Upcoming Changes to Hearthstone
Another set of balance changes are coming to Hearthstone. The post states that this should be the last big set of balance changes.
Quote from BlizzardHearthstone Update: Upcoming Changes 1/13
Thank you so much for continuing to play, test, and give feedback on Hearthstone as the closed beta testing phase begins to draw to a close. We are monitoring card balance over time, and without your continued testing efforts, we wouldn’t have the necessary data we need in order to make changes to cards that may warrant them. This should be our last big set of balance changes; once we go live, we plan to make very few card changes, and only if they are absolutely necessary.
We will be making changes to the following cards: Unleash the Hounds, Sylvanas Windrunner, Blood Imp, Defender of Argus, Pyroblast, Dark Iron Dwarf, Abusive Sergeant, Warsong Commander, Charge, and Novice Engineer.
Unleash the Hounds’ mana cost is now 2 (down from 4)
- Unleash the Hounds was intended to give Hunters their own form of AoE and to have synergy with other beast cards, but its old cost was too prohibitive.
Pyroblast’s mana cost is now 10 (up from 8)
- The 8-cost Pyroblast made for an un-interactive experience where the Mage only needed to do 10 damage during the course of a game and then double Pyroblast you for the win. We want Mages to be more interactive with the opponent to achieve victory, rather than delay the game until they can Pyroblast.
Blood Imp is now a 0/1 and now reads: Stealth. At the end of your turn, give another random friendly minion +1 Health.
- The Warlock has three very strong 1-cost minions and that made the Warlock rush deck slightly stronger than we were comfortable with.
Warsong Commander has been reworked and now reads: Whenever you play a minion with 3 or less Attack, give it Charge.
Charge (the spell, not the keyword) has been reworked and now costs 3 mana. The card’s new power reads: “Give a friendly minion +2 Attack and Charge”.
- Both of these cards were key components in “One Turn Kill” or “OTK” decks that kill your opponent in one turn without requiring any cards on the board. We want the game to be about playing minions and fighting for board control rather than just waiting until you can play your big combo and win in one turn with no interaction from your opponent.
Abusive Sergeant now reads: Battlecry: Give a minion +2 Attack until end of turn.
- Abusive Sergeant was changed to make its power the same as the Dark Iron Dwarf and to give it additional versatility.
Dark Iron Dwarf’s buff now only lasts until the end of the turn.
- This change was made to reduce the Dark Iron Dwarf’s overall power slightly. We also wanted to make the Battlecry effect the same as Abusive Sergeant‘s as to not force you to permanently buff one of your opponent’s creatures.
Defender of Argus is now a 2/3 (down from 3/3)
- Defender of Argus was a card that found itself automatically included in many decks due to its power and stats. We want players to have an option of what cards they put in their decks, so cards that feel like they must be in all decks (especially Neutral ones) are not ideal.
Novice Engineer is now a 1/1 (down from 1/2)
- The Novice Engineer was played in most non-rush decks (and even some rush decks) due to its cost and power. Similar in reasoning to our Defender of Argus change, we want players to have an option of what cards they put in their decks.
Sylvanas Windrunner’s mana cost is now 6 (up from 5)
- Sylvanas had power and stats that made it a bit too powerful compared to other 5-cost cards, which made it automatically included in many decks. We want players to have an option of what cards they put in their decks, so cards that feel like they must be in all decks (especially Neutral ones) are not ideal.
Expert cards that are being changed can be disenchanted for their full cost for a limited time when the patch goes live. We hope these changes will increase the variety of cards you will see at all levels of play, and make playing Hearthstone a more fun and interactive game for everyone.
Disenchant your sylvanas and make that legend you've always wanted :) Also don't forget to disenchant your pyros for some good dust since you won't be using them. Lets all thank blizz for giving us the chance to make new cards! Cmon guys this is sweet!!!!
sylvanas is still really good, no reason to disenchant her at all.
Now Pyro I can see getting rid of maybe.
