The previously announced Balance changes, now out in full. Read on for the details!
Quote from BlizzardPatch 29.0.3, launching today, includes the following balance changes to Standard and Battlegrounds.
Hearthstone Updates
Dev Comment: We hope you’re enjoying Whizbang’s Workshop so far! We’ve seen you experimenting with lots of new cards and archetypes across most classes—and finding a few outliers. This patch is mostly to weaken those outliers and to offer a couple higher-confidence buffs based on early data.
The following cards have been adjusted to be weaker:
Tigress Plushy
- Old: [3 Mana]
- New: [4 Mana]
Deputization Aura
- Old: Your left-most minion has +3 Attack and Lifesteal. Lasts 3 turns.
- New: Your left-most minion has +1 Attack and Lifesteal. Lasts 3 turns.
Shroomscavate
- Old: [3 Mana] Give a minion Windfury and Divine Shield. Excavate a Treasure.
- New: [2 Mana] Give a minion Divine Shield. Excavate a Treasure.
Dev Comment: Paladin is the biggest power outlier since launch, with lots of damage from hand and healing. We like the overall play pattern of the deck, but we’re making these adjustments to tone down those two overperforming aspects of it.
Awakening Tremors
- Old: Get three 4/1 Worms. They cost (1).
- New: Get three 3/1 Worms. They cost (1).
Dev Comment: Hunter is another class that has overperformed in the early meta. Awakening Tremors is a card that has been played in almost all Hunter decks for some time now, and which can make for some really early snowballs. Shaving a little power from it should help keep other decks from falling too far behind as early as turns 1-2.
Thrall’s Gift
- Old: Discover a temporary Lightning Bolt, Hex, or Bloodlust.
- New: Discover a temporary Lightning Storm, Hex, or Bloodlust.
Dev Comment: Nature Shaman is primarily a sentiment outlier, with access to a lot of damage very early in the game. However, it’s also expected to get a better matchup spread after the other changes being made in this patch. This change removes some of that burst damage and redundancy in the deck. We think Lightning Storm is another good and flavorful option for Thrall’s Gift, weakening this specific deck, but offering options to other Shaman decks that weren’t there before.
Aftershocks
- Old: [4 Mana]
- New: [5 Mana]
Odyn, Prime Designate
- Old: [8 Mana]
- New: [9 Mana]
Dev Comment: Warrior is another class that is looking very strong in the early meta, and which is likely to get even stronger after the other changes in this patch. Aftershocks combined with Acolyte of Pain to let Warrior draw too quickly through its deck for its powerful late-game cards. We’re making these changes to make that endgame a little slower and less consistent.
Zilliax Deluxe 3000 (Ticking Module)
- Old: [4 Mana]
- New: [5 Mana]
Dev Comment: The reception to Zilliax Deluxe 3000 has been just about... perfection. We love all the different variations people are trying, but Ticking Module was proving to be a bit too efficient. We hope this change will bring this Zilliax more into line with overall power level and also encourage more continued Zilliax variety.
The above craftable cards will be eligible for a full dust refund for two weeks following Patch 29.0.3.
The following cards have been adjusted to be stronger:
Dev Comment: We don’t usually make buffs this early in a meta, but this time we were able to see a couple buff targets even in the very early data. We’ll keep an eye on these changes and look out for more opportunities in our next balance window, when we’ll have more data to inform these types of changes.
Sky Mother Aviana
- Old: [6 Mana]
- New: [5 Mana]
Frost Lich Cross-Stitch
- Old: [5 Mana] Deal 4 damage to a character. If it dies, summon a 3/6 Water Elemental that Freezes.
- New: [4 Mana] Deal 3 damage to a character. If it dies, summon a 3/6 Water Elemental that Freezes.
Battlegrounds Updates
Quest and Quest Reward Updates
The following Quests have been made easier to complete, but can no longer be paired with low-requirement Quest Rewards:
- Follow the Money
- Pressure the Authorities
- Dev Comment: These changes should reduce the frequency of Quest-Reward pairs that feel too easy or too difficult to complete.
The following Quests have been removed from the Quest Pool:
- Exhume the Bones
- Sort it All Out
- Dev Comment: These Quests had too many situations where they were either very difficult or trivially easy based on your early board, rather than the Reward they were paired with. Removing these two from the Quest Pool will make Quest-Reward pairings smoother and more consistent across games.
The following Quest Rewards have been made easier to earn:
- Splitting Scroll
- Gift of the Golden Kobold
- Temporal Tampering
- Anima Bribe
- Cooked Book
- Wondrous Wisdomball
- Boom Squad
- Bloodsoaked Tome
The following Quest Rewards have been made harder to earn:
- Sinfall Medallion
- Stable Amalgamation
- Tumbling Disaster
- Turbulent Tombs
- Gilnean War Horn
The following Quest Rewards have had their effects updated:
Sinfall Medallion
- Old: After you play a minion, give 2 other friendly minions of its Tier +2/+2.
