Hearthstone Nerfs Coming February 5 - Equality, Cold Blood, Hunter's Mark & More
Five Hearthstone card changes are coming next week in an update scheduled for February 5. The following cards have mana cost increases.
- [Discuss] Cold Blood - Cost increased to 2 mana. (Up from 1)
- [Discuss] Flametongue Totem - Cost increased to 3 mana. (Up from 2)
- [Discuss] Equality - Cost increased to 4 mana. (Up from 2)
- [Discuss] Hunter's Mark - Cost increased to 2 mana. (Up from 1)
- [Discuss] Emerald Spellstone - Cost increased to 6 mana.(Up from 5)
Check out Blizzard's post below for further information.
Quote from BlizzardWhen we talk about changes that are in store for Hearthstone cards, we normally talk about each card individually to explain why we think that change is needed.
This time, we’re doing things a little differently because most of the upcoming changes are happening for the same reason. Here’s why we’re changing these cards and our general philosophy behind this update.
We think Hearthstone is most fun when strategies are consistently evolving. When new cards are released, we’d like for older expansion decks to get a few interesting new pieces while also allowing you to experiment with the totally new archetypes that emerge. When Basic and Classic cards become so broadly effective—no matter what you’re facing—that they drive what deck styles are considered viable every expansion, then it makes that goal difficult to achieve.
Basic and Classic are sets that, ideally, should embody the flavor and mechanics of each Class. As we’ve mentioned before, cards in these sets can become an issue when they make all other strategies look less interesting. This doesn't mean is that all Basic and Classic cards should be ineffective, however. It’s hugely important to us that these sets contain a good number of cards that are great tools for different situations and deck archetypes.
We’re changing these particular cards because each one has been highly prevalent, regardless of what strategies have been popular or what other cards have existed around them. When Basic and Classic cards become this ubiquitous, they take away some of the flexibility players have when building decks, ultimately stifling the diversity of decks we see when playing Hearthstone.
The following changes are intended to shift these cards from general-purpose “auto-includes” into options that are more likely to be chosen for decks that are focused on strategies that capitalize on what these cards have to offer.
- Cold Blood – Will cost 2 Mana. (Up from 1)
- Flametongue Totem – Will cost 3 mana. (Up from 2)
- Equality – Will cost 4 mana. (Up from 2)
- Hunter’s Mark – Will cost 2 mana. (Up from 1)
Emerald Spellstone – Will cost 6 mana. (Up from 5)
The only non-Basic or Classic card in this round of changes. We want to position Emerald Spellstone as an efficient mid- and late-game threat, so we’re moving its cost up by one to reduce its utility as an early-game, aggressive tempo option. This change—along with the Hunter’s Mark change—is aimed at addressing Hunter’s prevalence, while still leaving it as a viable option.
We look forward to seeing how the meta shakes out in the coming months. Thanks for reading, and good luck on the ladder.
Once these updates are live, players will be able to disenchant the changed non-Basic cards for their full Arcane Dust value for two weeks.
Flametongue Totem and Hunter’s Mark are Basic cards, and cannot be disenchanted.
Iksar Talks About The Nerfs
Quote from IksarMidrange Hunter is still gonna be prevalent, that equality nerf though, ouch.
I hope so, the goal wasn't to completely invalidate Hunter archetypes, or really any of the cards we changed. When we make a balance change it's less about looking at the current environment and more about trying to understand what Hearthstone is like after we make changes. Statistically, Secret Hunter was the most powerful deck in the game and close to the most popular. We felt like there wasn't a huge long-term downside to changing the secret build-around card that is likely to get more powerful over time in Wild while we can protect against Secret Hunter separating itself from the pack even more than it already was. (Source)
Baku and Genn limit card design so much. Round up nerfing will always be a thing now that these two are a thing
I tried to touch on this a few places, but Odd Paladin and Equality not being three are unrelated. Classic and Basic cards that are so powerful they are in every archetype in every expansion is something that is very harmful to the goal of expansion metas feeling fresh and new. Equality at (3) mana in our playtesting didn't really solve this. The change to (4) was actually very jarring to us, but we wanted to try playtesting it in current and future environments anyway. After all those games, we felt like it was a reasonable option at (4) in control archetypes (now in in the future) but less reasonable in aggressive decks. That ideally where we'd like most cards to be, so (4) ended up being where we landed. If we thought (3) removed it from being in all paladin archetypes for the foreseeable future but Odd Paladin would get better in the short term, we would have just done that. (Source)
The funniest part is that even for 2 mana it is still looking vialable.
That's the goal. We knew going in that the Equality nerf was going to be really jarring to look at, it was to us, too. We played so many games in current and future environments and it led us to believe that (4) was the right call even if it reads poorly. (Source)
Nerfing Equality that hard though is gonna kill any possibility of a competitive Control Paladin deck in the future if it doesn't get any great control cards in the next expansions. I hope you have something planned for that, so that we don't go back to having only Aggro pally's be competitive in both Standard and Wild.
