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.
In other threads, I indicated that only UI would be nerfed. I had not considered the possibility that Blizzard wanted to turn down the volume on the basic cards. This is a shrewd move on their part and will be beneficial to the game. By hobbling popular basics, the expansions will have more impact on the meta, and getting rares and commons will feel more rewarding to players.
Innervate - will likely never be played, Druid decks on ladder will look much different and there will be far less of them.
Fiery War Axe - with less Druids, there will be a power vacuum and this change prevents pirate warrior form resuming its usual mayhem.
Spreading Plague - not sure this was needed, Druid will already be less common with the Innervate change and this one could be played around to some extent.
Hex - there will certainly be some head scratching over this one, but as an auto-include in all shaman builds regardless of type, it fits the nerf criteria.
Murloc Warleader - Cards that buff health are problematic and with it's low cost, it was easy for shaman and paladin to demand such a high trade cost that they could easily repopulate their boards over and over again. Surviving a board clear multiple times should not be commonplace.
Hex isn't auto-include in the currently strongest shaman deck which is Evolve Shaman. It runs 2 devolves instead
These are honestly the dumbest nerfs I've ever seen.
If you want to stop pirates, nerf the pirates.
If you want to stop jades, nerf the jades.
Do they all have some kind of infatuation with Jades at Blizzard or something? It's one of the worst mechanics in this games history
Can we not change basic cards, Blizzard? Like if we suddenly decide that we're really against the changes (talking about hex, rip control shaman), how do we get compensated for the sudden change to the card? Disenchant it? Oh wait.
i am...very much disappointed.
INnervate is now just the coin...which is fucking stupid. So many people agreed that "refill 2 mana crystals this turn" would be a reasonable nerf to stop mana cheats and just make it more of a combo card....now it's just a useless card unless you run Auctioneer.
Fiery War axe went from being the best weapon in the game to being the most pointless. Why not just make it a 2 mana 2/2 weapon? I mean...now it'S still gonna be run in pirate warrior...sure it#S weaker but the deck that will be hurt the msot in the long run is Control warrior (when that deck eventually returns)
Hex.....why not just overload? but alright....i guess it's jsut fair when compared to polymorph. Still it is strange to nerf a card that has barely seen play recently. I'd rather they nerf Bloodlust to keep those tokenrush decks in check
murloc mkes sense, that card was always op
Spreading plague nerf is nice for aggro decks but won't change much else about jade druid.
i guess their plan is to nerf mroe basic and classic cards that are overused to diversify decks, which just doesn't really help the meta right now
My guess is Fiery War Axe will still see play. Plenty of other decks play 3 mana 3/2 weapons for the tempo alone, and those decks don't even run all the crazy weapon synergies that warriors tend to have.
>overload on hex
lol yeah, wouldn't that keep with the identity of shaman more as well, while still making it more cumbersome of an include in aggro lists? (which is all they seem to think shaman should ideally be, rip control evolve..)
Warsong Commander has been nerfed..twice,, Shattered Sun Cleric was nerfed, Shiv and Backstab were nerfed, Starving Buzzard was nerfed, was nerfed, Rockbiter Weapon was nerfed, Mind Control was nerfed, basic cards are the things they nerf the most,
Bye bye hearthstone.
Just killed one of the core cards of druid cuz of UI.
Most stupid nerfs.
I like every change.
Hi, Mr Priest!
I think people are underestimating how much the nerf for Innervate is going to affect the power level of Druid. Like they said in the announcement, this nerf may very well fix a bunch of the other complaints that people are having about specific druid cards.
What I AM worried about regarding the combination of all these nerfs is how much this could potentially slow down the meta. Knights already had a TON of really good tools for controls decks to utilize, and now not only are you nerfing the #1 control killer in the meta, you're also nerfing literally all the best aggro decks (aggro druid, pirate warrior, and murloc pally).
Now I know a slow control meta is fun for the first 2 weeks when an expansion is first released, but do you guys really want a meta where every single deck is a greedy, heavy control deck and every single game you play on ladder to be 20+ minutes? Because I really don't think I do. Not saying that this will happen but it seems like that's what they're trying to point things towards.
Wow, just wow. So except Exodia Mage, every single bad matchup for Jade was significantly nerfed, but Jade lost 1 mana on Innervate and will play Spreading Plugue one turn later. The other matchups are so good for Jade Druid, that this wont change much.
These cards are in the classic set since the start and there was never a problem with them.
Now: Hex=Polymorph, FWA < Rallying Blade, Innervate = Coin
Nerf to Warleeder is just a KO to Murloc decks
Lets see they made the druid anti-aggro card cost one more, wile also slowing down pirate warrior, one of its best counters, by one mana. Essentially nerfing pirate warrior and murloc aggro decks against all classes except for druid where it is the same as before. Blizzard looked and said people are complaining about druid, but..... they complained about these nondruid cards in the past so lets nerf them now. Eagle horn bow is played without secrets because it is THEIR ONLY REASONABLE WEAPON. These nerfs are kicking classes that are already down and is essential nerfing aggro druid while keeping jade druid at near the same power. Now control warrior is going to be even worse, any hope of a control shaman just got nerfed. Essentially people said Jade druid is too good, it has much too good tempo, and beats all other control decks. Blizzard said lets nerf its counters and nerf the decks that its countered since it came out in the first place. Thanks Blizzard.
Just why in the f*** is it so hard to see that JADE MECHANICS NEED A NERF IN DRUID.
They basically made all the good counters to Jade Druid worse, and then made other archetypes of Druid even worse followed by some destroy the classes and cards you knew and loved because jade is perfectly fine as it is.
Very disappointed with the attempt at solving Druidstone, other nerfs are very good but jade will still do great and endure.
Well done I guess.
Wtf is these nerfs
Win Axe is now a strictly worse Kings Defender in the same fucking class no less. Honestly they could have made it 2/2 and I'd have been completely okay with that.
Innervate is the same exact card as counterfeit coin
Why the fuck is hex nerfed when Shaman is one of the least played classes right now and doesn't even run Hex as much nowadays? Completely unnecessary nerf if you ask me. They just made the more control style decks less powerful than they already are.
In fact most of these nerfs are unnessecary. When are they gonna nerf Jade Idol already
I'm totally pissed, why do they keep nerfing my beloved control warrior? First execute, and now this. Archetype is already not that good now, and nerfing the key cards really doesn't help
So... the Innervate and Spreading Plague nerfs I get... but all the other nerfs do is weaken Jade Druid's worst matchups...
So it's actually looking like a net buff for Jade Druid with this set of nerfs? The irony is strong with this update...
Community: Jade Deuid is OP as hell. Jades go over and over while druid ramps with Jade Blossom Wild Growth and Nourish ,btw Ultimate Infestation !!
Blizzard: Worry not little one! We can fix it
...
Hex nerf incoming
Murloc Warleader nerf incoming
...
seriously
Spreading Plague nerf is just absurd. Druid dont give a single fork about 1 more mana to ramp, or 1 less mana to ramp. It still covers biggest druid weakneses.
Innervate nerf is fine tho.
"Just disenchant the golden Murloc Warleader, it has been around for years, no way they are nerfing it now" - me to myself a couple month ago