These are the Balance changes in the run up to the World Championship next week! This patch also has the dust refunds for the Cards changed earlier this week!
Quote from BlizzardPatch 28.2.1 is a data-only patch launching today with the following updates.
Hearthstone Updates
Dev Comment: This is our balance patch for Worlds! We specifically requested this early balance window so that we could make changes that we think will make the coolest Worlds possible! Overall, we think the meta is in a good spot, with most classes having something interesting to play and most top decks having play patterns we’re comfortable with. That lets us take a high confidence, step-wise approach with this patch, instead of making risky, drastic changes.
Enrage Warrior was the biggest standout we wanted to adjust down, and we wanted to make Sif Mage a bit more attackable. We’re also taking this opportunity to buff some underperforming archetypes, especially with new cards. Excavate as a whole got a little love with buffs to a Treasure at each rarity, the Neutral Burrow Buster, and a couple low-performance class Excavate cards.
We have another balance patch window lined up for shortly after Worlds where we’ll be able to make more changes—including maybe some more adventurous buffs. We’ll keep an eye on how these changes land and we hope you’ll join us for the World Championships on December 16th and 17th!
The following cards have been adjusted to be less powerful:
Inquisitive Creation
- Old: [4 Mana]
- New: [5 Mana]
Thori’belore
- Old: 4/4
- New: 4/3
Battleworn Faceless
- Old: [2 Mana]
- New: [3 Mana]
The cards listed above, plus the cards updated in Patch 28.2 (Fate Splitter, Monstrous Parrot, Counterfeit Blade, Dwarven Archaeologist, and Madam Goya), will be eligible for full dust refunds for at least three weeks following Patch 28.2.1.
The following cards have been adjusted to be more powerful:
Sludge on Wheels
- Old: 1/5
- New: 2/5
Detonation Juggernaut
- Old: [5 Mana] 3/6
- New: [4 Mana] 3/4
Snake Eyes
- Old: 2/3
- New: 2/4
Going Down Swinging
- Old: [5 Mana]
- New: [4 Mana]
Flint Firearm
- Old: [3 Mana] 3/3
- New: [2 Mana] 2/3
Blast Charge
- Old: [3 Mana]
- New: [2 Mana]
Antique Flinger
- Old: [4 Mana] 5/4
- New: [3 Mana] 4/3
Burrow Buster
- Old: 6/4
- New: 6/5
Escaping Trogg (Excavate Treasure)
- Old: 2/2
- New: 2/3
Canary (Excavate Treasure)
- Old: 2/1
- New: 2/2
Steelhide Mole (Excavate Treasure)
- Old: 2/7
- New: 3/7
Bug Fixes and Game Improvements
- [Hearthstone] Discovery of Magic will now always offer three Discover options when played (if you’ve played enough spell schools that only 1 or 2 remain, it will fill in with random spell(s) from the same spell school(s)).
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Kingpin Pud couldn’t resurrect the entire Ogre-Gang.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where, if Reno, Lone Ranger was played while Hero Powers were disabled (like with a Mindbreaker in play), his Hero Power would not update.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Chaos Gazer’s effect triggered at the end of the turn it was played, instead of the end of the opponent’s turn.
- [Battlegrounds] Fixed a bug where certain Tavern Spells weren’t ever offered in Discover options.
- [Battlegrounds] Fixed a bug where Hero Powers that upgraded as you upgrade your Tavern were auto-upgrading.
- [Progression] Fixed a bug where some players received the Tae’thalan Bloodwatcher achievement upon login.
Nerfs
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Buffs
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Warrior still has way too much control, 4 aoe boardclear that are way to easy to pull off. no wonder everybody plays it.
What are you talking about? The top warrior deck has 36k plays. The top Paladin deck has 86k, Druid is 84k. Warrior has a decently high playrate but nowhere near the Tier 1 decks
and the clown comment goes too..
Battleworn Faceless up to 3 mana I kinda predicted felt like a obvious choice to reduce the combo potential of the deck, kinda surprised they touched Thori'belore though when they nerfed the combo potential they usally try to avoid Legendary nerfs as much as possible nerfing it a couple of months prior to rotation feels weird.
As far as Inquisitive Creation goes I don't see this nerf doing much at all its an extremly minor nerf if they wanted to poke the Mage abit they would need more.
The buff to Flint seems huge
Oh well, it's painful but I have to say goodbye to my poor golden Fate Splitter
Sludge on Wheels buff is definitely not enough to make Warlock viable. He needs more Barrel of Sludge generators, not more stats... And DK got zero buffs. Have they abandoned him already?
No nerf to dragon Druid? Ok…..
This is just my own opinion but I really don't see a big problem with Dragon Druid. Its a cheap deck which is good for those with smaller collections its a pretty good deck but it got its weaknesses.
Yes it can have a really strong start but so can alot of other decks, there are decks that can have you almost dead at the end of turn 4 when they highroll. Not to mention 2/3 times when you face Druid its a Highlander based deck.
I'm more surprised we didnt see anything towards Paladin because during the last two weeks over 30% of my games has been against them. While Druid sits at a steady 8-9% and like said 2/3 times its Highlander not Dragon so the deck just doesnt check any boxes for being a problematic deck. It doesnt hold anything back and you don't really take them into consideration when building a deck either.
Dragon Druid has almost exactly the same playrate as Paladin my guy. 86k plays for aggro pally, 84k for Dragon Druid. And Dragon Druid is a 65% winrate deck.
It sounds like you're getting some weird rng, all variants of highlander druid have <15k plays.
It is just your opinion.
I'm with you on this; the issue could be that it's a bit polarizing. There are decks that can't deal with the waves of buffed Dragon Golems, or even the multiple big dragons Druid can play late.
There are also decks that completely wreck it; triple blood DK usually has enough removal to hold the druid at bay, and some faster decks can kill them before the big threats get played.
Losing to a polarizing deck like that can feel frustrating; that's the only reason a nerf wouldn't have been a shock. That said, it's healthy for the game to have a cheap deck or two that's not only playable, but actually competitive.
so no Elemental Shaman buff ?
i guess Skarr, the Catastrophe is still unplayable
I won a game with Skarr recently.
Did Burrow Buster really need a buff? It consistently saw play.
I think it was just played to have enough excavate cards :)
Of course it was played for excavate, but it never felt "bad" to play it, as you were able to trade into relatively powerful enemy minions. In that, I mean that 4 health was acceptable as you were often expecting it to die in the trade anyways. It is an odd choice for a buff like that.
No it didn't. No one played excavate decks unless they were actively throwing. And even though HS is full of idiots who want to lose, I don't think this really counts as "playing" .