Six Card Nerfs Coming - Naga Sea Witch, Spiteful Summoner, and More!
We'll see six card nerfs in a Hearthstone update sometime after the HCT Summer Playoffs. They will all be disenchantable for full dust value one the patch arrives. Please do not disenchant these cards until that patch!
- Naga Sea Witch - Cost is now 8, up from 5.
- Spiteful Summoner - Cost is now 7, up from 6.
- Dark Pact - Now restores 4 Health, down from 8.
- Possessed Lackey - Cost is now 6, up from 5.
- Call to Arms - Cost is now 5, up from 4.
- Crystal Core - Effect now makes all minions in your deck 4/4, down from 5/5.
We've got dedicated threads available to discuss each card nerf.
Discuss the Nerf Discuss the Nerf Discuss the Nerf
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Reviews on Today's Nerfs Announcement
Here are some community thoughts on the nerfs in video format.
Announcement Blog Post
Quote from BlizzardIn an update that will arrive some time after the HCT Playoffs are complete, we will be making balance changes to the following cards:
Naga Sea Witch – Will cost 8 mana. (Up from 5)
In update 9.1, we introduced a rule change to increase the consistency of Hearthstone game mechanics. The change affected precisely when Naga Sea Witch’s cost change was applied to cards. This allowed it to be combined with the cost reduction effects on giants, and as a result, it became fairly easy to reduce their mana cost to 0.
We think Hearthstone is better all around when interactions are consistent, and we like the fact that a Naga Sea Witch giants deck archetype exists. That said, we also understand that, with its current functionality, this deck can generate early board states that are unreasonable for most classes to deal with. By increasing the cost of Naga Sea Witch to 8 mana, the deck’s concept remains intact, but the combo is delayed until later in a match when more decks are likely to have the tools to handle the arrival of so many giants.
Spiteful Summoner – Will cost 7 mana. (Up from 6)
After set rotation arrived with the Year of the Raven, Spiteful Summoner became more powerful and consistent when used in decks containing 10 mana cost spells. This is because the pool of 10 mana cost minions in Standard is smaller, so players could more reliably count on getting a powerful minion from Spiteful Summoner’s effect. Even considering the deckbuilding sacrifices that an effective Spiteful Summoner deck requires, we think that increasing the card’s mana cost to 7 is more in line with the powerful outcomes that are possible when it’s used alongside cards like Ultimate Infestation.
Dark Pact – Will restore 4 Health. (Down from 8)
There are two aspects of Dark Pact that make it powerful. At a cost of 1 mana, it’s easily used alongside cards like Carnivorous Cube, Possessed Lackey, and Spiritsinger Umbra for big combo turns. It also gives Warlocks enough healing potential so that aggressively using Lifetap and playing cards like Kobold Librarian and Hellfire feel less consequential. We left Dark Pact’s cost intact so it can still be used as part of interesting combos, but lessened the healing it provides so Warlocks will need to more carefully consider how much damage they take over the course of a match.
Possessed Lackey – Will cost 6 mana. (Up from 5)
Some of the card combos involving Possessed Lackey present situations that are too difficult to deal with in the early-to-mid stages of the game. Increasing its mana cost to 6 delays some of those powerful card combos to turns that are easier for opposing decks to overcome.
Call to Arms – Will cost 5 mana. (Up from 4)
Currently, there are three popular Paladin decks: Even Paladin, Murloc Paladin, and Odd Paladin. Among the three decks, Even Paladin and Murloc Paladin have consistently been the most powerful two archetypes over the first few weeks since the release of The Witchwood. Call to Arms moving to 5 mana restricts it from being used in Even decks and reduces its power somewhat when used in Murloc and other Paladin decks.
We expect that players will experiment with Call to Arms at 5 mana in Odd Paladin decks, but we don’t expect this card to have much of an impact. This is because Odd Paladin can’t access 2 mana minions (meaning Call to Arms could only ever summon three 1 mana minions if played in that deck).
Note: As a result of this change, we are adjusting the “Greymane’s Alliance” deck recipe. It will now have two copies of Saronite Chain Gang in place of Call to Arms.
The Caverns Below – The quest reward, Crystal Core, will read: For the rest of the game, your minions are 4/4. (Down from 5/5)
The Quest Rogue deck uses a strategy that’s strong against slow, control-heavy and fatigue decks, but struggles against most other deck archetypes. There’s a fine line between being powerful against very slow decks and being powerful versus virtually all non-aggressive strategies. By changing the quest reward to make the resulting minions 4/4 instead of 5/5, Quest Rogue should still be a reasonable option versus slow, extreme late-game decks, but offer a less polarized matchup with more moderate control decks.
