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.
These nerfs stink. They barely hit anything. Cube warlock lost practically nothing too. The voidlords with skull and the death knight are the main cause of the deck's inbalance. Lacky and dark pact weren't even the best cards in the deck....
voidlord is fine. skull and dk should have been nerfed. to bad that those cards are legendarys like barnes.
I disagree. Cube warlock is strong because of the two power plays, lackey/skull on turn 5 followed up by cube and dk on turn 10. Now that the turn 5 play is harder and riskier(due to nerfed healing) to pull out, cube warlock will be just like shudderwock shaman and taunt druid, sick in late game but require a lot of cards to set up. These nerfs will definitely take effective and make cube warlock less viable.
Regarding the nerf choice, skull is easy to counter and dk is nothing different from Hadronox and Shudderwock or N'zoth.
*Polishing Tempo Rogue*
Well, shit. Warlock is going to be hit very hard. I think they fucked up by not nerfing cube or doomguard. Especially dommguard.
doomguard got nerfed by nerfing the lacky. but the skull is still broken and the dk is also untouched. to bad that those cards are legendarys so they cant be nerfed kappa
if they can choose between two card they allways chose the less rare card....
I mostly agree with what you say, but with the sea witch i find 8 to be a little to much for casting cost. 7 would be more
more in line in my opinion.
thank you blizzard. for nerfing nage sea witch... Us wild player are pleased
They still need to do one more thing to Spiteful Summoner: create some sort of ten mana 7/5 with a decent battlecry in the next expansion. All mana levels should have "miss" creatures (well, except 11 and up...), and right now only 10 mana doesn't. Spiteful isn't the only effect which creates a random creature, and there will surely be more in the future of Hearthstone. Having a soft tradition of making sure at least one creature at each mana level has a weak body but strong battlecry or ability seems wise to me.
you're all a bunch of cry babies...learn to get good
Well aren't you popular
hello 4 100 dust )
I really agree with all nerfes. The only thing I can't understand is why they don't care about Psychic Scream. Removing the whole board whitout triggering deathrattle-effects and milling the opponents deck is broken as fuck, sorry
I am pretty sure putting cards into their deck is the opposite of milling...
What exactly do you mean by milling? The card does the exact opposite. In fact, the card is sometimes just unplayable because it goes against fatigue tactics. Looks like you never actually played with the card. Its fine as is.
I guess he is using the term "milling" wrong. He probably talks about giving bad draws to the opponent, sometimes delyaing their core cards.
Sorry, it's exactly what Nao says, I meant giving the opponent bad draws
But you're ahead by a lot in fatigue at that point. Unless he uses benedictus, but then his draws are bad too.