Ben Brode Explains the Reasoning for the Naga Sea Witch Rule Change
Ben Brode was on reddit today responding to an inquiry on Naga Sea Witch and her recent undocumented change.
- It was a mistake that the change wasn't in the patch notes for 9.0.
- If Naga Sea Witch is too powerful, she will probably be nerfed.
- The initial conversation began with the interaction between Bright-Eyed Scout and Second-Rate Bruiser.
- Due to not thinking that combo was correct, they reevaluated how cost-setting and cost-adjusting auras worked.
- Changing it made the rules overall easier to understand.
- They were initially concerned with the power level of the card, but it isn't a high win-rate right now.
Check out the full text below. There's a lot of great insight into the change that is better read in full.
Quote from Ben BrodeIf you're talking about Naga Sea Witch, it was definitely intentional, and definitely a mistake that it missed the patch notes.
The thing that got us talking about the issue was the interaction between Bright-Eyed Scout and Second-Rate Bruiser.
Generally when things "set" a value (think Aldor Peacekeeper), it becomes the new baseline. Any "auras" that affect that value apply after the effect that is applying the new baseline. Think about a minion next to a Dire Wolf Alpha. If you Aldor Peacekeeper that minion, his new Attack will be 2, not 1. It's because the Aura applies after the "set" power. This hasn't always worked correctly in the past, but if you Aldor a Small-Time Buccaneer who is being buffed by his power - his power is an Aura, and so the resulting minion would have 3 Attack.
We think the Bright-Eyed Scout + Second-Rate Bruiser interaction wasn't correct, and it caused us to re-evaluate Cost-Setting and how it interacted with Cost-Adjusting Auras.
Here's the discussion the engineers and designers had regarding Sea Witch:
The Naga Sea Witch interaction can work out in one of two ways:
If you draw a Second-Rate Bruiser while Naga Sea Witch is already in play, Second-Rate Bruiser’s cost will be reduced by 2 if your opponent has 3 or more minions.
If you have a Second-Rate Bruiser already in hand and play a Naga Sea Witch, that Bruiser will always cost 5, no matter how many minions your opponent has. If it gets a Thaurissan tick, it goes down to 4. If the Naga Sea Witch leaves play, Second-Rate Bruiser’s cost will be reduced by 2 if your opponent has 3 or more minions, while keeping the Thaurissan tick making it cost 1 less – leaving it with a cost of either 4 or 2.
This distinction happens because in the first case, Naga Sea Witch’s timestamp will be earlier than SRB’s, so SRB applies last. In the second case, SRB’s modifier has an earlier timestamp, so Naga Sea Witch applies last.
Why this feels wrong: We have a very clear precedent that card text modifiers apply last, after any external stat-setting effect occurs.
Tar Creeper, Tar Lurker, Tar Lord, Lightspawn, Cogmaster, Old Murk-Eye, Goblin Sapper - All of these cards give themselves a modifier that alters one of their own stats. If you play a stat-setting effect on one of them, their text still applies. The Tar minions will always get their attack bonus, even after being affected by Crystal Core, Aldor Peacekeeper, Sunkeeper Tarim, Dinosize or any other effect.
The proposal is this: Cards that modify their own cost should work in this exact same way. Second-Rate Bruiser’s ability is in the same category as Tar Creeper’s ability – it modifies one of its stats when a condition is met. This would standardize their behavior, making them on the whole feel more intuitive and consistent, as well as making our lives easier by making the rules more predictable.
If Naga Sea Witch is in play: Cards in hand cost 5, then their text is applied.
If Aviana is in play: Cards in hand cost 1, then their text is applied.
If Aviana, Naga Sea Witch, Pint-Sized Summoner, Summoning Portal and Mana Wraith are in play: Cards in play apply their effects in the order that they came into play, then each card in hand applies its own text last.
If I draw a Molten Giant with Bright-Eyed Scout: Molten Giant’s cost is 5, minus the damage I’ve taken. If I’m at 25 health, it costs 0.
If I draw a Molten Giant with Bright-Eyed Scout while Aviana is in play: Aviana applies, making Molten Giant cost 1. Bright-Eyed Scout’s enchantment then applies, making Molten Giant cost 5. Finally, Molten Giant’s text applies, making it cost 5 minus HealthLost.
We made the change because we think these rules are easier to understand because they're more consistent with other parts of the game, not because we wanted to buff Naga Sea Witch. We were worried about it's power level and have been watching the play/win reports in Wild. Right now it's not one of the best decks, but it could grow in winrate as players get more practice. If it does become a big problem, we'd probably nerf Naga Sea Witch, rather than reverting the rules change.
This is an excellent explanation that should settle the "intentional or not" issue completely. It also makes a lot of sense, so thank you for sharing and clarifying!
It looks like Dragon's Breath doesn't follow these new rules though. Here's a video documenting that with Naga Sea Witch in play, Dragon's Breath in hand does not reduce its cost by one every time a minion dies, even though Volcanic Drake does: https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/6yj2o9/new_bug_with_naga_sea_witch_and_dragons_breath/
Is this something that should happen, or a case that was missed in the last update?
It's a bug. Should be fixed in an upcoming patch (though the fix will miss 9.1.) (Source)
They decided this inconsistency was more pressing than Druid's 'choose one' and how varied it is? It's a shame that so many poor decisions are undermining what would otherwise be my favourite expansion in at least a year.
