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.
This will hurt the main sponsor of the nerfs: shadowreeper...
What about it? Its not an inherently good card.
I really don't like Kibler'S tone in this one. He sounds so aggressive and annoyed that the devs aren't doing what he suggested.
Rotating core sets is a shit idea. The devs are finally taking closer looks at some classic/basic cards that are just way too powerful and have defined deckbuilding forever, while at the same time there will always remain some familiarity (not to mention more variety in Wild).
He also acts like all these nerfs completely kill these cards instead of just making them more situational and, guess what, dependant on support from new expansion.
Like, we had nerfs like this in the past with Hex and FWA and everybody was complaining about how terrible they were, when said cards have been complained about way before and for good reason.
Kibler's idea just means pushing these cards out of sight instead of actually addressing the problems, which is what happens every rotation and most of the time needs to be addressed retroactively anyways (Aviana, Naga Sea Witch, and eventually Barnes).
Core exists for a reason and that reason is to have a thematical frame that can be built upon. If we just change the foundation with every rotation every new archetype needs to be able to stand on its own and we all saw how well that worked with Freeze Shaman. if the core set rotates every year then every single expansion each classs will have their new card dedicated to a sepcific archetype to make sure it works.
But hey, it'S easy for Kibler who just throws money at the game to craft golden legendaries for crappy meme decks, which is not something the broad community can afford to do so the concept of an evergreen set at least helps people catch up.
Get a job punk.
To be honest, I agree. Kibler always felt like a chill dude the few times I watched him but he sounds way too angry on this one. Everything else, well, you already said it.
Kibler just plays Hearthstone too casuallyy in my opinion (and yes, that is possible).
At the end he even brings up his main concern: people not being able to play their old decks in Wild, which is a completely asinine statement. Wild is not time machine, it's a necessary dumpster so there can be an actual competitive format that isn'T completely ruined by power creep.
The devs desigend the whole concept of Standard around the fact that it would have a core set so they would be able to balance around that. Just throwing that out of the window so we can all have crazy fun times in Wild is just stupid and I'm surprised someone like Kibler who has far more experience iwth game design than the average person doesn't realize it.
@yourprivatenightmare Hating on Kibler but not showing any hate towards design who ADMIT Genn and Baku are a huge design issue yet won't do anything about the cards. BTW Standard was designed as a way to increase sales and nothing more. By having sets rotate and a limited format they keep people buying packs without ever getting tired of the game which is what was happening before standard became a thing. It's a way to add longevity to a game that becomes stale.
Kibler does understand the problem and he is absolutely correct in that the base set needs to rotate cards and stop nerfing cards in it. There's a reason MTG(a dated game) has continued to be popular. They ROTATE their base sets on a regular basis to keep the formats fresh on a regular basis. Unlike Hearthstone which sits around and stagnates because they won't rotate previous cards from expansions into the base set for a limited time to allow their interaction in limited formats. At the very least Hearthstone should have special formats that include just specific sets like the brawl a few weeks back.
The obvious REAL answer to all of this is to have a banned and restricted list for certain cards but that is not something Activision will ever let them do.
The problem is that nerfing cards infinitely doesn't really solve the problem either. We now saw quite a lot of basic and core cards nerfed, because some cards that were introduced made them way too powerful. It is very likely, however, that in the coming sets there will be some cards released that will make some other cards more powerful than they should really be. And that process will be repeated over and over again until the vast majority of the cards that are currently non-rotating are basically non-usable.
This means that yes, you will have a base line that all players will always have access to, but it will be pale in comparison to cards from rotating sets and as a result those basic cards won't really be usable, which, at least in my eays, doesn't sound really appealing.
The other problem is that most of these changes are made with only and exclusively Standard in mind.
Now, I don't mind that wild meta will be shaken, I also don't mind that some decks will be better and some worse as a result. What I do care about is that those changes are a spit into wild's face saying "hey, this format doesn't really matter". And that is the real problem, imo. A few months from now 3 more sets will come to wild. A year later more will follow. The next another. And slowly but steadily wild will be a place full of exciting cards from the past that people who may take a brake would gladly play with again and should naturally feel pretty appealing to many players. But that won't happen if wild is treated the way it is now.
FYI, rotating core set could change more quickly than once a year. You could have it add in and out a few cards let's say every 6 months, which would allow for some iconic cards to come back into the spotlight while not being a pain in the ass long enough to be a problem.
Even Hunter incoming?
*chuckles in terror*
Same first impression.
Hunter Mark -> even
Secrets -> even
Spellstone -> even
To My Side -> even
Rexxar -> even :)
Only Candleshot is missing, but we have another weapon - Axe.
Definitely worth trying.
Even Zul'jin is Even... To My side probably not as it is still one of the weaker cards in Spell Hunter not to mention antisynergy with Genn, so just need to find some decent 4 drops other than Flanking Strike...
I think Even Shaman will be at least still be T2 in Wild. Sure the nerf to the Totem is a big hit, but there are other viable 2 drop options like Knife Juggler or Dire Wolf Alpha and Even Shaman has still a ton of strong other cards in the deck, so the deck will not die because of this nerf.
but it's snowballing ability is greatly reduced (also its reach9.
also don't forget that one less totem means slower THing from Below which is huge in the deck.
I totally agree with your arguments. And as I said, Even Shaman will be definitely weaker because of the nerf... but I don`t think the deck will be bad because of this.
Weaker? For sure!
Dead? I don`t think so.
ehhh i think flametongue's changes is the opposite for shamman is the opposite, kicks the standard version in the balls, but wild has way too many power houses that flametongue is barely noticed, if anything they'll probably add some other even drop that sinergizes with the deck, like that witch that summons totems after you cast spells or even a Sneaky Devil. the wild version already suffered from limited cards syndrome where you wanted to run buncha things but didnt have the space, heck it even opens a slot for Jinyu water speaker now
I don't understand Cold Blood..Is there a broken aggro rogue deck in wild that i know nothing of ?
have you heard of odd rogue? it is a real thing and it's realy unfun to play against
No, no broken Aggro-Rogue in Wild at the moment. Odd-Rogue is strong there, but not broken. But Blizz hates aggro, so let`s nerf it again even when OTK is the real problem in Standard at the moment. ^^
GIven that it'S pretty much 8-damage wrapped into 2 mana to slap onto your Leeroy/Deckhand of choice to demolish people from 10-14 health for as cheap as 3-mana in total in the aggressive powerhouse that is odd Rogue.
I don't think the nerf was necessarily needed, but it's also not fun to struggle stabilizing against an aggro deck and then get completely blown out because they don't need to do anything other than get you to a certain health margin.
Odd rogue is powerful... And seems like blizzard doesn't like turn 2 5/3s...