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!
No Nerf to brainless Shark Mech Mage?! Hahahaha! Bli$$ard must be nuts as hell.
Bazaar Bob still bugged =\
Elise 2: The Return of the Golden Monkey
When is this live I’m still dying to switcheroo in wild
It's being too long till it goes live. My last 10 games, 3 loss against kaelthas, 2 losses against switcheroo... I finally gave up till the patch goes live
Anyone knows how long the refund lasts?
I obviously meant to change it to "give your existing pirates charge this turn", not as a permanent aura. Meaning, only give the pirates on board when you play Smite charge for that turn.
Not surprised. Thought especially Pufferfst would drop one health.
Other than Demon Hunter, curious there were no tweaks to Mech Mage. These two decks will likely benefit the most from the changes.
Highest Winrate Deck is Naga DH tho.... guess that gap is just gonna widen up even further since the top 1 deck wasn't touched.
I think they're hoping that control decks will catch up with these changes, but you might be right. At least DH got a slight nerf through pufferfish :)
Anyone know at which time the update will take place ?
usually around 17:00 GMT
Battlecry would mean that even when he’s dead pirates would still have charge for the rest of the game. I don’t think it’s a good idea
They could also change it to a battlecry. I think most of the time when he is played from hand, he's not actually that oppressive, the real problem is always when he's summoned for free from a juggernaut for example.
Before the latest expansion I would have agreed, but now Pirate Warrior is running Nellie, the Great Thresher, so they regularly discover additional copies of Smite, and even if they don't, they can combo the three pirates they get with the Smite in their deck for an easy 20+ damage burst.
LOL what rank are you that you’re not considering Druid and warrior to be the real disgusting decks? They dominate all levels of ladder.
they didnt even nerf naga mage... or quest hunter i mean wtf...
What is your problem with naga mage? Stop crying, naga mage isn't even top tier 2.
The way I see it, nerfs unlock counter strategies to emerge, not to destroy decks some people love to play. Quest Warrior is oppressive in lower ranks so needed to be addressed and Ramp Druid can be beaten IF they don't have Kazakusan to rely on when in fatigue.
Quest Hunter will not dominate. The same Ramp Druid will beat it or any class with a little heal/armor gain. But it will keep aggro in check e.g. DH and has a good shot against others, like Quest Warrior and Mech Mage. We finally have a chance at a balanced meta so curious to see how that pans out.
The main issue I have with this patch is that there are no buffs for underplayed archetypes. Thief Rogue has many cards dedicated to it and none of it sees any real play anymore. Warlock in any variant is dead, 1 or 2 buffs to it wouldn't hurt anyone.
Quest hunter needs a good nerf too but it remains untouched somehow.