We like Control Paladin, I expect it to do just fine in the future. We've been playtesting a lot of the first set of this year with Equality at (4) and there are still powerful Control Paladin archetypes. (Source)
Kibler & Iksar Talk
Quote from IksarKibler: “Should we listen to Kibler and make a rotating core set like he suggested when we first introduced Standard?”
Kibler: “No let’s just slowly nerf every Classic card into the ground!”
Kibler: These changes also don’t address what are IMO the biggest problems with Heartstone right now, which are OTK and Genn/Baku decks making games play out super similarly every time. If anything stuff like Mechathun gets better with the aggro nerfs, even if OTK Paladin is hit.
Kibler: Also worth noting that the Equality nerf to 4 is likely also Baku’s fault, since giving that deck such and easy answer to big minions would be a disaster
We don't make short-term quick fixes that are damaging to the long-term. At least we try not to. If one of the issues with Equality was that it goes in most every Paladin deck forever, I don't think (3) mana solves that.
Kibler: Cards going in every deck forever has a variety of ways you can solve it
Totally true. One of the most painful moments both anecdotally and statistically for players is when they have a deck they are playing that breaks. Literally breaks by the game saying the cards they have it in are no longer valid.
We try to come up with solutions that don't violate that when they can, but it's not always possible. Set rotation hits a large number of players but also misses a huge pool of players that are using 'forever' sets and don't have rotated cards.
I'm not saying having a rotating core set is absolutely right or wrong, but one of the reasons not to do it is that theoretically we would invalidate nearly all players decks, very casual, very competitive and all in between.
Scott Lynch: Apologies for butting in, but that literally happens every time expansions rotate out. If your core set rotated at the same time the expansions rotate out, I don't see the difference.
Kibler: Yeah I don’t really see how this is different from any set rotation unless someone literally has a deck with all classic cards.
rayC: The reason @bbrode gave in one of his interviews was that they want the game to feel familiar to casual players who come and go
Kibler: Does making all of their best cards bad do that?
Our goal isn't to make all good cards bad, it's to make cards that go in nearly 100% of archetypes and make them go in archetypes that make sense for them. There are plenty of powerful cards in basic and classic set we'd rather not change. These weren't on that list.
Kibler: I didn't say all good cards - I said best cards. Also, I don't feel like Equality or Flametongue fall into the 100% of all decks category. I also feel like hitting them so hard has a hugely detrimental effect on Wild's ability to be a place where you can play all your old decks.
100% is a big number, I should probably just be using 'almost all'. There will always be a deck someone will copy paste me that doesn't include those cards. The point is they have been and will be in almost all Paladin/Shaman decks forever given no other changes.
For what it's worth, we've been playing Equality at (4) in both the current environment and in future set playtesting and it feels like a pretty reasonable option for Control archetypes and less so for aggressive ones. Generally a healthier place for cards to exist.
Well he seemed to be getting more pissed cus all blizzard does is sidestep questions that are legitimate. Kibler has been playing TCGs for 24 years and hes 100% right what would fix the game and blizzard just doesnt want to try something different with fear of losing a playerbase.
I've actually seen someone calling the Hunter's Mark nerf to 2 mana as a shit move from Blizzard. This joke went too far
Basically, they are turning some classic cards into dog shit so players have to look to new cards in expansions to remain competitive.
Goodbye Odd Rogue and Even Pally.
How about for Greymane and Baku Nerfs: If your deck has no “whichever” cost cards, your hero power gets the bonus only for the first three times you use it or something?
I’m just spitballing here, so if you disagree with me, do it without straight up attacking.
prepare to see a huge bunch of changes in the future purely based on 2 ridiculous legendary cards that never should've been in the game to begin with. you can switch cards' costs around all you want, you won't fix the underlying problem though
not in the slightest
Hunter's Mark was a 0-mana card before, for the record.
This is the definiton of how blizzard can't address the problems and nerfs the cards again and again like The Caverns Below.
Oh, yes. Ok, I know;
Money...
There are better using than nerfs like restrictions.
For example, You can always add a restriction to Equality like "You can't add this to an even-only deck" and simply when you add Genn Greymane to your deck, Equality will have an "X" on it and will be banned; that's simple.
When I would say that, I know that someone will appear here and say "but new players can't under..."; Just STFU. We all know that new players don't really care about how hard to understand the cards. They will learn all the cards sooner or later. It is not an excuse to fix the game. New players also don't know some interactions of the existing cards, how their interaction with some other cards. They can simply check it on a youtube video or they can experience it with themselves in-game. Truth is blizzard is in wrong way. They need to figure it out.
You know, you could also just add a Blacklist to Standard or Ranked mode, like they do in some Tavern Brawls, preventing you from using specific cards in ranked or Standard play for the time being, until other cards that make some cards too good have rotated or the meta changed enough to let them in again.
Temporary changes would be easier to implement, easier to justify and way easier to swallow than the permanent, never to be reconsidered destruction of cards and oftentimes entire decks and archetypes.
Is it really money? Or are the card designers and play testers just not good enough and way out of their depth?
Kibler sounds really pissed in the interview, and rightfully so.
They literally failed to address the OTK decks that plague the ladder right now, and OTK decks tend to suck the fun out of Hearthstone.
Not to mention Genn and Baku. They will haunt this game forever unless Blizzard address them.
They nerf some cards, it's almost all classic and basic cards... what a shock. AGAIN?!
I guess the biggest fail of Rastakhan's Rumble is not the low impact it had, but the developers kneejerk reaction to nerf everything into the ground because of it. Because people have the audacity to use what is better, Standard "freshness" must be preserved by nerfing everything else. What a joke.
Not to mention that Shaman is entirely off the radar now. It was severely underplayed already (maybe not so in Wild but... Barnes?), and now it is completely dead in Standard. What a great response to players who enjoyed the one deck that was still playable, and crafted cards for it.
Aside from a ridiculous take on "balance" - making some classes a LOT weaker than others, rather causing imbalance- to me it is outright disrespetcful to the playerbase. I mean, I go and craft legendaries and epics and then see my deck killed off because BASIC, as in baseline, as in fundamental cards that were supposed to not go anywhere get killed for no good reason. And this is only the second time in just about a month that this happens.
If Standard is so "dominated" by Classic and Basic as you claim, maybe you failed as designers or should just reconsider the whole "evergreen set" idea as a whole. Here is an Idea: Make a basic set that is actually basic and fundamental, keep it in Standard for new players and thematic purposes, maybe extend it a bit to prevent reprints of fundamental Class tools like removal and board clears, and rotate Classic. Would make Standard more different, makes it easier to get into the game, and saves us this shitshow of backpedaling on the promise of "these sets will always be a part of Standard".
Besides, and I said this before, what should basic cards be, if not baseline tools that define a class' strenghts and weaknesses?! Flametongue goes well in every Shaman deck because it is one of the few cards that works with the hero power. The theme of Shaman is - in parts- summoning a lot of minions with the help of their hero power to utlize cards like Flametongue and Bloodlust. If that should not be the core of Shaman, if that is something that should not go in at least a good portion of their decks, why even bother with a base set?!
I mean, keep going until they effectively did rotate all of Classic and Basic, or rather removed them from Standard, only that the cards are bad in Wild as well. Which makes this all the more upsetting.
I'm 100% with Kibler on this one. And yes, 100 is a big number. You Iksar, on the other hand, have lost my respect. I mean, I wouldn't attack you on the street or anything like that, and I'm sure you are a good player and know a lot about the game, but I question your competence as a game designer.
I hope one day they go ahead and nerf Fireball without realizing that you need it to pass the tutorial, making it impossible for people to make a new account.
- Damn, Control Pally will suffer for sure, like, for the rest of Hearthstone's life. I know and you guys probably know as well how important is for you to be able to clear early as possible playing against Aggro decks, making Wild Pyromancer + Equality 6 mana and Consecration + Equality 8 mana is just MADNESS!
- I can't see why Flametongue Totem got nerfed, it is a good Aggro, Midrange card but that is it, it is a 0/3 ffs, it isn't some kind of Knife Juggler unstoppable Aggro tool.
- Hunter's Mark is really strong, yes, but the card is only THAT annoying because Deathstalker Rexxar is annihilating the middle ranks (20-10), other cards are bound to suffer the same nerf fate if you don't take care of Rexxar.
- Cold Blood has always been an almost auto include or auto include card for Aggro Rogues, and so what? The card does what it needs to do, nerfing it is just to say: "Hey, next expansion we are going to release an 1 mana Aggro Rogue spell, since Cold Blood is 2 mana now, YOU HAVE TO BUY SOME PACKS!"
- Emerald Spellstone nerf is fine, very good actually. But once again I have to say that Secret Hunter isn't that strong, the problem is with Deathstalker Rexxar and (probably) with his new friend Zul'jin.
Also, at the moment I saw Baku the Mooneater and Genn Greymane I knew this would happen, they always said that they don't like cards that limit design space and yet they do this? This cards will hunt the Wild meta FOREVER, just like how Bloodreaver Gul'dan killed Lord Jaraxxus in wild FOREVER.
Ps: If you want to people to stop using good classic cards, maybe print less pack fillers and useless cards for an archetype that could or could not be playable in 2 expansions or whatever, and give us nice alternatives with same or close mana cost.
The real reason for the nerf
Activision-Blizzard - "Give us moar money!"
Hearthstone Team - *Nerfs all good Classic cards to force players to buy temporary new cards to stay competitive in standard.*
Still not nerfing Barnes, Genn, Baku or Prep just to name a few... LOL
they need to undo all the nerfs after glen and baku rotate out.
Nope. Big priests.
Barnes enters, “Tonight, a tale of terrible tragedy” *smirk face*
Barnes attacks, “On with the show!”
When you see they nerfed some basic/classic cards, then you know that the designer is not consistent with cards power level. They create many weak cards in the latest expansion, so they nerfed basic/classic cards in order to get the same power level with latest cards... this game is dead for sure...
i really hate baku and genn so much. once they entered the scene, tons of other cards got nerfed because of them. I know blizzard does not usually change the effect, or core of a card when doing nerfs, but just this once, do it on baku and genn, they limit design space, and dumb down deck building.
I am aware that some cards were just to powerful, and it was not entirely baku and genns fault. but it is true that they are some of the worst cards ever designed.