I know the change of the rules for Naga Sea Witch was a long time ago, but still, why did they change it? Before, it was a perfectly balanced card. Everything costs (5): your cheap spells and your big dragons. You can get big discounts on Molten Giants, but they still cost 5, so your Naga Sea Witch will likely have to survive a turn before you can take advantage of this.
Now the card is broken. While the decks using it still aren't that popular (I think), it's a broken interaction that leads to game swingy moments and unfun game play. Any card that can create a board state of a 5/5 and multiple 8/8s on turn 5, should be nerfed because of the unfair game play and unable to be countered broken interactions it can provide. Even if it isn't that popular, it's still problematic.
Additionally, it greatly limits design space for the future. If Blizzard ever wants to make a card that has a high cost but will reduce it's cost overtime so you can play it eventually, they have to worry about how broken it might be with Naga Sea Witch. Like what about a giant 20 mana spell with an incredible effect that reduces it's cost as you play deathrattle minions or something; they have to worry about players using Naga Sea Witch to just get this effect on turn 5 or 6, way earlier than they should and just win the game.
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They did it as part of a fundamental change to how effects stack. No worries, Naga decks are trash tier (play one if you don't believe me), and as far as design space goes, they got no love for cost-reduction type mechanics, made abundantly clear with the manhandling of poor Molten Giant
I know i'm late to the party but I will try to answer this question. I was asking myself this question a lot of times. Especially when i was tilted by her lol. My theory might be crazy but I think by changing Naga Sea Witch Blizzard ensured that new players who wanted to try something really Wild can just craft her with 800 dust and then play some really broken deck. So they won't play only Wild aggro decks. Its really just a theory tho :D
In my opinion Naga decks are not even that strong( They are at the bottom of Tier 2). There is still even more powerfull highroll deck. Big Priest with Ressurect available in Wild, can cheat out 2 threats on turn 4 with coin or 5 ( assuming barnes was played and pulled somethin). And not only Big Priest, basically every Priest with Lightbomb and other powerfull boardclear options (the most powerfull in the game). Im not even mentioning that in Wild there are aggro decks that can get sooo good curve that they can kill you before Naga turn. And there are still more counters like Frost Nova + Doomsayer. Pyro + Equality or Potion of Polymorph or Explosive Rune settled up for Naga and so on and on. Naga decks were op half and year ago but now people figured out what to play and they are not that strong nowadays.
Naga decks feel really strong because the highroll potential is so insane but they are also extremely easy to counter. In wild mode it's okay to have rediculous decks like this because it's wild, people want to be doing broken stuff. I think it's fine as long as the deck is easily beaten when teched against, which it is.
They did it as part of a fundamental change to how effects stack. No worries, Naga decks are trash tier (play one if you don't believe me), and as far as design space goes, they got no love for cost-reduction type mechanics, made abundantly clear with the manhandling of poor Molten Giant
How do you figure they are trash tier. The naga Hunter deck loses to aggro but beats up on control decks. And naga warlock has just become flat broken with the new k&c cards. Sure it's trash in the other 7 classes now, but it will only take a couple future cards to really break it.
Prior to K&C, the best build of the deck was Naga Hunter - but it wasn't obviously better than other Hunter builds, and its play-rate ultimately decreased from a peak play-rate of 39% in the class to about 9%, according to HSReplays. Currently, the card has bumped back up to 13% representation in Hunter.
K&C gave Warlock some new toys - Voidcaller + Mal'Ganis isn't new, but Voidcaller + Voidlord is, and stalls the game long enough for Warlock to draw into a handful of giants. The new Kobold cantrip helps in that regard, as well. Naga currently has about a 22% play-rate in Warlock, and the best available data suggests that it is clustered with a handful of other Wild decks between 52%-55% win-rates. But folks generally aren't bitching about win-rates - there will always be decks which win more often than they lose. Folks are bitching about how the deck wins - it doesn't feel "fair." It's a subjective complaint, but not without merit. If the card isn't literally broken, it certainly looks like the sort of card which will perpetually threaten to simply explode - eventually, it likely will. A pre-emptive nerf in that regard seems perfectly justifiable - moreso, given the current "unfairness" of the card.
I run the hunter version of this deck. It felt very broken when I went on an 8-10 game win streak (Maybe 1-2 losses in 12 games) but once I got to higher ranks it shows that it is kinda a one trick pony. It is a combo deck that you can combo on turn 5 instead of T10, but it can still be bested by almost all classes in wild. Lightbomb [/card](and like 3 other priest cards), [card]Poison Seeds and just about any aggro deck.
Overall I think it is a fun card, and not broken, powerful but only if you design a deck around it. Its not like you can throw it into any deck and it is helpful.
I know the change of the rules for Naga Sea Witch was a long time ago, but still, why did they change it? Before, it was a perfectly balanced card. Everything costs (5): your cheap spells and your big dragons. You can get big discounts on Molten Giants, but they still cost 5, so your Naga Sea Witch will likely have to survive a turn before you can take advantage of this.
