hearthstone Balance Changes to Come After The End of May

[Zadina 923]

The team has decided to address problematic cards after the end of the HCT playoffs.

The state of the meta is always a hot topic for the Hearthstone community and it's becoming more and more prominent as the game ages. Even though new decks have been born, the release of the Witchwood didn't change the best decks and the community has noticed that - Dean "Iksar" Ayala answered a question on this issue only yesterday.

Team 5 has responded to the players' concerns and is planning some balance changes. These changes will take effect after the HCT playoffs are finished at the end of this month.

Jesse Hill

Greetings!

In the weeks after The Witchwood, the Hearthstone team has been avidly reading your feedback and monitoring data at all levels of play. We agree with your concerns, and we’re planning some balance changes after the HCT Playoffs are finished at the end of May. We’re not quite ready to share the details, but we’ll provide an update once the specifics are finalized.

For discussions on this matter, please join the community here: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/hearthstone/topic/20763886354

Thank you for your feedback, patience, and your support.

Cheers! (source)

Which cards do you think are the most likely candidates?

[FanOfValeera 253]

Probably Call to Arms, Spiteful Summoner, Possessed Lackey. Could be Carnivorous Cube and Voidlord / Doomguard, but I think it is less likely.7

Possible (and sensible) nerfs;

Call to Arms: 5 mana

Spiteful Summoner: It removes the spell it used from your deck, such as, if it used Ultimate Infestation to get a 10-drop, you have 1-less copy of the card now. Just like how Grand Archivist works. Why is this important? It limits the value of that big spell you play. In such decks, Ultimate Infestation reads 'Summon a 10-drop' in addition to whatever it says.

Possessed Lackey: 6 mana

Doomguard: Battlecry: Gain Charge, discard two random cards from your hand (this would be fantastic, no discard, no charge)

or, in a more general sense (also thinking of taunt druid here);

Carnivorous Cube: Can't be targeted by spells or hero powers; no Naturalize, no Dark Pact. Trade it, get your minions back. Gives your opponent a chance to react to it however they want (especially silence). Any other nerf (such as re-summoning only one copy) is straight up killing the card. This change turns it into Spectral Knight at worst, and at best, it has some amount of value.

 

 

Edited May 7, 2018 by FanOfValeera

[Bozonik 94]

I like all those. The cube one is particularly cool. Though there’s still tricks like voodoo dolling it or ratcatchering it, they’re a lot more clunky.

[Laragon 269]

1 hour ago, FanOfValeera said:

Probably Call to Arms, Spiteful Summoner, Possessed Lackey. Could be Carnivorous Cube and Voidlord / Doomguard, but I think it is less likely.7

Possible (and sensible) nerfs;

Call to Arms: 5 mana

Spiteful Summoner: It removes the spell it used from your deck, such as, if it used Ultimate Infestation to get a 10-drop, you have 1-less copy of the card now. Just like how Grand Archivist works. Why is this important? It limits the value of that big spell you play. In such decks, Ultimate Infestation reads 'Summon a 10-drop' in addition to whatever it says.

Possessed Lackey: 6 mana

Doomguard: Battlecry: Gain Charge, discard to random cards from your hand (this would be fantastic, no discard, no charge)

or, in a more general sense (also thinking of taunt druid here);

Carnivorous Cube: Can't be targeted by spells or hero powers; no Naturalize, no Dark Pact. Trade it, get your minions back. Gives your opponent a chance to react to it however they want (especially silence). Any other nerf (such as re-summoning only one copy) is straight up killing the card. This change turns it into Spectral Knight at worst, and at best, it has some amount of value.

 

 

Call to arms then goes up in strength odd paladin by a LOT. I don't think this is a proper fix.

Spiteful summoner wouldn't see play then, but is that a bad thing? At it's core it seems like a very hard card to balance given in proper decks you're getting +/-15 mana value always.

Possessed lackey, seems totally fair.

Doomguard wouldn't see play then, but it might have it's time and charge is something they want to get away from anyways. Maybe you keep it as it but change charge to rush, I think that way it still gets played as it but is way less frustrating. It's been a critical staple of every lock deck that needs a finisher, this would still give huge value of making a board of them, but gives you at least a turn to attempt to play your way out.

Carnivorous Cube - This fix seems perfect. Get all the same value, a little trickier to self proc the same turn, but almost no real drawback.

[Hanz39 53]

Cube one is even a buff not a nerf, you can't use Silence of priest on it or any other spell the enemy would, yeah you can't suicide it with your own spell but enemy can't kill it either and it's a 4/6 body ramming your face forever that when dies is still a trouble.

If you want make it reasonable it should be that YOUR spells can't target it but enemy can.

But honestly isn't the cube the issue but cheating out Voidlords and cube doesn't do anything without target.

