ROGUES ARE GETTING NERFED! 4 Card Changes Coming May 22
In a blog post from Blizzard this afternoon, they have announced changes to Rogue cards and Archivist Elysiana. The patch comes out May 22.
- EVIL Miscreant - Now has 4 Health (Down from 5)
- Raiding Party - Now costs 4 Mana (Up from 3)
- Preparation - Next spell cast cost is now reduced by 2 (Down from 3)
- Archivist Elysiana - Now costs 9 Mana (Up from 8)
Quote from BlizzardAfter evaluating game data and working through internal and external feedback on the most popular decks currently in the meta, we’re looking to address the power level and overall pervasiveness of Rogue decks, alongside a specific interaction with Archivist Elysiana. Look for these changes in an update slated for May 22.
We chose to focus primarily on Rogue in this update due to seeing the meta stabilize around the class’s most popular decks. Currently, if you want to build a deck that is strong against Rogue, you have just one reasonable option: Warrior. If you compare Rogue to Warrior, however, you’ll find that the latter class has a wide variety of good and bad matchups, which makes it unlikely that it’ll overtake Rogue in popularity in the current meta.
While we recognize that there are other powerful and popular decks (like Token Druid, Conjurer Mage, and Mech Hunter), we decided to not address them in this update because they all have varied matchups. If any of these decks were to emerge as the new prominent strategy, there are plenty of decks available to combat them, which would allow the meta to continue shifting.
As always, we’ll be evaluating the results of these changes over the coming weeks and look forward to your feedback. Read on for details on these changes, our thought process around them, and our goals for each of the cards we adjusted.
- EVIL Miscreant - Now has 4 Health. (Down from 5)
- EVIL Miscreant is meant to be a value-generating card that creates future swing turns, but having 5 Health on this minion means Rogue players sacrifice very little to set up those turns. We expect that EVIL Miscreant will continue to be a great option for Rogue decks, just at a power level that is more in line with other available cards.
- Raiding Party – Now costs 4 mana. (Up from 3)
- Rogue already excels at drawing cards, so having another powerful option that offers consistent results has resulted in Rogue games that play out a little too similarly than we think is fun. We’re making this change to better represent the power level of drawing from a very specific subset of cards.
- Preparation – Now reads: The next spell you cast this turn costs (2) less.
- All changes we make to the Basic and Classic sets are aimed at ensuring Hearthstone’s long-term health. Preparation is currently seen as such a powerful card that it appears in nearly all Rogue deck archetypes. That said, the change we’ve landed on is a small one. While we do want the card’s power to decrease, we also think it’s important for Preparation to remain a reasonable option, since it fits the Rogue class fantasy so well.
- Preparation is regularly used to reduce the cost of cards like Sap or Eviscerate, and those interactions will remain unchanged. Reducing the cost of your next spell by 2 as opposed to 3 opens our design options up a little more to create higher cost Rogue spells without having to balance so closely around the assumption that they’ll be cast alongside Preparation.
- Archivist Elysiana – Now costs 9 mana. (Up from 8)
- Our goal here was to preserve the feeling and power level of Archivist Elysiana when it comes to general use, while making much more difficult to play her multiple times in the same game. Shaman will still be able to replay Elysiana through Shudderwock, but this is not as common or problematic as what we’ve seen in control Warrior decks. Now, playing Elysiana alongside cards like Baleful Banker or Youthful Brewmaster should be a less consistent strategy.
I'd prefer prep to be 1 mana cost, reduce spell cost by 4.
Always sad to see a classic card die.
Other nerfs are fine though.
Got damn it, Blizzard... what about warriors and mages?!?
If I craft Archivist Elysiana (or any of the other cards) now, will I get the full dust refund once nerfed?
You only get the full dust upon disenchanting the nerfed card (for a limited amount of time).
Right, that's what I meant to ask. I was thinking of crafting it, but I was wondering now as it's being nerfed. Thank you.
Blizz, you should've taken care of mage and warrior first of all !!!!!!!!
I see little problem of running a youthful brewmaster in control warrior. It is still not a useless card for bouncing back good mechs + 50% to have a huge advantage
Good changes, but I still think Preparation's text should have remained the same, but the mana cost should have gone up to 1. It's a subtle, but important different. Now Preparation doesn't feel that much different from the coin. It's going the way of Innervate.
They shouldn't have nerfed both Prep and Raiding Party. Nerfing either one alone would have been enough.
Nerf to Prep is fine, even that to Evil Miscreant, but nerfing Raiding Party makes no sense.
There are cards like Master's Call and Book of Spectre that have almost the same effect without needing combo.
The real problem was Waggle Pick which remained untouched.
Drawing specific cards is insane cause you can build around them.ESPECIALLY When you use this draw way more consistent with prep
call doesn't tutor though and call needs you to only have beasts in your deck as for book it gets rid of your spells if you miss with it plus it doesnt tutor either, spells that are literally core to the strategy, the downside of rp of needing combo is literally nothing compared to the downside of call and book and the ability to tutor your only weapon that enables all your strategy plus specific minions from your deck is way too strong
call tutors...beasts, like raiding party tutors...pirates
master's call doesn't tutor beasts, it just draws them. the difference is that in midrange hunter, your deck wants to have a lot of minions, and all of them have to be beasts. but with raiding party, you can run whatever minions you want, and still have this card that can draw you a weapon and two minions that synergize with it.
master's call limits deck space, and is not as consistent.
There was Raiding Party also before RoS and it seems that nobody had ever asked for a nerf.
It's all about Waggle Pick that has enabled the powerful synergy with Dread Corsairs. Before that you could still draw them with another weapon but you had to use at least one Deadly Poison to play them at 0 mana.
call doesnt tutor beasts because there's no way you'll get a specific beast, opposedly you can run your deck wiht any combination of non-pirate minions and only 2 specific pirates and raiding party will make sure you always draw those pirates.
Tank up to rank up Wild is getting screwed and Rouge is getting the old Innervate but for spells LUL. Thanks for the free dust Blizzard. Maybe after the nerfs even Rogue might be a thing in wild ablest we might get some good vids form it
Going to be a big deal going 2nd in the warrior mirror now. Having the Coin for Coin+Banker/Brewmaster could potentially be game deciding. Any particular reason the nerf wasn't to 10 mana?
If you're blowing a tech slot hoping to get the coin in Warrior mirrors after the Rogue nerf, you're going to be putting yourself at a disadvantage against everyone targeting Warriors. The Warrior population will be dropping significantly, so I doubt any successful players will still run bounce effects for Elysiana.
Good nerfs, all playable but weaken imo. Warrior shouldn't be a problem because there are many midrange decks that beats control, maybe the rise of a more tempo based warrior (dragons, i call you) and probably druids ;).