I'm afraid we'll see a LOT more Murloc and Odd Paladins, just because they are the next best decks after Even loses a very important card now, and with Druid getting worse and Cube/Control getting worse, aggro is having a better position than before. However, Even Paladin was the stronger deck all around, and there might be some room for more anti-aggro decks, that don't have to fear losing automatically to Cubelock and Quest Rogue.
I'm not super thrilled about these nerfs, but I expected worse.
if youre worried about paladin, just play Warrior. I heard Whirlwinds are good against silverhand recruits
You don't say!
Maybe Warrior profits, maybe not. I'm just saying that I suspect many people to switch back to Odd Paladin when the nerfs go live. Doesn't mean that this will be a permanent problem, just the immediate effect. If Warrior pushes Odd Paladin out of the game afterwards, I can live with that.
well its good they are nerfing all the cards that make top 3 classes (druid/paladin and Warlock) where they are.
1. i hope the nerf to lackey makes it way harder for cubelock to operate cause i think its time to bring down the dumb interaction of having voidlord on turn 5-6.
2. the Nerf to Spiteful i feel isnt quite enough. 7 mana isnt alot more and coining on turn 5 compared to coining on turn 6 is a big difference. but i feel like getting a 8/8 or a 12/12 on turn 6 or 7 with a 4/4 is still pretty busted.
by the way guys, Odd paladin isnt gonna be better because Call to arms is 5 mana cause there is a big difference between summoning 3 two drops on turn 4 then summoning 2-3 1 drops on turn 5.
I dusted Crystal Core after the first nerf, somehow was given it again in a pack, can't wait to dust it again. People are welcome to play it, I just am not interested in playing a game with or against it. I can play solitaire on my own without spending somebody else's time.
Same here... Quite good for my dust but I still would have preferred them to change the quest into something playable with the opponent... This nerf only means we will see less of it but still see some and it's still gonna be boring games...
Now Call to Arms will move from even paladin to odd paladin , Shadowreaper Anduin cant destroy Crystal Core minion but flamestrik can .
I'm fine with 3 1mana minions for 5mana
Can someone explain to me why they nerfed dark pact ? Been playing control warlock since WW release. I have huuuge problems with heal, but cubelock dont care about this. It could even be 0 heal. They just need to cheat out a minion with something. Didnt help anything , now im forced to play cubelock instead of controllock.
Because it is broken. And everyone is bored to receive that finger in the ass and after 10 damage to the face from 2 doomguards. At least now you will have to increase your defenses to make these combo. Because aggro will rape you.
Cubelock has the same single downside that controllock does: the need to heal. This card made that deck have zero downsides. Classes need to have a weakness.
I think you are playing the wrong deck. Control lock has early game taunts and minions, like Stonehill Defender and Plated Beetle that grant him protection + armor. Control lock doesn't need many cards because it doesn't use a combo, they just clear the board and wait for Rin. On the other hand, cubelock doesn't have early game especially if Prince Taldaram is used, they will tap almost every turn to find their combo pieces (cube, faceless, dark pact, demons, weapon, lackey). I think control lock will be fine with these nerfs but cubelock will have a hard time.
Is it possible for "fair" midrange decks to come back now? The Spiteful Summoner nerf taking one more turn is really interesting because you have one more turn to draw your big spells, and you have more time to develop. Even shaman could rise a bit, or hunter? Also the Spiteful Summoner creates a whole in the 6-drop curve. Ever since the Bonemare [/card]nerf, tempo/midrange decks have held off of 6-drops because there's no more [card]bonemare on 7. There will be a lot less paladin to rush down the midrange decks because of the call to arms nerf. Even paladin can't overflood the board anymore and odd paladin is just a counterable deck. Odd paladin could rise because even shaman just isn't as good anymore. You can actually out flood even paladin, however even paladin still has its board clears. Murloc paladin will still be a thing and can still kill you without having to play Call to Arms, if necessary. However, the one extra turn lines up well for taunt druid and control mage to clear/handle the board better.
Now with warlock, cubelock will suffer a lot more from burn. The 4 less healing for 1 is a huge change. The Amethyst Spellstone still requires for you to hurt yourself and spend 4 mana to heal for 7. Killing a bit of tempo to heal for emergency 8 was its main way to try to beat burn mage. With the emergency healing down by a lot, other burn decks could work, like baku hunter? I kind of doubt it since it has other flaws, but it is a thought. Control warlock will suffer a lot because it has less healing and the one turn later of lackey + pact. They run only 2-3 demons (some run Despicable Dreadlord), which gives another turn to draw your Voidlord(s)(I don't play control lock because I consistently draw one and I don't draw my lackey's...). I don't think Cubelock will be hurt all that much because they can still kill you Doomguards. Smart people who cube theirdoomgaurds versus control decks will still be beating them. The extra turn doesn't do all that much as control decks are still passing and/or setting up their lategame strat. Also the 4 less healing isn't that bad because if you do cube pact aVoidlord, the extra 4 healing doesn't change much because you still have a wall. A wall that only burn can get to you.
So my predictions on the meta:
If murloc paladin is still really strong: then control mage and taunt druid will because tier 2, or even 1 if they can really suppress murloc paladin. Cubelock will be tier 2, even shaman will be tier 2 and spiteful druid will be tier 2. The Spiteful Summoner nerf really hurts with the Sunkeeper Tarim [/card]dance. Also there will be no/less quest rogue to punish the control mage and taunt druids out there. With the rock paper scissor meta to hold true, I think togwaggle druid could counter the control decks as they are sort of a punisher for greed. Or even [card]Shudderwock Shaman? Those could be a viable tier 3 or low tier 2 deck.
Thank you for reading my ramble, I'm probably gonna gain 2,400 dust from this and make the Togwaggle Druid deck!
TL;DR - It's a ramble so I don't suggest reading it, but I think 50% chance that the meta will stay the same and 50% that the meta will flop on its head and be a midrange control meta, and if warlock still rules then Tempo mage will be tier 1.
Spiteful: 7 is still too strong, it should have been 8 imo.
Lackey / Dark Pact: OK
Cavern: unecessary, Quest Rogue is already destroyed by aggro. Making it much weaker against control probably put it out below Tier 4
Call to Arms: it means Even paladin is dead and confirms Murloc Paladin as best deck on the ladder.
Naga: it was about time.
It doesn't matter that quest rogue gets detroyed by aggo. You shouldn't be forced into 1 archetype.
Besides, it doesn't even get "destroyed" as you say. What's the win rate against aggro, 30-40%?
And Call to Arms is getting nerfed. An you have Glacial Shard and Vicious Scalehide. Stop protecting your favorite deck. Be objective.
Cavern was entirely necessary, that deck was brutal to control. It got to the point where I will concede the minute the quest is played. Incredibly unfun.
Even in favored matchups, both players should feel like they have at least a small chance of winning.