16.0.8 Balance Update - Coming This Week! Including Battlegrounds & Arena Changes
Balance changes are coming, including to Arena and Battlegrounds. Read all about it below:
Quote from BlizzardWelcome to a new year in the tavern, everyone! We have a balance update in the works that will go live later this week which includes the following changes, primarily for Standard and Battlegrounds:
Warlock
Fiendish Rites : Mana cost increased from (3) to (4).
Warrior
Scion of Ruin : Mana cost increased from (3) to (4) .
Ancharrr : Durability reduced from (3) to (2) .
Shaman
Dragon's Pack : Now reads, “…If you’ve Invoked twice, give them +2/+2 .” (reduced from +3/+3).
Invocation of Frost : Mana cost increased from (1) to (2).
Rogue
Necrium Apothecary : Mana cost increased from (4) to (5).
Neutral
Dragonqueen Alexstrasza: Battlecry effect can no longer generate Dragonqueen Alexstrasza.
*Once the update is live, adjusted cards will be eligible for a full Arcane Dust refund for two weeks.
Battlegrounds
This update includes several adjustments and gets more Heroes brawling in Bob’s Tavern than ever before! Further Battlegrounds balance changes are coming very soon, in addition to the exciting new content we have in the pipeline… we’ll have more to share in the near future!
Heroes
Shudderwock
Burbling: Cost reduced from (2) to (1) .
Queen Wagtoggle
Wax Warband : Give a random friendly Mech, Demon, Murloc and Beast +2 Attack . (instead of +1 Health)
Infinite Toki
Temporal Tavern : Cost reduced from (2) to (1) . Now reads, “Refresh Bob’s Tavern. Include a Minion from a higher Tavern Tier.”
Patches the Pirate
Has returned to the Battlegrounds Hero Pool.
Fire the Cannons! : At the start of next combat, deal 4 damage to two random enemy minions. (increased from 3 damage)
Pyramad
Has returned to the Battlegrounds Hero Pool.
Brick by Brick : Give a random friendly minion +3 Health . (increased from +2 Health)
Minions
Golden Soul Juggler
After a friendly Demon dies, deal 3 damage to a random enemy minion twice . (instead of 6 damage once)
Bug Fixes and Game Improvements
Battlegrounds : Selfless Hero’s Deathrattle will now only affect minions that do not already have Divine Shield.
Arena : The appearance rate of cards in the draft has been updated to ensure class balance remains close to the ideal 50% win-rate. Specifically, the win-rate of Druid, Hunter, and Paladin should now be decreased. The win-rate of Priest, Rogue, Shaman and Warlock should now be increased. Card appearance rates for Mage and Warrior remain untouched.
We made some visuals for these nerfs to better see the changes:
But even that wasn't problematic in Wild right now.
I don't really criticise this change as I am well aware of the potential of the card but it's current shenanigans were T3 worthy at max.
Great nerfs!
I dont understand you guys, the changes are so minimalistic that I wont even bother disenchanting any but dupes
Why release Galakronds if you going to nerf them??
Because they literally dominate the meta as of now. The Galakronds, while great in concept, proved to be too powerful with the support they got in the cases of Shaman and Warrior, so it was only a matter of time that they got nerfed.
I think Priest should have been nerfed too. Now we may see Resurrect Priest much more commonly....
Yeah, that’s what I am afraid of aswell. But at least there are some techcards ( that 3/9 taunt wich gives your opponent 3 random one drops) , to counter them.
Shaman dead now
Me: Sees Toki change
Also me: *Intense nervous sweating*
Blizzard you done goofed mah boys
I am a Wild player. Everyone who plays Wild, including all Wild Streamers agree that the format is in the best shape ever.
These nerfs basically completely eliminate Galakrond from Wild forever.
They also hurt Highlander and Pirate decks a lot.
Due to the fact that Brann Bronzebeard and Zola existin Wild, getting another Alexstrasza from Alexstrasza was not unlikely.
Ancharr hardly justifies it's legendary status anymore.
This update is a big f. u. in the face of all Wild Players! And just because some Standard players were a little impatient!
Isn't the Galakrond's awakening adventure coming with 35 new cards? At least that's what various articles tell me.
That would change up the meta anyways! Where's the announcement for that?
At least Necrium Apothecary is nerfed.
I am also a wild player and I agree with you. At the End of the pre-order I decided to make the purchase. Now I regret it. This expansion had good cards for wild, now so and so.
This is very dirty from Blizzard. One card, two cards ok it is fine; But you can't nerf all the good cards. There are people (like me) that made the pre-order only because many cards were broken, now no.
So I want my money back not the dusts. I don't care about the dusts.
Based on what cards did you make a decision to pre-order?
Most likely Ancharr and Alexstrasza.
Pirate Warrior was T5 for two years but still in the meta, it was clear DoD would push it to the top again.
And Reno decks were already pushed with Zephrys and Alexstrasza is just strong even in vacuum space.
Genuine questions/comments (not trolling) for you an OP: What else beside the 1 durability nerf to Ancharrr impacts Pirate Warrior? I would have thought a nerf to Skybarge would be coming. How does the Ancharrr nerf ruin the archetype?
If you played pirate warrior. Especially in wild with the absurd high power level you knew why pirate warrior will be dead again.
2 less damage. One less extra draw. One chance less and start of turn draw to draw the pirate that gives the weapon +1/+1.
That's a bit harsh judgement if I may say so.
I don't think that a single nerfed card is ruined or unplayable anymore. Well done Blizzard!
Think about the Ancharrr nerf like this:
It originally had 2/3 in stats, meaning it alone could pump out 6 damage across 3 turns (nothing insane but worth noting). The big part of the card is its draw, where it could, for 3 mana, draw 3 cards over the course of 3 turns. The damage, coupled with the tutored draw, and the fact that it could be buffed with Upgrade for even more draw made it almost on Keleseth levels of winrate when kept in a Warrior's opening hand. Suffice it to say, Ancharrr did a bit too much for its cost and stats, so one of the two had to be readjusted.
Now with the nerf, the weapon only does 2 damage and draws 2, which slows down the archetype's fuel power significantly.
I get the impact of the change. It just seems like a pretty fragile archetype if changing one durability on one card is going to bring it crashing down.
While I can't speak too much on wild, in standard the nerf is quite a bit larger then it looks. This is for a couple reasons, but chief among them is that pirate warrior, at it's core, is a pretty mediocre deck. Average pirate warrior draws are tend to be far weaker then average draws from most other meta decks. The reason that pirate warrior is so good is that it's above average draws tend to be very strong though, and a lot of that comes from Ancharrrr. Furthermore, a 3 Mana 2/3 weapon is not that far off from playability, while at 2/2 it is laughably below rate. To compound this, drawing 1 less card is a big deal, because not only are you losing a card, your also losing all the synergies that go along with it, things like a skybarge trigger or a free 2/2 or what have you. Plus close to free draws are better in aggressive decks then in other deck types (That is to say, that since ancharrrr is already decent without the effect, your not really paying much for the draw 3), because lower costed minions have much better stats to Mana ratio and they are balances by there individual value just being lower (a 1 mana 2/2 has a stat ratio of 1:4, while a 2 Mana 2/3 has a ratio of 1:3, yet the 2/3 will trade 2 for 1 with them). Finally, a significant number of matches where pirate warriors and control decks both get above average draws come down to the wire, and are generally won/lost on the last ancharrrr draw, games tend to be pretty close and pirates generally win because the control deck is one answer short of stabilizing.