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!
Actually, Mike Donais said that they found some extra dialogue lines, so they're going to change it when they do the nerf.
This creeper nerf makes me sad. As a quest druid player, Corridor Creeper was really important to complete the quest early; I wish they had made it a 5/3.
Druid has a quest?
I'm not sure how other people are agreeing with you, but this is a fantastically asinine oversimplification.
Quest Druid shouldn't be viable.. why? Heaven forbid it actually completed its objective and then you could use Barnabus to swarm the board like is intended. Why that'd be.. ... wait, why would that be terrible again?
Another quest that got nerfed is your justification for why Jungle Giants should never be viable? Smooth.
Hey dudes, we're nerfing Corridor Creeper into the ground. Better get Thing from Below. That shit might get degenerate.. *eyeroll*
My sarcasm aside, the problems with The Caverns Below were myriad. They included, but weren't limited to the fact that the quest's resultant reward upgraded your standing board, as well as Rogue's strong propensity to discount cards, cycle fairly hard, draw reasonably well and run miracle-like tech. It also combined with other resource/minion generating cards like Fire Fly or insta-low level threats such as Stonetusk Boar with frighteningly good synergy. It didn't hurt that with the nut draw, it could go off as early as 4 or more commonly around 6.
Whereas Barnabus the Stomper only upgrades what's in your deck. And he'll be lucky to be out by 8 or 9. Totally fair comparison, dude.
I think it's fine if quest druid is just bad, rather then REALLY bad.
These nerfs seem pretty good, but I think I would have liked to see the Corridor Creeper condition change rather than the statline. I've used it for tempo swings in Big Spell Mage, and it can be pretty important to stabilizing in the midgame against aggro and tempo decks.
The biggest problems were that it provides extra incentive to you to do things you already want to do in most situations (i.e. value trade on board), and it makes board swarming way more forgiving because the reload potential against AOE was so significant. As such, I'm a bit surprised they didn't leave the statline and make the condition "only enemy minions."
Agreed. Even a gentler nerf to like 4/4 or 3/4 would have been preferable. Now it's another ridiculously-niche-very-likely-to-be-unplayed card like Cryostasis.
These changes were needed. Months ago. Blizzard dragging their feet. Not surprising. Putting profit over quality, can't say I really blame them for putting this second, but when they claim to care if the game is balanced, and then drag their feet for months EVEN though they KNOW it's a problem it's unacceptable.
too late, please Team 5 if you are reading this, next time, be quicker with nerfs.
Does anyone knows when this is going to take place? I didn't find the date, have I missed it?
it says sometime in february
ty man, no specific date then
Honestly the Patches and Raza Nerfs are mostly intended to help balance wild a bit as they're both scheduled to rotate out in two months or less...
I have a strong feeling we're in for two months of zoo/Cubelock, Tempo rogue, Jade druid and possibly Big Priest.
It'll be interesting how the different aggrodecks will react to these nerfs as CC and Patches are definitely a direct nerf to these kind of decks. Now these open minion slots need to be filled up, can't wait to see which choices ppl will make.
I'm just pissed that i am going to have to deal with cubelock for the next few months. But the nerfs are OK I guess the bonemare one is really good the rest screw up other decks so.
Onelock To Rule Them All
It's likely that Warlock is probably not going to get a lot of great stuff next xpac, Kobolds was very kind to them.
Yeah