Let's Speculate: Upcoming Balance Changes
Expansions introduce more than 100 cards to Hearthstone a handful of times a year, and it’s beginning to seem inevitable that a couple in each set will be, in the common parlance, broken.
I say inevitable because I appreciate the difficulty and inhuman level of foresight required to achieve balance in a game of so many combinatorics. Say what you will about Patches the Pirate — I’m staying away from that one for now — but Blizzard has been good in the recent past about listening to the community’s grievances and implementing changes. Last time, not only did they explain in detail their reasoning for specific changes, they also shared alternatives considered along the way.
Just the other day, Hearthstone Game Director Ben Brode announced a February update to the game. He confirmed only that the update would add “cool” new events, but did tease that if the team indeed decides to implement balance changes, that would be the earliest they would appear.
So now it’s time to speculate, isn’t it? Instead of problem Basic and Classic cards, the community seems most at odds with a suite of cards from the Kobolds and Catacombs expansion. We’ll look at a few of the most clamored for candidates for nerfs and the Hall of Fame, and then invite you to add to the discussion.
Ice Block
Blizzard seemed ready to send Ice Block to the Hall of Fame a few months ago. Addressing the topic, they all but said, “you’re gonna have to wait.” This move seems likely, considering how the card stifles interactivity over consecutive turns, which they don’t want for the Standard format.
From Blizzard’s blog announcing the last round of balance changes:
“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.”
The hope is that moving Ice Block will free the Mage class from the one-turn-kill class identity its been known for from the jump. I can get behind that.
Gadgetzan Auctioneer
Helplessness: it’s one of the worst feelings in Hearthstone.
We all have watched as this little green goblin spent 75 seconds cycling through the opponent’s deck to a win condition. It’s not fun. And its ubiquity in certain classes (looking at you, Rogue) stifles creativity in the deck-building process, which Blizzard really tries to discourage when they implement balance updates. Depending on the number of cheap spells in the new set, Gadgetzan Auctioneer could be a Hall of Fame contender, too.
Corridor Creeper
Remember Azure Drake? The Classic set’s five-mana dragon saw play in most decks because of its versatility and power in almost any situation. A strong body, spell power, and card draw on turn five was too good for too many archetypes. Players picked up on this and considered the card an auto-include across most classes and archetypes. In Blizzard’s own words: “There should be more five drop options for players, rather than considering Azure Drake an auto-include.”
Corridor Creeper is the new Azure Drake in this sense — it’s just bigger and often costs little or nothing. The sleeper of the Kobolds and Catacombs set has become the most oppressive, an auto-include in any deck that cares the slightest bit about tempo. Putting minions into play for little or no mana is very strong in Hearthstone. The result is a meta in which some match-ups feel at the whim of drawing Corridor Creeper, getting the necessary reductions, and playing them for tempo before your opponent.
What do you do about that? The minion could be bumped to ten mana (forcing it to bog down the player’s hand for more turns), or perhaps it would make sense to reduce the mana cost only when a specific player’s minions die, rather than both. But this seems like it would ruin the card entirely. No matter what the particulars are, the big worm is the only card besides Ice Block I’m confident we will see shuffled around in some way. Expect it.
Spiteful Summoner
I understand the furor over a card capable of such insane power on turn six. I can see it being bumped to seven mana, even. But the spell it pulls is random, which creates an interesting constraint for creative deck-builders — one we’ve seen worked out in tempo decks featuring Mind Control and even Ultimate Infestation. The minion it summons is random, too, which makes the effect much less reliable in decks that don’t limit themselves to only 8- and 10-mana spells.
All that said, I believe its randomness in tandem with the constraints it puts on decks makes Spiteful Summoner a fine card. I would be surprised to see any change at all, but a 1-mana increase to address such an early swing wouldn’t be outlandish.
Psychic Scream
Psychic Scream is a key card in one of my favorite creations of the Kobolds era: Weasel Priest. But that doesn’t blind me from the card’s enraging effect for one less mana than Twisting Nether, a card that does much less. Psychic Scream also shuts down resummon effects and Deathrattles, typically the best counter to AoE. That’s really good.
That said, I’m not convinced yet that Psychic Scream is oppressive enough to deserve a nerf. Priest will take on a new dominant identity after the next Standard rotation — Raza the Chained and Kazakus rotate to Wild — and only Blizzard has an idea of what that new Priest looks like. It’s powerful, yes. But the decision to nerf the best AoE in the game will depend not on the current meta, but how it works with and against cards we haven’t even seen yet.
Cubelock
I don’t know how to fix this one. But Cubelock’s power, especially against aggro, can’t be understated: something should probably be done about it, lest we suffer another three months waiting for new cards to shake things up.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy playing Cubelock. It’s intricate and entertaining and complicated, but I feel dirty when one giant Voidlord squashes my opponents chances. Beyond that, it’s powerful deathrattle cards have made Spellbreaker an auto-include in most decks, which probably bothers Blizzard. Of course the new expansion will bring with it new archetypes, but no competitive Standard decks in the current meta stand up to Cubelock quite like Raza Priest, whose time in Standard is almost up.
One of the cards in the Cubelock package deserve a nerf — Dark Pact, Voidlord, or Carnivorous Cube. My guesses are on Dark Pact, because there’s a history of nerfs to high-impact and efficient spells like Execute and Innervate. Who knows — bumping it to two mana might be significant, allowing players an extra turn to rush their opponent down or draw a game-winning Spellbreaker.
Some of the changes in February may be unexpected, as the increase in mana cost for Hex was to many players. This move was preemptive, with them perhaps presuming Hex would be too efficient at countering the myriad silence targets in the meta now: Carnivorous Cube, Voidlord, etc. With this in mind, I suppose we should just expect the unexpected (in addition to Corridor Creeper getting nerfed).
