Upcoming Hearthstone Balance Changes - Wild Growth, Nourish, Level Up!, Saronite Chain Gang, Leeching Poison CHANGES ARE NOW LIVE
Five card changes are coming to Hearthstone on December 19th, which is... today!
- [Discuss this Change] Wild Growth now costs 3, up from 2.
- [Discuss this Change] Nourish now costs 6, up from 5.
- [Discuss this Change] Level Up! now costs 6, up from 5.
- [Discuss this Change] Saronite Chain Gang now summons another Saronite Chain Gang, instead of a copy of the minion.
- [Discuss this Change] Leeching Poison now costs 1, down from 2, and only gives Lifesteal for 1 turn.
Check out Blizzard's post below for more information on each of the changes.
Quote from BlizzardIn an update scheduled to arrive December 19 PST, the following cards will be changed.
Developer’s Note: This balance update is focused on improving the long-term health of both Standard and Wild. We've opted to make these changes earlier in the expansion cycle than we normally consider; we'd like to hear your feedback on the timing of this update, in addition to what you think of all the individual card changes.
Wild Growth – Will cost 3 mana. (Up from 2)
Nourish – Will cost 6 mana. (Up from 5)
Wild Growth and Nourish have been present in every mid-range, combo, and control Druid deck since their introduction in the Basic and Classic set. When cards from the Basic and Classic set are too powerful, they can have negative long-term effects on the game. Continuously playing against these cards can start to feel repetitive, and they can feel so mandatory that they stifle creative deckbuilding decisions. By increasing the mana cost of both cards by one, we expect them to be considerations in late-game control Druid decks, but more difficult to fit in strategies that don’t directly take advantage of ramping mana.
Level Up! – Will cost 6 mana. (Up from 5)
Odd Paladin has consistently been one of the most powerful and most played decks since its introduction in The Witchwood. By removing Level Up from Odd Paladin, we still expect it to be a competitive board control deck, just with more consistent damage output that should be easier to play around.
Saronite Chain Gang – Now reads: Taunt. Battlecry: Summon another Saronite Chain Gang.
Shudderwock brings an interesting combo to the table, but playing Shudderwock multiple times in a single game can be frustrating. Changing Saronite Chain Gang makes playing multiple Shudderwocks in a game much more difficult. Shudderwock should now exist as a powerful one-turn effect rather than constantly copying itself with Saronite Chain Gang’s Battlecry.
Leeching Poison – Will cost 1 mana. (Down from 2). Now reads: Give your weapon Lifesteal this turn.
We love the fantasy of building a powerful weapon over the course of a game with Kingsbane, but granting it a permanent Lifesteal effect with Leeching Poison resulted in an endgame with few weaknesses, as well as conflicting with our philosophy that Rogues should not have persistent self-healing effects. Making the Lifesteal effect only active for one turn should address some of the power level issues with Kingsbane Rogue’s late game.
Kiwii's Thoughts
Resident deck architect Kiwiinbacon had some thoughts on the nerfs.
I started to play HS 3 weeks ago after a 1+ year break, crafted Baku the Mooneater to have a competitive deck (Odd Pal), this nerf to Level Up! is a direct nerf to Baku the Mooneater as well, but there won't be dust refund for that obviously, lovely :) just like the nerf to Leeching Poison nerfs Kingsbane, how convenient to nerf Legendary cards through nerfing other cards of lesser rarity!
If you crafted baku only for baku paladin you deserve to get fucked. And kingsbane is still a good standalone card even without leeching poison (as seen in pirate rogue).
You complain about not getting a single card refunded, but just imagine how combo druid players feel. Every single combo druid that has ever existed has been killed in the last 3 months. No more aviana, no more ramp, no more druid. People invested 10k+ dust into the class only to have it die in a day. And here you are complaining you arent getting refunded on the best legendary in the game when only 1/5 of its playability got hit...
You guys are both right; Druid has it far worse and it is very sad that people who crafted Aviana + other legendary have many useless Legendaries because of 1 Legendary nerf, or that archetypes that required a lot of epics/legendaries are considerably weaker after nerfing a basic and a rare card.
