Hearthpwn

I really don't get it. Personally I would like to buy the golden Bundles. That's what I like. I NEVER play Battlegrounds. And I almost never buy skins. What do they offer me: New skins, normal and all of the Battlegrounds ones. Always the same, the Bundles I would like to buy .... nope. The others: BUUUUUY!!!!!

Or maybe some people don't get the point.

Guys, it's finally happening!!!! Last night I had a vision in my dream and the Hearthstone devs told me about the nerfs and buffs that will go live later this week!!!! And believe me, they are craaaazy and will shake up the meta like a Chuck Norris Roundhouse Kick!!!!

First they told me, that they will nerf Darkglare two more times. The next version will see an increase of Mana Cost, but they also don't want to hit it too hard, so the will balance this with a minor adjustment to the effect:

And because they know that won't do all too much, they already decided to nerf it a fourth time two weeks later. Cutting some stats and balancing this with another minor adjustment:

Even though they consider The Demon Seed a perfectly fine and balanced Quest, they know that the power of it's support cards can cause mild frustration in Wild and Ranked players. Therefore they decided to change some of them.

Crystallizer is a premium stated minion in an already okayish deck, so they will tackle this problem by giving it stats of cards that otherwise rarely see play:

Next is the long overdue nerf to Raise Dead:

For changing Backfire they wanted to do something fun and unique. The goal is for it to resemble other popular cards with effects that players love dearly:

For the buffs they considered cards that rarely see play but the devs could not figure out why.

For Eye of the Storm for example, they thought, maybe the drawback of overloading for (3) is a little too punishing and adressing this will increase it's playrate:

They said they were very sad about fun and board focused cards like Darkmoon Rabbit seemingly being not flexible enough to adjust to the current meta. So they made it more flexible (and from a flavor perspective, more in tune with it's nature of hiding in the dark):

They also wanted to make old cards, that once were deck/meta defining to make a comeback in a more modern way, by looking at the design of today's deck/meta defining effects. You know, Anyfin Can Happen:

And finally they said, that they tried to create the most wholesome and rewarding card of the meta:

Hope you're all as excited for the upcoming meta as I am! Have a nice day :)

Archivist should go to (7) mana with some stats adjustment .... it's mostly an Odd Warrior card.

Also no Patches? I see why, but still sad.

Quote from XanKortal >>

As jokey as that Reno change is, that seems *real* scary with old Priest Quest setting yer max health to 40 after getting that hero power.

That's my point. Nerfs either make cards unplayable, or when you seek a different approach, this could open up new degenerate combos.

Quote from Alexandru_91 >>

 You made Raza Priest better they dont even need to run Anduin anymore they just run Raza for 0 mana HP and Shadowform and then they play Zephrys to get the perfect Grand Tournament card named Coldarra Drake and just win straight up.

My bad, then we'll just nerf Shadowform to just summon Shadow of Nothing instead of dealing damage :)

I do know that my latest posts about nerfs sparked quite a controversy. Not everybody agreed. So maybe I got it all wrong. Didn't pick the right cards, made flawed assumptions. In order to fix this problem, I went straight to hsreplay and looked up the 5 most played cards for Standard and Wild at the moment. These are the top tier offenders. Therefore they need to be hit with the nerf hammer! Hopefully Blizzard listens to the protest of the masses and takes some inspiration from my vision:

Honarable mention: Darkglare

As everybody knows, Darkglare was hit with the latest patch, but this didn't stop his reign of terror on ladder. Maybe nothing will. Therefore I skipped the second nerf and went straight for the third:

Nr. 5 (Standard): Dwarven Sharpshooter

A Dire Mole with an upside .... case closed. Also absolutely not in line with Hunters Class Identity. Tried to fix both:

Nr. 4 (S): Scavenger's Ingenuity

The stats nerf didn't do nothing. Maybe we should instead limit the pool of tutor targets:

Nr. 3 (S): Intrepid Initiate

This one hit everyone by surprise, as it turns out, a 1-drop with Spellburst that gains stats is quiet powerful. But hey, we're learning:

Nr. 2 (S): Tour Guide

Well, this obviously has no excuses. Let's bring our little friend more in line with similar cards:

Nr. 1 (S): Voracious Reader

Well beyond broken, I had to nerf this by A LOT!! So much so that I also had to give some small bonuses, just to even out the immense drawbacks:

Nr. 5 (Wild): Dirty Rat

Aggro, Tempo and Control's worst nightmare, this minion is WAY overstated for it's cost. How are you supposed to get through this WALL?? A little stats adjustment is all it takes:

Top 4 (W): Kazakus

For once I think, this is fine. But maybe, just maybe it's another case of .... let's bring this more in line with similar cards:

Nr. 3 (W): Zilliax

Yes, it's finally time to talk about an ongoing problem no one dares to speak out about (and it's not Chillwind Yeti!!) .... good old fits-right-in-about-every-deck Zilliax!! This one I wasn't sure about. How can you nerf a card as powerful and iconic as this?? Luckily someone at Blizzard reached out to me and explained that they will nerf it soon. This is what the design team came up with:

Nr. 2 (W): Reno Jackson

Actually a well designed card. So only minor changes:

Nr. 1 (W): Zephrys the Great

Oh well .... this one really shouldn't change too much either. Wishing for the perfect card must not be touched. Nevertheless I do know a way to limit it's power:

So guys, these would be my preferred nerfs for Standard and Wild. But because this list unfortunatly didn't contain any Priest cards (Kazakus, Reno and Zephrys don't count) and I do hate Raza Priest as much as anyone, let's also DESTROY Shadowreaper Anduins Hero Power just for the heck of it:

p.s.: No more nerf Threads in the near future. I'm done. Hope you enjoyed this one :)

To all of you who enjoyed my little satire: I'm already planning a "Part 2". So if this post gets at least 5 upvotes, I'll do it :)

Quote from Alexandru_91 >>

When you said you swapped numbers on first day of school i was expecting it costing 2 Mana but adding 0 random 1-Cost minions to your hand i was highly disappointed with your iteration of the card.