But the interaction between bright eyed scout and summoning portal is weird in that summoning portal wont decrease the cost of the card bright eyed scout sets to 5 and yes it was a minion card so it should have worked...ps meat wagon is awesome thank you ben brode i legitimately like the card and think its good.
RIGHT-eyed scout? ;)))
Yep. and my favorite song by Van Morrison Rown Eyed Girl.
Fixed now.
funny typo )))
Playing this game since beta... and i find this "confusing" (or should i say... WRONG?).
It says very clear "your cards cost 5".
This should mean that a giant cost 5, because if he gets costs lower than 5 (like a 0 mana spell) it SHOULD BE set to 5 again.
I understand that you could say "but the other cards also have rules that you have to add", but for me it is just lazy coding, because the rule is IT COSTS 5.
But dont get me wrong.. i get it. For Bright-Eyed Scout i even think that it is somehow correct, because it changes the costs of THE CARD and then the "active change" like the "aura" that a Naga Sea Witch has is... gone? But the Naga Sea Witch is a aura for me that sets the very clear state that ANYTHING costs 5.
What if you have Aviana in play too?
I agree with that! I like the change but the cards says "Cost (5)" so, EVERYTHING costs 5... That's how I saw the card always.
Again, I like the change but the text was clear, now it is a little less because they don´t cost 5, maybe if it said "Cost are set to (5)" it would be different.
There's a saying in the Magic Community, something that I believe applies to Hearthstone. When the card breaks the rules, the card always wins. For example, let's say you have Naga Sea Witch on the board and you have an Mountain in hand when you have at least 5 cards in your hand. Normally, you'd have to wait until Turn 4 to play him at 4 mana. However, with Naga Sea Witch already setting the cost of all cards to 5, the Giants each have their own unique cost reductions that can be used to play around the Naga Sea Witch's ability. So a Molten Giant can be played for 0 when you've taken 5 damage, Mountain Giant can be played for 0 if you have at least 5 cards in hand, and so on and so forth. In layman's terms, they break the rules of the cost altering ability that the Naga Sea Witch has. Come and think of it, the way that they explained the timestamps is similar to how the Stack works in Magic: the Gathering, because the cost reductions of the Giants "stack" onto the cost altering of the Naga Sea Witch
It's very straightforward if you ask me, and I don't think it was lazy coding. Methinks the reason that people are bellyaching about it now is that practically the only deck that used Naga Sea Witch to some extent was Astral Druid, and that the thought never occurred to them to try this strategy until now. Strangely, it's only until Knights of the Frozen Throne that players start bellyaching about it, when the statement that Ben Brode made was that this was altered around Un'goro to compliment Bright-Eyed Scout.
But see, the way the giants work is, their card text itself is not really an aura but rather an effect that applies at the start of every turn it is in your hand (even though there is no indication to this in the card's text, but whatever spaghetti cod probably)
Until the card enters your hand, regardless of how many spells you play, the Arcane Giant still costs 12, so if a card were to pull out specifically 10 drops in your deck like Ancient Harbinger, it wouldn't pull your Arcane Giant if you've cast specifically 2 spells since the cost hasn't been reduced yet.
So now when the card is in your hand and Naga Sea Witch sets the cost of the arcane giant to five, the giant's text effect applies after, which means that it then costs (1) less (in other words the cost is being reduced by one) for each counter it goes by.
to be honest, I think it's dumb that the card text doesn't just read "reduces the mana cost of this card by (1) every time" X happens, because that would fix not only this interaction but also the Ancient Harbinger one. Though I guess it might make the game run a bit slower while you're playing with giants since the game has to constantly remember even while it's in the deck what cost it is, and that's probably why they decided to spaghetti it the way they did, but at least if they wanted to not stress the computer's storage that much they could have made the card text a bit less vague and literally mention that it has to be in the hand for it to happen like "at the start of each turn while this is in your hand" or something like that at the start. But whatever, hopefully now you know why it works the way it does.
Also edit for Exspes 's sake, brode himself mentioned in the statement he made that the 'auras' come into effect based on order they were played. So if you played Aviana first, then Naga Sea Witch, all your cards would cost one, then get costed by 5. This applies for all other cost changing thingos too, including Thaurissan, but I can't be bothered to do the math and explain it like he already did, so if you're wondering that, just read what he already said above.
Wait are they saying that they might start nerfing wild cards?
They would never do an update just to nerf a Wild card, so if Blizzard decides to nerf it, it would be done several weeks later
They will need to wait several weeks anyway to see how it plays out. Player salt is not an accurate indicator of card or deck performance. They have actual data, better data than anyone really because they run the servers. IF the card or deck overperform they will nerf. Since it's wild, it's likely just the witch will take one in the shorts - the giants are in standard too and they won't mess with that if it can be avoided.
Giant nerf-fes INCOMING!
"We don't think players are stupid!"
And by nerfing Ice Block for some reason.
While their attention to consistency is commendable (making all instances of rules effects work the same), it's unfortunate that it has spawned another low-interaction, high-RnG, un-fun faceroll deck. That any class shell can co-opt
This, mostly.
It's nice to see that they are trying to make the game more consistent, it'll make interactions less of a mess to understand and such, but sadly this is one of those cases in which the lack of consistency from the beginning messed up stuff big time.
Sure, it's not a 100% winrate deck and everything but that doesn't make it any less annoying or makes you feel any less "cheated" and frustrated when you play against it. It'd be nice if they'd just make an exception on how Naga Sea Witch and giants interaction work in particular and leave it as it was before instead of nerfing cards.