I think Dark Pact is a problematic card at the moment, the staple “do something bad to yourself for a good payoff” is not very balanced when you can turn the bad part in something good. This case is very bad since it’s all linked togheter, Dark Pact is very good used on Carnivorous Cube or Possessed Lackey, so for just 6 mana you can heal for 8 and get a “random” demon, but as we all know ( looking at you Spiteful Summoner ) controlled rng can be very obnoxious, especially if you ALWAYS get a Voidlord or a Doomguard, so 6 mana heal 8 and get 1 or 2 5/7 with charge or 3/9 and 3 1/3 ( both with taunts ).
Now let’s talk nerfs, you don’t need to nerf everything since it’s a combo, just nerf one part and you can keep the deck still viable. Maybe making Dark Pact silence the minion before destroying it. What do you think?
How many times should we discuss it. The problematic card is the Possessed Lackey and the recruit mechanic in general. W/o them, you can't cheat out a big minion that easily and you need more time and set-up in order to get the value from the cubes.
A small comparison - Play Dead is a 1 mana spell as well, which triggers deathrattles but unlike the warlock equivalent it keeps the minion alive. So it provides more benefits because of it. Hunters lack the support for such deathrattle strategies, but in a vacuum this card is stronger.
Sorry OP for saying this, but some people can't evaluate the real offenders. Dark Pact is strong, because it gives warlocks an unconditional and a burst heal. But it's not the problematic card, which brings all of the mayhem in this meta and which needs to be stopped. No, this card needs you to sacrifice a minion in order to get some life back. It's an activator, but the activated card is the one, which causes all the trouble. Make a little test:
- Play with/against cubelock running lackeys, pacts and all of the other pieces from that package. - -//- run the lackeys, but remove the pacts and instead use the new WW card. - -//- keep the pacts, but remove the lackeys.
Removing a certain card from the deck would symbolize how the card has been nerfed and doesn't see competitive play. Make a small test and see whether or not Cubelocks entirely relied on the pacts.
If we remove the lackeys, then the whole package will collapse, i.e. it will become extremely weak and imho unplayable. Only the weapon would be able to carry it. The dark pacts could be used as a desperate heal in some decks, but they won't have good targets and thus they won't be a strong inclusion anymore.
Dark pact is secretly one of the strongest spells in the game, mark my words, nerfing it will make warlock weaker 8+ health and activating lackey or cube is just beyond ridiculous for 1 mana ? lol
Dark pact is fine as it is - 8 heal only means something if you play against aggro where we need more tools to survive - miss my good ol healbot. The problem with cubelock is those annoying Doomguards that can burst you down from 30hp - without those doomguards other control decks might see the light again.
The problem with nerfing a common (which you're not explicitly calling for but many others have suggested it) is that all the people who crafted niche legendaries (Skull, Umbra, Prince T) and all the core epics get 80 dust and a poke in the eye. It's easy for forum posters to say "screw those netdeckers, you're pushing my deck out of the format," but Blizzard can't burn the players who spend money or precious F2P dust.
Saccing your minions for value is core to Warlock, and on the face of it (before you put it in a degenerate Cube deck), Dark Pact is straight card disadvantage. So nerfing the rate on the card to make it worse than Holy Light of Healing Touch doesn't make much sense.
Isn't the real issue Skull of the Man'ari? Normal summoning doomguard and voidlord is pretty garbage value normally, carnivorous cube isn't as strong without already having those minions on the field previously--a much tougher task if those minions are normal summoned, and even dark pact isn't as good if the other two scenarios play out as is.
The real problem is the ability to cheat out those minions on turn 5 (or 4 with the coin) with the skull. If you couldn't cheat those minions out, control warlock would be an average deck at best.
My recommendation: change the cost of the skull to 7 mana. At 7 mana, cheating out demons is no longer as broken as cheating them out on turn 5 or 6, making it much more likely you're facing a stronger board presence than the early turns. You can put lackey in that grouping and potentially increase his cost to 6, but in general, it's cheating out demons in the early-mid game that makes cubelock so broken.
