Blizzard Addresses Problems - Tess Greymane, Shudderwock, Quest Druid at HCT Seoul
- An update on June 8th, PDT, will change some cards.
- Tess Greymane's Battlecry will once again continue even if she is destroyed, silenced, or removed.
- Shudderwock's Battlecry limit will be increased to 30, from 20.
- Players with Quest Druid decks at HCT Seoul are allowed to submit a new list if they wish due to changes.
- Ultimately, they only want to give out dust refunds if a card has a "decrease [in] their overall power level for balance purposes".
Quote from Jesse HillGreetings,
Thank you for your feedback regarding the recent Update 11.2. We apologize for not offering notice in advance of these changes before they went live. We understand that this wasn’t a good experience and that it also had an impact on some of our esports competitors as well. This wasn’t an acceptable situation all around, and we’ll do better in the future.
Update 11.2 brought with it some changes as part of our ongoing, overall goal to make card interactions more intuitive across the board. The intention of some of those changes was to align four similar cards (Tess Greymane, Lynessa, Shudderwock, and Yogg-Saron). If you’re familiar with the way that one of these minions works, you should be able to guess how the others work. We added a cap to the maximum number of effects that can be generated by these Battlecries, and made Tess’ Battlecry end if she was destroyed, silenced, or otherwise removed, just like Yogg-Saron.
After hearing your feedback to that change, we initially considered offering a full Arcane Dust refund for Tess. We also read feedback from players who use Tess in their decks asking for her to be reverted to her old functionality. In this case, we agree that it’s worthwhile to sacrifice some consistency so Tess is more fun to play, especially since our priority wasn’t to decrease Tess’ power level. With that in mind, instead of offering an Arcane Dust refund and encouraging players to disenchant the card, we’re reverting one of the changes to Tess Greymane so that her Battlecry will continue even if she’s destroyed, silenced, or otherwise removed from the board.
This situation has also raised discussions regarding the definition of a card fix versus a dust-refunding nerf, so we thought this would be a good time to talk about our stance on the subject.
We will continue to provide full Arcane Dust refunds for changes to cards that decrease their overall power level for balance purposes — in other words, card nerfs.
We’re working to improve Hearthstone and make the underlying mechanics more intuitive. Bug fixes or system-wide mechanics changes to improve the game will not be grounds for a full Arcane Dust refund on a card. System-wide mechanical updates affect many different cards in ways that could make some more or less powerful, such as the interaction between Jungle Giants and Faceless Manipulator.
Lynessa Sunsorrow was never intended to apply her buffs in the order they were cast, so the update to her functionality in 11.2 was a bug fix for that card. The cap of 30 effects is a system-wide change intended to protect the service and players from potentially bad play experiences that have minimal player value. We’re planning to raise the cap of Shudderwock’s Battlecry from 20 to 30 when we implement the fix that reverts Tess, as well.
We’re currently planning to revert the change that caused Tess Greymane to stop casting her Battlecry when destroyed, silenced, or otherwise removed on June 8th PDT.
HCT Seoul and Quest Druid
We also would like to take this moment to apologize to our player community for this update’s impact on the HCT Tour Stop taking place in Seoul this weekend, specifically the 15 players who brought Quest Druid decks.
After considering recent feedback and significant discussion, we felt that Quest Druid decks were most directly affected in terms of viability as a result of the changes that were introduced with Update 11.2. As such, we allowed players that brought Quest Druid an opportunity to resubmit their deck.
Balancing the health of the game with the needs and calendar of a global esport like the Hearthstone Championship Tour is always challenging. This wasn’t an acceptable situation all around, for us, our players, and competitors, and we’ll do better in the future.
Thanks again for your feedback and your understanding, and we'll see you in the Tavern.
If they want to up the consistency, maybe just revert the Yogg nerf instead of weakening Tess?..
I am not going to let this come down to opinions. I am not a religious man but a man of science.
Can anyone find anywhere where Blizzard stated that Yogg was suppose to (and I quote) “be a meme master card”?
I do not believe in magic; I want facts.
Personally I am of the opinion that they knew what they were doing. Some people disagree. Let them show us some facts with quotes from Blizzard.
I get where you are coming from and I partially agree. However, you need to keep in mind that sometimes decks have key cards that get nerfed. When that happens if you crafted any support epics or legendaries you basically are out that much dust with a deck no longer functional.
Granted this doesn't happen with every deck.
Maybe they should have, I don't know, disabled the card in the meanwhile?
same
Praise Yogg!
The thing is, the main reason Blizzard nerfed Yogg was because he was played too much in tournaments. Now that he has rotated to wild, they could revert the nerf as they did with Molten Giant.
So by this logic they should refund every essential card in cubelock, even pally and spiteful decks with the past nerfs? You guys are ridiculous.
I mean what is the solution in the future? Better community management perhaps? Mabye prevention instead of recovery?
I understand the situation. But “We’ll do better in the future” can only go on for do long.
And only poor Lynessa gets no love from Blizzard :-(
I'd like to get my dust for golden Jungle Giants
Same here. I was sad when I opened a golden version, then discovered it is actually playable in Wild, and now it's probably not playable at all (unless they make another Cursed Disciple).
Glad to hear this, I love my Tess card but would have dusted it if presented with full refund because dust is at a premium in this game. Really happy Blizzard is not making me choose, also happy about the original logic being reinstated because while I haven't yet been affected by it, the concern other players bring up of rogue polymorph halting the Tess play is a legit one.
Anyone else considered how this new stance of determining not how, but IF, players will get dust refunds for changes for changed cards will end up making it so that one or more nerfed cards won't be refunded because T5 doesn't feel the change was big enough to warrant considerable "decrease in their overall power level"?
So if a card gets a mana increase by one will that one day not be considered a considerable enough decrease in power?
I'm not sure I like these subtle rising restrictions about whether a player could get dust if a card does actually end up getting changed.
In theory, this is an interesting question. When it is up to the developers' assessment, whether a change to a card is significant enough for a refund, it carries some potential for controversy. Also, a card can drop in power level even when it was not directly nerfed, but indirectly through another card it is supposed to be played with. Let's say, when Feugen gets nerfed, Stalagg would also be affected. Some other cards are tied in this fashion as well, like Archmage Antonidas and Fireball and, sadly, Mekgineer Thermaplugg and Leper Gnome, where the developers just ignored these implications.
However, in most cases there won't be much to debate about. I mean, most changes are only discussed and properly announced as "balance changes", and a refund is part of the deal. Exception are nerfs to basic cards, which I think deserve much more of a compensation than "none at all", but that's a different topic.
This isn't a "new stance" - it's the exact same stance they've always had. They're just spelling it out because a lot of you had trouble figuring it out on your own for some reason.
they could just ban the card. not only from competitivive, from ladder to players who are trying to qualify to the tournaments