Possessed Lackey is easy to nerf just add that it can't summon 9 mana demons and it's done for. Make the ability: Recruit a demon that costs 8 or less. So it can summon only Doomguards if you want but you can't hide behind over 30hp of taunts for free at turn 6.

Call to Arms to 6 or 7mana and it's still overpowered since it's draw 3 plus summon 6 mana of stuff. The value of Call To Arms is 11 mana (Nourish + 3x2 minions). Force of Nature costs 5 mana and summons useless tokens with no ability and not thin your deck of weak cards, Meanwhile Call can summon a double Righteous protector that will make your opponent cut his veins on the spot for passing the next turns 'trying' to kill them while he get butchered by all the OP stuff paladin throws at him for not even the half of what other classes have to pay to do the same

Also I wanna predict a nerf that have high chance to land --> Skull of the Man'ari to Summon a demon from your hand at the END of your turn.

[Breadd 13]

1 hour ago, Hanz39 said:

Also I wanna predict a nerf that have high chance to land --> Skull of the Man'ari to Summon a demon from your hand at the END of your turn.

that would actually be a buff ....

[mugutu 0]

3 hours ago, Laragon said:

Call to arms then goes up in strength odd paladin by a LOT. I don't think this is a proper fix.

Spiteful summoner wouldn't see play then, but is that a bad thing? At it's core it seems like a very hard card to balance given in proper decks you're getting +/-15 mana value always.

Possessed lackey, seems totally fair.

Doomguard wouldn't see play then, but it might have it's time and charge is something they want to get away from anyways. Maybe you keep it as it but change charge to rush, I think that way it still gets played as it but is way less frustrating. It's been a critical staple of every lock deck that needs a finisher, this would still give huge value of making a board of them, but gives you at least a turn to attempt to play your way out.

Carnivorous Cube - This fix seems perfect. Get all the same value, a little trickier to self proc the same turn, but almost no real drawback.

Call to Arms would not be nearly as powerful in Odd Paladin. It would only pull 1 mana minions, so while it's powerful to pull Righteous Protectors it's nothing compared to shit like Knife Jugglers and the like. Getting played a turn later for worse cards in a worse deck is a big hit.

[Caldyrvan 377]

I am not sure how exactly the balance changes will look like but we know it is just about nerfing cards and I can already feel it, some cards my turn out to be useless.

I know some currently strong cards need a fix but hell why is it always only about a nerf, Why not go and buff some of the Shaman cards or do they want it to be an unplayable class for 2 more years?

Edited May 8, 2018 by Caldyrvan

[VaraTreledees 138]

They already talked about the cards they were considering nerfing late last week.  They were, Tarim, Call to Arms, the Baku Paladin Hero Power, Spiteful Summoner, Lackey, Gul'dan, Darkpact, Librarian, quest rogue, and doomguard.  I won't go too much into if they should nerf them, but I will go into how I would do it if they are the card that blizz chooses to nerf.  It is also worth mentioning that they said that not all of these cards will be nerfed, only some so keep that in mind.

 

Sunkeeper Tarim: One of the strongest legendary creatures ever printed, Tarim has been oppressively strong for a long time.  His ability to be played both defensively and offensively makes him absurdly powerful.  I believe the correct way to nerf him would be to simply change his stat line to 3/6.  The 3/7 stat line is just absurd because of how well he trades into a board of 3/3s, especially when he has taunt.  Reducing his health by 1, means only 2 minions need to trade into him rather then 3, I think he would still be a very strong legend and still see a lot of play, but it would reduce his power level considerably.

 

Call to Arms:  I think there are really 3 ways you can nerf this card,  The two most obvious would be to either increase its cost by 1, or reduce the number of minions it pulls to 2.  The third way you could nerf the card is put a cap on the amount of mana it can pull from your deck, like say, no more then 4 mana worth of guys.  I think the latter is rather clunky so I would prefer one of the former two, and of those 2, I think reducing the amount of minions pulled is the far better one.  Increasing its cost by 1 would really make it a dead card, since baku can't really play it, which leaves it only in some murloc builds (even at 5 it might be a bit too heavy for them) or some janky control decks that just use it for value and deck thinning.  Where as only pulling 2 minions reduces its power considerably, but I still think it would see play.

 

Baku Paladin Hero Power:  This is a tough one.  The only way you can really nerf this would be to make it summon 1 guy who is bigger, so either a 2/1, a 1/2 or a 2/2.  Most of the odd synergies are all about having a wide board so that is a huge nerf, but I get the feeling that 1/2s or 2/1s are just too weak for the deck building constraints that baku puts on you.  Which leaves letting it summon a 2/2, but then that just feels bad with the death knight since that is one of the main draws of playing him, and it might still be a bit too strong, 2/2s are hard to deal with en mass.  I am honestly not happy with any of those changes, but that is probably what it has to be.