Well, I intended to keep things playable and not nerfed into oblivion.

Quote from fjl93 >>

I was going to complain until I saw Secret Passage lol. You're a legend bro.

Thanks! Blizzard has plans to add me to the Classic Set when they move Lorewalker Cho to Hall of Fame next year. But I have Poisonous and make spells with Immune cost (0), so I'll get nerfed two weeks after rotation.

Quote from ZagniefMaster >>

Isn't that the person who says everyone that they are salty? Why can't you just people complain about op cards what are really op?

 Yes, I'm the guy who does not like nerfs. But I know I'm pretty much alone with this opinion.

Still: why can't you all just enjoy a little satire?

So everybody knows the latest nerfs were not enough and there are still a lot of problematic cards out there. So I took the time and recreated the most insane cards of the current meta (Standard and Wild) to make them more balanced (but still playable).

First Day of School is a Paladin staple. My approach was to just swap the numbers. It won't change much, but it's a start:

Secret Passage is almost fine as it is now, you just have to increase the mana cost:

To nerf Archwitch Willow was the right decision. But why lower it's mana cost??

 Guardian Animals is almost perfect as it is. Maybe they should just give it a minor downside:

Kael'thas Sunstrider is still a HUGE problem, played almost in EVERY deck, it NEEDS to be nerfed a third time:

Eveybody knows Ace Hunter Kreen has DOMINATED the meta for weeks on end, so I made some adjustments that keep it balanced:

Yes, it's finally time to talk about an ongoing problem, no one dares to speak out about .... Chillwind Yeti!! A 4 mana 4/5 without a drawback?? Ridiculous?? What were they smoking?? The uncrowned king of cards has to take a hit, hands down:

For Wild i think, Leeroy Jenkins is still SUPER UNFUN to play against .... let's turn that upside-down:

Also what's going on with these super-high health Poisonous minions?? Infinite damage to minions?? This needs to stop!! They have to be removeable!!

But because there are still a few unplayable cards in the game, let's buff a card or two (Poisonous is the way to go in my humble opinion, I know it's controversial, but buffed cards HAVE TO FEEL POWERFUL):

Yes the new Epic gem on Toothy Chest is not an accident - because there's still one more card to nerf:

 So what do you think? Could these changes make the game more fun and interactive?

Quote from Carfusso >>

Another example: (still wild,sry I haven't played standard since FLJ left) raza priest....there is Simply NO way for a Control deck to answer a relatively early Razanduin (and honestly if they build It the "unfair" way It STILL doesn't really matter when they draw It)

 

How to answer Raza Priest: Build a Highlander deck, put in Sir Finley Mrrgglton and Grizzled Wizard. Done.

Quote from Artimex723 >>

Kael'thas Sunstrider is actually one of the cards, which in my opinion, just had to be changed. His sole existance made so many broken combos possible, that he just had to be changed in some way. I'd be happy to see more cards like Forest Warden Omu or Ysiel Windsinger, with which you can actually do broken stuff, but you also have to think a bit, both while playing and building the deck. With Kael'thas it has always just been: "Ok, let's put tons of cheap spells in and some incredible payoff expensive spells". Genuinely it's difficult to compare these two cards, but I'd compare him anyway to Equality. It was nerfed (from 2 mana to 4) back in Rastakhan's Rumble. It didn't happen because the card was nuts, played in every deck and just way too powerfull. The reason that it was nerfed, was because it allowed a certain combo ( in a Tier 2 deck, just like Guardian Druid now) that felt too disgusting and unhealthy for the game. 

What is "disgusting and unhealthy"? That's the mindset that erases combo-decks from the game entirely. Because there will always be these decks, that can abuse certain cards to an extend. And therefore they must always be nerfed? Maybe our way to look at the game is just to different .... when I lose to a powerful combo-turn, it doesn't bother me at all. But when cards get changed over and over, I feel cheated. They advertise one thing, but in the end you'll get something different (and more often than not - useless).

Quote from GentilleMouche >>

 

Sorry, what was your point again? Your opinion is not unpopular, it's just bad. 

Again: it's not just about the Kael'thas nerf and not about free cards. It's not even about dust.

It's about the whole history of nerfs. I think they nerf WAAAAY too much. Especially unique cards. And often they kill entire archetypes just because they've become a challenge in the meta. And I like a challenge. If a deck is very strong and you would lose to it more often than not .... don't just cry for nerfs. Build your own meta-killer deck. It's not impossible. That is fun in my (bad) opinion. Focus more on "how am I going to beat this"? If more players would think like this - ultimatly - the meta would change as well.

Also if certain cards (like Kael'thas) are nerfed - a lot of the time - the most powerful deck using them, will still be around. But not Tier 1 anymoe. And I think that's BS also. Almost all the Tier 1 decks get hit by nerfs eventually. Just for the sake of bringing them down. Therefore meta-shifts rarely feel genuin. And Tier 2 or 3 decks using said nerfed cards disappear complety. because they're trash now. That's my point. It was not just Guardian Druid, that used Kael'thas. A lot of other combo potential is lost now. And the same thing can be said about most of the cards hit by nerfs.

And with cards changing so much to the worse, I always feel like "Let's build this deck, play it a couple times .... but next week it might be gone. Fantastic."