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!
Aggro has always felt so strong & so oppressive in Hearthstone that I feel so good when one void lord can kill any chance of a win for them. It's nice for control decks to finally make them feel helpless.
To be honest, blizzard can solve the problem of "too good" spells easily by implementing the concept "legendary spells". Just allow one of the best spells each class has and maintain them in a non nerfed state.
By increasing the mana, they risk making the card too slow to use. For example, CoTW was amazing at 8 mana, but barely sees play now. They destroy their own game doing things like this.
Ice block is cheap enough, but its effects are way too strong. One trigger per game is enough. Other spells that could have the same treatment are Ultimate Infestation, brawl, and many others that were nerfed before.
Number of Gadgetzan Auctioneer I've seen this expansion: 3
Number of Call to Arms I've seen this expansion : 300
Hmmmmmmmm...
I notice that aggro players aren't really asking for balanced nerfs to cards that are anti-aggro, but they are simply wanting the game to pretty much get rid of every card that opposes aggro decks; Voidlord, Ice Block, etc. Some of these examples have included making Voidlord only playable on turn 9 or 10+ (ie aggro wanting the card to not appear on the field before turn 9, which automatically means that a decent aggro player would have won long before turn 9 so in reality the aggro player would never face against Voidlord. The suggestion to get rid of Ice Block is to make sure aggro isn't denied a very early win.)
Starting to see how one-sided these suggestions are becoming? It isn't that aggro players are trying to think of fair nerfs to compromise the tug-and-pull between aggro & control, they are wanting all cards that slow aggro down to be taken out of their way to smorcing entirely.
Voidlord is not a problem. Problem is to kill 5+ voidlords because of cubes, manipulators, guldan, nzoth etc. The only way to kill this s*it is to play otk combo decks or pray warlork have a bad hand and u have a good one. Now there are a lot less space for deckbuilding because its very hard to compete with such a redicilous value.
Ice block is totally fine by me (as a wild player).
I wish they HoF it only because i will get 2000 free dust (for golden and regular one). :)
I think corridor creeper should be count only minions that you kill, in that way trading have bigger impact and cant get 0 mana 5/5 by just going face.
Blizzard missed the chance to have 2 minions: one that gets discounted when your minions die and another that gets discounted when enemy minions die.
I wonder which one would be better/played more, if they had the same stats?
The one with enemy minions would be played in controls and the one about friendly minions in aggro/tempo/midrange decks
In my opinion Ice Block should leave standard mode. I see only two ways - Vanish it forever or make it legendary spell, giving opportunity to use only one copy of this card.
This card is extremely unfair. If you have not enough burst potential or greater board, that will go through all freezing stuff you have no chance.
And some times you need just only one more turn to finish the game and...... you lose, cause ice block gave your opponent extra more free turn. They have TWO copies in deck, so I don`t think this is cool.
Second card i think should be fixed is Ultimate Infestation and there is so simple way to do it. We already have Branching Paths with "Choose Twice" and that`s interesting. Choose two effects of four. Like "Draw 5 cards" and "Summon Ghoul" or "Draw 5 Cards" and "Gain Five Armor"
In my opinion that could make Hearthstone more balanced i think.
have you not played in months? neither of these cards are major issues right now. Cards like call to arms, voidlord, and corridor creeper are the real problems.
Just because there are cards that are bigger problems(although there is nothing wrong with Voidlord by itself), it doesn't mean that other cards aren't problematic too.
Agree about Call to Arms, but i dont see any options to fix this card so, that it will stay playable.
Voidlord in my opinion is not so insane problem, that it should be immediately fixed, and also thats one of Control Warlock key cards, so that one more control deck. I am tired facing pirate stuff from Warlock, Warrior, Rogue, Druid etc. Even some Priests play pirates.
What about Creeper? Dont think it can be fixed. Even costing 1-2 mana thats still OP.
so just put a cost limit to the demon a lackey can summon.
Vanish OP? Have you heard of Psychic Scream