Patches the Pirate Loses Charge - Four Card Nerfs Coming in February
Four cards are being nerfed! These changes are not yet live and will be available in a February patch. They will all be disenchantable for their full value once to patch arrives. Please do not disenchant these cards until that patch - Blizzard won't help you out get the correct dust value.
- Bonemare now costs 8 mana, up from 7.
- Corridor Creeper now has 2 attack, down from 5.
- Patches the Pirate no longer has charge. His voice line will also be changing. (Source)
- Raza the Chained's effect now sets your Hero Power to 1 mana, up from 0.
We've got dedicated threads available to discuss each card nerf.
Discuss the Nerf Discuss the Nerf Discuss the Nerf Discuss the Nerf
Quote from BlizzardIn the upcoming 10.2 update, we will be making balance changes to the following cards:
Bonemare - Now costs 8 mana. (Up from 7)
Bonemare has been quite strong in both constructed and Arena. It has a big, immediate impact on the board, and since it’s neutral, it’s been finding its way into a wide variety of decks.
Increasing its mana cost by 1 will give opponents more time to utilize powerful late-game cards to counteract Bonemare’s effect on the board.
Corridor Creeper - Now has 2 Attack. (Down from 5)
Due to the way that Corridor Creeper’s mana cost reduction works, it can cause big swings based on whether or not it happens to be in-hand at the start of the game.
Since it’s a very strong neutral card, Corridor Creeper has been played by a lot of classes. By lowering its attack, we reduce the overall swing potential and power level of the card, but still allow players who draw it early to benefit from having a low-cost minion to play when the game state is ideal.
Patches the Pirate - No longer has Charge.
As we move closer to the new Hearthstone Year, we had some concerns about allowing Patches to remain in his current state after moving out of Standard. Patches’ strength has caused almost every class to add some Pirates just to benefit from him, and his early game power forces control decks to include a good answer to him. This change should give Wild players more flexibility when building their decks.
Removing Charge will lower his power level, ensuring he shows up in fewer decks and allowing opposing players some additional time to respond to Patches, making him less “in charge” of the early game.
Raza the Chained - Now reads: Battlecry: If your deck has no duplicates, your Hero Power costs (1) this game.
In a similar vein to Patches the Pirate, we had some concerns about allowing Raza to remain in his current state forever. Raza is currently an important combo piece along with Shadowreaper Anduin, and can lead to games that rely heavily on drawing him by turn 5. Adjusting his Battlecry will lower his overall power level when combined with Shadowreaper Anduin in Standard, and keep his power level reasonable in Wild as we prepare for the new Hearthstone Year.
Once these card changes are live with Update 10.2 next month, players will be able to disenchant the changed cards for their full Arcane Dust value for two weeks. Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you in the tavern!
This Patch, Patches the balance from Patches.
Probably it would be better to give Patches the Pirate "Battlecry: gain charge" to reduce the gap between drawing and not drawing Patches... but too complicated for a children card game I guess.
As for Corridor Creeper, I hope that they tested it and 2/5 turned out to be adequate stats. And that they didn't solve the problem once again by making a card completely unplayable (but there is a slight suspicion that they did).
And one more bad 8 mana body for random summons by the way.
I would agree with not giving the battlecry to patches if the nerf was way earlier, since it is rotating to wild, and wild is more of "experts / old players" mode I see no point why not give it battlecry: gain charge.
Free cubes and voidlords for everyone!!!
Nice nerfs overall.. what about jade idol? Another thing: spell cost reduction cards should not be able to reduce spell cost below one. This would kill infinite damage retarded combos.
You are in charge now
Battlecry: If your deck has no 2-Cost cards, give all minions in your deck +1 attack.
or
Battlecry: If your deck has no 2-Cost cards, give all minions in your deck +1 health.
Choose your nerf dream.
Yes now I can build Cube Warlock and Destroy meta
Will they change patches voice line with the nerf? He won't be in charge any more... It should be more like "I used to be in charge" or "I'm 1600 dust now!
finally,
but as always from "op" to "dust it"
(except Bonemare , this nerf is perfect )
I'm very happy about that contemporary Patches nerf
Crafted Patches on Day 1 since I thought he would be OP when they announced him being a card, abused him ever since (got me every golden epic since then) and returns me 1600 dust soon. not too bad of a deal.
how exactly does it give you a golden epic?
sooo my guess is next expansion is going to introduce some powerful pirates and some mechanic or a card that would break priest even more in wild, that's why they are nerfing these cards right before they are about to rotate out of standard, what it will be though, we shall see fairly soon
applaud Blizzard is awesome
yeah because Murloc Tinyfin, Snowflipper Penguin & Wisp fills your deck for free
and they are pirates
wow, so they kill patches and raza a month before they rotate out of standard. and they basically admit that they had no idea what they were doing, when they created corridor creeper, cause -3 attack is a lot.
the bonemare nerf is great though.
(whenever they nerf cards it almost feels to me that they deliberately search for unique ways to nerf to show off that they are the professional designers and the community has no plan. i mean the community had a lot of great ideas for nerfs, but this seems like such bs. how about making patches 2 mana, increase the cost of corridor creeper by 1, make anduins hero power only refresh on spells or make razas effect disappear if you change your hero power... and how about making fiery war axe unable to attack heroes?)
it is because of people like you complaining after every nerf that balance changes do not happen as often as necessary.
After all they must have tested these changes and many more and done much research before settling on these nerfs.