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!
So if Blizz want Smite to be game ender, then Smite should have 10 mana. Or at least 8.
It wasn't that Switcheroo was OP. It's just that it either succeeded spectacularly or failed miserably. Versus Priest in Wild I think I won as many first turn concedes as I lost to two 20 power minions with haste. That's just not healthy for the game. Although it's a bummer that a card is so broken that it has to be banned.
Was Switcheroo really that problematic in Standard? Was Twin-fin Fin Twin plus Deathwing the Destroyer really a combo that disruptive and unhealthy? They could changed it to swap attack only rather than health. I think Attack is more useful swapped than health.
Kazakusan's change hurt the other control decks that are honestly just trying to play the game. However, it is a necessary change because Druids really don't want anyone else to have fun. Their board of 0 mana 8/8s and their 50+ health is surprisingly manageable but then they play Kazakusan and really turn the BS to eleven with the treasures. Hopefully forcing them to include 3 more dragons other than Raid Boss Onyxia in their deck would slow them down.
Edit: I seriously don’t understand the downvotes. Did I struck a nerve or something with my Switcheroo comment?
In priest swapped health is infinitely more useful than swapped attack.
infinitely more useful? lol
I don't recall Priest winning games because their minions have 7 health as oppose to 7 attack from the Selfish Shellfish
Edit: Priest rarely have any free turns to even heal their minions anymore. High health minions are nice for Priest but not "infinitely nice" or whatever bold statement
Don’t defend degenerate strategies like swticheroo was enabling. There is no merit or value in a game being decided by one card on turn 3
Extra health lets you build up a stronger board, extra attack just... gets removed by the same removal cards. Cheating out higher health minions is better.
I'm a bit suprised nothing has been nerf from Naga Demon Hunter. Well, nothing except the pirate, but still, this is kinda scary.
They are problably keeping an eye on Multi-Strike and Kurtrus, Demon-Render.
Yeah, so simple. Still very playable, but not that strong, and also buffing him with Cariel is not that powerfull.
They want Mr. Smite to be a game ender. He doesn't end the game with Rush.
I'm pretty surprised they just left the cheap druid card draw as-is. Aquatic Form, Moonlit Guidance and Jerry Rig Carpenter are the biggest issues in the class IMO.
Also... how could they have done nothing about Oracle of Elune? Especially her synergy with Ivus? They're way too obsessed with putting things at a 50% winrate.
Do they want to fix excessive winning from hand decks or not? (Probably not)
4 dragons seems like kind of a low count to me? Probably could have been at least 5-6.
Most sensible thing ive read in a long time, just balancing for 50% is plain retarded. There has to be general feel-good about the card, even if for example (pulling numbers out of nowhere) Mr.Smite has a 50% win-rate, this doesnt make it an OK card.
That feeling of starfishing two 25+ Ivus's though... Or watching them summon an Ivus with more hp than their hero and I'm holding Rokara hero card. Mmm Molto Bene.
Do you have any propositions for his nerf?
RUSH
your other pirates have charge
Easy, remove the pirate tag. This way cannot be played as a 30 attack charge by Cariel, doesnt allow warrior's reward to create even more burst and makes it a bit meh in rogue too without killing the card 100%
This is good, but instead of giving your other pirates charge, it should be a "Battlecry: give your other pirates charge" - so with Rush, Smite can't be used for those classic shadowstep shenanigans that Leeroy did and his value across multiple turns is reduced by making his ability a battlecry.
No hunter quest nerf. Ok interesting…
Cool. Now do Mech Mage, Smite, and Quest Hunter? Whats annoying is Curses count for their quests.