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.
In standard Deck of Chaos could easily be 4 mana and it would still be subpar. I guess they made a sht buff to it bcs of Wild...
Greatest drawback of Hysteria being pushed at 4 mana is that it excludes Kazakus...
The comment on Hysteria is complete nonsense:
What cheaper removal? There's only Smite and we're already playing that. You took away the SW:P.
Is Blizzard trying to force Priests into playing terrible Plague...?
I agree with this for Standard, but I was sort of glad that Hysteria is gone from Duel.
At the moment, I only get a full refund for Crabrider... spring water, hysteria and others are still at the normal refund (10 instead of 40). Is anyone else seeing this? Is there something different about this round of changes that isn’t allowing a full refund?
Update: all my nerfed cards now show a full refund... just delayed I guess.
i get full refund for First Day of School. Mankrik was never craftable so u wont get a refund on him
They dont refund you for cards they buffed
This card is better now, I want my moneyz back!
Well... even if they buff cards they probably should offer full dust refund. Why? Well for example when a card was odd cost and you played it in odd deck and they switch it to even you can't play it anymore. Or even attack change, ye they buffed it but still there were maybe some synergies you could abuse the lower attack. Yes it isn't hurting as nerfs but still it could mess your decks up.
Aggro/Secret Pally,Spell Mage, Rush Warrior all nerfed. (Crabrider/Springwater nerf are huge for these decks.)
Miracle Rouge/Secret Rouge/Priest tier S (Every meta will be balanced when Rouge is on the top/Nerf priest you need to nerf card generation)
Control Warrior/Hunter/Deathrattle DH/Libram Pally/Spell Mage tier 1
Shaman tier 1000.
What
Conviction and other cards didn't even get touched. What a failure of a patch after waiting for so many weeks.
All these buffs, nerfs, and bug fixes. Yet they still have not corrected the Collection Achievement system to recognize a card as collected so it can be dusted if the player does not want it. Which in turn essentially holds anyone's collections hostage until they have completed the expansion in its entirety, if completing Achievements is what one wants to do. Don't even get me started on players that have completed collections before, like Naxxramas or Black Rock Mountain, needing to craft those cards again if they dusted them for completion. Or any old expansion for that matter. All the shit cards will have to be recrafted with our hard earned dust.
This right here is why I am no longer going to spend money on the game any more. It's been so long now, I can't even remember the patch that screwed the system up, but I've made numerous bug reports and even had a ticket handled by Blizzard. Prior to that fateful patch, Not only did both Nax and BRM show as completed, any card I opened or discovered counted towards the rewards track and I could dust it immediately if I didn't want it.
So that's it. Screw the Achievement system. It's an abject failure for collectors. I'll join the ranks of the F2P players that will ride out this game until its eventual demise due to poor customer service. They sure can track how many Legendary cards a player is allowed to open, but somehow can't manage the memory to keep people's history on cards they've opened? Bull shit.
standard is more toxic then wild ... nice balance btw... this game is slowly dying
Another sample on how they can't do shit to balance something in this game
TBH, the change to N'Zoth is more of a nerf than a buff, sure, now you can play it a turn earlier if you wanted to play it on curve (Which never happens because you usually want the 10 mana elemental in your grave pool before playing N'Zoth, or you can play a 1 mana card along with it (Negligible) . On the other hand now you can't corrupt your clowns with this card Which was a BIG upside of playing this card.
I really don't understand this change.
Anyone tried First Day of School in (Wild) Odd Paladin yet?
Odd paladin is a tempo deck, why would they play a value card?
It's great in hand buff Paladin in Wild. Like super great.
Blizzard are you sure you "Nerfed" Spell Mage by adjusting Refreshing Spring Water ???? Because I feel I should let you know that they now can corrupt Ring Toss by playing it. WELL DONE DEVS WELLLLLLLLL DONE
Exactly the nerfs we needed lmfao