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
Discuss the Nerf Discuss the Nerf Discuss the Nerf
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.
Spiteful Summoner "nerf" isn't going to affect the deck at all. Played against about a two dozen of them last night on ladder and guess what - a turn 7 Summoner into Tyrantus feels just as terrible.
Any deck feels terrible when you only look at the deck with all best possible highroll outcomes put into the same example.
Most Spiteful Druids don't get turn 7 Tyrantus highrolls considering you have to draw the SS in the first third of you deck and avoid hitting both UIs as well. Plus, the Tyrantus highroll is less than 20% per battlecry.
I really don't think nerfs should be judged by extreme niche scenarios.
You guys are arguing about the Spiteful Summoner deck archetype's power level based on deck building sacrifices or the ratio of getting a 12/12 versus an 8/8. I am not. I am saying that the move from 6 mana to 7 mana has little bearing on the deck's power level nor the "not fun" factor that plagues this deck and quest rogue; thus it's a weak nerf. I hope I'm wrong.
yeah mana cost is so irrelevant to a card's power level. lmao
Naga sea witch: Why is this getting nerfed again
Possesed lackey and dark pact: Good nerf imo, dark pact was already rustling my jimmies
Crystal core: won't change much imo
Call to arms: Hated this card, glad its getting nerfed
Oh and fuck you spiteful summoner
I personally feel like Spiteful nerf isn't big enough, but I tend to personally struggle against spiteful because its just such crazy value, so my opinion is definitely skewed.
If it discarded the revealed spell, it would trade spell value for a big minion and I think I would be okay with that honestly.
People usually only look at the upside of Spiteful, yes it's insane value to pull a Tyrantus on turn 6, even 7. But you can't play spells in your deck, and there is always the chance of drawing both U.I before turn 7 and get stuck with a 7 mana 4/4. I think this nerf will be good enough, it's already an easy match up against my big spells mage, now it'll be piece of cake.
I agree that people look at the insane upsides of cards way to much, but the problem with spiteful was never the 6 mana cost. The issue stems from random chance swinging the game instead of a skilled play. I enjoy the random effects in hearthstone when they have possible downsides for playing them that require certain situations to be valid but spiteful has the downside of being a dead draw only when the player has drawn two copies of one of the best draw spells in the game with board presence and damage to boot. The root of the problem seems to be that druids can get away with playing only two 10 mana spells because of the utility they have in the deck and the lack of bad 10 mana minions currently in standard. Yes, only having two spells in the deck is a fairly large restriction but clearly it wasn't enough. In my opinion the card will be naturally nerfed as more sets come out with hopefully mediocre 10 drops or ones with battle-cries and the 7 mana cost will act as a band-aid until then.
It's sad to see a cool card like spiteful fall victim to UI when clearly it was meant to make the worlds greatest casino mage deck using the blessed book of wonders to get some sweet 5 drops to carry you straight to value town.
the revealed spell was never in your hand, so you aren't really losing value unless the game went to fatigue. this would just improve the consistency of draws for the spiteful player. they don't want UI in their hand.
Update: These balance changes are currently scheduled to go live on May 22 PDT.
Source: https://playhearthstone.com/en-gb/blog/21758133 nerf announcement page
The HCT Summer playoffs end on May 20 so we could be seing the changes the 21st. Athough the championship won't be until the 1st of July.
https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/blog/21553830?utm_source=desktopweb-news&utm_campaign=web-us-desktopwebnews&utm_medium=internal&utm_content=21752852
Time to stop playing Hearthstone. 2018 has shown this game is going nowhere fast. Devs clearly losing their minds without Brode and the "shitshow avalanche" is just beginning. These latest "changes" just prove that cards are worth nothing and can be changed at any time because the devs can't balance new cards around old cards. It's quite pathetic.
good riddance
Nope, quite the opposite. These nerfs make a lot of sense and take things in the right direction. It appears that Brode and Chu were part of the problem.
They nerfed cards that are not OP on their own, instead cards like warlock hero they leave unchanged...
They want interactions to be consistent and yet not all effects are consistent right now.
Naga + Giants in hand allow the giants to be reduced twice.
Sonya + other minions that reduced specific types of minions in hand by one or more mana used to reduce 1 mana Sonya duplicated minions to 0 before the hotfix that was meant to fix Sonya duplicated worgens.
Now Sonya + mana reducing minions on board do not reduce Sonya duplicated minions in hand, even when they should (e.g. Mechwarper no longer reducing 1 mana Sonya duplicated mech minions in hand anymore), they now always stay at 1 mana.
This above example should illustrate how effects are anything but consistent right now.
If I craft The Caverns Below will I get all the dust ?
If u DE’ed it after the nerf, u will.
well this is what if have been waiting for, have had a golden one lying around since i DE'ed my first one after the first nerf...