Old: Battlecry: Swap hands and decks with your opponent until your next turn. →New: Battlecry: Replace your hand with a copy of your opponent’s until end of turn.
Dev Comment: With the refinement of Shadow Priest in recent weeks, Mindrender Illucia has been overperforming in the archetype, in an unintended way. Instead of being used as a late game disruption tool, Shadow Priests have been using Illucia as an early game play to essentially skip the opponent’s turn. This change is aimed at removing that problematic gameplay from Illucia, while still keeping her in a similar space with her effect.
Dev Comment: Perpetual Flame is a very efficient removal tool for Questline Shaman. Going up one mana here will give board-based decks a better shot against Shaman in the early- and mid-game.
Tame the Flames (the third portion of the Questline)
Old: Play 2 cards with Overload. Reward: Stormcaller Bru’kan. →New: Play 3 cards with Overload. Reward: Stormcaller Bru’kan.
Dev Comment: Slowing down the speed at which Questline Shamans can get their final reward should open up more room for counterplay, particularly from slower strategies.
Old: Take 6 damage on your turns. Reward: Lifesteal. Deal 3 damage to the enemy hero. →New: Take 8 damage on your turns. Reward: Lifesteal. Deal 3 damage to the enemy hero.
Old: Take 7 damage on your turns. Reward: Lifesteal. Deal 3 damage to the enemy hero. →New: Take 8 damage on your turns. Reward: Lifesteal. Deal 3 damage to the enemy hero.
Additionally, The Demon Seed is now banned in Wild.
Dev Comment: After monitoring both Standard and Wild since the release of Stormwind, we’ve decided to both increase the damage required on the first two steps for Standard and ban the Questline in Wild. In Standard, we are slightly upping the amount of damage needed to complete the Questline to slow down the speed at which Tamsin locks up games. In Wild, where there are many more efficient self-damaging cards, The Demon Seed can be completed at an unintentionally fast rate. We are banning the card to protect the format from the problematic gameplay it created. When The Demon Seed rotates to Wild, we will unban it and reposition the card to be more appropriate for the format.
Runed Mithril Rod
Old: [Costs 3] →New: [Costs 4]
Dev Comment: Runed Mithril Rod is overperforming relative to mana-generation sources in other classes, mainly due to Warlock’s card draw potential. Going up one mana will bring Runed Mithril Rod’s power level more in line with what other classes have access to.
The cards listed above will be eligible for a full dust refund for 2 weeks after the 21.3 patch goes live.
Buffs
The following cards have been adjusted up in power level.
Dev Comments: We’re looking at opening up a few more strategies for some of the less-diverse classes and underrepresented archetypes in the Standard metagame. These buffs are aimed at some of the weaker archetypes to make them more appealing options to play with. Some of these changes are on the lighter side, in anticipation of the mini-set coming in the next major patch after the patch launching Mercenaries.
Really pleased with the look of the nerfs not sure how much they will change things. I like that the mage buffs are for the hero power archetype but I'm guessing quest mage is going to become the overplayed deck, which isn't a huge problem because quest mage is very beatable it's just annoying to play against all the time.
Not really. Handlock has bad matchup against Face Hunter, Quest Mage, Handbuff and Secret Paladin, Shadow Priest, Poison Rogue and equal vs Deathrattle and Quest Demon Hunter as well as Taunt Druid. Hardly "few exceptions". Fatigue Warlock is even worse.
Welp, they only made warlock's aggro matchups worse, it still obliterates control... guess that's another month of Battlegrounds for me...
He was already unfavored against most aggro decks, now it will be almost guaranteed lose (Giants 2 turns later and more self-damage is a huge deal). And what control decks you refer to? There are no control decks in standard, therefore Warlock won't have any favorable matchups now.
Rework *nerf* cough to Illucia doesn't make sense based on the dev comments.
