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.
You can get to Platinum 5 with almost any deck just by playing the game.
I wish Refreshing Spring Water was pushed to 6 mana. All mages run two Incanter's Flow anyway which will bring it down to normal level. The goal is to not gain mana and draw two cards and at 5 mana, mages can still gain mana. Granted it's harder to do but it can still be done.
Or they could have changed it to gain 1 mana per spell drawn and kept it at 4 mana. That way it's still better than Arcane Intellect if you draw two spells.
First Day of School nerf is a buff for Hanbuff Paladin.
Buff for wandmaker in paladin ? nice!
Wandmaker in Paladin? Are you serious? :D
These nerfs and buffs are awesome!
I don't mind losing to most mage decks. But flamewalker is the one that feels bad. Flamewalker itself needs to be nerfed from 2 damage to 1 damage.
The game isn't balanced around Wild. Nobody cares what cards in Wild can do
incanters's flow and conviction not nerfed lmao
and why is an old god 9 mana anyone know??
t2=completely broken? lol
The problem with this statement is that Mages high stakes RNG highly depends on getting decent to good answers. Mages can severely pop off, without any possibilities of countering, if RNG allows it. In this current meta, the spell pool is at its lowest, giving Mages a bit more accuracy on getting the right answers.
The winrate of Mage is going to be the most volatile among any of the classes because the deck highly depends on getting good stuff with Font of Power (PURELY RNG), while also discovering cheap spell damage minions, and cheap spells that deal face damage.
Do I see this hitting Mage hard? Not at all. 1 mana pot of greed is still OP, especially if its discounted. Refreshing Spring Water is actually vastly stronger than Pot Of Greed, because you can GAIN mana with it. I think the devs know this, and want to keep its Pot of Greed appeal.
I don't understand why Blizzard is absolutely obsessed with pushing the casino mage archetype when it feels like absolute garbage to lose against it. Let's look at the current mage deck and how much impact the RNG component of the card can have:
Devolving Missiles - High RNG
Font of Power - High RNG
Primordial Studies - High RNG
Runed Orb - High RNG
Deck of Lunacy - High RNG
Ring Toss - Low RNG (in standard)
Apexis Blast - Medium RNG
Jandice - High RNG (frequently off of font of power)
Nearly half the cards Mage is using right now have some RNG component to their usefulness, often extremely high amounts of it that make or break games. Most of the other cards in the deck are there to help draw these cards!
Why does Blizzard think this is good design??
Meta hasn't changed any. Mage still completely broken. Off-meta classes still off meta due to their lack of card draw and discover. All this did was stop pally and warrior ending the game early with buffed crabrider
Crabrider is not counting towards shaman battlecry quest.
We still can't search for quillboar minions for some reason in the deck menu...
Also N’Zoth, God of the Deep being able to to be played on turn 9 then the regular N'zoth on 10 is nuts.
Odd N'zoth decks hype
Anyone else not seeing a full refund on dust? I have checked a few cards Lilypad Lurker and Deck of Chaos all showing normal dust return... Or did Blizz do away with this too?
They don't refund when they buff cards...
Those cards got buffed. Refunds are only for nerfed cards.
full pepega average HS player