Upcoming Hearthstone Balance Changes
A set of balance tweaks is coming in a game update. This hits the most highly represented classes and a couple of neutral cards including Yogg. This patch will be going live before the Last Call event for the Hearthstone World Championships. Last Call Invitationals start October 8th.
- Rockbiter Weapon now costs 2 mana (Up from 1)
- Tuskarr Totemic can now only summon Basic totems (the same ones from your hero power)
- Call of the Wild now costs 9 mana (Up from 8)
- Execute now costs 2 mana (Up from 1)
- Charge's mana cost has been lowered to 1 (Down from 3), the minion it is applied to cannot attack a hero that turn, and the bonus attack that the minion would receive has been removed.
- Abusive Sergeant's now has 1 attack (Down from 2)
- Yogg-Saron, Hope's End will now stop casting spells if he is destroyed, silenced, transformed, or returned to the owner's hand.
Discuss this Nerf
Discuss this Nerf
Discuss this Nerf
Discuss this Nerf
Discuss this Nerf
Discuss this Nerf
Discuss this Nerf
Quote from BlizzardOver the course of the Year of the Kraken, we’ve seen the Hearthstone meta game defined and refined by our players. As a result, we’ve seen a wider variety of deck archetypes being discovered than ever before. New strategies and playstyles have evolved over time entirely thanks to our creative and passionate community.
With the introduction of new cards to the Hearthstone card pool comes additional chances to innovate and discover new decks. Sometimes, the introduction of additional cards can also lead to older cards gaining an overall power level boost. In many cases, dusting off old cards can be good for the game, and allow our players to create and expand on new themes, even if they may not have a place in the current meta.
With Keeping Hearthstone Fresh in mind, we have to be acutely aware of the overall power levels of our cards contained within the evergreen Basic and Classic sets. Since these cards do not rotate along with certain expansion or adventure sets each year for our Standard mode players, managing and monitoring their strength is of great importance to the overall health of the game.
In an upcoming update, we will be making changes to a few Basic and Classic cards, along with certain cards that may have felt too oppressive to our players in the current state of the meta game.
Shaman
Shaman has been representing a large population of the total decks played in Hearthstone for the past few months. While we think it’s great for Classes to fluctuate in power level, it’s important that Hearthstone always feels like there are a wide variety of decks to play with and against. We’re happy that Shaman has many deckbuilding options to choose from, but we are taking this opportunity to adjust two of the most widely played and frustrating Shaman cards. In the short-term, we think these adjustments bring Shaman closer to the pack in terms of both population and power level. In the long-term, we think these changes will make playing against Shaman less frustrating and make the deckbuilding decisions for Shaman more interesting.
Rockbiter Weapon
Rockbiter is the culprit of a few mass burst-damage combos in addition to being a reliable early game removal tool. Due to its strength in a variety of circumstances, it’s been one of the most widely played Shaman cards in Hearthstone’s history. Making changes to Basic cards that show up in every deck will help instigate more variety and help the Standard format succeed in the future. We’re preserving some of the synergistic potential of Rockbiter Weapon but decreasing its value as a removal tool by changing the cost of the card from 1 to 2 Mana.
We considered other Shaman cards like Tunnel Trogg and Totem Golem, but these are both leaving Standard relatively soon, so we thought it would be better to change Rockbiter and improve the Standard format in a more permanent way.
Tuskarr Totemic
We like that Tuskarr is contributing to totem focused decks, but currently the power level is centered around the possibility of summoning cards like Totem Golem or Mana Tide Totem. This isn’t the most fun type of randomness for a card that is low mana and sees this much play. We want this card to be an option for decks that take advantage of extra totems through cards like Thing From Below or Primal Fusion, but a weaker option for players looking for standalone high power level options on turn three. That said, we are adjusting the battlecry for Tuskarr Totemic to only summon basic totems.
Call of the Wild
Although Call of the Wild is intended to be a powerful late game option, it is over performing at 8 mana. By moving it to 9 mana we intend to tone down its power enough that it won’t be an automatic inclusion in every Hunter deck and overshadow other strategies.
Execute
The Warrior class has access to a large amount of removal spells, and while we want to continue providing Warrior players with powerful removal options, Execute stands out as one that has proven to be too efficient in too many situations. We’re increasing the cost of Execute from 1 to 2 Mana in order to keep the card as an option closer in power level to other existing and future removal tools.
Charge
While we enjoy seeing players explore combo styles of play and will continue to support it in the future, we’ve seen in the past that the ability to give Charge to minions that don’t normally have it has been particularly problematic and also heavily restricts future cards. We’ve redesigned the card Charge in a way that provides opportunities for minion combat, but does not enable strategies that intend to win without allowing opponents to interact.
Abusive Sergeant
Aggressive decks are stronger than we would like right now, and Abusive Sergeant is in virtually all of them. We like that Abusive Sergeant is available to players using minion heavy strategies, but neutral cards in the base set should be narrow enough that they aren’t showing up in such a wide variety of circumstances. We’re changing Abusive Sergeant to be a 1/1 so the battlecry becomes the clear focus, rather than the card being a reasonable turn one option for all aggressive deck types.
