Balance Changes
Blizzard just announced the Balance changes going live later today. Read all about them below! This patch is now LIVE!
Quote from BlizzardThe 20.2.2 patch, which will release later today, includes balance updates focusing on Standard and Battlegrounds, as well as several bug fixes.
Standard Balance Updates
Refreshing Spring Water
- Old: [Costs 4] → New: [Costs 5]
Dev Comment: Spell Mage currently exhibits many explosive turns, with Refreshing Spring Water playing a significant role. By nerfing Refreshing Spring Water to 5 mana, we're aiming to lower the frequency of extreme turns where Refreshing Spring Water draws cards and gains you mana in the process. By lowering the frequency of those gameplay sequences, we believe the deck's range of possibilities will be more in line with other current options.
First Day of School
- Old: [Costs 0] Add 2 random 1-Cost minions to your hand.
- New: [Costs 1] Add 3 random 1-Cost minions to your hand.
Dev Comment: As we look at Paladin's continued strong performance across multiple archetypes, we're nerfing First Day of School in order to hit Paladin's early-game strength. By bumping up First Day of School's mana cost and the amount of 1-Cost minions generated, we are moving the card to fit a value role rather than its initial position as an efficient curve enabler.
Hysteria
- Old: [Costs 3]
- New: [Costs 4]
Dev Comment: At 3 mana, Hysteria becomes an option before opponents really have the opportunity to consider how to best interact with it. Pushing Hysteria to 4 mana gives more space for those board-committal decisions to occur and also allows cheaper removal in Priest/Warlock to have a more distinct purpose.
Crabrider
- Old: Rush Windfury
- New: Rush Battlecry: Gain Windfury this turn only.
Dev Comment: Crabrider is too efficient in some of our board-based decks, clearing minions and dishing out a lot of Windfury damage. By changing Crabrider's Windfury to only last until end of turn, we're pulling back on the lethality it poses if left alone for a few turns. We aim for Crabrider to still remain a solid option for decks looking to swing back the board, especially when combined with buffs.
Olgra, Mankrik’s Wife
- Old: Casts When Drawn Summon a 3/10 Mankrik, who immediately attacks the enemy hero.
- New: Casts When Drawn Summon a 3/7 Mankrik, who immediately attacks the enemy hero.
Dev Comment: We are lowering the Health on Mankrik, Consumed by Hatred to soften the effect of an early Olgra draw. At 7 Health, the token will be more in reach of the mid-game removal that's available throughout turns 4-6.
Refreshing Spring Water, First Day of School, Hysteria, Crabrider, and Golden Mankrik will be eligible for a full dust refund for two weeks after Patch 20.2.2 goes live.
Dev Comment: We're issuing a number of buffs in 20.2.2, mainly focused on bringing up struggling classes and archetypes. One of our goals for a meta is to provide deck diversity: not only different class options, but also attractive deck options that play markedly different from one another. These buffs follow that goal, as each one is targeted at helping out an underrepresented archetype or play pattern.
Razorboar
- Old: 2 Attack, 2 Health
- New: 3 Attack, 2 Health
Dark Inquisitor Xanesh
- Old: Reduce the Cost of all Corrupt cards in your hand and deck by (2).
- New: Reduce the Cost of all Corrupt and Corrupted cards in your hand and deck by (2).
Unbound Elemental
- Old: 2 Attack, 4 Health
- New: 3 Attack, 4 Health
Tidal Surge
- Old: [Costs 4]
- New: [Costs 3]
Lilypad Lurker
- Old: 4 Attack, 5 Health
- New: 5 Attack, 6 Health
Fiendish Circle
- Old: [Costs 4]
- New: [Costs 3]
Deck of Chaos
- Old: [Costs 6]
- New: [Costs 5]
Whirling Combatant
- Old: 2 Attack, 6 Health
- New: 3 Attack, 6 Health
Shieldmaiden
- Old: [Costs 6]
- New: [Costs 5]
N’Zoth, God of the Deep
- Old: [Costs 10]
- New: [Costs 9]
Battlegrounds Balance Updates
MINION UPDATES
- Barrens Blacksmith will be removed from the minion pool.
Roadboar
- Old: 2 Attack, 4 Health
- New: 1 Attack, 4 Health
Prophet of the Boar
- Old: 3 Attack, 3 Health
- New: 2 Attack, 3 Health
Bannerboar
- Old: 2 Attack, 5 Health
- New: 1 Attack, 4 Health
Bristleback Brute
- Old: The first Blood Gem played on this each turn gives an extra +3/+3.
- New: The first Blood Gem played on this each turn gives an extra +2/+2.
Groundshaker
- Old: After a Blood Gem is played on this, give your minions +2 Attack for next combat only.
- New: After a Blood Gem is played on this, give your other minions +2 Attack for next combat only.
Dynamic Duo
- Old: 5 Attack, 6 Health
- New: 3 Attack, 4 Health
Bonker
- Old: 4 Attack, 7 Health
- New: 3 Attack, 7 Health
Bonker (golden)
- Old: Mega-Windfury. After this attacks, gain 2 Blood Gems.
- New: Mega-Windfury. After this attacks, gain a Blood Gem.
Charlga
- Old: 7 Attack, 7 Health. At the end of your turn, play a Blood Gem on all friendly minions.
- New: 4 Attack, 4 Health. At the end of your turn, play a Blood Gem on all other friendly minions.
Bug Fixes & Game Improvements
- Fixed a bug that removed Glaivebound Adept from the game. It will now be back in your collection, safe and where it belongs.
