Hearthstone Nerfs Coming February 5 - Equality, Cold Blood, Hunter's Mark & More
Five Hearthstone card changes are coming next week in an update scheduled for February 5. The following cards have mana cost increases.
- [Discuss] Cold Blood - Cost increased to 2 mana. (Up from 1)
- [Discuss] Flametongue Totem - Cost increased to 3 mana. (Up from 2)
- [Discuss] Equality - Cost increased to 4 mana. (Up from 2)
- [Discuss] Hunter's Mark - Cost increased to 2 mana. (Up from 1)
- [Discuss] Emerald Spellstone - Cost increased to 6 mana.(Up from 5)
Check out Blizzard's post below for further information.
Quote from BlizzardWhen we talk about changes that are in store for Hearthstone cards, we normally talk about each card individually to explain why we think that change is needed.
This time, we’re doing things a little differently because most of the upcoming changes are happening for the same reason. Here’s why we’re changing these cards and our general philosophy behind this update.
We think Hearthstone is most fun when strategies are consistently evolving. When new cards are released, we’d like for older expansion decks to get a few interesting new pieces while also allowing you to experiment with the totally new archetypes that emerge. When Basic and Classic cards become so broadly effective—no matter what you’re facing—that they drive what deck styles are considered viable every expansion, then it makes that goal difficult to achieve.
Basic and Classic are sets that, ideally, should embody the flavor and mechanics of each Class. As we’ve mentioned before, cards in these sets can become an issue when they make all other strategies look less interesting. This doesn't mean is that all Basic and Classic cards should be ineffective, however. It’s hugely important to us that these sets contain a good number of cards that are great tools for different situations and deck archetypes.
We’re changing these particular cards because each one has been highly prevalent, regardless of what strategies have been popular or what other cards have existed around them. When Basic and Classic cards become this ubiquitous, they take away some of the flexibility players have when building decks, ultimately stifling the diversity of decks we see when playing Hearthstone.
The following changes are intended to shift these cards from general-purpose “auto-includes” into options that are more likely to be chosen for decks that are focused on strategies that capitalize on what these cards have to offer.
- Cold Blood – Will cost 2 Mana. (Up from 1)
- Flametongue Totem – Will cost 3 mana. (Up from 2)
- Equality – Will cost 4 mana. (Up from 2)
- Hunter’s Mark – Will cost 2 mana. (Up from 1)
Emerald Spellstone – Will cost 6 mana. (Up from 5)
The only non-Basic or Classic card in this round of changes. We want to position Emerald Spellstone as an efficient mid- and late-game threat, so we’re moving its cost up by one to reduce its utility as an early-game, aggressive tempo option. This change—along with the Hunter’s Mark change—is aimed at addressing Hunter’s prevalence, while still leaving it as a viable option.
We look forward to seeing how the meta shakes out in the coming months. Thanks for reading, and good luck on the ladder.
Once these updates are live, players will be able to disenchant the changed non-Basic cards for their full Arcane Dust value for two weeks.
Flametongue Totem and Hunter’s Mark are Basic cards, and cannot be disenchanted.
Iksar Talks About The Nerfs
Quote from IksarMidrange Hunter is still gonna be prevalent, that equality nerf though, ouch.
I hope so, the goal wasn't to completely invalidate Hunter archetypes, or really any of the cards we changed. When we make a balance change it's less about looking at the current environment and more about trying to understand what Hearthstone is like after we make changes. Statistically, Secret Hunter was the most powerful deck in the game and close to the most popular. We felt like there wasn't a huge long-term downside to changing the secret build-around card that is likely to get more powerful over time in Wild while we can protect against Secret Hunter separating itself from the pack even more than it already was. (Source)
Baku and Genn limit card design so much. Round up nerfing will always be a thing now that these two are a thing
I tried to touch on this a few places, but Odd Paladin and Equality not being three are unrelated. Classic and Basic cards that are so powerful they are in every archetype in every expansion is something that is very harmful to the goal of expansion metas feeling fresh and new. Equality at (3) mana in our playtesting didn't really solve this. The change to (4) was actually very jarring to us, but we wanted to try playtesting it in current and future environments anyway. After all those games, we felt like it was a reasonable option at (4) in control archetypes (now in in the future) but less reasonable in aggressive decks. That ideally where we'd like most cards to be, so (4) ended up being where we landed. If we thought (3) removed it from being in all paladin archetypes for the foreseeable future but Odd Paladin would get better in the short term, we would have just done that. (Source)
The funniest part is that even for 2 mana it is still looking vialable.