What do you want to see changed in the coming months, and why? Don’t forget that last part!
I'm not really expecting too much here. Only thing I can imagine besides Ice Block going to the Hall of Fame is changing Doomguard's text to something like "Battlecry: Discard two random cards and gain Charge." as a Cubelock nerf (Calling Doomguard from Skull of the Man'ari or Carnivorous Cube just gives you a 5/7 or two respectively, which I guess is still pretty good).
Eh, summoning a 5/7 really isn't that impressive if such a nerf would be implemented. All it is at that point is a 6/6 vanilla demon.
Nerfing doesn't really solve problems, it only changes them. It's whack a mole cycle where people play the game, learn what's good, get annoyed by certain things, cry for nerfs, nerfs occur, new cards become powerful relative to the options available, the meta resettles, and around and around it goes with the occasional new set of cards being added or removed.
Speculation can be fun but ultimately nerfs suck. If people want variation outside of expansion releases, there are far better ways to encourage deck diversity, card variety, and relative power levels of cards that we could be asking for instead of nerfs.
Blizzard, hire this person.
If you're not a wild player than sure you may not care about what nerfs do to cards and potential decks, but in most cases cards aren't always nerfed in a balanced way that leaves a semblance of the old interactions/strategies based around the card intact. Nerfing a card in most cases is the lazy path of design, so is creating a specific hard counter.
If anything I would like to see more archtypes that are created to counter older archtypes, so long as they aren't handled like snowbally decks such as Jade Druid.
Be certain that the HS team won't make any balance changes that require them to directly admit they screwed up a card. Instead we'll get oblique balance changes that indirectly address the problem caused by the real offender. For example, for Cubelock they'll likely do something like change Doomguard.
My predictions:
Corridor Creeper changed to friendly minions.
Bonemare changed to a 4/4.
Ice Block, Gadgetzan Auctioneer and Doomguard Hall of Famed.
So was Sylvanas.
I didn't suggest Doomguard solely because of Cubelock. I suggested it because it's a powerful minion with Charge that sees play in almost every Warlock list, two things that Blizzard have said they're not overly fond of having in the game.
There are so many grains of truth in this comment. Complaints about decks will always exist, so long as there is always a deck that is even marginally better than the one just below it, and with that complaints will always follow about one or more cards in that top deck. Are we to just continually nerf multiple cards in every single highest performing deck in every single future meta? What about when a new top deck replaces the then nerfed deck? When do you stop asking for more and more nerfs to cards?
Also consider what nerfs and HoFing does to the idea behind preserving the basic and classic sets in standard. If we keep losing cards from those two sets in standard than we are even still trying to keep those sets as a part of standard gameplay?
I hope they don't target Dark Pact (by making it 2 mana as an example) otherwise we will find the same issue but with the use of Sacrificial Pactinstead, and this one won't be targeted by Skulking Geist. In my opinion the problem is not one specific card in this deck, and certainly nothing to do with void lord/doom-guard themselves. I think it's more with the recruitment mechanic within warlock (druid and warriors recruit mechanic takes much more "setting up.") I can't think of a solution to warlocks recruitment interactions, but I can only suggest that it was given too many tools to recruit a demon that cost the same mana. (Both the weapon and the minion are mid range.) Where as warrior's recruit feature, although it is not exclusive to one "type" of card like demon seem to work much better. )
I agree cube is a great card for other classes and when used it's not as over powered as it is with warlock. While I know cube lock can easily be countered, the simple fact is other decks have to go out their way to put these counters in place. (The amount of silence/geist has increased.)
Don't get me wrong I love having a slower paced meta, but for me there is no skill in waiting for one particular combination in your hand without having to struggle for survival. (Warlock has too many board clears and heals to struggle, same with priest - exodia mages I have a bit more respect for!)
I don't really have the solution for cubelock as such to me it is the only deck that really needs looked into as it won't loose any significant cards in the April rotation.
SERIOUSLY NO ONE SAYS ANYTHING ABOUT DOOMSAYER!? that card is one of control tech of hide behind voidlord tech card.......
Outside of the classic Doomsayer + Frost Nova combination the card is perhaps one of the most skilled 2 mana minions in the game. When played by other classes you have to have a fairly good understanding of your opponents' classes, and take the risk of whether or not they can kill your Doomsayer when you're needing to play it to take back tempo. If the opponent kills it then the risk you took playing the card actually causes you to lose even more tempo. The card is far from broken or skill less.
I'm so glad that Blizzard is Most likely going to move Ice Block into HoF. I hate that card...
Here's what I'm hoping for.
Corridor Creeper Change mana cost to 6, change text to: Costs (1) less this turn whenever a minion dies while this is in your hand.
Dark Pact Change to heal 4, instead of 8.
Possessed Lackey Change mana cost to 6.
Doomguard Change text to: Charge. Can't attack heroes the turn this is summoned. Battlecry: Discard two random cards.
Psychic Scream Change mana cost to 8.
Shadowreaper Anduin Change mana cost to 9.
Why nerf three different cards to weaken one deck? Don't you think that is massive overkill? Plus, that Doomguard nerf is the epitome of terrible vanilla HS design, the card would forever become unplayable in any deck.
If they nerf Voidlord, they'd better give me full dust for Skull of the Man'ari.
And that is what people don't seem to understand it seems. If you nerf a card you do get the dust refund for that ONE card, but if you crafted any other cards needed for the related deck in question you are SoL when it comes to getting back dust for the deck that was either weakened or outright killed.
It’s sad that the first two cards on the list have been part of the most high skill cap decks that the game has ever seen. And yet no mention of the Broken Deathknights that are the biggest problem in this Meta.