Theorycrafting The Upcoming Hearthstone Balance Changes – Which Cards Could Get Nerfed And How?

The nerf patch is coming. However, this isn’t really something that needed confirmation. If we look to the past, we had a balance patch roughly 2 months (sometimes less, sometimes more) into the expansion for the last few expansions. I think it’s pretty clever, because it serves two purposes. Not only it addresses the balance issues, but also forces a meta shift, which makes more people interested in the game again. For a good reason – players don’t like to see the same stuff over and over again for a few months in a row.

Right now, we have a big problem. The Witchwood’s power level was relatively low when compared to the Year of the Mammoth expansions, especially the final one – Kobolds & Catacombs. Which means that despite the rotation, not much has changed and the meta, while not the same, feels similar to the one we had in Kobolds & Catacombs (after the nerf patch).

The balance changes have been announced, check out what Blizzard decided to nerf: Upcoming Balance Changes: Nerfs to Naga Sea Witch, Spiteful Summoner, Dark Pact, Possessed Lackey, Call to Arms, and The Caverns Below!

While they can, and probably will, address that issue in the upcoming expansion, by releasing the right cards (no more cards to support the stronger archetypes, additional tech cards to fight against them), we still have three months until the next release, and that’s a long time. So a balance patch is imminent – it was announced to come out after the HCT Summer Playoffs, so late in May. We still don’t know which cards will get hit and how, so far we’ve only got a list of cards they’re paying closer attention to and consider changing. Those cards are: Naga Sea Witch, Sunkeeper Tarim, Call to Arms, Baku Paladin Hero Power, Spiteful Summoner, Possessed Lackey, Bloodreaver Gul'dan, Dark Pact, Kobold Librarian, Quest Rogue, and Doomguard.

It does not mean that all of the cards will get changed, or that the list is final and they won’t decide to hit something else instead. So far we can only theorize… and that’s what I’m going to do in this article. Take a closer look at the most problematic cards and offer some potential solutions.

P.S. Big thanks to Argentan for the yesterday’s talk. We discussed a lot of the potential balance changes, their pros and cons, and some of the ideas here were inspired by him.

Naga Sea Witch – A Buff That Wasn’t A Buff

Let’s start the list with something Wild, one of the most discussed cards lately. Naga Sea Witch rotated into the Wild format over a year ago. It was never a problematic card back when it was in Standard – I’ve seen it maybe a few times on the ladder. However, mid-2017 there was a change to how mana cost reductions apply (as well as different order changes) – they’ve streamlined everything and made it more consistent. Under that “consistency fix”, a massive buff to the card was hidden. Instead of, like before, applying the 5 mana flat cost to everything AT THE END, so after any other reductions, after the change it applied it FIRST, before any other mana cost manipulations. The main issue here was the synergy with all kinds of Giants.

Giants are balanced by their high mana cost. They get cheaper when certain conditions are met, but the basic cost prevents them from being overpowered. However, Naga Sea Witch altered that a bit. Since the Giants’ cost is first reduced to 5, and only then their extra mana reductions apply, it’s very easy to play them for free now, even as soon as Turn 5 (after dropping Sea Witch). For example – Molten Giant can be played for 0 mana at 25 health, and Mountain Giant can be played for 0 with only 5 cards in the hand. Because of that, new decks built around the combo were created. I won’t argue whether they’re overpowered or not, but one thing is sure – they’re very unfun to play against and most of the Wild players can agree.

However, instead of simply reverting the change, those decks have been infesting the ladder for almost 9 months now. I’ve seen dozens of arguments saying that it shouldn’t be this way, that “fun” is more important than consistency, and if they don’t want to revert the change and make it inconsistent with the others, they should just add a new effect instead. It got to the point that one Wild player paid for a Reddit ad saying that the Naga Sea Witch should get nerfed, and stated that he won’t take it down until it happens (a huge discussion followed, which you can find here). And I think that it was really successful – it actually got the devs to respond.

The card should absolutely get changed and anyone playing Wild more seriously will tell you that. The strategy is very high-roll’y (something like Barnes on Turn 4 vs Big Priest, but taken even further) and straight up unfun to play against. It’s not consistent enough to pull it off every game, obviously, but the games against the deck are basically decided by draw RNG. Will they get their Naga Sea Witch combo? Or will you find your AoE board wipe in time (if you have one)? The best way to handle this card would be to simply revert the “consistency changes” and make the flat 5 mana cost for every card apply at the END, after all of the other mana reductions are included.