Naga Sea Witch: WELL FUCKING FINALLY! Fuck you and your 8/8 friends. Burn in hell.
Edit: I hope this actually kills the deck outright. Cause come to think of it, it doesn't really matter how late the combo comes against some classes, any slower Rogue, Hunter or Shaman deck is generally still dead to that. On the non-giants side, might finally see fewer Poison Seeds in Druids. Poison Seeds into Spreading Plague is a real bastard combo.
There are not enough fucks in the world to describe my feelings about that card :-D As a value-oriented, Wild-only player who plays almost exclusively control or combo, that card went against everything I like about playing Hearthstone and generally countered most of what I wanted to do (as if Big Priest didn't do that enough). I'm not ever gonna forgive Blizz this screwup just like I never forgot about Undertaker (and I still have some opinions about basically all 1/3 1-drops).
As a side note, hope the balance patch also includes some bug fixes cause last time they patched the game, they broke my Kun + C'Thun + Splintergraft deck. Bastards.
Lackey seems iffy. As does spiteful. Likely it will be too strong until new 10 drops come in. Delaying one turn might not mean you pull your big spells before your pull a summoner consistently enough to balance out the free 12/12 or 8/8.
Was hoping for a change to Doomguard, as even if it is less likely, it will still feel bad to lose to
Turn 6 Lackey, Turn 7 - kill the lackey, pull the doomguard, cube it, dark pact for 15 damage. If dark pact cost 2 it would at least give you one or two more turns...
If dark pact cost
Naga Sea Witch, Spiteful Summoner, Dark Pact and Possessed Lackey nerfs all make total sense. They all seem fairly proportionate without comment. Call to Arms nerf is targeted and sane.
Crystal Core / The Caverns Below nerf just plain pisses me off. Team 5 already got another crack at this, slowing the card down to 5 recursions before it went off. Now it loses literally 20% of its power and major board power because they didn't get the nerf right on the first go around? Come. On. If the whole issue was the 'Zola resource train', please show me where in your data it was so degenerate that this change was necessary. As it was, your average quest rogue deck didn't have the recursion to dick around like this unless they lucked into drawing Sonya Shadowdancer first. For the number of probabilities that had to align to get to 'the problem state', this seems stupid.
And before anyone says anything, I play all 3 affected classes as favourites in the new meta. The only one I wasn't playing before WW *as much* was Rogue. I was so happy when it looked like it was going to be viable again. And now.. yeah...
It's more about the feeling of playing against a degenerate mechanic rather than the winrates here imo.
So, that means Even Pally gets nerfed and Odd Pally gets buffed?
No really cause it will bhe only 1 cost minion
Not really. Odd pally gets 3 1/1s for 5 Mana.
Not really. At least it'll lack the combos with Knife Juggler.
So taking this one by one,
Naga Sea Witch: That's a bigger change than just one mana. Slows down the deck a lot, which will make it's matchup against aggro much worse. Hopefully that's enough to take it out of the wild meta, and wild can see the variety it should have.
Spiteful Summoner: I don't think it's enough, but it'll be less oppressive. Gives opponents one more turn to find that counter.
Dark Pact: A good change. The biggest problem with the card was it's absurd heal. Now it'll feel less oppressive.
Possessed Lackey: Again, it doesn't look like a lot, but one mana and one turn can make all the difference, especially with Dark Pact also getting nerfed.
Call to Arms: As someone who was aggressively for Even Paladin, insisting it was the best form of Paladin despite all the odd Paladin naysayers, and crafting a Golden Genn when I didn't open a gold or regular one... Fuck. Guess I'm going back to Murlocs.
Crystal Core: Yeah I think this is a needed change. The problem with quest rogue has never been it's win rate. It's simply oppressive and unfun. This will make it less so.
Overall good nerfs. I hope Even Paladin will still be good without CtA. :(
Fuckkk.... was really really hoping for a Bloodreaver Gul'dan nerf. By far my most hated card currently in Standard.
Right. Because the only way they can nerf it's card is by increasing the cost. God forbid they change the effect instead.
Not every class needs to have answers to every deck. This is ok. At least they didn't completely ruin the card.
My point is if you are playing control priest and you play quest rogue, you've already lost.
Naga, Lackey, Dark Pact, Call to Arms :PogChamp: thx Blizzard
Crystal Core (Quest) :BibleThump: