Patchnotes 23.2.2 - Drek'thar Nerf & more Buffs and Nerfs - Battlegrounds too
Blizzard published the Patchnotes for the upcoming Balance Patch, lots of changes, both buffs and nerfs!
See all visuals for the constructed changes at the bottom of this article.
This Patch is LIVE!
Quote from BlizzardPatch 23.2.2, launching May 19, includes bug fixes and balance changes to Battlegrounds and Standard!
Card Updates
The following cards have had their power adjusted down:
Drek’Thar
- Old: Battlecry: If this costs more than every minion in your deck, summon 2 of them. → New: Battlecry: If this costs more than every minion in your deck, summon one of those minions.
Multi-Strike
- Old: [Costs 1] → New: [Costs 2]
Dragonbane Shot
- Old: [Costs 2] → New: [Costs 3]
The above craftable cards will be eligible for full dust refunds for two weeks following Patch 23.2.2 (the only version of Drek’Thar that is craftable is the normal, non-golden version). Any players who own Diamond Drek’Thar at the time that the patch goes live will automatically receive 3,000 Gold when they log in as a refund.
The following cards have been buffed:
Xhilag’s Stalk (part of Xhilag the Abyss)
- Old: At the end of your turn, deal 1 damage to an enemy. → New: At the end of your turn, deal 2 damage to an enemy.
Harpoon Gun
- Old: After your hero attacks, Dredge. If it’s a Beast, reduce its Cost by (2). → New: After your hero attacks, Dredge. If it’s a Beast, reduce its Cost by (3).
Pet Collector
- Old: 3 Attack, 3 Health → New: 4 Attack, 4 Health
Azsharan Saber
- Old: 3 Attack, 3 Health → New: 4 Attack, 3 Health
Sunken Saber (generated by Azsharan Saber)
- Old: 3 Attack, 3 Health → New: 4 Attack, 3 Health
Blackwater Behemoth
- Old: [Costs 8] → New: [Costs 7]
Whirlpool
- Old: [Costs 9] → New: [Costs 8]
Shadowcloth Needle
- Old: [Costs 2] → New: [Costs 1]
Serpent Wig
- Old: Give a minion +1/+1. If you played a Naga while holding this, add a Serpent Wig into your hand. → New: Give a minion +1/+2. If you played a Naga while holding this, add a Serpent Wig into your hand.
Tooth of Nefarian
- Old: [Costs 3] → New: [Costs 2]
SI:7 Smuggler
- Old: Battlecry: Summon a random 0-Cost minion. (Improved for each other SI:7 card you have played this game). → New: Battlecry: Summon a random 1-Cost minion. (Improved for each other SI:7 card you have played this game).
Wildpaw Gnoll
- Old: [Costs 6] 3 Attack, 5 Health → New: [Costs 5] 4 Attack, 5 Health
Tess Greymane
- Old: [Costs 8] → New: [Costs 7]
Hench-Clan Burglar
- Old: 4 Attack, 3 Health → New: 4 Attack, 4 Health
Sira’kess Cultist
- Old: 2 Attack, 3 Health → New: 3 Attack, 4 Health
Dragged Below
- Old: [Costs 4] → New: [Costs 3]
Azsharan Scavenger
- Old: [Costs 3] 3 Attack, 4 Health → New: [Costs 2] 2 Attack, 3 Health
Sunken Scavenger (generated by Azsharan Scavenger)
- Old: [Costs 3] 3 Attack, 4 Health → New: [Costs 2] 2 Attack, 3 Health
Bloodscent Vilefin
- Old: [Costs 4] 4 Attack, 4 Health → New: [Costs 3] 3 Attack, 4 Health
Battlegrounds Updates
Hero change:
Fungalmancer Flurgl (Gone Fishing hero power)
- Old: Passive: After you sell a minion, add a random Murloc to Bob’s Tavern. → New: Passive: After you sell 2 minions, add a random Murloc to Bob’s Tavern.
Hero Armor changes:
- Al’Akir, Galakrond, George the Fallen, and Malygos have been moved to Armor Tier 1.
- Death Speaker Blackthorn, Fungalmancer Flurgl, Ini Stormcoil, Lord Barov, Maiev Shadowsong, Queen Azshara, Rokara, and Tickatus have been moved to Armor Tier 2.
- Endwin VanCleef has been moved to Armor Tier 4.
- Deathwing, Elise Starseeker, and Kurtrus Ashfallen have been moved to Armor Tier 5.
- Aranna Starseeker and Skycap’n Kragg have been moved to Armor Tier 6.
- Onyxia and Queen Wagtoggle have been moved to Armor Tier 7.
Minion changes:
Snail Cavalry
- Old: 5 Attack, 2 Health → New: 4 Attack, 2 Health
Lava Lurker
- Old: 2 Attack, 5 Health → New: 2 Attack, 4 Health
Shoal Commander
- Old: 2 Attack, 2 Health → New: 1 Attack, 2 Health
Stormscale Siren
- Old: [Tavern Tier 3] 5 Attack, 4 Health. At the end of your turn, your Spellcraft minions cast their spells on themselves. → New: [Tavern Tier 5] 6 Attack, 5 Health. At the end of your turn, you cast your Spellcraft minions’ spells on them.
- Dev Comment: The effect text update is not a functional change, but just a rephrasing to make the card text better match how the effect currently functions.
Critter Wrangler
- Old: 5 Attack, 7 Health. After you cast a Spellcraft spell on a minion, give it +2/+2. → New: 5 Attack, 6 Health. After you cast a Spellcraft spell on a minion, give it +2/+1.
Tidemistress Athissa
- Old: 7 Attack, 8 Health. After you cast a spell, give four friendly Naga +1/+1. → New: 7 Attack, 3 Health. After you cast a spell, give three friendly Naga +1/+1.
Orgozoa, the Tender
- Old: 5 Attack, 9 Health → New: 3 Attack, 7 Health
Darkgaze Elder
- Old: After you spend 4 Gold, play a Blood Gem on four friendly Quilboar. → New: After you spend 5 Gold, play a Blood Gem on four friendly Quilboar.
Young Murk-Eye
- Old (normal): At the end of your turn, adjacent Murlocs trigger their Battlecries. → New: At the end of your turn, the Murloc to the left of this triggers its Battlecry.
- Old (golden): At the end of your turn, adjacent Murlocs trigger their Battlecries twice. → New: At the end of your turn, adjacent Murlocs trigger their Battlecries.
Duels Updates
- Removed the Dragon Affinity Passive Treasure.
- Dev Comment: Good night, sweet prince. Till we meet again.
- Tuned the synergy rules for Emerald Goggles and Fire spell school Passive Treasures.
Bug Fixes and Game Improvements
- Improved connectivity surrounding Discover effects.
- Fixed a bug where a temporary Divine Shield from Glowscale could remove a minion’s permanent Divine Shield.
- Fixed a bug where applying a Spellcraft to a magnetic minion in Bob’s tavern then makes that buff permanent.
- Fixed a bug causing Mercenaries Portraits (mostly Rexxar Portraits) to disappear. Players who earned an additional copy of a Portrait while it was temporarily missing will receive a random Portrait from that Merc, instead (or Coins for that Merc if all Portraits are already owned).
- Updated the text in the Upgrade to Golden feature U.I. to better match functionality.
- Fixed an error that caused people who selected the “random” card back to have that function unchecked when they first logged in after Patch 23.2.
The card was insanely frustrating to play against in any deck it was played in. I was hoping for a rework, but I can't say I'm not glad for it being killed.
FWIW, it seems like they will typically avoid nerfing higher rarity cards and instead hit the rare and common supporting cards for an archetype if possible.
You're right. Make the quest 3/3/3. Make every single quest 3/3/3. Well except demon hunter and warlock since it's not that style of quest reward. Make them all an even 3/3/3.
This patch is way too late, there is no mention of Mech Mage being toned down to make the game more fun (but I guess they only care about their statistics), for some reason they didn't want to buff a control Shaman archetype despite going out of their way to buff some of these new archetypes (but I guess they want you to only play their designed archetypes).
Too bad because this meta had a lot of potential.
So, I haven't seen a single Shaman in like a week now, and not coincidentally there's not a single Shaman card on here. You forget about the class again?
A lot of these seems like they just have no idea what they're doing, or they're mad people are not playing the forced archetype that class was supposed to play this expansion (cough Warlock).
Dragonebane shot might as well have been removed.
Drek'thar will never be used again. (A nice compromise would have been to let it summon up to equal cost minions but only one)
Harpoon gun was already being used in decks, and you made it BETTER?
Doubling the damage off Xhilag seems like it could be extremely dangerous, but I guess we'll see.
Wildpaw Gnoll was nerfed for a reason, the reason being it was busted. Now they just unnerf it? Ok great it's busted again. Going to nerf it again next patch?
So do you just not examine the context surrounding these nerfs? Rogue is a bad class right now and wildpaw gnoll is not going to be as busted as it was back when rogue had better cards
Shaman is a bad class right now too, yet I don't see any buffs for them.
Wildpaw was broken because of the busted interaction with Maestra, who is still in Standard. Trying to "save" a class by giving them patently broken cards that you had to nerf in the past because of how broken they were doesn't speak well to the competence of their design and balance team.
TESS BUFF WHOOO YEAH BABY
Time to bust out the ol' gold Tess.
bought Drek'Thar using gold for collection purpose only. now its fully refunded without taking away the card. thanks for the free diamond card, blizz
Is Rogue's Gnoll card actually a revert its pre-nerf state? too lazy too look it up but seems like it
Yes. And it was busted before, which is why it was nerfed. I'm not sure the people making decisions have any idea what is going on with the game at this point.
It's cause now there are way more broken cards, and what was broken before is only meh now.
the reason gnoll was OP wasnt card itself, but insane draw the rogue had before rotation, now that Swindle and Secret Passage are gone i dont think gnoll is that busted of a card
yes but the point is it got nerfed when there were lots of cards to support the archtype and play it early? Now its a new year and it a bit "harder" to get it active early, so what happens with next expansion or the next? It will be nerfed again?
Just shows you they have no idea the direction the game is going and just thinking of it on the fly, its not a "balance" team its just some guys behind a desk adding/subtracting 1-2 from each card. Their obsession with maintaining 50% win for ALL classes is just idiotic.
The whole team showed its incompetency when they released Mr.Smite when they said charge is not healthy for the game, sure whatever BUT now guess what 1mana Mr.Smite from the collosal with 2 other charging pirates is a thing as well.
Its a "fun" game to play but you just cant take it seriously anymore.
The reason gnoll was OP was the inexplicable interaction with Maestra that let you play it turn 2, which is still in the game for no reason.
So in the quest to nerf nagas... they didn't really do anything to them... Yes Tidemistress only buffs 3 naga instead of 4 now, but health nerfs? 1 less attack on Shoal Commander...? Whoopie...
Biggest nerf to nagas is siren to tavern 5 which makes this whole auto buff at the end of your turn harder to achieve and less consistent
Seems decent nerfs. I hate multi strike with passion. Yesterday, I had 2x 4/5 Taunt on turn 5 against DH's empty board. I should be in winning position, but no. DH equipped the stupid weapon with 2 multistike to kill with both taunts and deal 15 damage to my face, all of that for 3 mana.
Just what rogue needed, wild buffs...