- New: After you play a minion, give 2 other friendly minions of its Tier +4/+4.
Minion Updates
Moroes, Steward of Death
- Old: 5/1. Reborn. Deathrattle: Give your Undead +1/+5.
- New: 5/2. Reborn. Deathrattle: Give your Undead +2/+5.
Felboar
- Old: [Tier 6] 3/8
- New: [Tier 5] 2/6
Tichondrius
- Old: 4/4. After your hero takes damage, give your other Demons +1/+1.
- New: 3/3. After your hero takes damage, give your Demons +1/+1.
Living Azerite
- Old: [Tier 4] 4/4
- New: [Tier 3] 3/3
Wildfire Elemental
- Old: [Tier 3] 6/3
- New: [Tier 4] 8/4
Bream Counter
- Old: 5/5. While this is in your hand, after you play a Murloc, gain +3/+3.
- New: 6/6. While this is in your hand, after you play a Murloc, gain +2/+2.
Bug Fixes and Game Improvements
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Shudderblock couldn’t deal damage to the enemy hero if played and then its effect was not consumed.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Warsong Wrangler could buff the King Krush hero skin. You can’t wrangle the King!
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where there were different versions of Air Elemental in Core and Journey to Un’Goro. Now, both versions will have 3 Attack.
- [Battlegrounds] Cloning Conch will remain removed from the Tavern Spell pool with this patch.
- [Battlegrounds] Fixed a bug where Turbulent Tombs, Gilnean War Horn, Secret Culprit, and Ghastly Mask had the wrong completion difficulty modifiers (sometimes making them too easy to complete, sometimes making them too hard to complete).
- [Battlegrounds] Fixed a bug where Free-Flying Feathermane’s effect could trigger during the Recruit phase.
- [Progression] Fixed a bug where the “destroy Jepetto Joymancer” condition didn’t progress the Toymaker’s Trouble Event Quest.
- [General] Fixed various localization issues across languages.
now to hope that both the DH and the tentacle abusers are next on the list
What a great balance patch!
Paladin absolutely gutted to 46% winrate, only for Demon Hunter to take over the 58% winrate spot.
All other classes have remained exactly the same. Balance is nowhere to be found this expansion.
Thank god! Of course Paladin mains like you are extremely mad that you guys can’t maintain 70% winrate.
Being a "main" or preferring specific classes has nothing to do with it. My point is that the meta is shit right now and very unbalanced. Just check out HSReplay data and you should realize this is correct.
However, judging on your comment, I don't expect you to understand :-)
Don’t pretend like you care about balance. All you care about is your beloved Paladin.
I'm confused. Was Tichondrius a problem? I've never even seen anyone go 'damage yourself' demons in battlegrounds in 6 months. Confused as to why he's being nerfed
It's a buff, he now also buffs himself. He only buffed OTHER demons before.
I don't mind the card itself being dead but the issue is it takes Excavate Paladin and Shaman with it. You won't reliably be able to dig to legendary fast enough without 8 excavate procs. Remove the Azerite Dragon and Handbuff Paladin is just not reliable enough when most of the Paladin package for this expansion is Handbuff. Probably same is true for Azerite Murloc.
As many have said, the spell would work fine if it became Divine Shield and Rush (or really, any number of keywords other than Windfury).
We are back to plague-stone again, fun! Meta actually got worse by the nerfs and I didn't play any of the decks hit. Incompetent team.
Name a more iconic duo
stop crying and just quit the game
Mad paladin players ?
Nope I actually only play big Paladin lol, I hate swarm / aggro decks so this good that excavate is accessed sooner.
Yes big paladin is fun i just enjoy seeing aggro paladins cry
what control paladin deck, are u playing with? I'm main pala, but i come back in the game in that expansion and have no idea about what biuld @Rino
Cry me a river, off-meta pala main…
Shroomscavate
okay excuse me but how is this a Shaman card now lol. Yeah Windfury + Paladin buffs was a stupid combo but they just gave up on the fact that this card is a dual class card lol.
I was thinking maybe make it 1 mana with Overload (1)? Maybe there's something else that would give it a Shaman flavor, but that's the first that popped to my mind.
The name 😉
As I've seen others suggest, they should have removed Windfury and gave it an Evolve (+1 Cost higher) mechanic and then apply Divine Shield. Paladin could still use it on a token board, but it would erase hand-buffed minions and replace them with something else, which would limit the impact, while still being useful.