Five Card Nerfs Coming in the Next Hearthstone Update - Druids, Win Axe, Murlocs, Hex
Five card changes are coming to Hearthstone in an upcoming patch which brings nerfs to several fan favourites, three being basic cards.
- The reason for nerfs to basic cards is due to too many cards from this set being included in those classes' decks.
- They're trying to limit additions to the Hall of Fame, so they're instead nerfing Murloc Warleader.
Discuss the Nerf Discuss the Nerf Discuss the Nerf
Discuss the Nerf Discuss the Nerf
Blog Post
In an upcoming update, we will be making balance changes to the following cards:
Innervate
Now reads: Gain 1 Mana Crystal this turn only. (Down from 2)
Fiery War Axe
Now costs 3 mana. (Up from 2)
Hex
Now costs 4 mana. (Up from 3)
Murloc Warleader
Now reads: Your other Murlocs have +2 Attack. (Down from +2 Attack, +1 Health)
Spreading Plague
Now costs 6 mana. (Up from 5)
Developer’s Note: Basic Cards and Our Stance on Hall of Fame
After careful consideration, we chose to make changes to three Basic class cards: Innervate, Fiery War Axe, and Hex. While they can be regarded as staples in those classes’ card repertoires, too many Basic and Classic cards played in individual decks means less fun when new expansions are released.
Cards in the Basic set serve several purposes in the game, so we would rather make balance adjustments to them instead of moving them to the Hall of Fame, like we have done for cards in the Classic set. We are also trying to limit Hall of Fame changes to the start of each Hearthstone Year, which is why Murloc Warleader—a Classic card—is receiving a balance change instead of moving to the Hall of Fame.
Innervate
Several powerful variations of Druid are currently seeing play, and all of them utilize Innervate. Innervate creates explosive starts to the game that can be difficult for the opposing player to recover from. This change leaves Innervate as a simple Basic card and slows down the explosive start potential, while ensuring that it will be utilized in decks that revolve around playing inexpensive spells.
What other changes did we consider?
We considered a few other options for Innervate:
- Refresh 2 Mana Crystals.
- Gain 2 Mana Crystals this turn only and increase the mana cost to 1.
- Gain 6 Mana Crystals this turn only and increase the mana cost to 4.
Since Innervate is a basic card, we need it to be clear and simple. Along with Wild Growth, these cards inform newer players that Druids create mana as a part of their class identity.
We kept in mind that cards like Counterfeit Coin were strong in combination with other support cards, such as Gadgetzan Auctioneer, Edwin VanCleef, and Combo cards. With the right support cards for Innervate, it may end up still seeing play, but won’t be in every deck—which is ultimately what we’re aiming for with this change.
Fiery War Axe
Fiery War Axe has been a powerful Warrior weapon since the launch of Hearthstone. Already great tempo for its cost, Fiery War Axe is well complimented by Pirates and cards that synergize with weapons. Raising its mana cost by 1 will slow down the Warrior’s tempo and lower the overall power level of the card.
What other changes did we consider?
The other option we considered for Fiery War Axe was to lower its attack to 2, but that change didn’t feel intuitive enough. Generally, changing the mana cost of a card is less disruptive, because you can always see the mana cost of cards in your hand. Despite the increased mana cost of Fiery War Axe, we expect that it will still see play—other 3 mana 3/2 weapons, like Eaglehorn Bow, can be found in decks that may not have synergy with the weapon’s card text.
Hex
We’re not making the change to Hex due to a current power-level problem. Shaman is a class that currently has a lot of flexibility, but is lacking in both class identity and identifiable weaknesses. Changing Hex makes Shaman a bit weaker against big minions and worse at silencing—having both strengths and weaknesses in a class is important.
We are very wary of cards that also incidentally work as a silence. If a player wants to utilize a card with a silence effect, they should be giving up something else. For example, if a player decides to include Spellbreaker in their deck, then they are playing a card that is weak in some situations. Priest is an exception to this rule—silence is a part of their class identity.
