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.
Combo is fun and takes so skill to pull off, watched people who built the deck misplay it many times. But does seem blizzard wants HS to be all about turning creep side-ways
They had to nerf the charge card or do something about it. Combo decks are fun, but they're also often overpowered.
Warsong Commander -> Molten Giant -> Attack -> Panda the giant -> Molten Giant -> Attack -> Panda #2 or Molten Giant #2 -> Repeat
More often then not they are not overpowered.
So, Equality Pyromancer now works vs Warlocks now. Sweet.
And as a control pally, I am 100% on bored with this!
I can understand the Sylvanas Windrunner nerf. What I don't understand is not nerfing rags. I think he gets put in more decks than Sylvanas.
Also, although the pyroblast nerf is expected, I still think mages will be top tier as they have good spells, and rather OP minions (for the few they have).
Too bad they aren't going to buff any of the weaker neutral cards like magma ranger.
Sylvanas is run more then rags easily, she is just amazing at a 5.
Mages haven't been all that much of a top tier since the last nerf with more and more good spells getting nerfed and no Op minions.
Auctioneer is a good 5 drop for some decks and earth elemental for shaman. But overall the 5 slot for even spells is weak across the board.
But the game does need more cards badly, they seem far to focused on buffs/nerfs(which to often are not needed since the meta always shifts) then fixing bugs right now.
The point of a beta is to fix bugs and balance issues, not release content. Other than the Adventure mode cards they already mentioned, there's exactly 0% chance they'll be adding more cards before release.
Problem is they are not really making "balance issues" they are forcing the meta they want. Every time before the "nerf" the meta is already shifting to counter the top end decks. Yet bugs that have been around forever are still kicking.
0% huh? hope no more promo cards come out before release.
basically, the warlock aggro will become like every other aggro deck in the game and have the same neutral cards. Blizzard seems to want to nerf the hell out of class cards because the class system sucks. in the end ill bet people will just pick their class then fill it out with neutral cards rather then class cards because of the nerfs.
My god, blood imp has been nerfed so hard. Well, there go's warlock rush.
because sometimes it's beneficial to buff your opponent's minion.
Sometimes you mean when you're playing priest or have big game hunter.
Any other examples?
-Novice was fine, really she's played because the alternatives are so underwhelming not because she's great.
-F Pyroblast, good riddance.
-Like the +0/+1 Taunt idea for Argus, 2/3 seems whatever. Still not going anywhere.
-Slyvannas change is fine, but will still be played universally, so whatever.
- Hounds is a step in the right direction, but why is this card the sole focus of Hunter adjustments
- Blood Imp change is just lazy. Killed that card, which is a shame.
Oh look someone who is clearly 20+ rank
The problem with these nerfs are that they are aimed that < 20 ranked players, who whine about the cards they aren't smart enough to beat, not the cards that are overpowered.
I'm pretty sure Sylvana's is overpowered. Also, they nerfed unfun things that have no counterplay, like Warrior OTK, and Pyro. The Warrior OTK is fun for the person using it, but if they get the right draws there's no way the person playing against it can actually do anything. Although I think they totally raped blood imp, it still deserved the nerf, argus was good and deserved the nerf, engineer was in like, every deck, Dwarf was also to good for its cost. Although the Unleash the Hounds buff still doesn't really put hunter in a better spot -.-
Both warrior OTK and pyro hand counter play and decks they had bad match-ups against. They would have more if they released more cards and increased the depth of the game itself.
Many decks if they get the right draw just flat out win, that is the RNG of CCGs.
Blood imp deserved a nerf but they took it in the wrong direction. Argus isn't even a nerf and really should have followed the advise they were givin over and over to make it buff +0/+1. Engineer being in every deck doesn't matter and now just gets replaced with argus, because if a card being run in every deck means it needs a nerf then loot hoarder, azure drake, argent commander and others should have been nerfed.
But they have still not made hunter variable yet and are trying to push mage to be one step above it now.
Overall these changes barely touch my pally/druid decks.
I will agree sylvanas had it coming. But the other nerfs were purely because "they were played a lot". That logic has no place in CCGs. These nerfs barely affect my druid and rogue, but I think it was still full of shit.