My comment isn't actually the most relevant for Baku indeed, sorry. The fact that Odd Pal is nerfed buffs all other Odd archetypes. My point was mostly that making cards useless (or a group of cards) through nerfing cheaper cards is very unfortunate for the players, and again you're completely right that Druid players are the most impacted.
Everything is connected though, the nerf of Odd Pall nerfs the archetypes that people created to counter Odd Pal (since it will be less played), and these guys won't see refunds either.
like this is the best nerf patch since the beginning of the game itself. i am proud of team 5. Should i hate well than threre should be hunter spellstone cost 6 or the wolfs should be 3/2
ARE YOU F***ING KIDDING ME!!! I CRAFTED A SHUDDERWOCK LIKE 2 DAYS AGO AND NOW I CANT USE IT!!! oh well, these things happen, its just that i dusted Mal'Ganis for him...
You do realize you will get your dust back? After nerfs you can dust your nerfed cards for full value
Not for Shudder he wont!
No dust back for shudder, they are not nerfing the shudderwock card, they are nerfing saronite chain gang, a common that is included in the shudderwock deck
Yeah he gets full dust value for the Saronite Chain Gangs he crafted, but not for shudderwock.
Dusted Mal'Ganis? Suffer now, lul
Oh no! Chain Gang is gone, the loop is gone, now you won't be able to play Shudderwock ever again ever!
you still can play Shudderwock, what you can't don anymore is isntant win the match just for play it, make a tempo deck with battlecries and Shudderwock in it and that will do it, if you just wanted slowly drain your oppoent's life and time, well dude, your problem.
Gg blizzard you are genius...You didnt nerf jade druid a few years back and you do it now lul...
I was just today dusting extra copies of my cards to craft a legendary and once again I was thinkin "i will not dust nourish, chain gang or level up, they could get nerfed"
Always think ahead when dusting cards
Nice change... Very expected... What should i do with my kingsbane... Oh well not thay i played deck much just happened to open most of the required cards from packs over time.
Yeah, my dealer needs to get in touch with you.
YESSS!!!!!!!! I'm gonna kick ass in Wild now!!!!
This is the best move ever made by Team 5. Thank you
As a Wild player: Yes, Kingsbane + Oil is a pain. And the Mill variant of that deck is almost an autoconcede. And if you are lucky enough, your opponent won't have it on turn 1 or 2.
For the druid nerfs... I hope they bring back the 9 mana Aviana.
Damn. So many wrong things in 1 comment i dont even know where to start.
First off, Druid Dominance, as we know it, is dead. Maybe malygod/taunt is still tier 2, but forget about seeing any druids in upcoming tournaments. Ramping a turn later and into turn 5 (floating 1 mana) is such a big deal. Also, with the competitve death of odd paladin, expect death rattle hunter to move into god-tier, another big "fuck you" into the face of druid. Dead class.
With Kingsbane rogue and shutterwock shaman disappearing, all of a sudden odd warrior is back in the picture. Odd warrior instalost (like 10% winrate) against kingsbane, and had terrible matchup against shudderwock. Even though odd warrior still does poorly against deathrattle hunter and otk paladin, it now has a lot of really consistant match-ups (consistantly around 60% winrate).
Odd rogue was another deck getting cucked by odd paladin, but kinda punishes deathrattle hunter and has solid other match-ups so expect a reemergence of odd rogue (?). depends on the strength of deathrattle hunter i guess.
Any kind of odd/ big spell mage also insta loses against deathrattle hunter and didnt really gain any good match-ups, so expect less mage on ladder (tempo mage lost two of its best match-ups, shudderwock and kingsbane)
Even Shaman and even paladin both got a little bit stronger (especially even shaman, which was the only deck that had an above 60% winrate against deathrattle hunter). Even Warlock got kinda cucked.
WINNERS: Deathrattle Hunter, Even Shaman, Odd Warrior, Even Paladin, Odd Rogue
LOSERS: DRUID (!) , Mage, Warlock, Shudderwock and Kingsbane (duh), Odd paladin (DUH)
Good try kiddo, better luck next time.