Even though Hex is not always played in the more aggressive Shaman decks, we will be making this forward-thinking change with the overall identity of the class in mind. This includes avoiding Shaman cards that function as direct and powerful removal. We will continue moving forward with this design philosophy to help reinforce that ideal.
Developer’s Note: Regarding Murloc Warleader and Spreading Plague
Murloc Warleader
Murlocs are good at taking an early lead, and if a player can’t clear the board in time, the game can ultimately snowball to victory using cards like Murloc Warleader. Removing the Health buff from Murloc Warleader will make it easier for players to clear the board of murlocs, and still have it remain a Classic build-around card. Simplifying health buff interactions is an additional benefit of this change. For example, in its current state, having a Murloc Warleader in play then using Wild Pyromancer and Equality would not destroy other murlocs on the board, leading to unclear interactions for some players.
What other changes did you consider?
We considered changing both Rockpool Hunter and Murloc Warleader due to the current strength of Murloc Paladin in the early stages of the game. Changing either Rockpool Hunter or Murloc Warleader would accomplish this, but there are extra advantages to changing just Murloc Warleader: The simplification of health-giving buffs and additional room for future Murlocs since Warleader will be around longer than Rockpool Hunter.
Spreading Plague
Spreading Plague is a great defensive tool for Druid to protect themselves against aggressive decks, but it was too efficient at 5 mana. Raising the mana cost to 6 will slow the card down slightly, while still allowing for the defensive minions Spreading Plague creates to be utilized in the later stages of the game.
What other changes did you consider?
We considered changing Spreading Plague to 7 mana rather than 6, since it is currently the top performing card in Jade and Taunt Druid decks. However, since we are also changing Innervate, we decided to only add 1 mana to the cost of Spreading Plague.
Developer’s Note: Regarding Other Community Card Discussions
The community has mentioned other cards in balance-related discussions, such as Ice Block and Ultimate Infestation, and we wanted to talk about those cards as well even though we are not making any changes to them at this time.
Ultimate Infestation
Our team has discussed making a change to Ultimate Infestation since it feels bad to lose to. However, our data shows us how good each individual card performs in a deck relative to other cards in that deck. Spreading Plague ended up being the best performing card in Jade and Taunt Druid, Innervate was in the top three, and Ultimate Infestation was somewhere around the middle—but it felt much more powerful since it has a huge effect when played.
We considered changing all mentions of the number 5 in Ultimate Infestation to 4, or removing one of the effects entirely. With the other changes we are making to Druid, ramping out Ultimate Infestation before turn 10 should happen less often, so we decided to leave it as is.
Ice Block
We’ve seen discussions about moving Ice Block to the Hall of Fame. As previously mentioned, moving cards to the Hall of Fame occurs at the start of the Hearthstone Year, which will occur with the first expansion release in 2018. Our general stance regarding Hall of Fame is that we want to avoid moving cards mid-year.
We are excited for these changes, and we look forward to seeing how they will shake up the game.
Once these card changes are live, players will be able to disenchant the changed non-Basic cards (Murloc Warleader and Spreading Plague) for their full Arcane Dust value for two weeks. Basic cards cannot be disenchanted and will not be available for an Arcane Dust refund.
Ben Brode your nerfs are comic you shood nerf:
Jade idol from 1mana to 2 mana and
Ultimate Infestation to deal 4damage, draw 4cards and summon 4/4 minion.
That nerfs are stiupid
And your nerf to Jade Idol is straight dumb. Maybe agree on UI nerf, but nerfing Jade Idol to 2 mana accomplishes nothing, don't solve any problem. I hate Blizzard's nerfs, but your nerf is also stupid.
Kind of sad to see the nerf on Spreading plague since it aint that great a card if you have skill enough to play around it, instead of just floating the board and make it strong.