Yogg-Saron, Hope’s End
This is the most controversial card we've ever made. Some people LOVE Yogg, and others hate it. We felt like seeing Yogg in tournaments was not where we originally hoped it would end up. Yogg should be for players who want to have a lot of fun, but maybe not the card you see frequently in high-level tournaments. Yogg is relatively weak in power level for nearly every class at every level, but is slightly above average in 2 decks – Tempo Mage and Token Druid. We didn't want to nerf it so much that it couldn't still be a fun card for players who currently love Yogg. Yogg-Saron will now stop casting spells if, during Yogg-Saron’s battlecry, it is destroyed, silenced, transformed, or returned to its owner’s hand. We tried a bunch of things and we think this is a significant enough nerf that it could reduce the amount it gets seen (especially in tournaments), while still maintaining the dream for people who love the card.
In addition to the above changes, we will be addressing the bug where cards with Overload cast by Yogg-Saron, Hope’s End will not cause Overload to the player in a future update.
Thanks for checking out our reasons behind the latest balance changes to Hearthstone. The updated cards will arrive as a part of our 6.1.3 update, which is currently planned to go live before the Last Call events for the Hearthstone Championship Tour.
Can you name the source of the over 50% "Yogg turning lost games around" and it actually beeing a successfull comeback, would like to educate myself on this topic :)
I assume my own statistics wouldn't please you enough, and you wouldn't even believe it, as it is way more than 50% that my opponents where behind but still ended up winning games thanks to Yogg. I said 50% because I am statistically unluckier than the average.
But here you go, I captured pictures of my last 2 games after my opponent played Yogg. They had empty board, and I would also like to remind you that both Yoggs are alive, which means the same thing would have happened after the nerf. Around 50% of the games, the Yogg survives even after many spells casted, or at least did heavy impact on the board.
Then you're an extremly unlucky champ(although the medivh Mage does not look like he was loosing, but it's hard to tell on a screenshot ;) ), as far as i've seen it on streams or in my plays, the spectacular turn around is much less then 50%, don't have any statistics either, so i guess we have to trust each other here. It also may come from the fact that I'am a Low Rank player and i'm playing around 3-6 games a day so, Yogg does not happen so often to me as it does to you :) Hope you won't get your wins ripped from you after the nerf.
Indeed I am :D You can imagine I wasn't sitting at 2hp before the mage casted Yogg.
Sadly these higher ranks are infested with Shamans and Yogg decks, and they bring out the worst of me. And the nerf of Yogg really isn't as bad as people tend to overreact.
We will see, I guess :)
I like most of these nerfs.
The only nerf I somewhat disagree with is the Rockbiter nerf. I think it could still cost 1 but just not be able to target your hero. Just my opinion though.
Changes brought to you by: Mike "no longer too early to tell" Donais
Kappa
It's funny how people are STILL complaining about CotW. 9 Mana is as good as it's gonna get babies. Each creature costs 3 mana, so now it's fair. It's not like you have hunter decks on ladder that much that CotW would be THAT huge a problem. Shamans needed that nerf, and I'm glad for the nerf to warriors too. AT least hunter games would make it to turn 8. Play a shaman and lose the game by turn 5 or 6. But I guess that seems fair to the people who are still complaining.
Seems like it'll soon be time to get back into playing Hearthstone :D
What wonderful changes, and completely out of nowhere! For once Blizzard did something right.
Shaman still OP until next year .
Hunter = dead class joining Priest .
Otk nerf = the only thing I agree with .
Execute is still OP . Abusive still auto include in zoo but not in many others .
I hate the way they handled Yogg . If it was me I would have just baned him from tournaments / standard format so people can still enjoy his wonderful effect in wild .
Create a new card to play only in Wild isn't intelligent (money-wise). Nobody (or at least just too little people) will buy or craft this card if isn't in Standard.
I know there are people who play Wild, but it isn't the focus from Blizz now.
I really wish I had just crafted double call of the wild now.
I was not at all expecting a balance change
I also wish that force of nature had gotten the charge treatment...
Or just remove savage roar from the game.
+1
Worgen deck, if you play against it, you play - they kill your minions, play die, miss turn, wait for death. Or they draw poorly and quit. Same with Shaman. No great loss. Now just nerf Tirion and mage.
I like all of the changes expect yogg.
It mainly just nerfs the players who get crazy 15+ spell yoggs, not the players who add it too their deck just because it is good.
Plus it makes the card less fun :(
I get that people think yogg is overpowered, but I think this change affects his fun aspect a lot more than his viability aspect, as people will still play yogg just as much with this change.
Yeah, it's better to leave than to adapt. Good thinking.
Bye!!
filthy hunter or shaman probably
Why no change to ICE BLOCK ?
Fuck you Blizzard
Y U so harshly nerfed Tuskar? It was a real last hope in thousand of games, thanks to Flametongue Totem, now it's a complete garbage piece of shit. You could make him just not to summon Totem Golem or at least make his Overload work on summon. You could even make it Overloaded too, but no, you decided to completely ruin the card and make it viable only in cancerous and boring full totem Shaman decks.
Y U nerfed Yogg so much? Just why? It was a really fun card to play, in 95% plays he kills\silences\transforms himself, it was a really-worth-it 10 mana drop, like a really fair and random card, who could kill either you or your opponent. "Fuck you" - said Blizzard and nerfed it to the roots.
COtW isn't nerfed enough, it's still a great finisher
Like for nerfs of Execute and Charge, no more cancOTKs and instakillings of your lovely minions
Rockbiter is now almost completely useless
And Locks won't give a damn about another nerf of Abusives
Aaaaaand here we go, another year of full boring control decks, games up to 30 mins, donate masters with a shitload of dragons, comeback of all-the-same Warlock decks and Hunters and Freeze Mages all over the house
P.S. - Blizzard, do you even buff? Can't you hear that priests are crying?
shaman nerf finally ;)