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.
This is awesome timing. Us experienced players are tired of the stale meta in Standard. Odd Paladin has been top tier for too long!
So what counters Big Priest now? OMEGALUL. Nice wild mode.
So kingsbane is shit now. Thats the card being nerfed and not leeching poison a common card. Players robbed of 1500 dust. Meanwhile odd rogue reigns supreme. Gg blizzard
Blizzard doing a good balance patch for once? Just in time for Christmas, I'm impressed!
Same. I finally crafted corridor creepers yesterday evening for odd paladin. Played 3 games too. I'm glad to see it die. I almost spent 6k+ dust on making a shudderwock combo deck.
Team 5, here is my feedback for this patch.
1. The timing is very unprofessional! Shadow nerfs (aka indirect nerfs) are very real and hurt player's crafting confidence. Last time nerfs went up I had spent 3k+ dust on cards that I only got to play with for a few weeks. On the other hand, at least I had a few weeks to play with them. It's likely a non-zero amount of players crafted Shudderwock or Kingsbane yesterday. :(
2. Why not schedule nerfs (and expansion releases for that matter) at the beginning of a ranked "season"? How is season 57 of competitive play supposed to be competitive when we've had major meta changes twice in one month?
3. Kudos for actually giving a specific date instead of "in a future update".
4. I like that you are actually willing to lower mana cost for cards to nerf them. I understand it was changed to make Kingsbane more vulnerable to Skulking Geist but I would like to see buffs to worthless cards in the future.
5. No hunter spellstone nerf? I suppose it would be a big shadow nerf to shiny new Zul'jin but it still is problematic. Summoning 1/2/3 wolves instead of 2/3/4 still makes it more playable than rogue, paladin, or warrior's spellstone.
6. Stop nerfing basic/classic cards and just move them to wild. It is pointless to have a set where no cards can be useful lest they get the banhammer.
7. Corporate abuse is a real problem. If someone is hurting you, even if it's your parent company, it's not OK. We know that there have been newsworthy issues with your sibling Team 1 and we sympathize. Have a merry Winter's Veil and be safe! Hopefully you won't have to shake the meta up for loose golds again until the first expansion of Year of the Scorpid in the spring!
The point of the Leeching Poison nerf isn't to make it vulnerable to Geist, but to remove the ability to get permanent lifesteal on Kingsbane.
Two nerfs for a class that is not top tier now is too much! Goodbye druid :(
They should nerf only wild growth that plays everywhere
Goodbye Shudder, goodbye odd paladin, goodbye kingsbane and all druid decks
Hello hunters
Since I play hunter, I wish, but what usually happens is that other decks emerge to replace the non-viable ones. I guess it could happen like you are theorizing, that all players from 3 classes just quit the game today, but not what has happened before. I'm hoping to see more mid-rangy stuff to counter hunter instead of just mindless Druid stall.
Druid needed this. The ramp was just too strong, and really skewed what the class could do.
Level Up nerf is fine. Will it see play in Even Paladin? That could be cool.
Leaching seems good for the long-term health of the game. I'm personally a little sad it's happening so soon, since after like a year of thinking Kingsbane was a neat and fun-looking deck, I finally crafted the stuff like last week. Change ought to be made, but I just wish it was happening two weeks from now, or that they'd done it two weeks ago.
Strange thought: what about an Odd Kingsbane Rogue? Almost surely not worth it, since there aren't that many weapon buffs, or ways to repeat them outside Valeera.
Holy crap, I was not expecting this at all. So Saronite Chain Gang will just summon a vanilla 2/3 taunt body now right? No matter what hand buffs he might have? I don't like this very much at all, but you might still be able to play some ridiculous evolve/bloodlust combo with non-stop Chain Gangs at the end of a game. Although it's obviously much less consistent. It's too bad this doesn't give Shudderwock a full dust refund haha =P kappa.
The Leeching Poison nerf comes at a perfect time. I was about to cave and join the Kingsbane group of players lol, but now I can stick to my other decks (mostly priest and hunter, both of which come out of this completely unscathed).
It would be nice to preserve hand buffs and Keleseth without the Shudderwock synergy, but what text would they use? I guess it's ok because already premium stats, but still disappointing, especially for zoolock.
Wow, usually Blizzard warns us about nerfs a few weeks in advance. Lately we've only been getting 1-day notice (both for these nerfs and the previous promo).
Damn I'm still keeping a golden Ultimate Infestation hoping for a nerf
What are good Odd Rogue counters? This is relevant.
spellhunter, odd/control warrior
They killed my infinite meme-wock!
Oh my Lord
Hype.
This is going to bring bigger changes than the whole new expansion. Hello, new meta!
...which is why it is super relevant right now.
O wait, it's not.
Great!!! only missing Hunter's rediculous spellstone and HOF both mountain and sea giants.