Balance Changes Next Tuesday - Kael'thas, Switcheroo, Warrior Quest & More
Blizzard just announced a bunch of Balance Changes, coming to both Standard and Wild. Read on for the details!
Quote from BlizzardHey everyone, have an update for y’all regarding balance changes. 4/26 (This upcoming Tuesday) changes to both standard and wild will go live.
WILD:
Kael'thas Sunstrider is getting a textbox revert to Every third spell you cast each turn costs (1).
Switcheroo is banned. (Alongside a change in standard.)
Both of these changes are aimed at protecting the long-term health of the format.
STANDARD:
Raid the Docks Pirate Warrior Questline is getting an additional number on its final step. (3/3/2 ->3/3/3)
Pufferfist is losing a health, from 3/4 to 3/3.
Switcheroo now swaps Health only instead of stats.
Miracle Growth now costs 8 Mana, up from 7.
Kazakusan’s activation requirement is getting changed. He’ll now read “Battlecry: If you’ve played 4 other Dragons this game, craft a custom deck of Treasures.” Kazakusan has been playing a critical role in Druid for the past couple months, fulfilling a similar role to Deathstalker Rexxar as an entire win condition in one card. Going into our balance meetings, we knew we wanted to soften Druid across all ranks, and there were multiple angles that could accomplish that.
While we could have nerfed their survivability, we worry that will lead to a more polarized metagame overall. We landed on a Kazakusan effect change as it should lead to healthier play patterns both playing as and against Druid.
We also wanted to make sure that Dragon-focused decks could still tap into Kazakusan as a powerful top end piece. Playing 4 Dragons is a fairly hefty requirement but should be achievable in most Dragon strategies.
Notable omissions from this list – Demon Hunter changes. We’ll be keeping a close eye on the post patch metagame to see how aggressive DH lists fare once slower decks are given a better chance.
Good luck to our Masters Tour competitors on your preparation, and I hope y’all keep enjoying Voyage to the Sunken City!
I agree it is still annoying and powerful in Wild, not able to escape the innevitable death.
That deck has counters though just like Aggro DH. There's no counter to druid and Kazakusan currently except aggro DH and hoping their draw is bad.
So the real disgusting decks remain untouched...
Damn this game is so unplayable. Every season all you see are the same OTK and aggro decks that birth out 20 minions on turn 4.
the quest warrior nerfs are not enough. take away the pirate tag from smite and nerf the juggernaut. the deck is way too stupid and consistent
I agree that Mr. Smite is a problem, but removing his pirate tag? The guy is a pirate.
Possible fixes:
1. Your other pirates have charge. That way Mr. Smite himself does not have charge.
2. Your pirates have rush. No direct face damage from Mr. Smite himself.
They could change his text to "Your other Pirates have charge". That way he would be less op himself and would require at least some setup.
or just remove him from the Nellie discover pool. i just don't understand why an aggro deck gets an infinite value reward for just playing aggro. thats like giving hunter a free animal companion, secret and multishot every turn for playing 8 beasts.
Really love the changes! Kazakus is without a doubt a powerful card but absolutely unfair in a ramp druid environment.
MIssing something towards mage. Mech-Shark is just nuts and should´ve never been printed. Three mana on top of the clearly overtuned effect, really?
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The only notable change is Kazakusan itself. Switcheroo will still be an archetype in standard cause of Bless. As for pirate warrior, nerfing the quest is not gonna stop it's winstreak considering Nellie, the Great Thresher still hasn't been touched to return Mr. Smite less often. Feels like a 1st april patch, but might be good for wild folks only.
The right move would've been making Raid the Docks based on mana spent instead of pirates played
If only blizzard would take this suggestion
I really like Kazakusan's rework. This would allow for more diverse deck building since you no longer have to rely 100% on dragons now. Now you can have other minions along with your dragons.
I think we going to see more mech mages on ladder now and quest hunters for sure
Brilliant changes
Brilliant? Quite exaggerated word. We are not in rocket science. I don't see anything brilliant in mana increase or stats reduction. Kael'thas Sunstrider nerfed and un-nerfed within 3/4 weeks is it also brilliant or made by dumbs?
My position is the opposite. Dumb nerfs. Dumb team that it is not able to keep the game in balance. It seems that they are dealing with rocket science when they have to keep in balance 100 stupid cards for kids.
So Warrior quest has been nerfed twice now. Good? How about certain other quests? (read: Hunter)
Kael Thas was obvious, but I don't think they have learned their lesson that these discount effects should ALWAYS read "But not less than 1."
I don't think the Pufferfist nerf is enough, it should only deal 1 damage to minions.
Switcheroo was a bad idea from the start. How did it get released? Testing? Hello??
Miracle Growth was clearly overtuned.
Thank you for destroying Kazakuzan. Please actually think about the text on your cards before releasing them. If you want it to only work in a dragons deck then don't allow it to activate when there are zero minions in the deck, contrary to the card's own text.
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Why are mech Paladin and mech Mage untouched? Hello?
When a deck is empty, the statement "all minions in this deck are dragons" is true. It's simple predicate logic. The statement "no minions in this deck are dragons" would also be true. That's simply how logic works with empty sets.
What decks do you play ? if i may ask