 

Spiteful Summoner: Best way to nerf this card, imo, would be only let the effect trigger if there are a certain number of spells in your deck.  So like battlecry, if you have 3 or more spells in your deck, reveal a spell. . .  You might have to up it to 4 or more, hard to say.  This means you either have to pollute your deck with a few more high cost spells which would reduce the consistency of your draws by a lot, or put in better spells that cost less mana reducing the consistency of the summoner.  

 

Quest Rogue:  There are a few ways to accomplish a nerf on this.  If you wanted to brick the deck, just make the crystal core change minions into 5/5s with no abilities, but that isn't any fun.  I think the two best ways to nerf it would be to either make the core a spell that just changes all minions in your hand, deck and board into 5/5s, and that's it, meaning if you bounce creatures they go back to their original stats, and the extra elementals your fire fly's give you are still 1/2s.  The other option is just make the core not count as a spell so it can't be prepped.  I tend to be a fan of the former, but either would be good changes.  Another possible route would be to hall of fame prep, which I doubt they would do, or nerf vanish (say make it 7 or 8 mana), which is also appealing, but I think that might have unintended consequences on other decks that want to use it.  

 

Doomguard:  Easy change, make the charge part of the battlecry.  Don't even make it where you have to discard cards to get the effect either.  Leave zoo mostly untouched, just make it where it doesn't get charge when you cheat it into play.

 

For the rest of the warlock changes I will talk about a couple of ways of nerfing it, one a bit more heavy handed approach and a second with a light touch.  I think the best way to balance warlock would be to just very slightly weaken a few of its key cards, instead of harshly nerfing 1 or 2.  This way the deck remains intact but just loses some power.

 

Possessed Lackey/Dark Pact:  Going to talk about these together since they are sort of the engine that lets you cheat in demons early.  I think that, whatever happens, a mana needs to be added to one of these.  Give aggro decks an extra turn to get in under the wall of void.  That is a pretty hefty nerf in and of itself.  If you wanted to do a slightly lighter touch, I would make dark pact 2 mana, increase its healing to 10 or 12, and leave lackey untouched.

 

Bloodreaver Gul'dan:  The obvious nerf would be just reduce the damage the hero power does by 1, so it is only 2 damage and 2 healing a turn.  I think the best way of nerfing it, along with some of the other cards, is to make the hero power only able to target minions.  3 damage a turn to face is a pretty fast clock, and it really reduces there ability to close out games, especially in a fatigue situation.  It is really aimed at making the deck weaker overall against control, along with the doomguard nerf.

 

Kobold Librarian:  There are plenty of ways to nerf it, make it a 1/1 or a 1/2 are the two that come to mind immediately.  Increasing the health cost to 3 health is also an option, or making it a 2 mana 2/2 (which is my second favorite option, still a strong card, and would probably still see play in zoo, but makes it far less good in control).  But I think the most elegant nerf is just make the card draw happen at the end of turn.  This means that it is far worse at cycling through your deck for answers in mid game, yet doesn't make it unplayable.  

 

As always, comments and critiques welcome.

Edited May 8, 2018 by VaraTreledees

[Bozonik 94]

Trouble with quest rogue is that its matchups are so polarised. It needs the free wins against slow decks to be remotely viable. If you nerf it such that it’s not oppressive against those it just disappears, unless you can do so in a way that improves its chances against faster decks.

My solution would be to bring up a discover-type choice when you play the quest. Something like ‘Choose one: 3 summons and minions 3/3, 5 summons and minions 4/4, 7 summons and minions 5/5’. Dunno if those would work well, but it must be possible to come up with a solution of that form that works ok. It’d also raise the skill-cap of the deck due to the need to choose wisely.

Edited May 8, 2018 by Bozonik

[FanOfValeera 253]

9 hours ago, Laragon said:

Call to arms then goes up in strength odd paladin by a LOT. I don't think this is a proper fix.

Spiteful summoner wouldn't see play then, but is that a bad thing? At it's core it seems like a very hard card to balance given in proper decks you're getting +/-15 mana value always.

Possessed lackey, seems totally fair.

Doomguard wouldn't see play then, but it might have it's time and charge is something they want to get away from anyways. Maybe you keep it as it but change charge to rush, I think that way it still gets played as it but is way less frustrating. It's been a critical staple of every lock deck that needs a finisher, this would still give huge value of making a board of them, but gives you at least a turn to attempt to play your way out.

Carnivorous Cube - This fix seems perfect. Get all the same value, a little trickier to self proc the same turn, but almost no real drawback.

Well, summoning 3 2-drops for 4 is way stronger than summoning 3 1-drops for 5. And odd paladin doesn't even have Juggler, so this might be okay. 

