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.
que surti colcu!
Bullshit. Dark Pact and Possessed Lackey nerf are stupid. They should nerf cube - the most bullshit part. Nerfing theese two cards is not an option. Control lock is now harder to play, but not cubelock. For cubelock we still have weapon (not nerfed) and doomguard. And cube ofcourse (also not nerfed)...
so basicly these are your points
1. control lock got hit harder than cube, which was not the idea.
2. cubelock still has weapons.
3. cubelock still has doomguard.
4. cubelock still has cube
this is why you are wrong
1. cubelock still gets hit harder than cube, instead of getting 6 mana 8 health voidlord, you get a 7 mana 4 health voidlord.
2. with their being a 2 mana and two 5 mana cards that destroy weapons, most decks can afford to run one.
3. doomguard is not really the problem, it is the way you cheat it out, without discarding. and so the cheats got nerfed.
4. the cube is not as much a problem as things to cheat out your demons, or the massive healing cubelock has.
Those are just bunch of stupid and lazy nerfs.
lazy? yes.
Stupid? kinda
Necessary? yes!
The only stupid ones is the one to the Rogue Quest and to Naga Sea Witch. They were necessary yes, however the NSW one killed the card, and would’ve been better if they just changed it to “Your cards always cost 5.” The Rogue Quest one doesn’t fix the problem of the quest, that being the fact that the deck is a rock paper scissors game, and crushes Control so easily with the sheer amount of charge and rush cards.
I was really hoping for more destructive nerfs agasint Warlock, but hey, if it lowers their winrate againsst midrange than I'm happy enough.
Also, I feel like people really underestimate how impact ful the Spiteful Summoner nerf is. Part of that deck's strength was the strong curve Not being able to play Spiteful Summmoner on 6 means you need another 6-drop to take its place. Could also be interesting if Hunter were to ever get a 10-mana spell.
Spiteful was not hit hard enough by a long shot.
It kinda sucks that almost all balance changes are to mana cost, there are so many other possibilities for balancing Spiteful and other cards and still maintaining the "heart of the card".
I guess blizz got burned too hard when they murdered Warsong.
Hmmmm dust values over 4000! I like :D
Lets hope some more deck building and new archetypes rise from all these nerfs plz? Still don't want to see Paladin on top
Pretty much as anticipated, I think the nerfs are totally fair.
The only surprise was how big the nerf for the Naga is - but I do like it a lot.
Because warlocks winrate is more effected by people who play bad. It is a deck that requires more thought. So it is easier to make mistakes, a good player playing warlock will probably perform better than a good player playing paladin.
I sense a lack of Tarim in your card collection
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You know your in the wrong ... there are some people who acquired Naga Sea Witch, after it was changed so not giving them dust for a major change like this is unethical , it was your decision to dust the card pre-change
They would only refund the dust by allowing full dust cost disenchant, so technically since you already disenchanted yours for 100 dust each you are only missing out on 600 dust :)
Who disenchants cards from wild sets for dust, already did it. Who don't, won't do it anyway... So the dust refund doesn't matter at all.
Turn 6 or 7 is a big difference especially if you face a tempo deck, no need to ruin the card more.
Tempo is a thing, as is curve. 7-mana spiteful means you need a 6-drop before that