Rough Outline of Coming Balance Changes - Including Sac Pact, Albatross & Kael'thas
Blizzard did a reddit AMA and one of the questions asked was about the upcoming Balance Patch that was posted about in our news last week. We have their answer below, which includes mention of changes to Sacrificial Pact ,Bad Luck Albatross ,Frenzied Felwing ,Kael'thas Sunstrider and the Demon Hunter class with 1 or 2 more cards and more! Read all about it below:
Quote from BlizzardHey! We are planning something soon, but here I will shed light on what we are looking at.
With the Year of the Phoenix and Demon Hunter especially, we want to make sure we are active with our approach to balance. There will be additional changes coming shortly that is focused on Demon Hunter, Standard, Wild, and Arena.
For Demon Hunter, we are still monitoring the data as it comes in but expect 1 or 2 cards to see a change. We are thrilled by how players have responded to Demon Hunter, but we want the class to be in a healthy state for years to come. Will be adjusting as we see fit in order to get it into a great spot.
For other standard cards, we are looking at a number of cards including Sacrificial Pact, Bad Luck Albatross, Frenzied Felwing, and Kael'thas Sunstrider. Some of these cards present some raw power that is just a little too high (Bad Luck Albatross, Frenzied Felwing), while a card like Kael'Thas can create some crazy swing turns but that's usually only fun for one player. Kael'Thas is a super interesting card though so we don't want to kill off his combo potential entirely.
When it comes to Sac Pac, we don't believe it is fun if it plays such a large role in the metagame. That says a lot about where the meta is and your ability to play certain cards. Also, it would be awesome to see more Lord Jaraxxus!
For Wild, we know there has been a lot of very strong reactions to Quest Mage and Darkest Hour Warlock. These decks play in a one-player fashion similar to other decks we've nerfed in the past. There's going to be crazy combos in Wild, but we don't think these two decks in particular are healthy. Expect to see changes to Open the Waygate and Bloodbloom.
Finally for Arena, we are looking to do a full microadjust patch alongside these changes or shortly after. DH is still a little too strong here and we want to bring up the other classes to close this gap.
Sac pact is definitely not the reason that Jaraxxus doesn't see play. He doesn't see play because he's 9 mana, so your hero power takes 2 turns to get any value, and because of the health limitation. Sac pact has only been a common tech card recently, and Jaraxxus hasn't seen play for years.
it would make sense that they move it to 1 bird because now even highlander decks run the card to counter other highlander decks which shouldn't really be a thing. I could be way off but i think they want decks to have to be running two copies to counter something so popular as highlander decks.
Making it only shuffle in one bird kind of ruins the entire point of it though, it would make it a useless tech against highlander decks. It's totally fine for highlander decks to be running it to counter other highlander decks, that's the point of the card.
true except that every class has access to killing jaraxxus instead of just warlock who's running two copies right now. Jaraxxus is not as bad as people say, sure the 15hp cap kinda sucks but in handlock the issue is almost never spending 9 mana to do nothing it's just to stay alive and you're opponent had been ignoring your board because they thought they had you dead next turn now has to have lethal or find a way to clear.
Depending on what exactly they do with Albatross, it could be a HUGE mistake. The card is too essential to shut down the Highlander decks. Zephyrs and Alex will just run rampant. I pray they dont mess with the mana cost and only the stats. And if they change the effect to only 1 bird it will be the worst decision possible.
A 3/3 albatross or a 4 mana albatross would probably be alright. It really needs to keep the two birds to be playable, though. And I play almost exclusively highlander decks. I certainly hate seeing this card on the other side of the field, but I've never felt it was too strong. It's a fair and reasonable card, and if I were to make a change at all, it would probably be to make it a 3/3 so it would lose that tiny amount of stats over an on curve 4/3 or 3/4 minion.
I can only think of one time an Albatross shut down my game. Zep would have saved me, but I couldn't activate. In the 40-50 times I've had birds shuffled into my deck, that one time is the only time I couldn't just hold any of the 3 highlander cards in the deck, or drew a bird before I drew a "no duplicates" card... It really doesnt matter.
That's exactly the problem with the card..Never before one neutral card wasn't able to shutdown so easily, multiple archetypes, not even the most toxic of them..Sure all of us wanted a card to shutdown face hunter, mill rogue,quest rogue and many of druids' or warriors' decks in all these years..But thats not a reason to provide us a card for that..The point is to play around your opponent's plays, not playing a nobrain get out of jail free card to win the game..
Nerfing Sac Pact will probably cause fewer warlocks and win rates for DH to rise. Doesn't seem like the direction they should be going for either.
demon minions right?
it's in almost every face or dragon hunter deck. tempo DH uses him and with their card draw they can easily get one out on turn 2, which is normal for an aggro deck but it flows too with DH because of their outcast and discount abilities so it almost acts as a class card for them when in fact it's neutral.
I bet Albatross Deathrattle will be something like: "Shuffle one birb into enemy deck"
I would love that, but I doubt it. They might increase the cost to 5 or 6 mana but no one knows yet.
Then it'd stop countering highlander decks all-together. I think what'll happen is its deathrattle will be changed to a battlecry so it can't be revived, and its stats are going to be lowered.
Best change is to put 2 birds in both players decks, so its symetrical effect like coldlight oracle.
Is Bad luck Albatross a problem in standard? I only play wild so I'm not familiar with the standard meta but I thought that card was made specifically to counter Reno decks thus I play it a lot in wild. Do people play single card decks in standard without kezakus and Reno? I'm just trying to understand why Albatross is on the cutting deck.
It is honestly, 1 card shuts down an entire archetype completely. Singleton got countered but Galakrond decks got nothing to counter them? So many times I had Lightforged Crusader and was countered for nothing.
Highlander decks in standard are viable due to Zephrys the Great and Dragonqueen Alexstrasza - two extremely good cards.
The problem with Bad Luck Albatross is that it's too powerful and can be revived by Priest. 3 mana for a 4-3 body, which is a standard stat-line for that cost and an effect that counters literally every single archetype and on top of that hard-counters archetypes like Highlander, Pure Mage, and Pure Paladin. Then imagine res Priest continuously resurrecting it. The problem with it is, that it's not like secret tech cards for example, that when played against a non-secret deck are pretty meh bodies on the board. Even when facing non-highlander/pure decks, Bad Luck Albatross still has the potential to delay the draws of the opponent and therefore have a massive impact.
Given that I would think the resurrect potential of the card is the problem then? Otherwise it's a card designed to punish players playing single card or pure decks and in that regards it's a decent option that works as intended. Maybe lower the stats so it isn't a good option for a value body? However the deathrattle is the only viable answer to Highlander decks in wild at the moment.
If you remove the res tactics then it's more of a stall card rather than a I win button like skulking geist is if played against a jade druid.
Wow they really are listening to the players.Most of these cards are in the issue forums. I can't believe it!