Small-Time Buccaneer & Spirit Claws Are Being Nerfed, Ranked Changes Incoming
Nerfs are coming! Hopefully there's going to be a little less Yaaarrrr and guiding spirits in the future. The Patch does not yet have a release date, but is scheduled for the end of February.
- Small-Time Buccaneer's Health is now 1. (Down from 2)
- Spirit Claws's Mana is now 2. (Up from 1)
Discuss This Nerf
Discuss This Nerf
The new and improved cards!
Oh yeah, there's a wicked ranked change too.
- Once you hit Rank 15, 10, or 5, you cannot de-rank past that rank - exactly how it works at Rank 20 today.
Quote from ZeriyahUpdate 7.1 Ranked Play Changes – Floors
We’re continuously looking for ways to refine the Ranked Play experience. One thing we can do immediately to help the Ranked Play experience is to make the overall climb from rank to rank feel like more an accomplishment once you hit a certain milestone. In order to promote deck experimentation and reduce some of the feelings of ladder anxiety some players may face, we’re introducing additional Ranked Play floors.
Once a player hits Rank 15, 10, or 5, they will no longer be able to de-rank past that rank once it is achieved within a season, similar to the existing floors at Rank 20 and Legend. For example, when a player achieves Rank 15, regardless of how many losses a player accumulates within the season, that player will not de-rank back to 16. We hope this promotes additional deck experimentation between ranks, and that any losses that may occur feel less punishing.
Update 7.1 Balance Changes
With the upcoming update, we will be making balance changes to the following two cards: Small-Time Buccaneer and Spirit Claws.
Small-Time Buccaneer now has 1 Health (Down from 2)
The combination of Small Time Buccaneer and Patches the Pirate has been showing up too often in the meta. Weapon-utilizing classes have been heavily utilizing this combination of cards, especially Shaman, and we’d like to see more diversity in the meta overall. Small Time Buccaneer’s Health will be reduced to 1 to make it easier for additional classes to remove from the board.
Spirit Claws now costs 2 Mana (Up from 1)
Spirit Claws has been a notably powerful Shaman weapon. At one mana, Spirit Claws has been able to capitalize on cards such as Bloodmage Thalnos or the Shaman Hero power to provide extremely efficient minion removal on curve. Increasing its mana by one will slow down Spirit Claws’ ability to curve out as efficiently.
These changes will occur in an upcoming update near the end of February. We’ll see you in the Tavern!
It won't really change everything, but it will give just enough room to counterplay that i won't be really oppressive.
The thing is, Blizzard always gets a lot of shit for nerfing cards into unplayable territory. But when they do stuff like this it's also "not enough". It's kinda hard to make satisfying changes. They had to make more changes instead of being more incisive on them.
The biggest thing here is that Reno decks won't need to tech so heavily into countering aggro, so they will counter more of each other.
Jade won't die so fast to aggro and neither will Paladin. So it changes some stuff, makes some stuff viable but no.
What it WON'T do is change the whole meta and make Shaman not dominant. It might bring stuff like Tempo Mage back, Jade decks without need for also running pirates to counter pirates, and hunter will still be pretty bad but it won't be useless unplayable. If you start as hunter alleycat destroys pirates now.
Hello 3000 dust
Patches is not going to be dustable for full price; only Small-Time Buccaneer is getting nerfed. Even if it was, Patches would be worth 1600 dust, not 3000 lol
He could just have like 80 buccaneers in his collection lol
Patches should be dustable for full price, i crafted him to play with STB
it's obvious he has multiple copies of STB and golden STb without disenchanting them
Finally some quality work, HS team - kudos! The change in Ranked is a miracle! It was really, really needed imo. I agree that it will shake up the meta and provide more diversity at all ranks. Some great news indeed!
As for the nerfs - I like them! This time they did not overkill it - it's not a huge nerf, but it might just be enough without making the card a totally useless crap, like most of the previous nerfs. In any case it is much better to take this "incremental" approach and nerf it a couple of times if needed vs. overdoing it and killing entirely with a swift stroke.
More regular balance updates is a must have and I hope they are finally starting to realize it.
