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.
Every competitive player right know says the 10 mana elysiana is the way to go and 9 is retarded and i just aggree with that. Is just bad for a player to lose to a side deck because they play brewmaster againsts warriors only to have a 50/50 insta win
RIP Maly Rogue! :'(
Meanwhile, Conjurer's Calling and Barnes are still on the loose...
Nothing is wrong with CC while Barnes doesnt matter in standard. I think you mean : " Meanwhile, Dr Boom and control warriors are still on loose....
Now Mech Hunter and Conjurer Mage take over I guess? Warrior gets humbled by them and....Control Shaman rises as a counter? Maybe Zoolock makes a comeback? I don't know.
Nobody will run Youthful Brewmaster anymore
NO GOD PLEASE NO...
ROGUE R.I.P. :BibleThump:
I really don't understand the lack of foresight in this one... I mean Conjurer's should have gotten a nerf, mage is now about to go nuts on latter, I mean warrior is relatively unharmed, but mage beats it and now there is no rogue to check mage, bad call Blizzard.
Blizzard probably will add some terrible stated 12 cost minions to make that slot worst for conjurers call, like always
In my opinion the worst deck in the meta is khadgar mage. It's unfair that this deck can play a 12 mana minion for only 3 mana(without khadgar). And there are no nerfs on the deck. Blizz...
Any agro stomps on Khadgar mage hard, unless the mage draws like God.
Khadgar Mage is slow as hell and aggro and control can easily handle them. If you get to the point where the Mage can fill the board, you're just trash.
Blizzard has balanced every 3+ mana rogue spell around the existence of Preparation. Now these all have been seriously nerfed. Such a terrible idea. They claim that Prep was used universally in all rogue decks. Are they really that surprised when they make garbage like Wanted? This was such a moronic decision. Instead they should have nerfed all the cards used exclusively in the tempo rogue deck and left prep alone.
Barnes still not changed.
Guess they still don't have enough data. Lol.
My major complaint. My friend texts me that nerfs are out. I excitedly open Hearthpwn to find out that Blizz trashed my favourite class (no I don't play tempo rogue, I play thief rogue in wild) and decided that they're okay with letting Barnes continue to ruin everyone's wild experience. They have plenty of data showing that people hate the card. Win rate doesn't matter, just like it didn't when they first nerfed rogue quest. It's about it being unfun to play against.
Gonna miss you unnerfed Prep. :(
While the nerfs are totally fitting imo, I'm gonna miss the easy wins Rogue got me the past few days on all regions. Good thing Blizzard adressed it this fast, but honestly I'm gonna miss dem fast wins a bit. :P
Tempo Rogue will remain a tier 2 deck tho, as the very strong finisher will still be unnerfed (Weapon into Leeroy etc.).
As long as there are less Warrior mirrors in tournaments, I'm gonna be happy (seriously 45 min games and the winner is who plays dr. boom first, not that fun to watch).
What a relevant addition to this topic, thanks alot for your contribution EbonyMaw.
Cause you add a lot to the post acting like that
jeez dude, chill out. . .
I don't understand why you are so angry about my comment, it did not hurt anyone.