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.
Yeah, in mirror matches. I play hunter. I just think we have an unfair advantage. I will not change my deck at all bc of the nerf. That's how I know it was completely useless.
I neither see a reason nor a need to be most of these cards nerfed... Especially now, 2 months before the big rotation. Only the spellstone is legitly discussed (even though it's not the spellstone that makes hunter powerful, but w/e). Even shaman, odd rogue, even paladin are far away from being broken or uninteractive in comparison to cheat-out-mana-cards or otk decks. Why fix something that is not broken?
Kibler got it right, why ignore the real issues (spellstone is the exception - at most)? Midrange hunter has been the deck of the moment and isn't hit at all. That might just push the deck even more since the mirrors were often lost by spellstones.
The idea isn't to destroy every Hunter archetype. Deal with it.
I never claimed they would. Apparently I said the complete opposite. Did you actually read my post? *sigh*
Cause now even hunter gets a ton of toys right.... I actually think that have spellstone as 6 might make a deck rediculous that was not even in play.... Even hunter gets zuljin rexxar and all the secrets and spellstone now....should be interesting to see if its a thing
It also get the hunter's mark...
Did they just roll some dice and nerf random stuff? Perhaps the got Hunter's Mark right this time, I mean it used to cost 0.
You are almost correct...
Not bad nerfs but, I would like to see Emerald Spellstone nerf on summons not mana cost (i.e summon 1/2/3 3/3 wolves or summon 2/3/4 2/2 wolves)
and I would like to see a mana nerf on Mind Blast
Why Mindblast? The card was a pack filler till the DK came along. The DK is the ONLY reason the card is so powerful. Alex+ Mindblast existed since the beginning and was never OP. This is the exact reason the design team looks so stupid nerfing these base cards that have existed since the beginning and weren't broken.
Cold Blood and Flametongue make sense to me because Odd Rogue and Even Shaman will get fine through the rotation so those cards could become problematic in the future,also both Decks are already good in Wild so this should lower their powerlevel a bit... Hunter's Mark and Spellstone are there just so that people do not complain they didn't touch Hunter but in reality until April Rexxar isn't going anywhere... As for Equality,the only reason I can think of for such a drastic change is that they'll give Paladin some outrageously good cards next year and this is just a preemptive nerf,otherwise it doesn't make much sense... Either way I'll take it cause I have 2 golden copies I'll gladly DE for full dust...
Apart from spellstone I'm struggling to see the reason for these nerfs
I mean Equality?!? Seriously that's a problem?
More than Hyena???
More than resurrecting a load of spell power and mind blasting from full hp?????
Hyena hasn't been in every Hunter deck forever. Equality went into every non-agro Paladin deck.
See the difference?
Changing a card just because it's a lot of decks isn't balancing anything.
That's just change for the sake of change. Also I don't even want to think about the problems if that's the method going forward. So the Classic set will be nerfed until all the cards are unplayable?
It doesn't matter what is played a lot, it's key balance changes that are needed. I mean Cleric is in pretty much every priest deck since the dawn of time, is that next? It's not exactly an OP card but if we're no longer balancing on power and on played percentage it could be next surely?
So what if Equality went to every non-aggro Paladin deck?
All of the strong Classic cards will either be HOF'ed, or nerfed. The Classic cards need to have the strength of Pilfer. They will be primarily be used by newbies, but will occasionally find a home in a Meta deck. Take Blade Flurry, for example. I never thought it would see play after it got nerf'ed, but it was a valuable card in Kingsbane Rogue for a time. Or Raid Leader - who would have predicted that card would ever see play.
Northshire Cleric? Maybe ,some day. But there are bigger fish to fry. They aren't done with Rogue yet. Their cheap spells are insanely good.
That's because it was SPECIFICALLY designed to be for a control style Paladin decks. Small HS history lesson Hyena used to be a staple in the meta before power creep pushed it out. The only reason it made it back in is because Lynx is SOOOO good.
Dear God, people on the official Hearthstone forums and Hearthstone Reddits are completely losing their shit over the balance changes
This is HS. It isn't something petty like graduation, finding a job or childbirth. This is the sun and it must be given all the importance an internet event can be given.
Yep. I'm not defending Team 5 here as they've made some very "questionable" changes in the past.
But I feel that no matter what nerfs they do or don't do, some people are going to be pissed off. I would not want to try to balance a card game like this (or MtGA, etc.), since changing cards by even one mana or one attack for a minion, etc. can be absolutely game-changing.
Oh well, I've been playing since 2014 and I still really enjoy the game so I'll keep playing. I have started to play, and invest, more in MtGA so if HS gets to the point where I need a break, I'll take one and focus on Magic. If I need a break from Magic, then I focus on HS. If I need a break from card games in general, then so be it.
There's SO MANY games out there. I'll found one (or more) that I can spend my time and/or money on.
Happy gaming everyone.
Seriously, it's like the Hunter/Genn/Baku hatewagon and the triggered Druid mains are mass brigading the sites. I understand why each of the cards were nerfed, and not all of it was because of Genn and Baku.
Flametongue Totem escaped 2016 without being nerfed, and it was part of the Aggro Shaman builds that were running roughshod over the game at the time.
Kingsbane Pirate Rogue uses Cold Blood as a finisher as well as Odd Rogue.
Equality boardwipes were too reliable with the state the game is in right now
Using a 2 mana combo to take down even the biggest minions in the game with no drawback as a Hunter is way too good.
Everyone has been complaining about the Spellstone for a long time, and now it got nerfed.
Hell, I'm happy the game is getting this much attention from the developers. They had a history of sitting on nerfing problematic cards for six months, and now we get three balance patches in as many months.