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.
The Warlock has enough heal options like the Amethyst Spellstone that I can't see the Dark Pact nerf doing a whole lot to stop Cubelock.
the Spiteful Summoner husts for me, but, i thnk it reazonable if blizzrd wont make to much lowstated 10 drops in the future
Yeah because 12/12 (worst case scenario) on turn 7 now is soooo bad. This nerf is a joke if we talk about druids and their ramp cards. Hopefully they won't add other minions that help them ramp faster like Greedy Sprite or Mire Keeper.
I was really hoping they would change the card text to break some of the synergies, in particular with Possessed Lackey. Push it back just makes the deck worse against aggro, while still destroying all Midrange. I guess I just have to hope that if it destroyed enough by aggro it will be pushed out of the meta.
I like the nerfs, but I wihsed theyy nad announced them earlier since I recently spent 4k vials on crafting Murloc Pally and Finishing Cubelock #FeelsBadMan I guess Ill be getting my 800 vials back from spiteful
I think they miss hited cubelock, Doomguard/Gul Dan were the problematic cards since they lock out control decks. Only thing this will do incrrease aggro decks, since those are the only decks that profit from those nerfs vs. cubelock.
Call to arms nerf only means we will see only odd paladin which is almost as good as even anyways.
Odd Paladin is the big winner here
Odd paladin is the more aggressive variant since it lacks any of the control/board clear options from even (Consecration, Equality, most weapons). You don't want to add 5 mana cards to an aggressive deck when all it does is pull 3 1 mana cards from your deck, it won't be nearly as oppressive in odd paladin as even paladin.
Dont forget odd paladin only gets 1 drops out
Odd Paladin won't run Call to Arms. Getting three 1 cost minions for 5 mana is not a great deal. Also, 1 cost minions are much worse than 2 cost in terms of what cards are available in Standard right now.
Quest Rogue was seriously that much of an issue? I get the other nerfs, but Quest Rogue? Again?! I've beat Quest Rogue a number of times, I even think it's fun to try and play against? No one else had fun playing against Quest Rogue?
People have been complaining about quest rogue for months. It's a nearly unwinnable matchup for any control (and most midrange) decks on ladder and auto loses to agro. 90-10 matchups aren't fun.
Kidding right?
You can't win against quest rogue as control. Do you call that fun and interactive? Don't think so.
Personally, I think these nerfs are spot on. Should lower their impact but not completely destroy their usefulness. (Well, maybe K2A). It should at least shake up the Meta for a while. Looking forward to them.
As i said they wont nerf Gul'dan DK and im happy with it...my deck will be untouched
Finally,Cubelock get nerfs.
Decent Nerfs, I still think Naga should have been reverted to its original form its flavor / intended use is now completely gone Naga can only be used in giant's from this point forward. I also really really think call to arms should have been nerfed even harder than it was but thats just a personal taste thing I guess. I can't wait for these nerfs though it will be interesting to see how the meta shakes up from this.