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!
so thats when i dust my golden STB ^_^
Finally! Took way too long though...
The nerfs looks okay and the changes to ranked is great!
Nice that they did this very needed balancing, but it took way too long.
Way too long...
I agree to the card changes, I think they are positive and balanced. However this rank lock thing is kinda iffy with me. Perhaps more players will want to play as they dont feel that scared about going back to 20 now there are levels.
pretty sure spirit claws is mostly crap now in arena, like so much worse than stormforged axe even accounting for the 1 mana overload.
*modifying* spirit claws to +1atk per spell damage on board for 1 mana is so much more healthier. once again, the team manage to completely butcher a card from potentially OP as fuck to mostly kinda shitty. its obv unplayable in constructed now, but if you're forced to pick a 1 dmg ping on turn 2 arena, that's pretty fucking damn shitty too lol
I love the changes, but like most people I don't understand why it took so damn long.
The changes to the ranking system will make me come back to play Hearthstone. I stopped playing because ranking up past 10 was an effort I just mentally couldn't do. Playing to same couple of decks over and over were boring just to be competitive. Now there is still going to be the competitive edge, but you can actually experiment without losing too many ranks. Seems like an excellent change. Cheers!
The Ranked Play changes are disappointingly appeasing. Play badly, get bad results... if anything, it seems that floors would encourage players to be bad.
If bad means I see other decks than shaman, it is good.
Don't be ridiculous. This finally allows me to play FUN decks (yes those still exist) past rank 15 without getting SMOrc'd back to rank 20.
>good players
>rank 5
>goal
You sure know nothing what you're talking about.
Personally I would have changed Spirit Claws to "has +1 attack per spell damage"
Will there be full dust refund of the cards? like 100dust for stb for example
Yes
We care about the end of season rewards.
hahaha
I really like the changes to the Ranked system. It is very annoying to be rank 15 and then fall down back to rank 19. In addition, it is easier to test new decks in Ranked especially on higher ranks, without the risk of lowering your rank very much.
I am also glad to see the nerfs. The health change to Small-Time Buccaneer makes it easier to remove it early game. When playing class like Mage, I usually used my Hero Power to Remove Patches the Pirate in case I had no other play. Now it is finally easier to remove the Buccaneer instead, which can prevent a lot of damage.
I think that the cost increase of Spirit Claws might slow down Shamans a bit. I have face countless shamans with Spirit Claws turn one, followed by Spell Damage turn 2. Now Shamans have to use The Coin to get the weapon out (if on draw), or have to wait untill turn 2 to play the weapon instead of playing another 2-cost minion or spell.
For now, the changes look great, but I really want to see whether the changes do have an impact, or the Meta does not change.
It's not the system holding you back. If you managed to fall from 15 to 19 then it simply means you deserve to be there. I barely manage to finish my quests (and don't make them in time quite a few times, too) and I have no trouble getting 5 or higher during a month.
I see why you choose to say: You deserve it.
But it is still very annoying to face 5 Face warrior/face shaman decks in a row.
Besides, I used a bit extreme example, I saw a friend dropping that way, he really hates it.
The ranked change isn't about facing face-warriors and face-shamans. The nerfs are to fix that. I think you're mixing things up. And it's not annoying once you realise that variance happens. I can play as good as I can but I might lose 10 in a row in favorable matchups. But that's simply variance and you have to get past it. It's way easier in hearthstone because it's a single player game so self-reflection is the only thing left to do when you can't blame your teammates because blaming the system is even more ridiculous and conspiracy-tier than blaming teammates.
I do not mix things up.
I am glad you can be at rank 15, 10 or 5 without dropping. Besides, I do not blame any of my friends or the game itself. Bad luck happens, but that does not mean you have to like it.
And I hope that the nerfs will help win more easy against those decks.