Now the card is broken. While the decks using it still aren't that popular (I think), it's a broken interaction that leads to game swingy moments and unfun game play. Any card that can create a board state of a 5/5 and multiple 8/8s on turn 5, should be nerfed because of the unfair game play and unable to be countered broken interactions it can provide. Even if it isn't that popular, it's still problematic.
Additionally, it greatly limits design space for the future. If Blizzard ever wants to make a card that has a high cost but will reduce it's cost overtime so you can play it eventually, they have to worry about how broken it might be with Naga Sea Witch. Like what about a giant 20 mana spell with an incredible effect that reduces it's cost as you play deathrattle minions or something; they have to worry about players using Naga Sea Witch to just get this effect on turn 5 or 6, way earlier than they should and just win the game.
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I think the change had more to do with global effects that work in the same way rather than that card specifically.
Didn't they make the change at the same time they unified all the niche rules that seemed to operate differently for each card?
They did it as part of a fundamental change to how effects stack. No worries, Naga decks are trash tier (play one if you don't believe me), and as far as design space goes, they got no love for cost-reduction type mechanics, made abundantly clear with the manhandling of poor Molten Giant
Free to try and find a game, dealing cards for sorrow, cards for pain.
So you just came from Firebat & Zalae stream?
And i was asking myself the same thing
Rumors are carried by haters, spread by fools, and accepted by idiots.
Something like this is not trash tier in wild:
https://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/1040151-67-5-winrate-wild-giant-demonlock
(Not my deck, but I have a similar one and it's pretty ridiculous).
Ibn Fahd.
As people have already mentioned it was to make the effects/rules for global effects to be more consistent.
Ironically, giant decks still are not strong enough to beat other high roll decks like Big Priest.
I know i'm late to the party but I will try to answer this question. I was asking myself this question a lot of times. Especially when i was tilted by her lol. My theory might be crazy but I think by changing Naga Sea Witch Blizzard ensured that new players who wanted to try something really Wild can just craft her with 800 dust and then play some really broken deck. So they won't play only Wild aggro decks. Its really just a theory tho :D
In my opinion Naga decks are not even that strong( They are at the bottom of Tier 2). There is still even more powerfull highroll deck. Big Priest with Ressurect available in Wild, can cheat out 2 threats on turn 4 with coin or 5 ( assuming barnes was played and pulled somethin). And not only Big Priest, basically every Priest with Lightbomb and other powerfull boardclear options (the most powerfull in the game). Im not even mentioning that in Wild there are aggro decks that can get sooo good curve that they can kill you before Naga turn. And there are still more counters like Frost Nova + Doomsayer. Pyro + Equality or Potion of Polymorph or Explosive Rune settled up for Naga and so on and on. Naga decks were op half and year ago but now people figured out what to play and they are not that strong nowadays.
Moving into https://outof.cards/members/firepaladinhs/decks
They actually changed bright-eyed acout and its interaction with second-rate bruiser and Naga giants is just a side effect they didn't think about
Naga decks feel really strong because the highroll potential is so insane but they are also extremely easy to counter. In wild mode it's okay to have rediculous decks like this because it's wild, people want to be doing broken stuff. I think it's fine as long as the deck is easily beaten when teched against, which it is.
BB explained the decision, for anyone interested -
https://www.hearthpwn.com/news/3343-ben-brode-explains-the-reasoning-for-the-naga-sea
Prior to K&C, the best build of the deck was Naga Hunter - but it wasn't obviously better than other Hunter builds, and its play-rate ultimately decreased from a peak play-rate of 39% in the class to about 9%, according to HSReplays. Currently, the card has bumped back up to 13% representation in Hunter.
K&C gave Warlock some new toys - Voidcaller + Mal'Ganis isn't new, but Voidcaller + Voidlord is, and stalls the game long enough for Warlock to draw into a handful of giants. The new Kobold cantrip helps in that regard, as well. Naga currently has about a 22% play-rate in Warlock, and the best available data suggests that it is clustered with a handful of other Wild decks between 52%-55% win-rates. But folks generally aren't bitching about win-rates - there will always be decks which win more often than they lose. Folks are bitching about how the deck wins - it doesn't feel "fair." It's a subjective complaint, but not without merit. If the card isn't literally broken, it certainly looks like the sort of card which will perpetually threaten to simply explode - eventually, it likely will. A pre-emptive nerf in that regard seems perfectly justifiable - moreso, given the current "unfairness" of the card.
I run the hunter version of this deck. It felt very broken when I went on an 8-10 game win streak (Maybe 1-2 losses in 12 games) but once I got to higher ranks it shows that it is kinda a one trick pony. It is a combo deck that you can combo on turn 5 instead of T10, but it can still be bested by almost all classes in wild. Lightbomb [/card](and like 3 other priest cards), [card]Poison Seeds and just about any aggro deck.
Overall I think it is a fun card, and not broken, powerful but only if you design a deck around it. Its not like you can throw it into any deck and it is helpful.
Nagalock is Tier One in wild and thge card needs to be nerfed before the Wild Open
I just said that that was the initial intent, I didn't say they didn't know about it
Design space. Buzzword of the day that makes me want to puke.