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.
Wild bud you obviously don't know what you are talking about. The deck is highroll Barnes on 4 and win the game. Extremely unfun to play against.
As a mainly Renolock and Control Priest player in Wild...this pleases me.
Nerfs to Druid ramping was a long time coming, but they will likely get more in the next expansion anyway.
OTK Shudderwock is dead, but Shudderwock as a card is still very much playable and has a lot of potential. Throw it in a Jade Shaman deck or something.
Level Up! nerf seems unnecessary in my opinion, but Odd Paladin is very strong and has the potential to grow even stronger in the future, so this balances it a bit.
Leeching Poison is not a card I was expecting to see nerfed (although Kingsbane Rogues are an issue), but it does make sense. Spending all game masturbating over your Kingsbane is going to have a hell of a lot less value when you're not getting healed for 16 each turn.
Only let down is nothing was done to Barnes (although I still maintain his day will come), but overall these are some clever nerfs. Thanks for the early Christmas presents, Blizzard.
Doppelgangster
I, for one, welcome our new Hunters overlords.
NEVER FORGET
This post reeks of winning at ladder!!
My idea is when ever nefs hit, any card should be able to fully refunded (in the format affected) during the nerf period. This is because players do get screwed when they make a deck around the offending card.
possibly the most negative IQ comment here
Why? There are so many things wrong with that. 1) Blizzard loses tons of money over it 2) What's to stop people dusting all of their collection just to make another deck every time it happens 3) Why would anyone want to buy stuff ever again, even a new player's dust collection from a supposed refund like this is enough to satisfy people who spend over hundreds in this game.
um maybe I'm reading this wrong, but isnt this what used to happen anyway? before the shudderwock animation speedup at least, a full dust refund was the norm if i'm not mistaken
News flash. That's what actually happens.
My initial take:
Wild Growth nerf is most likely just going to kill the card. Might as well have sent it to the Hall of Fame. A more balanced take at 3 mana would be to add "Summon a 1/1 Sapling" or change it from an Empty Mana Crystal to a Mana Crystal.
Nourish is probably still playable at six mana, it just stalls ramp an extra turn. The card draw and utility is still great.
Saronite Chain Gang is a weird choice because it feels like it's killing the original intent of the card, which was obviously to copy handbuffs and deckbuffs onto the summoned minion. Also, it's rotating out next year anyway.
Permanent lifesteal on a hugely buffed Kingsbane did feel busted. Having rogues still able to spot heal for a single turn and possibly have ways to duplicate or discover an extra copy of the card feels more fair. I would maybe like to see them get a card based on Crimson Vial (the baseline WoW Rogue healing ability) to give them some additional survival in long games.
WTF blizzard/activision just rotate classic / basic sets and sell us more cards every year to build a decent deck, I can't believe how this greedy company has been slowly removing good cards from permanent sets so they can increase the number of temporary cards in every deck, a year ago HS was a $400 per year game (https://www.polygon.com/2017/12/12/16763594/hearthstone-expensive-expansions-cost) , how further are you going to take this to $600, $800 tell us how much do you want!
Finally I'm leaving this "game" for good
k no one cares
k bye
And how much does it cost to play Yugioh, Magic the Gathering, Yugioh Duel Links, or any other mobile game out there? This is reality, you wanna play a card game these days, part of the charm is the exclusiveness of it. It forces you to build your decks around it, and to pay to make it easier. F2P accounts exist and can already work with decent decks so why can't you?
Well, team 5 should work around the classic / basic sets not screw them when something goes wrong with some cards from a non permanent set (read Ultimate Infestation), Wild Growth was a balanced core druid card and now its unplayable, I'm pretty sure that in a few more expansions all the playable cards from basic / classic will be either moved to the HoF (and replaced with crap like this Icicle Tome of Intellect Call of the Void Pilfer) or be nerfed and remain unplayable like Wild Growth and Nourish
So the meta decks will contain 90% + of that year cards and the players will either have to invest more money or grind like crazy every month to reach rank 5 / complete the dailies just to have to start over once the year ends.
Blizzard / activision should aim to keep a balance between the number of permanent / non permanent (50%/50%) cards in meta decks and stop taking greedy decisions(remove adventures, 3 expansions per year, etc) or people will lose interest and that will kill their cash cow just like what happened with HOTS.
didn't cost me a dime to play SHADOWVERSE.
I really think they have to recosinder how the refunds work.
Sometimes changing 1 card completely inviabilizes an archetype, e.g. Raza the Chained.
It's really frustating for you to save dust for weeks, disenchant some cards to craft Kingsbane or Shudderwock to see their archetypes being seriously nerfed and you only getting 80 dust after wasting 1600 dust on Kingsbane, perhaps 3200 if you crafted Captain Greenskin only for that deck.
Raza's nerf was one of the most brutal ones I recall, I crafted many legendaries such as Velen, Shadowreaper Anduin and Raza itself to try Highlander Priest and shortly after it was nerfed. Sure, 1600 dust refund, but I've spent way more dust on that deck than on Raza alone... It simply FeelsBadMan.
I mean Captain Greenskin isn't a bad card to craft per say, +1 +1 on a weapon may be a mechanic that might come back useful some day. As for Velen and ShadowReap, they're still good cards in their own right, albeit you gotta craft different cards. That's why Blizz tries to warn people against immediate balance changes, because it doesn't give you time to play your cards, but we protested anyways. That's why card game companies try not to balance too much, cause it really screws some people over.