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.
BLIZZARD YOU IDIOTS! THE CRYSTAL CORE NERF JUST MAKES ROGUES STRONGER!
And I see those stubborn retards also refuse to revert Sea Witch, so they'll just Warsong Commander her instead. Thanks a lot Team 5.
Yesssssss!!!!!!!! Do you remember the Trump’s theory craft for quest rogue before the release? Probably it is still here in Hearthpwn. He used 2 mimic pods and 2 thistle tea. He said that he had thought and thought about how to make it work and for him the only way was that. That guy is out of mind, how can he call himself pro player. He is a joke.
Here there is his deck:
https://hearthstonemetadecks.com/decks/trump-rogue
https://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/773612-trumps-ungoro-theorycraft-quest-rogue
Nerfed... TWICE
The fact that it was nerfed twice shows how idiotic the base design of the card was from the start.
The time will come, when this rating is correct. Maybe :D ...
But funny and sad at the same time, that the people still point only out that Trump rated the card wrong, ignoring the wrong ratings by other Youtubers... Have to be the salty Kripp fanboys I guess...
They did pretty good job with those nerfs, beside Naga Sea Witch that got completely obliterated, all the other cards are still playable.
My predictions for Standard:
Even Paladin is dead
Odd Paladin is fine, maybe some will run CtA to recruit the 1-drops
Spiteful Druid is still playable, just not as insane. No more Tyrantus on 6 and then Malfurion the Pestilent.
Control-lock/Cubelock still playable, but more vulnerable to midrange/aggro.
Quest Rogue still polarizing/cancerous
Murloc Paladin still insane
#1 Are you kidding , right?
#2 ROFL
#3 Reasonable but they can still play Spiteful Summoner into Grand Archivist which is the biggest problem here.
#4 Still pretty good* agree.
#5 Not sure about Quest Rogue since is very meta dependent.
#6 No.
I play a lot of big spells mage, and I have a much higher winrate against murloc pally compared to even, now with CTA costing 5 the pally match up will be a breeze.
1. How can Even Paladin survive? Now its just a samey midrange deck. Better off ditching Greymane and including the odd cost cards
2. I didn't say balance-wise fine. I mean that it probably will only minorly improve from the point its at right now, which is still good.
They should remove the "can't be targeted by spells or hero powers" from tyrantus. I mean, it's a druid card. I would understand if it was a priest card and this way the priest would be unable to heal it, but it's a druid one. Who the hell had the idea of a 12/12 that can't be targeted by spells. I mean, yeah, played from hand on turn 10 is ok, there are board clears like Twisting Nether but this on turn 6/7? Broken af.
Not really "fair", but yes, all other outcomes can be removed by spells that target big minions. The suggested change is interesting though.
I wonder if we see a 10 mana 4/5 or something like that next expansion.
I wonder of they even considered this idea? Changing it to 9 would have made it a more playable card but would have removed it from the pool of 10 drops making spiteful way less impactful. Even so the card is really hard to balance and i think this is the one that will take time to see if it really makes a difference. I like the rest of these changes though and they seem right in line with what needed to be done. I seriously think people don;t understand how much making the minions 4/4 now with core really hurts that deck. It opens up so much vulnerability.
ODD PALADIN INCOMING
not because it has access to call to arms now, but because it wasn't nurfed at all and was 1st deck after the ones nerfed with a large gap from the rest.
Call to Arms is garbage in Odd Paladin. :)
My thought is Secret Paladin incoming. Call to Arms still has value plus you can run Bellringer Sentry.
I SAID WITH NO RELATION TO CALL TO ARMS O.O odd paladin is the strongest deck that didnt get nerfed.