ROGUES ARE GETTING NERFED! 4 Card Changes Coming May 22
In a blog post from Blizzard this afternoon, they have announced changes to Rogue cards and Archivist Elysiana. The patch comes out May 22.
- EVIL Miscreant - Now has 4 Health (Down from 5)
- Raiding Party - Now costs 4 Mana (Up from 3)
- Preparation - Next spell cast cost is now reduced by 2 (Down from 3)
- Archivist Elysiana - Now costs 9 Mana (Up from 8)
Quote from BlizzardAfter evaluating game data and working through internal and external feedback on the most popular decks currently in the meta, we’re looking to address the power level and overall pervasiveness of Rogue decks, alongside a specific interaction with Archivist Elysiana. Look for these changes in an update slated for May 22.
We chose to focus primarily on Rogue in this update due to seeing the meta stabilize around the class’s most popular decks. Currently, if you want to build a deck that is strong against Rogue, you have just one reasonable option: Warrior. If you compare Rogue to Warrior, however, you’ll find that the latter class has a wide variety of good and bad matchups, which makes it unlikely that it’ll overtake Rogue in popularity in the current meta.
While we recognize that there are other powerful and popular decks (like Token Druid, Conjurer Mage, and Mech Hunter), we decided to not address them in this update because they all have varied matchups. If any of these decks were to emerge as the new prominent strategy, there are plenty of decks available to combat them, which would allow the meta to continue shifting.
As always, we’ll be evaluating the results of these changes over the coming weeks and look forward to your feedback. Read on for details on these changes, our thought process around them, and our goals for each of the cards we adjusted.
- EVIL Miscreant - Now has 4 Health. (Down from 5)
- EVIL Miscreant is meant to be a value-generating card that creates future swing turns, but having 5 Health on this minion means Rogue players sacrifice very little to set up those turns. We expect that EVIL Miscreant will continue to be a great option for Rogue decks, just at a power level that is more in line with other available cards.
- Raiding Party – Now costs 4 mana. (Up from 3)
- Rogue already excels at drawing cards, so having another powerful option that offers consistent results has resulted in Rogue games that play out a little too similarly than we think is fun. We’re making this change to better represent the power level of drawing from a very specific subset of cards.
- Preparation – Now reads: The next spell you cast this turn costs (2) less.
- All changes we make to the Basic and Classic sets are aimed at ensuring Hearthstone’s long-term health. Preparation is currently seen as such a powerful card that it appears in nearly all Rogue deck archetypes. That said, the change we’ve landed on is a small one. While we do want the card’s power to decrease, we also think it’s important for Preparation to remain a reasonable option, since it fits the Rogue class fantasy so well.
- Preparation is regularly used to reduce the cost of cards like Sap or Eviscerate, and those interactions will remain unchanged. Reducing the cost of your next spell by 2 as opposed to 3 opens our design options up a little more to create higher cost Rogue spells without having to balance so closely around the assumption that they’ll be cast alongside Preparation.
- Archivist Elysiana – Now costs 9 mana. (Up from 8)
- Our goal here was to preserve the feeling and power level of Archivist Elysiana when it comes to general use, while making much more difficult to play her multiple times in the same game. Shaman will still be able to replay Elysiana through Shudderwock, but this is not as common or problematic as what we’ve seen in control Warrior decks. Now, playing Elysiana alongside cards like Baleful Banker or Youthful Brewmaster should be a less consistent strategy.
A plot twist in Dalaran ! Now the mages will take over the situation
I doubt, better smorkers like token druid and zoolock that struggled with rogue will rise again, also control decks that'd have a better match up against mage, like shaman, and I know if you get boom on 7 you really won against summoner mage, so maybe mage falls out of popularity and doesn't get up latter on, I know it'll stll be powerful but I hope people won't realize that
Remember when Druid cards are being nerfed at one time? That killed Druid in the meta.
Now, it happening again for Rogue. This will kill Rogue and make an impact in the meta.
God it sucks to be a weaker version of the same deck. Rogue is gonna die out just like spell hunter and cube lock after their nerfs. Maybe there will be less warriors?
3 rogue nerfs and only Elysiana for warrior while the main problem is Dr.Boom or the tons of warrior removals. Well i guess its time for a break till the next expansion.
rthe rogue matchup spread was all green, good matchups everywhere, warror has plenty of red in there
And for some reason, Hearthstone's long-term health requires Classic to be a weak set.
PLEASE, finally end this charade and send the Classic set to Wild. First of all, you don't talk about Heahrtstone, you ONLY talk about Standard here. This has nothing to do with Wild or Arena or anything, just Standard, and Standard isn't the entire game (more on that later). And to that I say: You clearly don't like having Classic in Standard, you take every opportunity to make the set worse, and I'm sick of every good card getting nerfed or HoF'd sooner or later. Not even going into detail how wrong it is to act as if Classic and Basic are the same set... but that's a different topic. Return the changed cards to their original state, make a Basic set that covers the Basics to avoid reprints, and leave it there.
