Blizzard just released a balance post regarding multiple classes and also one wild card
The following cards are being nerfed on August 26th:
- The mana cost of Conjurer's Calling is going up from (3) to (4).
- The mana cost of Luna's Pocket Galaxy is going up from (5) to (7).
- The mana cost of Dr. Boom, Mad Genius is going up from (7) to (9).
- The mana cost of Extra Arms is going up from (2) to (3).
- The mana cost of Barnes is going up from (4) to (5).
Quote from BlizzardNow that Saviors of Uldum is live, new cards have been introduced and powerful decks have started to surface. To make for a better ladder experience for Hearthstone players in this new expansion, we’ve decided to make the following card adjustments in an update next week:
Mage
While Conjurer’s Calling is a powerful tool that’s found in a number of Mage decks, when used in decks focused around cards like Mountain Giant and Sea Giant, it was creating extremely powerful board states at a point in the game where opponents didn’t have effective answers.
Increasing the mana cost of this card will make using both copies of the Twinspell card in a single turn significantly more difficult, postponing these potentially overwhelming turns until later in the game when the Mage’s opponent has more available resources to react to the board.
Buffing cards with the Rise of the Mech event was a big change in philosophy for us. While we are happy with the overall outcome of the changes, Luna’s Pocket Galaxy has proven to be an exception.
An early Luna's Pocket Galaxy can often leave opponents feeling helpless if late-game minions were drawn in subsequent turns. This has occurred more often than we had intended, therefore we're reverting its mana cost back to its original value of 7, as was the case before the Rise of the Mech event.
Warrior
We’d still like Dr. Boom, Mad Genius to be a great option for control Warrior decks looking to close out games, but right now the card gets played a bit too early. Increasing the mana cost to 9 should make it more difficult to find a good turn to play Dr. Boom, giving opponents time to make powerful plays as well.
Priest
During the Rise of the Mech event, Priest was one of the weaker classes in the game. Buffing Extra Arms gave Priest a powerful spell for the early game to enable some of their board-focused strategies.
With the release of Saviors of Uldum, Priest has access to many more powerful early game minions and has seen a large jump in both popularity and winrate. Between all of Priests buff spells and heal effects, it can be hard to fight for the board against them early in the game. Increasing the mana cost of Extra Arms back to 3 should give room for other decks to challenge them early on, while leaving the powerful Priest minions and combos untouched.
Neutral
Barnes has been a hot topic in Wild format discussions for quite some time now, especially regarding how oppressive this card can feel when facing certain Priest decks.
While we’re okay with Wild having a higher power level in general, Barnes stood out as too consistently powerful early in the game. Increasing his mana cost by 1 will let opponents have an easier time reacting, but still lets Barnes retain its identity as a way to summon specific minions early in the game.
Be sure to let us know what you think of these upcoming changes on the official Hearthstone Forums. We’ll see you in the tavern!
The rise of hunter
Misha getting fed tonight.
Only discussing the standard mode nerfs since I don't play wild.
I agree with people saying these are lazy nerfs. Especially with Dr. Boom, Mad Genius.
I would prefer the cost of Luna's Pocket Galaxy to be 6 or to have an effect to reduce the minion's cost by 5 (for example) so that you can't play 10 minions in a turn, but instead to play 1-3 minions and not doing anything during that turn. Now, I think the card will again be unplayable. Mage will remain playable class, of course, but it will struggle against warrior in particular if Luna's Pocket Galaxy won't see any play. On the other hand, the nerf to Conjurer's Calling is OK, not happy, not sad, but the problem is not the card. It is the giants that can be cheated out early. Of course that is the point of the giants, but to be paired with the spell is absurd. They should have done something about the giants or the mana reduction system from hand to the battlefield (talking about Kripp's idea). Although, they are buffs to King Phaoris.