That's the goal. We knew going in that the Equality nerf was going to be really jarring to look at, it was to us, too. We played so many games in current and future environments and it led us to believe that (4) was the right call even if it reads poorly. (Source)
Nerfing Equality that hard though is gonna kill any possibility of a competitive Control Paladin deck in the future if it doesn't get any great control cards in the next expansions. I hope you have something planned for that, so that we don't go back to having only Aggro pally's be competitive in both Standard and Wild.
We like Control Paladin, I expect it to do just fine in the future. We've been playtesting a lot of the first set of this year with Equality at (4) and there are still powerful Control Paladin archetypes. (Source)
Kibler & Iksar Talk
Quote from IksarKibler: “Should we listen to Kibler and make a rotating core set like he suggested when we first introduced Standard?”
Kibler: “No let’s just slowly nerf every Classic card into the ground!”
Kibler: These changes also don’t address what are IMO the biggest problems with Heartstone right now, which are OTK and Genn/Baku decks making games play out super similarly every time. If anything stuff like Mechathun gets better with the aggro nerfs, even if OTK Paladin is hit.
Kibler: Also worth noting that the Equality nerf to 4 is likely also Baku’s fault, since giving that deck such and easy answer to big minions would be a disaster
We don't make short-term quick fixes that are damaging to the long-term. At least we try not to. If one of the issues with Equality was that it goes in most every Paladin deck forever, I don't think (3) mana solves that.
Kibler: Cards going in every deck forever has a variety of ways you can solve it
Totally true. One of the most painful moments both anecdotally and statistically for players is when they have a deck they are playing that breaks. Literally breaks by the game saying the cards they have it in are no longer valid.
We try to come up with solutions that don't violate that when they can, but it's not always possible. Set rotation hits a large number of players but also misses a huge pool of players that are using 'forever' sets and don't have rotated cards.
I'm not saying having a rotating core set is absolutely right or wrong, but one of the reasons not to do it is that theoretically we would invalidate nearly all players decks, very casual, very competitive and all in between.
Scott Lynch: Apologies for butting in, but that literally happens every time expansions rotate out. If your core set rotated at the same time the expansions rotate out, I don't see the difference.
Kibler: Yeah I don’t really see how this is different from any set rotation unless someone literally has a deck with all classic cards.
rayC: The reason @bbrode gave in one of his interviews was that they want the game to feel familiar to casual players who come and go
Kibler: Does making all of their best cards bad do that?
Our goal isn't to make all good cards bad, it's to make cards that go in nearly 100% of archetypes and make them go in archetypes that make sense for them. There are plenty of powerful cards in basic and classic set we'd rather not change. These weren't on that list.
Kibler: I didn't say all good cards - I said best cards. Also, I don't feel like Equality or Flametongue fall into the 100% of all decks category. I also feel like hitting them so hard has a hugely detrimental effect on Wild's ability to be a place where you can play all your old decks.
100% is a big number, I should probably just be using 'almost all'. There will always be a deck someone will copy paste me that doesn't include those cards. The point is they have been and will be in almost all Paladin/Shaman decks forever given no other changes.
For what it's worth, we've been playing Equality at (4) in both the current environment and in future set playtesting and it feels like a pretty reasonable option for Control archetypes and less so for aggressive ones. Generally a healthier place for cards to exist.