Loving the new ranked changes
ice block, reno and chill .. no one talk about Ebola mage
Excited about the ladder change. The addition of floors every 5 levels is really great. I do wish that the rest was modified so players would be dropped to the next lowest floor alongside the addition of them. If I remember correctly, they said in the same post that end-of-month reset punts everyone back to the rank 20-ish range. This is a really good thing though - probably the best thing they've said in regards to general game design since the addition of formats.
As for the nerfs, yes, we need something done. I'm happy they're taking steps, but the ultimate impact won't be known until we have a week or two to play with the changes.
Heavy nerf to Shaman, not as heavy nerf to Warrior. This will absolutely not stop pirate warrior, but aggro Shaman is dealt a severe blow.
Ok, first for the Ranked Floor change:
This. is. huge.
No, really. You guys know what that means? It means you can pilot your strong deck until rank 10. Then decide you're bored with it and say. "Well, I'll climb seriously next week. Let me get this random all spells random malygnos OTK hunter or my Burgle Rogue and play for fun ON LADDER and see if I can get to 5." If I don't climb? No sweat. I'll not be punished for trying out new things at this rank.
What basically this means is that at every 5 ranks people are allowed to experiment. Try new things instead of just meta decks. Have fun for a change. And when you climb? You feel rewarded right there instead of just feeling "Well, at least I guaranteed a thing for the end of the month".
This is a breath of fresh air and a very small thing that will go a long way to make the game feel fun again. At least that's my hope.
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As far as the nerfs go. Well, it was expected. I feel like they should have nerfed more cards than just these two, but those will go a long way.
STB nerfed is big. It means in most games, regardless what you're playing against, STB is essentially an Alleycat. And this is good. It's a 1/1 card like Hunter's but with an upside (it's pirate and has synergy with patches and weapons). It's still stronger than Alley Cat, so it will definitely still be playable.
Spirit Claws nerf tho is HUGE. it's no longer a card that can fill any turn now and then dominate tempo because of it. It's still one of the strongest weapons in the game, so it's a very fair nerf. 2 mana 9 damage is still better than Fiery War axe. Just on a small conditional and it still fits most Shaman Archetypes.
My fears are just Jade dominating everything now. If aggro really stops being dominant so Reno starts to rule, then Jades will come and I'm not really sure what we have that would counter them. Rogue?
I Don't think Jade decks will start running nearly as rampant as people are afraid they will. The Two nerfs help to slow the game down, but not nearly enough to mean we will have a meta where aggressive decks aren't strong enough to shut them down. Pirate warrior has been a strong deck even before the pirate package came and pushed it over the top, and I expect it will continue to be a strong deck. Pirate Shaman obviously didn't exist before the last expansion, but the other more midrange-y variants of shaman are still very powerful, and could fairly easily beat out Jade decks.
it makes me wonder actually if these cards will still be used in Shaman post-nerf... The funny thing is they might actually still be used.
I actually think Mid Range shaman will lean towards Trogg and Golem instead of pirates. They used to run Both, but then realized that their win rate was bigger WITHOUT the shaman cards and just with pirates.
Now I don't think that will be true as the pirates can push damage but not keep the board. And push damage just barely.
Warrior will definitely play them still.
And yeah, you could be right. If the nerf is good enough to make Aggro easier to deal with, then Reno decks can stop teching so heavily into beating aggro and focus more on beating each other and Jade decks. That might make them less rampant. I STILL think Jade Druid will be too crazy tho.
Good thing I didn't disenchant all my Small-Time Buccaneer extra copies
Yeah. I have golden ones too
Wow, talk about "not enough" - no way I'm coming back with that lackluster nerf pack.
Blizzard needs to get more serious about encouraging decks not pure aggro and luck of the initial draw based. I mean we all know it's the card game war, but they COULD be a bit more creative and make a real game instead.
I think these changes are great! Small time buccaneer can now be pinged by multiple different hero powers which makes it way less efficient, the spirit claws nerf isn't as big but I never had much issues with the card anyway.
I especially love the ranked changes! I think that this is a great way to promote experimentation in decks