About the nerf itself: I admit, that it isn't huge, but I strongly disagree that Preparation is mainly used for stuff like Sap or Eviscerate. Sprint is only really playable with Prep. Necrium Vial, while an archetype that likely gets no further support, also needs Prep badly to be a reasonable option. Fan of Knives also kinda needs Prep. Vanish also needs prep.
Rogue as a class just got a whole lot worse, and you can't deny that. I personally think Waggle Pick was and is the bigger offender. This nerf will affect the class for a long time. They are not as screwed as Druid, but I wonder how Rogue will look like in a year from now.
As for the meta: Standard will likely be about Hunter vs. Warrior now... not really better than Rogue vs. Warrior. Hunter was already close to having the same insane playrate as Rogue, only that Hunter has three decks while Rogue had only one. If you think that's more "fun" or "balanced" or whatever, be my guest.
But nevermind that, I'm talking about Wild. It's one thing that they ignored Big Priest for almost 2 years now and continue to do so, while "accidentally" only making the deck stronger. But it's another thing that Big Priest just lost its biggest and most important counter in Wild. No other deck beats Big Priest as consistently as Kingsbane Rogue. And that deck is likely dead now, having their gameplan slowed down so much. Of course, nobody cares about Wild, Team5 probably even less than the community, but seriously...
As for the other nerfs, I'm ok with them. I don't care about Elysiana, but I know some people do.
My main issue with this balance patch is: I don't think it will really "fix" anything, maybe not even till the next expansion. Warrior still has an oppressive lategame plan, and most classes and decks have no other hope but winning as quickly as possible. Rogue disappears as a deck that eats everything else, but this doesn't liberate other decks much. Less weapon removal is necessary, but that won't offer too much breathing space, since there are not too many other good cards you can play instead.
I'd be surprised if we can get through the next two months without having the same discussion again.
+1 for ending Classic. As I see it, there are three main reasons:
1. So much of it is boring. A decent number of decks just run too much of the old package, and it's just so dull.
2. Too many core cards are too strong. Stuff like Preparation really warp the entire nature of Rogue, and how their spells work. Rogue spells are often too expensive because of Prep. Innervate and Wild Growth and Nourish all had to see major nerfs, in order to keep Druid balanced.
3. Too many core cards have large gaps in them. Priest kinda needs a board clear to be viable. Priest doesn't have a board clear in the classic set. So Blizzard has to keep printing new board clears for priest.
Personally, I'm of the mindset that there ought to be a rotating core. Nourish comes out for a while, but maybe it comes back in at some point and Wild Growth is taken out. Maybe Lightbomb comes back after Mass Hysteria eventually leaves, so they don't have to print a totally new board clear. Moving stuff in and out slows the rate of expansion for Wild, but keeps things viable for Standard, and by having more staples move in and out, that keeps things from getting stale. Just looking at Hunter three-drops, at least one--if not two--of Animal Companion, Kill Command, and Unleash the Hounds should be out of Standard at any given time, just to make things interesting. Not OP or broken, just old.
Does it
Overall good nerfs imo. All 4 cards are still playable.
I'm surprised there was no Waggle Pick nerf, whether a mana increase or decrease in attack. That thing can carry the game by itself and turned the meta where everyone is running weapon hate.
my 9+ evil miscreants are liking this nerf.
No nerf to Dr. Boom hero card?! No problem, there's always next expansion.
mage eat hunters.
I think these Rogue nerfs are healthy. Rogue will probably still be very strong, especially because almost every deck in the meta won't be built/teched against it anymore.
Archivist is a blessing because bouncing it is super boring. Shudderwock control shaman is now favored against warrior now with double Archivist battlecry. That is pretty interesting.
I feel really good about opening a golden Archivist now.
I don't play rogue myself ATM. But I still think that this is a little bit too much. Preparation? Yes, long time overdue, it was always an auto include in every rogue deck.
Miscreant? This is a very minor nerf so I don't think it's problematic.
But then also raiding party... that's a lot to chew on. Plus this nerf is pretty hefty....
Overall I think the nerfs are all pretty good though. Elysiana mirror matches surely are a pain...
I'm playing Rogue, and I was hoping to see the nerf for Preparation for so long. Hopefully after the nerf, there won't be shitty high cost spells for Rogue such as Necrium Vial and WANTED!.
Of course, I fee Raiding Party nerf is mehhh too. Comparing to the other 3 mana draw card such as Master's Call and Arcane Intellect, Raiding Party itself is not a problem by any mean.
Prep nerf needed to happen, it limits design space and is part of why rogue rarely gets cool interesting spells that cost more than 2 mana.
Evil nerf is tame, I think this is fine, it will still see play.
Raiding maybe did not need nerfing if prep was already nerfed, I would somewhat be surprised if it playable now. it will cost 6 mana to play the weapon if you prep which is ALOT more than 4 for a tempo deck.
Arch is fine. I am not sure it really mattered that people were playing it so many times, other than the fact that games would take forever.
I've tried cold showers and rubbing wasabi on it. But ever since i read the nerf news, my erection just refuse to go away.
Well met! I made a video where i review nerfs and give you a small tip how to benefit from nerfs. It's really simple and probably most of you already know this - just disenchant all nerfed cards and craft them back if top tier decks will include them. I really look forward to new meta shifts. Cheers!