But doesn't Blizzard do this with every game it have? If something is being overplayed, nerf it....we don't want to see it anymore!
Happy with the nerfs, although maybe they went a little to hard on the charge nerfs, I think all the other cards except for blood imp got fair nerfs/buffs though, but I sure as fuck am happy that it's not the most op thing in the world anymore. Also I really think Blizz needs to get their shit together on hunter. 1 fucking card doesn't matter, they need to bump the hp values on some of the hunter creatures from 1 to 2 (Timber Wolf, and bring Buzzard back, there was almost no reason to nerf it) because many of the hunters creatures can just be pinged and it is absolutely pathetic to see.
Pretty happy with the patches, but would like to see more hunter buffs (Cause he's total shit, no matter what rank you got to with him, you have to admit doing with another class would've been easier).
Just 12hours and 8minutes until Pyroblast is nerfed!!!!
The countdown has begun!
Till mage it moved to right above Hunter.
Then control town here we come!
Nice just got a pyroblast from a pack.
As a control player I LOVE these nerfs to agro decks!
The only card there I even run is Sylvannas Windrunner and the change is 100% fine
RIP Novice Engineer though, she will be replaced 100% with Loot Hoarder imo
No she wont. Loot horder can be silenced and Shadow Madnessed/shadow priested.and give your opponent the card draw.
Lol nobody plays priest anyway, and if they waste a silence on Loot Hoarder then that's even better than getting a card out of it, because that's one less silence they'll have for something much better
Pretty much, I'd love for someone to waste silence on a LH.....also LOL priest.
The pyroblast change seems a bit disappointing. I know It hurt to die from the card when you feel like you were ahead, but mage doesn't use minions as much. I don't think I'll play mage, since now you are required to use minions a LOT more, and at that point, you might as well play any other class. In other news, Unleash the Hounds is soooooooo good now. I think I'll probably have to find a way to beat the druid legendary deck now, rather than play it, since it seems like the most viable archetype. Paladin seems good against it I think...
Heres a thought. Maybe mages can..... wait for it...... START using minions instead of playing 1 minion all game and still winning.
Yea I hear a class all about....wait for it.....casting damaging spells should play lots of minions. Plus mage decks have been playing more then one minion all game for a good bit now.
But doesn't matter homogenizing is what is happening, going to be all about play creep and turn creep side-ways.
But I DO play more than one minion! Alexstrasza + Molten Giant + Molten Giant... That's THREE minions!
"You ask what's the difference between a mage who useses counterspell and the one who doesn't? The one who doesn't gets a pyroblast in the face". Oh wait...
Mages have ways to counter it. Warrior has armor, pally, druid, priest have healing.
But the small card pool and lack of depth in HS makes some things pretty good against other classes.
Not entirely correct. Counterspell and Spellbender. Also Ice Block negates the damage done if the attack was lethal. But, i guess that wasn't the answer you wanted to hear :D. Besides direct damage spells are not that great if the opponent happens to run some strong heal.
A lot of these nerfs are unfortunate.
Warlock rush gives players a really good cheap deck so they can grind towards the legendary cards to play "real" decks. The deck isn't overpowered and gets rolled by a lot of things but blood imp gave it a little protection. I would've rather seen a mana cost increase to 2 for the same effect or a 3 mana 2/1. I've already moved away from my lock deck though and this is likely the nail in the coffin.
Nerfing the "combo" style deck of warriors is also unfortunate. Combo decks are usually the most fun that I have in card games and it's sad that most card games seem to be trying to kill that archetype. It sucked to lose to the Warrior deck when it combos off but a lot of times, they didn't have the right cards and just died so it was pretty fragile. Would be nice to see some combo cards spring up instead of forcing everyone to grind out trades but it sounds like Blizzard has no interest in that.
I agree entirely with what you said about combo. It seems Blizzard does not want combo to be a deck type. This sucks since it adds an element of game play and deck building for those playing as and against combo. I would have liked to potentially see a small nerf to the molten giants, limiting mana cost to 1 instead of the warsong and charge nerfs.