With the refinement of Shadow Priest in recent weeks, Mindrender Illucia has been overperforming in the archetype, in an unintended way. Instead of being used as a late game disruption tool, Shadow Priests have been using Illucia as an early game play to essentially skip the opponent’s turn. This change is aimed at removing that problematic gameplay from Illucia, while still keeping her in a similar space with her effect. while also ruining the potential as a late game disrution tool. To rub salt in the wound we didn't even revert her cost making her a supremely understated 3 cost that no one will ever play again...we should also have added "Your Charge minions have +1 Attack" for the meme.
Why call it a "redesign" when it's clearly just a massive nerf? If you want to redesign her, do it. But don't just take the effect, make it 100 times worse, and call it a redesign.
The buffs are a bit strange..wildfire can now be discovered easily for mage, and the pirates all saw some play anyway - I've played a lot of pirate control warrior..this deck really wasn't that bad before the buff - warlocks were a big reason why it wasn't so great. There are loads of cards that see zero play..these were not examples of them. I guess they just see warrior as weak overall and want to give it a tier 2 deck.
I personally think it's a shame they killed her (and lets be clear - they've completely killed her), because outside of the aggro usage (which I agree might be rather frustrating and problematic), she is actually a card that required you and your opponent to think, something which is sorely lacking at the moment imo.
All the quests (excluding priest) can complete and play their 5 mana card in the same turn if they choose to. If you don't, and subsequently lose your reward to Illucia, you misplayed and you got punished.
Similarly - she's wasn't just a play and pray kind of card that you slapped down any time you had the mana. You can also get recked if you play her with the wrong cards in your own hand.
I suspect the reality is that the obvious change of "swap hands till the end of turn" was considered too much upside without the downside (i.e. your opponent no longer gets to play your hand and so effectively just loses whatever card you played). In any case I still don't see why that's considered a problem in a game where your oponent can kill you with a million fatigue damage of their own, or remove 10+ cards from your deck, or make you shuffle you whole hand back into the deck etc...
I'm stoked for these changes, The hunter class buffs basically mean nothing for meta players as they'll still consider them waaaaaay too slow.
Buh-bye Demon Seed, Back to the tenth circle of hell with you were you belong. Crystallizer can now kindly retreat back under her rock of obscurity and never come back. Giants should now be safely regulated back to darkglare-lock and handlock builds were THEY belong.
If they had to buff anything with mage, I'm glad it was hero power mage. At least that archetype forces you to think about your builds and build the entire deck around the playstyle. Wandmaker generating wldfires in non hero power mage decks should be gloriously hilarious. =D
Similarly - she's wasn't just a play and pray kind of card that you slapped down any time you had the mana. You can also get recked if you play her with the wrong cards in your own hand.
Yes, which is why it was essentially being played as "if you have no cards in your hand, take an extra turn after this one." Took a while to find a handdump aggro archetype in Priest but it happened eventually.
...and the pirates all saw some play anyway - I've played a lot of pirate control warrior..this deck really wasn't that bad before the buff ...
These are amazing cards now in terms of stats and effects.
A 1-mana 2/2 tribal minion that also cheats mana? That's pretty incredible.
A 3-mana 3/4 tribal minion that also does 2 damage? Strong.
5-mana 4/6 tribal minion that removes a mid-size minion and draws a card?
I don't know if it's enough relative to all the crazy powerful decks out there, but, man, a few years ago any of these cards would have been considered OP even without the Pirate tag.
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https://outof.cards/hearthstone/3644-standard-and-wild-balance-updates-arrive-on-tuesday-mindrender-illucia-no-longer-swaps-decks-or-cards-the-demon-seed-banned-in-wild
HAH getfucked quest warlock abusers
Really pleased with the look of the nerfs not sure how much they will change things. I like that the mage buffs are for the hero power archetype but I'm guessing quest mage is going to become the overplayed deck, which isn't a huge problem because quest mage is very beatable it's just annoying to play against all the time.
Google search: Is Hearthstone free to play?
I don't really know why Warlock was nerfed.
Oppressive and very high Winn rate vs almost all decks besides a few exceptions.
"... but not less than (1)" is needed now more than ever!
Not really. Handlock has bad matchup against Face Hunter, Quest Mage, Handbuff and Secret Paladin, Shadow Priest, Poison Rogue and equal vs Deathrattle and Quest Demon Hunter as well as Taunt Druid. Hardly "few exceptions". Fatigue Warlock is even worse.
