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 my take on druid problem: Every class has identity, and druid has ramp. Think we all agree on this one. This means one thing though, druids early game sucks, so it loses to aggro, because it doesn't have a good comeback mechanism, it just rolls over and dies. BUT, thanks to Branching Paths, Malfurion DK, Spreading Plague and UI, druid can come back from dire situations by gaining more armor than warrior could ever do or playing taunts like there is no tomorrow. T5's action on this problem is to destroy the class identity, instead of making some changes to aforementoned cards to make druid more fragile. Change Paths, so it gives 4 mana instead of 6, change Plague, so taunts are 1/3 instead of 1/5, make DK 8 mana, change all numbers on UI from 5 to 4. These are all fine. Killing a class identity is what I didn't like in the first place.
I don't really care about class identity, here's my opinion as someone who's been playing since Beta: Wild Growth should've been nerfed with Force of Nature. The only reason Druid has been such a powerhouse for so long is because cards like Wild Growth and Nourish, alongside other ramp synergy, have allowed it to be so consistent and powerful in the metagame. I want everyone reading this to go back and read the Tempo Storm or Viscious Syndicate Meta Reports and tell me the last time Druid was even close to falling out of Tier 2, let alone the last time they were not meta relevant. Hell, Ultimate Infestation would be an arguably worse card in any other class, even though it would be very powerful still, because ramping makes it come out 1, 2, sometimes 3 turns earlier than it's cost entails. Class identity be damned, these cards were toxic and this is a GOOD change whether or not you specifically like it.
This is the most impactful set of nerfs we've seen in a while... Maybe ever! I can't even imagine how the meta is going to change. Rise of even shaman maybe?
People will actually start playing cool decks and new cards. It's like Christmas and New Years on the same day!
Those changes were unexpected for me, but are really great news. Seems like blizzard is starting to worry about the community all of a sudden. I myself haven't been playing much lately and much less compared to the times when I was going for legend, but when they acutally balance some unbalanced stuff, it's great news. But it's worth mentioning, that some of these changes are late by a couple of years...but I guess better late then never..
This is like the kid who spent way too much time on their homework rationalizing something that is totally false and then received an F.
You should spend your time more wisely, then you won't have such garbage output.
You don't nerf Legendaries anyhow. They are the cards to build decks around, and they're meant to be powerful. SMH.
Blizzard makes plenty of money, I'm sure they're not pondering how to squeeze a few pennies out of your Broke A__.
Dude what legendaries are you even talking about? What would they have nerfed? Kingsbane? That card isn't the problem, it's Leeching Poison that makes it good. Malfurion the Pestilent? Again, a good card, but nothing overpowered. Shudderwock? It's only amazing because of it's intense synergy with other cards, meaning that nerfing it gets rid of an entire deck style from the game but indirectly nerfing it through Saronite Chain Gang makes it weaker but still playable. I don't know if you haven't played Hearthstone in a while or if you're new or something, but do you really honestly believe that Blizzard needs to nerf legendaries every time they release nerfs? They're not fucking squeezing money out of you by doing this, this makes the game much healthier and doesn't jump the gun to nerf the most expensive cards like you seem to think.
The point is they're nerfing the value and power of those legendaries, but not providing meaningful compensation for those nerfs.
I'm not sure a full refund is in order and I don't know if it's a conspiracy, but something to compensate for that would be nice.
WIld players have waaaaay more concerning decks that blizzard will not touch... To name a few:
All those decks are absolutely more problematic than druid on wild and blizzard would not do anything cause they love Barnes, Think the highlander nature of Renolock is enough of a drawback to not nerf it- About Shaman and Rogue I don't know the reasoning behind it btut they're clearly not gonna do anything about them either.
They've already mentioned in the past that they don't want to change Wild unless it's necessary. All of those decks you listed are strong, but there is counterplay against them. The only valid point I think you have is Barnes - that card needs to destroyed completely or be changed in some way. It enables plenty of degenerate strategies and gives you wins you otherwise wouldn't have, all on the back of one card. But lets set one thing straight: Blizzard doesn't "love" any card in particular, Barnes was strong when he was standard legal, but I don't think he needed to be hit past being sent to Wild, we were far too close to rotation to consider it. Should he have been nerfed in hindsight? Sure. But I don't know where you're getting this narrative that Blizzard choosing not to nerf a card you hate turns into them loving to fuck you over.
Doppelgangster for wild Shutterwock?
Kingsbane: my weapon of choice is spectrall cuttlass since boomsday problem with kB rogue is SAP and vanish. KB is no problém if you can play your game while enemy can just vanish your board and go face.
WG: im fine if they increase the cost and add some other effect. For instance draw a card or gaining mana crystal instead emty mana crystal.
Nourish : 6 mana restore 5 health. Choose one remaing the same. Instead nerf branching paths attack option.
Adapt mechanic should be more defense focused addding options of rush lifesteal removing deathrattle, +3 attack and windfury.
Level up might be changed to 4 mana since its for even pally it is very likely buff to 2 or 3 dudes.
Saronite has not done anything to my wild shudderwock shaman. Im not running it since i dont want many 4 drops in my deck. I have just omega defender,twilight drake, and prince valanar, for cloning im running doppelgangster + echoing ooze.saronite should summon exact copy of saronite chain gang. This way you get 2/3 taunt when you play shudderwock but when you play saronite you get exact copy.
Card Art has been updated in our database for today's changes
I never see anybody saying thank you for the work you and many others put in on this website, so thank you so much! Happy holidays Flux, hope you enjoy the new patch :)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!THANK YOU BLIZZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARDDDDD!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wild Growth only took 4 years to get nerfed, now we wait until 2022 for Ultimate Infestation
Wild players
UI isn´t really a problem in Wild... there is MUCH more broken stuff
Yeah well Blizzard took so long that it has rotated into Wild and still no nerf in sight, basically hence the reason for the satire.
FINAAAAALLY !!!!!!!!!!!!