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.
The pyroblast change is understandable. Hunters need some love, so the Unleash the Hounds change is also understandable. What I do not get, however, are the nerfs to Novice Engineer, Defender of Argus, and Dark Iron Dwarf. Blizzard's reasoning is "we want to give players more options to choose from", but these cards are all essentially universally accessible -- nerfing the most commonly played commons and rares only improves the performance of the less accessible legendaries. Who are these changes for?
Pyroblast change is exactly what I wanted. UTH might make that card viable. Syvalnis is a good balance. Charge seems ok. Other than that - WTF!?
Dark Iron Dwarf and Defender of Argus changes seem especially odd. Those cards were not unbalanced really. As a 2/3 now a defender argus, even if it buffs two creatures is only giving a yeti worth of stats (and taunt), so if you don't play it onto two minions it's demonstrably worse than similar 4 drops. Dark Iron Dwarf does not need to be a high cost abusive sergeant, we already have abusive sergeants and it actually makes D.I.D quite weak. Both those cards were strong when you had board, but not when you had none and thus were fairly balanced.
Blood imp is just a young priestess now! A far simpler solution the way I see it would be to have the same blood imp but when it dies it takes the bonus 1hp away (e.g. deal one damage to all minions) so AOE like swipe actually has an impact, given that the counter to blood imp is aoe (this would even make aoe against blood imp feel much more intuitive).
Force did a good video a while ago talking about balance and how blizz should be allowing more meta shifts rather than just nerfing everything. People will find ways to counter popular decks, those will fall out of favor and things will shift.
The fact is there will be cards that are stronger than others, and they can't change this. What blizzard could do do fix this, is simply - add more cards. When they add more cards, some will be very good and compete with the current popular ones. People will have limited deck space and that will force them to make tough choices which may not end up the same with every player. The 30 card deck limit is a tool at their disposal they are not using. I don't even agree with some peoples ideas that bad cards need to get buffed - there will always be cards that only work in very specific decks; things like magma rager or mana wraith that aren't strong but are there as a creative tool for people trying out weird deck ideas.
*sigh*
These changes are meant to discourage specific playstyles during the beta so that when the game goes live they are not viable.
Blizzard does not want super-aggro that steamrolls everything and they don't want to absurd gimmickyness of warrior OTK; these kinds of decks tend to put people off the game. They would prefer the game still be fast paced, but involve minions trading for control of the board a bit more.
Whale_Cancer which just pushes out a bland game to drive people away.
@Epicsmooth: That is yet to be seen.
I personally don't have fun playing against Warlock Murloc aggro, which this patch nerfs a bit. It's just not fun.
Some combos are fun and some are boring, unfortunately which is which seems to vary by player. Sure, warrior OTK might be fun for the person playing it, but many people complain about the matchup (I personally don't mind it, but that is perhaps because the deck I currently run makes for a fun matchup).
The only thing I can say for sure is that the nerfs to some of the neutral cards are absolutely necessary. It is a big problem that there was this core group of neutral minions that reappeared in so many decks (Dark Iron, Defender, Sylvanus, Engineer). If a card is a 'duh' choice when making a deck, that is probably an indicator of bad design.
It is not a yet to be seen, its already happening. When you want the game to be only about turn creeps side-ways it makes it bland.
The fun/not fun argument is the worst thing I ever see in a CCG.
"duh" choice has nothing to do with bad design 99% of the time
Patch not implemented yet. Already been seen it turns the game bland. Ok.
And seems you missed it, has nothing to do with the following changes has to deal with what blizzard wants to do which they said right in the patch notes.
That would be the opposite of bland, means the game has many different feature and characteristics. Also CCG games are about RNG so sometimes you or your opponent are going to have a "sick" hand and mostly win right away and sometimes it will be a crap shoot of a hand. Also CCG games are about "matchups" you have some that are great for you and others that are not great.
Also losing in one turn to direct damage you can also blame on the lack of depth HS provides with everything being contained to your own turn.
As for fun, it seems you don't want to look beyond you own fun. Just because you think something is "unfun" doesn't mean another 1 or more people don't find it fun.
But I also know to many people without any TCG experience are playing HS and don't understand.
Well, there goes the last big nerf to mages lol...
I have a question about the Warsong Commander.
What happens if you place a 3/3 Worgen or something and cruel taskmaster, whirlwind, slam, etc damage it. Will it still have charge? Does the battle cry apply to minions that originally have 3 attack or less, but no longer applies if they obtain more within the same turn? (i.e Amani, Frothing, Tauren Warriors that get hit with a whirlwind...etc lose their charges?) What about a Bloodsail Raider that gets buffed with a Arcanite, Fiery War Axe, etc, will it no longer have charge even though it's a 2/3 minion?
This may seem kind of dumb to some, but I just have to know as it might make or break enrage warrior decks. (I know the keyword is played, but I just need to confirm this)
From the way other cards work, I think the Worgen will lose charge once he is over the limit. Nothing looks at the original strength of the card when applying an ongoing effect.Edit: see below
I think cards already in play won't get charge. Only cards that are played while the commander is on the board. The card clearly says when you "play" a card with 3 attack or less give it charge
Ruffys' is the correct reading. I misremembered the wording when I made my comment.
The worgen comes out, gets charge, and then doesn't care about its attack value anymore as it already has charge. Shit, the Warsong commander could die and it would still have charge.
That's not true, if you throw out two warsong commanders on the same turn, if you attack with one of them and it dies, the other one can't attack.
So then I'm assuming that charge won't be applied to a Bloodsail Raider when buffed with by weapon even though it's a 2/3? The charge applies after the buff, which negates the charge anyways because Bloodsail is now above 2/3, correct?
@Sophitia: The way Warsong will work now, is it gives the charge ability to a creature when it comes into play. Thus, if it dies, it shouldn't have any effect.
Additionally, let's say you play novice engineer and draw a warsong. You then play warsong. The engineer won't have charge because charge is only granted as a creature is played.
I don't know about this. Mirror Entity copies ancients of war after they have made their choice; same with druids of the claw. This suggests to me that bloodsail would not get charge if its battlecry puts it over the warsong limit.
I can steal argus with my cabal shadow priest now?Cool
Also I can kill 4 attack minions for 4 mana now and get 2/1 it's super cool.
I think Mage should get a bit of a buff on another card to make up for the new Pyroblast, but other than that... Unleash the Hounds definitely deserved the mana cost reduction, Blood Imp I'm not so sure about. I'd have preferred a cost increase. Warsong Commander I don't think is needed that badly. Charge change is great, Abusive Sergeant... Eeeh. Defender of Argus is a totally fine nerf, Novice Engineer is basically useless now. I'm not sure how much the change is going to affect Sylvanas plays, but I don't have it and I've never played it outside of Arena, so yeah.
Over-all, I think these are some fantastic changes.