Welp, they only made warlock's aggro matchups worse, it still obliterates control... guess that's another month of Battlegrounds for me...
Ye, I think they killed him in standard.
Awe, they killed wild Even Mage...
He was already unfavored against most aggro decks, now it will be almost guaranteed lose (Giants 2 turns later and more self-damage is a huge deal). And what control decks you refer to? There are no control decks in standard, therefore Warlock won't have any favorable matchups now.
Rework *nerf* cough to Illucia doesn't make sense based on the dev comments.
With the refinement of Shadow Priest in recent weeks, Mindrender Illucia has been overperforming in the archetype, in an unintended way. Instead of being used as a late game disruption tool, Shadow Priests have been using Illucia as an early game play to essentially skip the opponent’s turn. This change is aimed at removing that problematic gameplay from Illucia,
while still keeping her in a similar space with her effect.while also ruining the potential as a late game disrution tool. To rub salt in the wound we didn't even revert her cost making her a supremely understated 3 cost that no one will ever play again...we should also have added "Your Charge minions have +1 Attack" for the meme.FTFY
Love to see illucia absolutely obliterated from orbit, what an amazing day.
Why call it a "redesign" when it's clearly just a massive nerf? If you want to redesign her, do it. But don't just take the effect, make it 100 times worse, and call it a redesign.
The buffs are a bit strange..wildfire can now be discovered easily for mage, and the pirates all saw some play anyway - I've played a lot of pirate control warrior..this deck really wasn't that bad before the buff - warlocks were a big reason why it wasn't so great. There are loads of cards that see zero play..these were not examples of them. I guess they just see warrior as weak overall and want to give it a tier 2 deck.
I personally think it's a shame they killed her (and lets be clear - they've completely killed her), because outside of the aggro usage (which I agree might be rather frustrating and problematic), she is actually a card that required you and your opponent to think, something which is sorely lacking at the moment imo.
All the quests (excluding priest) can complete and play their 5 mana card in the same turn if they choose to. If you don't, and subsequently lose your reward to Illucia, you misplayed and you got punished.
Similarly - she's wasn't just a play and pray kind of card that you slapped down any time you had the mana. You can also get recked if you play her with the wrong cards in your own hand.
I suspect the reality is that the obvious change of "swap hands till the end of turn" was considered too much upside without the downside (i.e. your opponent no longer gets to play your hand and so effectively just loses whatever card you played). In any case I still don't see why that's considered a problem in a game where your oponent can kill you with a million fatigue damage of their own, or remove 10+ cards from your deck, or make you shuffle you whole hand back into the deck etc...
It would have been relatively easy to keep illucias intended ability, anti-combo, while removing her time warp effect.
Not sure why they just nuked her. Who is playing her now?
I'm stoked for these changes, The hunter class buffs basically mean nothing for meta players as they'll still consider them waaaaaay too slow.
Buh-bye Demon Seed, Back to the tenth circle of hell with you were you belong. Crystallizer can now kindly retreat back under her rock of obscurity and never come back. Giants should now be safely regulated back to darkglare-lock and handlock builds were THEY belong.
If they had to buff anything with mage, I'm glad it was hero power mage. At least that archetype forces you to think about your builds and build the entire deck around the playstyle. Wandmaker generating wldfires in non hero power mage decks should be gloriously hilarious. =D
Yes, which is why it was essentially being played as "if you have no cards in your hand, take an extra turn after this one." Took a while to find a handdump aggro archetype in Priest but it happened eventually.
The pirate buffs are a nice sight
These are amazing cards now in terms of stats and effects.
A 1-mana 2/2 tribal minion that also cheats mana? That's pretty incredible.
A 3-mana 3/4 tribal minion that also does 2 damage? Strong.
5-mana 4/6 tribal minion that removes a mid-size minion and draws a card?
I don't know if it's enough relative to all the crazy powerful decks out there, but, man, a few years ago any of these cards would have been considered OP even without the Pirate tag.