Blizzard just announced the following changes to Tinkmaster & Nat Pagle:
Tinkmaster Overspark is now a 3/3 (up from 2/2) and now reads: Battlecry: Transform another random minion into a 5/5 Devilsaur or a 1/1 Squirrel.
Tinkmaster is a neutral card that silences and often shrinks big creatures. This reduces the amount of big, fun creatures in the environment. We think this change will increase the amount fun creatures in the environment, and bring him more in-line with his cost and overall power. Tinkmaster should still show up in certain types of decks, but will no longer be appearing in every high level deck.
Nat Pagle now reads: At the start of your turn, you have a 50% chance to draw an extra card.
Nat Pagle will now draw a card at the start of your turn rather than at the end. Nat had too much draw power for a card that is fairly hard to counter so early in the game, making it almost an auto-include for many decks. This change reduces the power of the card and gives players more time to counter the card before it starts.
What do you guys think? Are the cards still playable or should they rather be substituted?
I for one believe that the Pagle nerf is alright and not too big of a deal. Some people might change him for a Loot Hoarder to get a guaranteed draw but a T2/T1 (coin) Pagle will still be a problem unless the opponent runs an Ironbeak Owl.
Tinkmaster on the other hand will be significantly worse than it is now. Not only can you no longer choose the minion you want to transform but he will also target friendly minions. This basically means that he will only be playable in certain scenarios unless you want to put your faith in RNG: a) Your opponent just played a big creature and the entire board (including your side) is empty apart from that creature or b) You have a small creature on your side of the board (e.g. Totem, Argent Squire) and your opponent has a threat or nothing at all in play. This change is an indirect buff to classes running hard removal (Shaman, Mage, Warrior etc.) and big Legendaries (imagine what a pain in the ass Ysera will be for Druids - Naturalize??), while at the same time nerfing classes that do not run hard removal (e.g. Druid, Paladin (Equality is only good if your side of the board is basically empty).
Tinkmaster is not viable anymore imo. - I will be dusting him as soon as the changes are made, He was a card worth playing in control decks, its almost like they want to alienate against the control player even more. - I personally thought he was strong but not worth a nerf.
Nat Pagle- Will not require a little more timing in order to get the best use out of him. - But still viable.
[card]Tinkmaster Overspark[/card]'s nerf is really too much in my opinion, I mean even without the nerf he wasn't that broken, at least not nearly as broken as Nat Pagle was. Tinkmaster Overspark was fine in my opinion since it gave flexibility to decks that had zero hard removal, like Druids for example. I would have prefered if his effect was for a random enemy minion instead of a random minion in general. Now, regarding Nat Pagle I totally agree, he can be countered faster by the enemy but in my opinion this change might be a slight indirect buff since you can use the card that he fished right away, I guess we will have to test how it goes and then draw our final conclusions.
I'm fine with the change to Nat. Having a slight buff and nerf depending on situation.
What I really don't understand is, how they changed Tinkmaster. His effect was exploited before, no question asked. But in its current form, it usually isn't worth the hassle. (Clearing the entire board except the minion you actually want to transform to use him as before) He might have its uses in a tokenbased deck, and he definitely got a big buff for Randuin Wrynn, but on a more "competitive" view, it doesn't make sense.
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I agree, unless the opponent has an immediate answer to Pagle, he might actually be better than he is now. Once he survives a round, he's identical to the current version with the only difference being that you can use the card he fished right away.
I agree, unless the opponent has an immediate answer to Pagle, he might actually be better than he is now. Once he survives a round, he's identical to the current version with the only difference being that you can use the card he fished right away.
How is he better since he doesnt have the chance to draw you a card the turn he comes into play? its clearly worse
Read my post again, you have the answer right there. Depending on the situation, he might be better. There's still no way to remove a T1/T2 Pagle efficiently and you can now use the fished card right away instead of having to wait another turn to use it.
I do agree though that he'll be considerably worse in the mid- late game if you don't have board control. In that case, he'll probably just end up preventing 4 dmg to your face. He'll simply have to be played more wisely now.
