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!
Hmmm to buy MSoG packs for extra dust or to keep saving for next expansion, thats the question.
Very good changes indeed. But this kind of balance updates should be made more often and quickly.
Good job blizzard, good job!
Finally!
Good choices, although I suspect that we're going right back to the pre-MSoG dominance of some midrange shaman variant.
Mage - Hero Power
Warlock - Mortal Coil
Druid - Hero Power, Wrath, Swipe AOE
Rogue - Small Time Buckaneer, Patches, Hero Power, FoK
Shaman - Small Time Buckaneer, Patches, Maelstrom Portal, 1/1 totem, Spirit Claws (lol)
Warrior - Small Time Buckaneer, Patches, N'zoth's 1st Mate, Upgrade
Priest - *pthbt*
Paladin - Hero Power?
Hunter - *pthbbbthhbtbth*
Most classes have relatively easy ways of dealing with a STB on-curve if it has 1 health. At 2 health, it was nearly impossible (Arcane Blast, Holy Smite, Arcane Shot, and Living Roots were the only things that traded mana-for-mana with STB, with Arcane Blast being the only one that sees regular play).
So yeah, STB is still pretty strong, but it is going to be much easier to deal with now. It will gimp aggro decks for sure; no longer will a 1-cost minion be able to consistently get 6-9 damage in before it can be dealt with.
Now if only they nerfed Tunnel Trogg to 2 health, or made it so that it only got 1 attack per overload card played (as opposed to locked mana crystals).
The question remains - will these small-time changes make a big-time meta impact?
Only time will tell!
Good to see the changes people have been asking for finally added into the game.
Finally!!
Rank milestones are cool. I think there could still be more incentive to play ladder.
HYPE !!
That's a nice Valentine's day present Blizzard :D
Whee!