@wonderbuster Except for the fact that they specifically said Genn and Baku are causing these issues and that those two cards are specifically causing balance issues.
Also your reasoning for equality change makes no sense. That is exactly what the card was designed to do in order to give a control deck a chance against pure aggro. By your theory the only thing that can exist in game is aggro? So you want the old Patches pirate aggro meta back again?
Howdy! I decided to make a video about the nerfs where i explain my point of view about upcoming changes and speculate how the meta might look like. Feel free to discuss ;)
Ppl complain for only few nerfs
Blizzards nerfs
Ppl complain about nerfs
So, rip shaman, nerf no one needed
They tried to slow down hunter which is ok, problem is rexxar tho
Equality was strong card combined with others, but i dont think so nerf was needed,
And Cold Blood nerf, eh, i hated when it took half of my hp with charge but i dont feel like it needed such nerf, idk how will odd rogue deal with it
Also agree with Kibler
rip shaman no one needed? Excuse me? I'm assuming you only play standard, even shaman in wild is just dominating. Any nerf to even shaman is needed.
Im mainly wild player. And my problem is with priest, even shaman in wild is indeed very strong, but i dont think so flametongue totem has to be the one to suffer
Ok, so. I crafted Luna and in 3 days they nerfed mana Wyrm. Then I crafted 2 corridor creepers and in a week they nerfed Odd Paladin. Fine, we tighten our asses and move forward. I crafted LULjin, Rhock Delar and double copy of To my Side for Spell Hunter. I crafted Hagatha and Legendary Elemental for Odd Shaman. I crafted Shirvalla, Cangor and Hight priest Thekal for OTK Paladin. 12000 dust used. And now what??? They nerf all these decks so people lose their dust again and again! WTF, Blizzard? Fuck you! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU, GREEDY BLI$$ARD!!! BURN IN HELL AND MAY SATAN FUCK YOU FOR THE WHOLE ETERNITY!
You must be cursed.
This is the risk for net-decking. You should've seen this coming :P
I'm not sure how I feel about these particular nerfs, I will have to digest them a bit more. But the fact that Blizzard seems more willing to actually make changes is really positive for the game, in my opinion.
Because hall of faming a card costs them way more free dust
Skulking Geist is inadvertently nerfed, as it was good at eliminating cards in these decks.
Gen Hunter buff
Emerald Spellstone and Hunter's Mark changes are (poor) workarounds to try to slow down Hunter a bit until next rotation, because they don't want to deal with real reason of Hunter's power - Deathstalker Rexxar.
Equality and Cold Blood changes might actually be good, we'll see.
Flametongue Totem - Same as Hex nerf some months ago - no one asked for it, but it came anyway. Poor Shaman.
The Hunter DK is no more broken than the other ones. Can't nerf one without nerfing them all.
Actually, spellstone is the real reason. DK Rexxar is the perceived reason. My main complaint is you can no longer play spellstone and rhino on 10. Oh well, it was win-more anyway.
I think changing it's cost from 6 to 9 (or 10 if it's more suitable for some possible unknown even/odd shenanigans) would help quite a bit, without hurting much it's power level.
Once again, perception. You are just salty from losses to the DK when the game was indecisive. Spellstone has a winrate of 60%+ in all builds that include it, DK is below 50% in anything but deathrattle hunter. How is that power?
Yet, all decks that run Spellstone, run DSR as well :)
Well, I think you have NO understanding of the game. DK Jainia costs 9,. DK Guldan costs 10. DK Rexxar not the same value.
Rexxar is absolutely the best DK in the game and it's not even close. This is not hate on Rexxar it's simply a fact and the numbers don't lie. Look at the data on how often a Hunter match is won AFTER DK Rexxar is played. the only reason it is not being changed is because it would set a dangerous precedent and force them to change all the DK's. That is simply something they will not do.