Sad to see no changes to jade idol since that is the card that really needed a nerf.
War axe sure if it slows down pirate warrior and control/taunt warrior will probably still consider it, but then again it lacks an ability since now it is just a worse kings defender, eaglehorn bow and rallying blade.
Innervate yea well on the same powerlevel as counterfeit coin in a class that use auchtioner, seems fair enough.
Murloc warleader hm, did not see that one coming at all, but 1 health less on murlocs probably wont make much of a difference.
Hex nerf was not really needed at all, but now it is on equal powerlevel with polymorpf so seems fair enough.
So what did they gain from this? Not much, they slowed down pirate warrior and druid, but didn't deal with the real problem that is jade druid.
"to play around" a card that is anti-aggro, which was played by a deck that rarely lose to other control.
They rarely loose to other control because of the stupid jade package! Jade idol should have been nerfed not SP.
For this you have to take the next the Geist. What if it's one last deck card? You simply can not beat the druid golens
I don't get these nerfs. Druid is such a problem that Blizzard has to act, so they hit other classes and Murloc decks? What?
And that Fiery War Axe nerf, I would not be surprised if it is the first nerf in Hearthstone history that gets reversed. Probably not happening, but then the nerf shouldn't be happening either.
Druid got nerfed...
Murloc pally would have been too dominant then. Do you even play ladder?
Honestly, I hadn't realized Murloc Paladin was that strong. And I play that deck every now and then.
The only thing that sucks a bit is War Axe and the only thing close to viable is pirate warrior out of the warrior class, tbh I don't know why people would complain, win axe has been due a nerf for a long time imo.
Druid has had some small nerfs that shouldn't affect it massively and that's how it should be, it's like people wanted them to break a strong archetype for no apparent reason. Yes Jades is strong, should a tier S deck exist? No. Are Tier 1 or 2 decks allowed? Yes. With these nerfs the power level of aggro druid is reduced and some of the very frustrating things about Jade druid are taken away. That's fine and is a good thing. We want a balanced game we don't want a class completely broken just because it was strong now or in the past. Look at hunter, it sucks. The fewer classes like hunter the better.
These are good nerfs and should have taken place a long time ago. It goes to show that there is a huge importance on Blizzard going back and rebalancing the old sets, for the good of Standard and Wild.
These nerfs are fine but as usual people just complain, if they were done a month ago people would have said how good they were, oh wait they'd start whining about other classes because they lost 1 game to them. Go figure people, HS is allowed strong decks.
The thing that people often tend to forget is that Fiery War Axe has been an autoinclude in every warrior deck for a reason.
Blizzard wtf why nerfing warleader? almost all the murlocs will get raped by this nerf. and why not nerfing ultimate infestation!??!?!?
Did you even read the article?
They wrote what they considered and why they took decisions. In my opinion they were all valid changes
lol druid nerfs were lighter than druid-counter ones
These Changes are going to do nothing... Jade druid is going to be maybe even more popular because his counters (Murloc Paladin and Pirate Warrior) are less powerfull. The nerf of Fiery War Axe was brutal, one control tool less for Warrior, i hope the card can still be playable. We are going to have to wait another 3 or 4 weeks for the Jade Druid Death. Thanks Blizzard. LUL
Expecting a Nerf on Jade Druid. Got a nerf on Jade Druid counters...
hahaha is 2016 all over again, just druid instead of shaman
Murloc midrange paladin was a decent counter to jade and token druids. It wasn't perfect but it did the job. Evolve shaman was also decent. It was nice to play something besides druid on the ladder, but i guess Blizzard doesn't agree. Meanwhile they barely nerf druids and hinder the semi-counter decks. Looks like it's gonna be another year of druid... and possibly even more than before.
Not nerfing JADE IDOL AND ULTIMATE INFESTATION EleGiggle
Sooo,is there any point in playing innervate and fiery war axe anymore?