I think Dark Pact is a problematic card at the moment, the staple “do something bad to yourself for a good payoff” is not very balanced when you can turn the bad part in something good. This case is very bad since it’s all linked togheter, Dark Pact is very good used on Carnivorous Cube or Possessed Lackey, so for just 6 mana you can heal for 8 and get a “random” demon, but as we all know ( looking at you Spiteful Summoner ) controlled rng can be very obnoxious, especially if you ALWAYS get a Voidlord or a Doomguard, so 6 mana heal 8 and get 1 or 2 5/7 with charge or 3/9 and 3 1/3 ( both with taunts ).
Now let’s talk nerfs, you don’t need to nerf everything since it’s a combo, just nerf one part and you can keep the deck still viable. Maybe making Dark Pact silence the minion before destroying it. What do you think?
And i don’t even play Paladins
How many times should we discuss it. The problematic card is the Possessed Lackey and the recruit mechanic in general. W/o them, you can't cheat out a big minion that easily and you need more time and set-up in order to get the value from the cubes.
A small comparison - Play Dead is a 1 mana spell as well, which triggers deathrattles but unlike the warlock equivalent it keeps the minion alive. So it provides more benefits because of it. Hunters lack the support for such deathrattle strategies, but in a vacuum this card is stronger.
Sorry OP for saying this, but some people can't evaluate the real offenders. Dark Pact is strong, because it gives warlocks an unconditional and a burst heal. But it's not the problematic card, which brings all of the mayhem in this meta and which needs to be stopped. No, this card needs you to sacrifice a minion in order to get some life back. It's an activator, but the activated card is the one, which causes all the trouble. Make a little test:
Removing a certain card from the deck would symbolize how the card has been nerfed and doesn't see competitive play. Make a small test and see whether or not Cubelocks entirely relied on the pacts.
If we remove the lackeys, then the whole package will collapse, i.e. it will become extremely weak and imho unplayable. Only the weapon would be able to carry it. The dark pacts could be used as a desperate heal in some decks, but they won't have good targets and thus they won't be a strong inclusion anymore.
dark pact is fine
nerfing dark pact wouldn't make cubelock weaker, it would make all other aggro classes ridiculously stronger
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Dark pact is secretly one of the strongest spells in the game, mark my words, nerfing it will make warlock weaker 8+ health and activating lackey or cube is just beyond ridiculous for 1 mana ? lol
Dark pact is fine as it is - 8 heal only means something if you play against aggro where we need more tools to survive - miss my good ol healbot. The problem with cubelock is those annoying Doomguards that can burst you down from 30hp - without those doomguards other control decks might see the light again.
Yes, warlock is annoying but there are tons of threads discussing it in detail.
I think they should keep dark pact the same but change the text to destroy a friendly demon.
All cards are balanced, but some cards are more balanced than others.
Dark Pact should cost 2 mana but otherwise be unchanged.
The problem with nerfing a common (which you're not explicitly calling for but many others have suggested it) is that all the people who crafted niche legendaries (Skull, Umbra, Prince T) and all the core epics get 80 dust and a poke in the eye. It's easy for forum posters to say "screw those netdeckers, you're pushing my deck out of the format," but Blizzard can't burn the players who spend money or precious F2P dust.
Saccing your minions for value is core to Warlock, and on the face of it (before you put it in a degenerate Cube deck), Dark Pact is straight card disadvantage. So nerfing the rate on the card to make it worse than Holy Light of Healing Touch doesn't make much sense.
Dark pact is fine as it is - the real problem is Doomguards that can burst you down from 30.
Isn't the real issue Skull of the Man'ari? Normal summoning doomguard and voidlord is pretty garbage value normally, carnivorous cube isn't as strong without already having those minions on the field previously--a much tougher task if those minions are normal summoned, and even dark pact isn't as good if the other two scenarios play out as is.
The real problem is the ability to cheat out those minions on turn 5 (or 4 with the coin) with the skull. If you couldn't cheat those minions out, control warlock would be an average deck at best.
My recommendation: change the cost of the skull to 7 mana. At 7 mana, cheating out demons is no longer as broken as cheating them out on turn 5 or 6, making it much more likely you're facing a stronger board presence than the early turns. You can put lackey in that grouping and potentially increase his cost to 6, but in general, it's cheating out demons in the early-mid game that makes cubelock so broken.
Most of you guys are even worse than team5 at balancing shit