I agree, unless the opponent has an immediate answer to Pagle, he might actually be better than he is now. Once he survives a round, he's identical to the current version with the only difference being that you can use the card he fished right away.
How is he better since he doesnt have the chance to draw you a card the turn he comes into play? its clearly worse
Read my post again, you have the answer right there. Depending on the situation, he might be better. There's still no way to remove a T1/T2 Pagle efficiently and you can now use the fished card right away instead of having to wait another turn to use it.
I do agree though that he'll be considerably worse in the mid- late game if you don't have board control. In that case, he'll probably just end up preventing 4 dmg to your face. He'll simply have to be played more wisely now.
If you think harder...he is directly worse. How is drawing the same card at the end of your turn not the same than drawing it at the beginning..you still would use that same card on your turn...you just get to "see" it later..which is also worse...since if you draw it at the end of your turn...you can figure out your next move earlier. Nat now has an even greater chance of not netting you anything..since they have a chance to draw an answer on their turn if they did not have one already.
I agree, unless the opponent has an immediate answer to Pagle, he might actually be better than he is now. Once he survives a round, he's identical to the current version with the only difference being that you can use the card he fished right away.
How is he better since he doesnt have the chance to draw you a card the turn he comes into play? its clearly worse
Read my post again, you have the answer right there. Depending on the situation, he might be better. There's still no way to remove a T1/T2 Pagle efficiently and you can now use the fished card right away instead of having to wait another turn to use it.
I do agree though that he'll be considerably worse in the mid- late game if you don't have board control. In that case, he'll probably just end up preventing 4 dmg to your face. He'll simply have to be played more wisely now.
You realize that the card that he fished at the start of your turn was the card he would have fished at the end of your previous turn right? Nat Pagle is strictly worse now and I would go as far to say that he will be bad in most decks unless the meta shifts to be all control mirrors (with the prevalence of zoo I was even considering removing pagle right now).
On average, the new version will essentially draw 0.5 cards less which is a pretty big deal (slightly than 0.5 cards to be precise, but close enough).
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I'm so glad there is prejudice against playing hunter/zoo/[insert FotM deck here]. People like that make the life so much easier for those of us who play to win.
It's a shame, I thought tinkmaster was a very balanced card. It gave decks that did not have any solid removal like a sheep or a hex an ability that worked similar with a potential draw back. The only time he was solid was vs bombs anyway. Ill be collecting my dust once the change goes through as he is unplayable now.
The change to pagle is annoying but when it comes down to it, its still solid draw power, I can't see the decks that currently use him dropping him but I may be mistaken. What other non class specific draw power would replace him? There really is none.
If I am reading the wording correctly then you will now be able to pick what tinkmaster changes the minion into. In that case he could help quite a bit if your side is empty and the enemy has a few threats or say as a paladin/shaman, you could get a 5/5 on turn 3 if your opponent has an empty board on turn 3. Not amazing but I think there is still potential.
Of course I'm basing this on the fact you can choose which is what the wording seems to say. Now the target is random, not the transformation.
Well only Loot Hoarder is an option, Novice Engineer might see a comeback, since she was the reason that Nat Pagle had increased popularity after her nerf. Although her stats in my opinion make her a weak choice.
At least I know what I'm going to replace Nat Pagle with in my shaman deck.
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"You betrayed our people to forge your fragile alliances and I will take great pleasure in tearing them apart."
1. The change is in EVERY WAY a debuff for Nat Pagle. I can't understand how some might think it's *better* now. No, really, I can't understand it, it literally defies my comprehension. So I want you folks to know, I'm not ragging on people that don't think the same way I do, but I really don't think I'm able to have coherent communication with people that have such fundamentally different approaches.
2. A lot of players complained about Nat Pagle and Tinkmaster Overspark. I guess mostly people wanted Nat to be more consistent to avoid RNG (neither buff nor debuff, but change to address RNG), and people mostly wanted Tinkmaster to be buffed to produce a single consistent minion. Note this is *my understanding of what other people wanted*.
3. I don't think Blizzard was addressing RNG complainers when they errataed (is that a word?) Nat and Tinkmaster. I think what they did was they looked at their data, saw how much Nat and Tink were used (maybe in control decks, but whatever), and decided to nerf them based on their inclusion in so many deck types. My read is, Blizzard totally made the change based on their internal controls, complainers had nothing to do with it.