For the Doomguard part, it has been a part of Zoo decks since the beginning, it will stay that way. It has a drawback, but with weapon and lackey, you can negate it. I just wanna get rid of that. I see the rush change too, which turns the deck into a board control deck instead of a burst deck. However, it is already hard to beat those with board-centric decks, and such change makes the situation even worse.

[Synesthesy 114]

11 hours ago, FanOfValeera said:

Carnivorous Cube: Can't be targeted by spells or hero powers; no Naturalize, no Dark Pact. Trade it, get your minions back. Gives your opponent a chance to react to it however they want (especially silence). Any other nerf (such as re-summoning only one copy) is straight up killing the card. This change turns it into Spectral Knight at worst, and at best, it has some amount of value.

This would be a huge nerf to Priest, Mage and Shaman, who would use spell to transform/silence the cube.

 

However, for the nerf I vote something that make Call to Arms unplayable, Baku summoning things that aren't silver hand recruit (without giving dust back, as the card itself hasn't changed?), and something  that make both cubelock and controlock weaker, like a hit to the demon package... Maybe Possessed Lackey at 1 mana more, or with a cap on the cost of the demons recruited.

Then, prepare to the oppressive Spiteful Druid/Tempo rogue meta in standard, Big Priest/Jade druid in wild...... *evil laugh*

[Gnasha 10]

Carnivorous Cube is a perfect target for priest playing Shrinkmeister followed up by Cabal Shadow Priest! It's a strong card, but there are many other available counters, including silence, hex and imprison

It's Dark Pact that makes it so dangerous, which at 1 mana is way way too cheap for the massive tempo swing it creates.

And no-one here has mentioned the obviously broken Shudderwock yet?

[Bozonik 94]

6 hours ago, Synesthesy said:

This would be a huge nerf to Priest, Mage and Shaman, who would use spell to transform/silence the cube.

If it was still in the meta, they can run a silence minion like everyone else. Priest potentially could steal it too, or mass dispel/scream it. Not sure what Mage is running polymorph right now anyway, it’s mostly aggro/burn mage or control (+ some spiteful) Mage leveraging big spells in which case dropping poly for spellbreaker probably isn’t the end of the world. And well, haha shaman. Wild shaman can still devolve it.

 

34 minutes ago, Gnasha said:

And no-one here has mentioned the obviously broken Shudderwock yet?

?

Edited May 8, 2018 by Bozonik

[Zadina 923]

39 minutes ago, Gnasha said:

And no-one here has mentioned the obviously broken Shudderwock yet?

They are going to cap Shudderwock at 20 Battlecries and fix its animation.

[SirSlapzAlot 28]

3 hours ago, Gnasha said:

And no-one here has mentioned the obviously broken Shudderwock yet?

Its funny though, im running vivid velen deck and have not lost a single match against shudder shaman lol. The only deck Im having real problems with is odd hunter/rogue. Which sadly are like half the meta right now :) 

Edited May 8, 2018 by SirSlapzAlot

[Bozonik 94]

7 hours ago, SirSlapzAlot said:

Its funny though, im running vivid velen deck and have not lost a single match against shudder shaman lol. The only deck Im having real problems with is odd hunter/rogue. Which sadly are like half the meta right now :) 

I assumed he was joking. Shudderwock isn’t doing great at all. Maybe there’s a deck out there waiting to be found, but Shaman is the worst class in the global meta by a margin at the moment.

[Taan 46]

On 8.5.2018 at 3:46 AM, Caldyrvan said:

I am not sure how exactly the balance changes will look like but we know it is just about nerfing cards and I can already feel it, some cards my turn out to be useless.

I know some currently strong cards need a fix but hell why is it always only about a nerf, Why not go and buff some of the Shaman cards or do they want it to be an unplayable class for 2 more years?

Yeah, probably. But balancing is always a very complicated thing in TCGs. Its not always about buffing or nerfing cards. Sometimes the metagame itself can be unfitting for specific playstyles (like the midrangy shaman ones). Also nerfing Warlock or Taunt-Druid could as well buff shaman passivly...the thing is: I don't think that shaman is lacking card quality.

But I can absolutly imagine some possible shaman-buffs. For example buffing the odd-heropower to something more impactful (like buffed totems -> 2/1 Searing, 0/3 Taunt, etc.).

[Valks 2,373]

23 hours ago, Taan said:

Yeah, probably. But balancing is always a very complicated thing in TCGs. Its not always about buffing or nerfing cards. Sometimes the metagame itself can be unfitting for specific playstyles (like the midrangy shaman ones). Also nerfing Warlock or Taunt-Druid could as well buff shaman passivly...the thing is: I don't think that shaman is lacking card quality.

But I can absolutly imagine some possible shaman-buffs. For example buffing the odd-heropower to something more impactful (like buffed totems -> 2/1 Searing, 0/3 Taunt, etc.).

It's easy to see why they don't want more than 9 classes, at least.