- Fixed a bug where Sparkjoy Cheat would draw a card whenever you had a Secret in your hand, even if the Secret was not castable (such as if the Secret was a duplicate of one already in play). Sparkjoy Cheat will now only draw a card if a Secret is cast from your hand.
- Fixed a bug where using Vol’jin’s Hero Power on Goldgrubber would sometimes result in Goldgrubber’s stats being reset each round.
- Updated language on certain Amalgam cards to properly include all Minion Types.
- Fixed a bug related to in-game notifications.
- Fixed a bug that prevented Battle-Ready Decks from being accessed if Dame Hazelbark was opened first.
- Fixed various bugs related to properly displaying pricing on items in the in-game shop.
Why would you get full dust for a card they made better? I swear some people don't connect their brain to their mouth/fingers.
Or to their eyes. The notes flat-out say "Refreshing Spring Water, First Day of School, Hysteria, Crabrider, and Golden Mankrik will be eligible for a full dust refund for two weeks after Patch 20.2.2 goes live." They don't say "all the cards mentioned anywhere in these patch notes get a full dust refund".
Fuck Crab Riders and their crabs.
ok guys we had our fun it's time to nerf shaman
Pallidin is still going to be on top of this boring meta.
the dust not changed in the epic and nzoth !!!
They don't refund dust for buffed cards. Only nerfed ones
I was so glad that they were nerfing 2 neutral cards (aka windfury murloc and ogremancer) but I guess the best watchpost is staying at 7 health to make it impossible to remove early :)
God these changes are boring. I had high expectation and I'm very disappointed. I was hoping weak archetypes to get some love but these buffs are so fuckin little.
OLGA!
How dare you to make Ancient God cheap?
I'm fucking done with this game.
ITT - Lots of bad armchair developers.
Refreshing Spring Water change is great.
The Crabrider nerf is weird. I guess nerfing it's health would make it less effective as an on-turn board clear, and this means that it won't have windfury when spawned by Paladin's Prime.
Hysteria nerf is warranted. Wish it had come alongside a Cascading Disaster and Devolving Missiles nerf. This doesn't kill the card, but makes it a lot less efficient.
First Day at School is a good change. Makes it harder for Paladin to get onto the board. This is more of a value card now, but it wasn't really used as a value card because 1 drops are pretty low impact.
Mankrik's Wife change is good.
The buffs look good to me. I dunno why everyone is obsessed with the caravan cards, they're not even interesting. The Shieldmaiden and Tidal Surge buffs give Warrior & Shaman more anti-aggro tools. Whirling Combatant too, is now just an overstated 4 drop that clears 1 health minions. It was already a good card, but now I think is just good in a lot of warrior decks.
Unbound Elemental buff is okay. I guess some sort of tempo shaman deck wants this maybe? I don't think this is that interesting, but I think the card is good now. If you're running a lot of overload cards this card can be considered a good tech I think. Most overload cards (Lightning Storm.
The DH buff is... I don't even know. I feel like this card is useful generally speaking, and a 3/2 with an upside is a good card. Especially since it can pull other 3 cost deathrattles. But I dunno what the pool for those even is.
Lilypad Lurker... I find transform effects frustrating just for the game's overall health, but this is obviously a very powerful card now. It was already pretty good, but now it has premium stats and can remove a big threat from the board.
Deck of Chaos was already decent in Control Warlock builds. This makes it a lot better as a turn 5 play. Hysteria into this, into like... Malygos or Ysera is a pretty good play. I dunno if the tempo loss at 5 is gonna be worth it, but it's another change where I think they've taken a kind of unplayable card and made it a decent option for decks that wanna try it.
Fiendish Circle buff is pretty decent for token strategies in Warlock. Again, kinda like Unbound Elemental this takes the card from like... bad to good enough to consider running if this is what your deck needs.
The N'zoth change is disgusting. How dare they make an old god cost 9.
I don't know if anyone'll agree with me (if not then that's fine lol) but I'm excited for these balances!
dont worry, I agree with you. you probably are pretty excited for these balances.
Nerf every card!
looks like here is one of all the paladin player.
Huge pig nerf in battlegrounds. Good. I love the way they play , but it was a requirment to either go pure pig or pig based menagerie to play BGss lately- and forcing stuff that every other player is trying to force is way too RNG heavy.
Also nice to see Shaman in construtcted get some love, and the crabrider nerf. Good job Blizzard.
Yeah, it was kinda crazy to see the top 4 places in BG all ending up playing Quillboar almost every match, with the one that bought them the fastest coming out at the top.
Buffs all seem OK, but it's hard to say whether they'll make a differences. Fiendish Circle and Unbound Elemental brought up to essentially "fair" stats for their cost seem like the biggest two. Circle is now the rough equivalent of Landscaping, and Unbound no longer having deficient stats might work out. I don't know the rest of Shaman to be confident, however.
Love the structure of the Crabrider nerf. It's still going to be potent as a removal tool, but weak as a face-tool. That's great.
I don't really like the First Day of School nerf, but it's for the best. Mostly, I liked how FDoS offered Wild Even Paladin something to do on odd amounts of mana other than hit the button, and that was pretty interesting to me. But changing it to, say, only provide neutral 1-drops probably wouldn't be enough of a nerf. I just kinda think that now, it's kinda boring and pointless. Something kinda had to happen, I'm glad something did, I kinda don't love the solution, but I also can't really think of a better way.
Other constructed nerfs seem fine and fair, but there's not really much to say about them.
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Quillboar nerfs by and large seem pretty appropriate. Weaker stats on the buffing units, and they no longer buff themselves as well, is going to make passive Blood Gem generation a lot costlier on board, and that's a good thing.