4. I know people are going to be up in arms about Tinkmaster. But consider the meta. You drop a Ysera or something, you use up your turn. You drop Ragnaros the Firelord, you use up your turn. These are big risky plays; you ideally don't want to drop them into an uncontrolled environment, but you can't spare crystal power to clear the board. Consider Mind Control; it's a 10-drop that you commit your turn to; you include it in your deck to try to force a huge shift.
How big is the importance of high-crystal drops? I faced a priest that used Mind Control on my Ragnaros the Firelord, and Mind Control on Ysera. (One game, lost both minions). I *won*, because the priest couldn't do anything but steal my minions.
So now take another look at Tinkmaster Overspark. It's a 3-drop that effectively crushes those high-drop minions, that allows you 7 more crystal for counter-play. Your opponent might end up with a 5/5, but even at 5/5, it's typically *manageable* - if you were contesting board to begin with, and your opponent dropped a fatty and probably *nothing else* (because those fatties are high on crystal cost). So you drop a 2/2, your opponent has a 5/5, that's *probably not enough to lose you the game, especially since you had SEVEN MORE CRYSTAL to spend*.
Anyways yeah - that's my read on it; that Blizzard made the changes not based on forum chatter, but internal controls. Probably . . . . yeah I don't like the change especially to Tinkmaster, but I can see why it was done, and maybe it's better for the long term.
(edit) - per Zeriyah (blue poster) on US Battle Net forum, post-errata, Tinkmaster changes a random other minion into a 5/5 Devilsaur or 1/1 Squirrel randomly. That is, you *cannot* choose between making a 5/5 or a 1/1.
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Glad I did not craft tinkmaster, this change just crushes him and makes him unplayable hes just a more consistence cheaper Gelbin. In some cases hes is worse then him now. At least the Random chance of Chicken Cannon is funny and not a fricken Dinosaur.
Now, Paggle will still be good, but way less win on its own, like cards should be. I think its a good balance change for him. This simply lowers the gap between him and the other draw cards. He is still better than all of them and will still be in almost any deck. If he gets killed immediately, its like gaining a minimum of 4 life possibly more, and against rush, thats an okay trade. If you stick him t1/2 against control you probably will get the same old value out of him. It really is only a buff to stone beak owl, not much else.
They could have made it cost more or made the minion the it spawned not random. Some classes like Druid relied on Tink as their only hard removal. This is horrible change, he's complete and utter garbage not and shouldn't even be legendary.
Blizzard just announced the following changes to Tinkmaster & Nat Pagle:
Tinkmaster Overspark is now a 3/3 (up from 2/2) and now reads: Battlecry: Transform another random minion into a 5/5 Devilsaur or a 1/1 Squirrel.
Nat Pagle now reads: At the start of your turn, you have a 50% chance to draw an extra card.
What do you guys think? Are the cards still playable or should they rather be substituted?
I for one believe that the Pagle nerf is alright and not too big of a deal. Some people might change him for a Loot Hoarder to get a guaranteed draw but a T2/T1 (coin) Pagle will still be a problem unless the opponent runs an Ironbeak Owl.
Tinkmaster on the other hand will be significantly worse than it is now. Not only can you no longer choose the minion you want to transform but he will also target friendly minions. This basically means that he will only be playable in certain scenarios unless you want to put your faith in RNG: a) Your opponent just played a big creature and the entire board (including your side) is empty apart from that creature or b) You have a small creature on your side of the board (e.g. Totem, Argent Squire) and your opponent has a threat or nothing at all in play. This change is an indirect buff to classes running hard removal (Shaman, Mage, Warrior etc.) and big Legendaries (imagine what a pain in the ass Ysera will be for Druids - Naturalize??), while at the same time nerfing classes that do not run hard removal (e.g. Druid, Paladin (Equality is only good if your side of the board is basically empty).
Tinkmaster is not viable anymore imo. - I will be dusting him as soon as the changes are made, He was a card worth playing in control decks, its almost like they want to alienate against the control player even more. - I personally thought he was strong but not worth a nerf.
