Shudderwock & Lifedrinker Animation Speed Being Increased! Shudderwock to be Capped at 20 Battlecries!

In a future update, Blizzard will be doubling the speeds of the animations for Shudderwock and Lifedrinker! Shudderwock will also be capped at 20 battlecries it can reproduce.

Recently, our players have had feedback regarding the Shaman card, Shudderwock. We understand that the length of its Battlecry animation and other animations spawned from its Battlecry can be frustrating.

In a future update, we will be doubling the animation speed of Shudderwock’s Battlecry so it will lessen the impact on the overall pacing of your current Hearthstone match. In addition, the amount of Battlecries Shudderwock can reproduce will be capped at 20.

We will also be speeding up the animation of Lifedrinker for similar reasons.
Thank you for your feedback, and we’ll see you in the Tavern.

Cheers!

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20 Comments

  1. plainswalker
    April 25, 2018 at 6:34 am

    I seen this and immediately dusted my Deck. Hopefully I didnt make a mistake.

    • Nightfall
      April 25, 2018 at 10:26 am

      I hope you didn’t dust shudderwock, since he’ll be worth 1600 once the nerf hits, making him 4x as valuable as he is now. also, there will probably be a new list running less battlecries, so you were probably better off waiting for the nerf itself to occur

    • Terrylolol
      April 25, 2018 at 5:19 pm

      Omg no! Why would you do that?!?

  2. Orasha
    April 24, 2018 at 8:08 pm

    It capping at 20 IS a good thing. Yes, battlecry OTK shaman isn’t that great a deck, but it’s absolutely terrible to lose against when each battlecry can take like 15 minutes to resolve. It’s even worse if you actually CAN win next turn, but you have to sit through all the battlecries. There were even some reports of Shudderwock vs Shudderwock games that lasted HOURS.

    In terms of OTK potential, the 20 battlecry limit doesn’t really affect it at all. Look at Rages list that was posted earlier, there are only 7 battlecries in the whole deck!

    This is a gamefeel / quality of life change, not a hard nerf that will effect whatever viability the card may or may not have. I’d be surprised if they offered a refund for it.

    • Thrombin
      April 25, 2018 at 7:00 am

      The number of battlecries in the deck is not particular relevant since the point of the OTK is to repeat them over and over again. The murmuring elemental already doubles them the first time and then each Shudderwock you play subsequently doubles that and then the next one doubles that… It gets way more than 20 with just a few replays often continuing long after the opponent is dead.

      I certainly wouldn’t be dusting Shudderwock from this change. There are now a number of Shudderwock decks that are not OTK decks and are much better than the OTK version. I’ve been using it in Quest Shaman at the moment as the that’s great with Hagatha and the Hagatha, quest and murloc battlecries are all great ones to double up on without the need for murmuring shenanigans.

      • Thundiz
        May 2, 2018 at 9:03 am

        But it’s gonna be 20 per shudderwock.. Not 20 per game.. If a deck has 7 battlecries, excluding the mighty shudder, with the murmuring it’ll go to 14, but then you have at least 3 or 4 shudders in your hand plus a murmuring that should cost 0 at that point.. You’ll still be able to keep going with it, even though the deck itself is not that amazing..
        But I still have tons of fun playing with it

  3. Holama123456
    April 24, 2018 at 7:41 pm

    So Will we be getting our dust back on this one? 20 caps is a hard Nerf after all…

    • Orasha
      April 24, 2018 at 8:12 pm

      It really isn’t. Rage’s list only has 7 non-Shudderwock battlecries, the deck with the highest winrate on HSreplay has 10, and the most popular deck according to HSreplay only has 11.

      • CD001
        April 25, 2018 at 4:23 am

        If you drop a reduced-cost Murmuring Ellie first to double the battlecries you *could* lose a few from Shudderwock – it *is* a technical nerf but it’ll have very little practical effect.

        • Hmmph
          April 26, 2018 at 5:18 am

          Because the order is random, if you’re over 20 you have the chance it not firing Grumble a 2nd time then you’re potentially hooped because you’ve lost the back-up Shudderwocky & combo has been broken.

          With bounce/replay in the deck, and especially if your opponent is playing something like Sap/Vanish, Freezing Trap, etc., the number of Battlecrys can easily exceed the total number of Battlecry cards in your deck.

      • Elzein
        April 25, 2018 at 6:09 am

        The question is: will the 20 battlecries cap include those induced by Murmuring Elemental’s effect? If yes, then we have a very tiny nerf, but still a nerf. If not, then I agree with you that it won’t have a practical effect.

    • Nightfall
      April 25, 2018 at 10:30 am

      I think we’ll be getting our dust back, because even tho it is not that big a nerf, it still is in fact a nerf

    • Frank
      April 25, 2018 at 12:08 pm

      I think 1600 will be given for dusting one. Note if you dust it, you may get another Shudderwock from a pack.

  4. to
    April 24, 2018 at 7:39 pm

    Lol…typical blizzard BS..nerf a deck that isn’t even competitive… I agree with the animation part but capping it?..total twats..why don’t you do something about cubelock ,that shit is actually a problem..

  5. Advocaat
    April 24, 2018 at 7:37 pm

    This is obviously reaction to DisguisedToast who almost broke the game with Shudderwock doing battlecries for more than 10 minutes. He was even scared to get banned. Look for it on YouTube.

    • Bladeofsteel
      April 26, 2018 at 8:15 am

      He was actually scared of getting banned because the game gave him 11 cards in hand, and then he didn’t overdraw next turn. Good change overall, I made a semi otk build that just aims to control so this will speed things up

  6. Jimmy
    April 24, 2018 at 6:49 pm

    Can I get a full refund for my shudderwock now . . .

  7. Judain
    April 24, 2018 at 6:32 pm

    its ok the animation was an issue to fix. good one.

    but, capped at 20 battlecries? … im think saronity chained was the problem in the way duplicates this minion, not other things.

    was a good speed response?
    this could be happen whit Ben in charge?
    The firts resolution of the team? is not like something usual the form of get solved.

  8. Tengu
    April 24, 2018 at 4:24 pm

    At this point no one even cares because Shudderwock isn’t good lmao

  9. Wink
    April 24, 2018 at 3:43 pm

    WOW!