The warrior nerf is the laziest because the problem, as other people mentioned, isn't the mana or armor it comes with, but the rush mechanic and hero power. Blast shield is just too good of a hero power. You basically get better Holy Light every couple of turns as armor. When you are close to killing him and they roll that hero power you automatically fall behind for 7 more damage every couple of turns. A single card shouldn't do that. For a reason there are lifesteal, armor gain and taunt minions, with fair stats and abilities. Those cards get killed after 1-3,4 turns while they are on the board, but Boom is there for at least 10+ turns (basing on my experience, not saying this is an absolute truth). I'm not saying this changed nothing, but also it didn't do much. Plus, I think the Omega Devastator is as much problem as Boom, because it should not be normal to, with 2 copies in your deck, to generate 2-4 more copies of this through powerful hero card and 1 mana draw 3. I would at least remove the mech tag.
I don't think the Extra Arms deserved the nerf because you can run a cheap silence in your deck available to all clases to counter it, but I understand the argument behind Blizzard and people wanting the nerf.
You are severely underestimating how boom going from 7-9 is such a big deal. For aggro players that's a solid two more turns they get to go face and close out a control warrior deck. In turn it will force control warrior decks to play more taunts in their deck trying to make it to 9 now and play boom.
We will see if pocket is unplayable but i have a feeling it might still find its way into decks for the control matches. Six was never going to be enough and everyone including team 5 knew it.
I hope the Luna's Pocket Galaxy will still be played because I really like that card. In the previous expansions (before Rise of the Mech event) it was unplayable so I think it might be in this one as well since it will be back to 7 mana. We also had good number of great big minions then as well as we have now. Maybe it will find its way to stick to existing decks (maybe with Naga Sand Witch ) since people have been conviced that it is a strong card, but played 1-2 turns later might not be good since opponent can easily build board until that turn, especially if aggro decks become more popular with the upcoming nerfs, and you don't want to do basically nothing against aggro. Plus, the AoE Mage has isn't cheap (except Frost Nova which is the only card that prolongs Mage's turns and survivability and Doomsayer in combination). And with the Conjurer's Calling nerf Mage can't do that with the giants in the early turns if there are swarming minions on the other side threatning to lethal you. I hope you are right about the Luna's Pocket Galaxy being still playable, but as you said, it might be good only against control matchups.
Regarding Boom, as you said, it will add new stuff that can keep aggro in check, so it will still be able to play Boom, only at 9, and still rule the game for 20+ min... ResidentSleeper...zzzz.... Anyway, as I said earlier: " I'm not saying this changed nothing, but also it didn't do much. "
With a little help from Naga Sand Witch Luna's Pocket Galaxy could still be played at turn six... just saying.
turn 5 if you coin the witch on 4
now people have called "barnes!" for ages and they got it. i mean.... true, big p feels ugly to play against if your opponent gets a barnes on 4. but big p is tier 2 at best nowadays....
Yeah, not to mention that Barnes was never the problem with big priest. Several decks forego him for Vargoth these days instead anyway.
And Barnes is pretty irrelevant these days anyway, vargoth is by far superior turn 4 play.
Well done blizzard... When people started to play other decks than hunters and rogues, here comes the nerfs...
I can't stop laughing with the reasoning about Dr. Boom!!! (It is "balanced" for 3 classes to have hero cards)
Now, all will play highlander hunter, quest rogues, murloc shammy and Pala and warriors...
Good job!!! And you get paid for that!
So stoked they didn't change the effect of Barnes, as a Big Priest-only player I'd probably just up and leave the game if that happened
We don't mind if you do leave.
Not until they nerf Barnes' effect!
I was shocked to see the Dinotamer Brann art on this article, as that one didn't really seem to be one of the problem cards.
Given that he's not on the list, though, it's just confusing.
We have been all bamboozled
I think Barnes should be 6 mana and Calling 5 mana but this is fine I guess
big priest dies at mana 6
Nerf of Luna's Pocket Galaxy and Barnes should be mana going up to (6) both.
Love the nerfs that are here, just woulda liked to see more nerfs for big priest. The res effects are way to easy and cancerous to pull off, especially with Vargoth. That deck does NOT feel fun to play against in wild and I'm a wild specialist.
Instead of going the lazy mana cost nerfs for Barnes they shoulda reworked the token system at the very least...those that DIE as 1/1's should be REBORN as 1/1's...that way Barnes doesn't feel so mana cheaty at the very least. Plus it's easier to counter 1/1 tokens on turn 4 with coin than 8/8's or 10/10's on turn 5 or a free 2/6 that kills your minions when it dies.