Nat Pagle- Will not require a little more timing in order to get the best use out of him. - But still viable.
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[card]Tinkmaster Overspark[/card]'s nerf is really too much in my opinion, I mean even without the nerf he wasn't that broken, at least not nearly as broken as Nat Pagle was. Tinkmaster Overspark was fine in my opinion since it gave flexibility to decks that had zero hard removal, like Druids for example. I would have prefered if his effect was for a random enemy minion instead of a random minion in general. Now, regarding Nat Pagle I totally agree, he can be countered faster by the enemy but in my opinion this change might be a slight indirect buff since you can use the card that he fished right away, I guess we will have to test how it goes and then draw our final conclusions.
"You betrayed our people to forge your fragile alliances and I will take great pleasure in tearing them apart."
I'm fine with the change to Nat. Having a slight buff and nerf depending on situation.
What I really don't understand is, how they changed Tinkmaster.
His effect was exploited before, no question asked. But in its current form, it usually isn't worth the hassle.
(Clearing the entire board except the minion you actually want to transform to use him as before)
He might have its uses in a tokenbased deck, and he definitely got a big buff for Randuin Wrynn, but on a more "competitive" view, it doesn't make sense.
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I agree, unless the opponent has an immediate answer to Pagle, he might actually be better than he is now. Once he survives a round, he's identical to the current version with the only difference being that you can use the card he fished right away.
Yeah im really glad they fixed this and left the Starving Buzzard Unleash the Hounds combo alone. Fail.
The thing is that you can play around Unleash the Hounds, if they nerfed it then hunter would be unplayable again.
"You betrayed our people to forge your fragile alliances and I will take great pleasure in tearing them apart."
OMG! They killed
KennyTinkmaster. :(Read my post again, you have the answer right there. Depending on the situation, he might be better. There's still no way to remove a T1/T2 Pagle efficiently and you can now use the fished card right away instead of having to wait another turn to use it.
I do agree though that he'll be considerably worse in the mid- late game if you don't have board control. In that case, he'll probably just end up preventing 4 dmg to your face. He'll simply have to be played more wisely now.
If you think harder...he is directly worse. How is drawing the same card at the end of your turn not the same than drawing it at the beginning..you still would use that same card on your turn...you just get to "see" it later..which is also worse...since if you draw it at the end of your turn...you can figure out your next move earlier. Nat now has an even greater chance of not netting you anything..since they have a chance to draw an answer on their turn if they did not have one already.
You realize that the card that he fished at the start of your turn was the card he would have fished at the end of your previous turn right? Nat Pagle is strictly worse now and I would go as far to say that he will be bad in most decks unless the meta shifts to be all control mirrors (with the prevalence of zoo I was even considering removing pagle right now).
On average, the new version will essentially draw 0.5 cards less which is a pretty big deal (slightly than 0.5 cards to be precise, but close enough).
I'm so glad there is prejudice against playing hunter/zoo/[insert FotM deck here]. People like that make the life so much easier for those of us who play to win.
It's a shame, I thought tinkmaster was a very balanced card. It gave decks that did not have any solid removal like a sheep or a hex an ability that worked similar with a potential draw back. The only time he was solid was vs bombs anyway. Ill be collecting my dust once the change goes through as he is unplayable now.
The change to pagle is annoying but when it comes down to it, its still solid draw power, I can't see the decks that currently use him dropping him but I may be mistaken. What other non class specific draw power would replace him? There really is none.
If I am reading the wording correctly then you will now be able to pick what tinkmaster changes the minion into. In that case he could help quite a bit if your side is empty and the enemy has a few threats or say as a paladin/shaman, you could get a 5/5 on turn 3 if your opponent has an empty board on turn 3. Not amazing but I think there is still potential.
Of course I'm basing this on the fact you can choose which is what the wording seems to say. Now the target is random, not the transformation.
Well only Loot Hoarder is an option, Novice Engineer might see a comeback, since she was the reason that Nat Pagle had increased popularity after her nerf. Although her stats in my opinion make her a weak choice.
At least I know what I'm going to replace Nat Pagle with in my shaman deck.
"You betrayed our people to forge your fragile alliances and I will take great pleasure in tearing them apart."
1. The change is in EVERY WAY a debuff for Nat Pagle. I can't understand how some might think it's *better* now. No, really, I can't understand it, it literally defies my comprehension. So I want you folks to know, I'm not ragging on people that don't think the same way I do, but I really don't think I'm able to have coherent communication with people that have such fundamentally different approaches.
2. A lot of players complained about Nat Pagle and Tinkmaster Overspark. I guess mostly people wanted Nat to be more consistent to avoid RNG (neither buff nor debuff, but change to address RNG), and people mostly wanted Tinkmaster to be buffed to produce a single consistent minion. Note this is *my understanding of what other people wanted*.
3. I don't think Blizzard was addressing RNG complainers when they errataed (is that a word?) Nat and Tinkmaster. I think what they did was they looked at their data, saw how much Nat and Tink were used (maybe in control decks, but whatever), and decided to nerf them based on their inclusion in so many deck types. My read is, Blizzard totally made the change based on their internal controls, complainers had nothing to do with it.
4. I know people are going to be up in arms about Tinkmaster. But consider the meta. You drop a Ysera or something, you use up your turn. You drop Ragnaros the Firelord, you use up your turn. These are big risky plays; you ideally don't want to drop them into an uncontrolled environment, but you can't spare crystal power to clear the board. Consider Mind Control; it's a 10-drop that you commit your turn to; you include it in your deck to try to force a huge shift.
How big is the importance of high-crystal drops? I faced a priest that used Mind Control on my Ragnaros the Firelord, and Mind Control on Ysera. (One game, lost both minions). I *won*, because the priest couldn't do anything but steal my minions.
So now take another look at Tinkmaster Overspark. It's a 3-drop that effectively crushes those high-drop minions, that allows you 7 more crystal for counter-play. Your opponent might end up with a 5/5, but even at 5/5, it's typically *manageable* - if you were contesting board to begin with, and your opponent dropped a fatty and probably *nothing else* (because those fatties are high on crystal cost). So you drop a 2/2, your opponent has a 5/5, that's *probably not enough to lose you the game, especially since you had SEVEN MORE CRYSTAL to spend*.
Anyways yeah - that's my read on it; that Blizzard made the changes not based on forum chatter, but internal controls. Probably . . . . yeah I don't like the change especially to Tinkmaster, but I can see why it was done, and maybe it's better for the long term.
(edit) - per Zeriyah (blue poster) on US Battle Net forum, post-errata, Tinkmaster changes a random other minion into a 5/5 Devilsaur or 1/1 Squirrel randomly. That is, you *cannot* choose between making a 5/5 or a 1/1.
If you see a post that you find objectionable, report it, it helps keep the forum clean. But be aware people are allowed a lot of latitude.
If you find my posts to be rude, objectionable, or whatever, well, I got tired of writing polite TL; DR (Too Long, Didn't Read) posts at crybaby whiners. So now I just make it short and nasty.
If you find that funny, well and good. If you find that sad, that's even better.
Well, I'll finally get Tirion for the dust.
Glad I did not craft tinkmaster, this change just crushes him and makes him unplayable hes just a more consistence cheaper Gelbin. In some cases hes is worse then him now. At least the Random chance of Chicken Cannon is funny and not a fricken Dinosaur.
Now, Paggle will still be good, but way less win on its own, like cards should be. I think its a good balance change for him. This simply lowers the gap between him and the other draw cards. He is still better than all of them and will still be in almost any deck. If he gets killed immediately, its like gaining a minimum of 4 life possibly more, and against rush, thats an okay trade. If you stick him t1/2 against control you probably will get the same old value out of him. It really is only a buff to stone beak owl, not much else.
They could have made it cost more or made the minion the it spawned not random. Some classes like Druid relied on Tink as their only hard removal. This is horrible change, he's complete and utter garbage not and shouldn't even be legendary.
Anyone who did craft him will get 1600 dust to get another Legend anyway, afaik. I should hope so! As they've pretty much made him a different card.
It should read a random enemy minion, not any minion.