Cube & Control Warlock – Which Cards Should Get Hit?

This is actually a very interesting topic. Cubelock and Control Warlock are some of the strongest and most consistent decks on the Standard ladder right now and they absolutely should get changed. The rotation didn’t affect them enough (Mistress of Mixtures and N'Zoth, The Corruptor were the only two cards they lost, but neither of them was absolutely necessary to play them), and they’re dominating the ladder right now. Yes, they might not take the highest spot on the tier lists (that’s either Even or Murloc Paladin most of the time), but that’s mostly because the whole meta is tailored around them. Despite all of the decks teching weapon destruction (to counter Skull of the Man'ari), Silence (to counter Possessed Lackey and to a certain extent other cards such as Voidlord), Skulking Geist (vs Dark Pact) and trying to put some burst damage in so they can finish the game quickly, slow Warlock decks are still staying strong

But as you can see, there are LOTS of problematic cards, and picking the right ones to hit will be very difficult. Optimally, we don’t want to kill those decks – they’re really fun and rewarding to play. But at the same time, it’s important to hit them where it hurts. Here are the most problematic cards from those decks and some of the ideas for their nerfs:

  • Dark Pact – Health was always one of the Warlock’s biggest issues and the reason why the class was balanced. It has some really powerful cards, and great Hero Power, but has to pay part of their price in health. That’s cool – it’s kind of a high risk, high reward class. It had a lot of healing issues in the past, and printing SOME ways to heal was important, but they’ve basically went overboard by printing both Dark Pact and Lesser Amethyst Spellstone in a single expansion. Dark Pact in particular is a crazy powerful card, even though it might not look that way. You’re paying 1 mana to do what you want (which is sacrificing one of the minions with Deathrattle, which you WANT to kill) and you get 8 points of healing on top of that. There are two ways this card can be addressed – either reduce the amount of healing (to let’s say 5 or 6) or increase it’s mana cost (probably to 2). The first nerf would decrease the deck’s survivability, while the second one would make it more difficult to combo with Lackey or Cube, either of which is fine.
  • Kobold Librarian – A card that a lot of people are sleeping on, because I rarely see it getting mentioned when it comes to the potential nerfs. But that’s just wrong – Kobold Librarian is one of the most powerful, if not THE most powerful card Warlock has right now. Getting it in your mulligan increases the chance to win by a lot. It makes the deck more consistent by thinning it, and puts a small body on the board as soon as Turn 1. Plus, the damage part is often an upside and not a downside, since it upgrades the Spellstone too. My idea would be to make it a little more punishing to play, increasing the damage taken from 2 to 3, just like they did with Flame Imp in the past. It might not seem like a lot, but trust me, every point of health matters when facing an aggressive deck. On top of that, right now it basically pays its life cost back after upgrading Spellstone, and it wouldn’t after the change. Alternatively, reducing the stats to 1/1 would be fair – at 2/1 it’s much easier to get a good early trade with it, which is a part of its strength.
  • Defile – One of the reasons why slow Warlock decks absolutely demolish board-based Aggro builds, Defile is one of the strongest board clears in the entire game. Upping the mana cost to 3 wouldn’t really make it unplayable, but would make the deck more fair in those matchups.
  • Doomguard – Doomguard is a very likely candidate for a nerf for a very simple reason – Blizzard doesn’t like high power Charge minions. Even though I’m not a big fan of nerfing Classic & Basic cards when it’s the new cards that cause them to be broken, but let’s still look at the potential changes that can be made. One of the most common, and frankly interesting options is to put make Charge a part of his Battlecry. If you summon him from the hand, ignoring the Discard part of the card’s cost, it will also get weaker. If you play him from your hand – then you get the Charge, but you also need to discard things. It might seem that it won’t affect decks such as Zoo Warlock, but it actually will slightly – if Charge is a part of his Battlecry, he won’t get charge when re-summoned with Bloodreaver Gul'dan. Alternative option is to change Charge to Rush. You will still be able to cheat it, but you won’t be able to combo your opponent down – only use it to clear the board. However, that would most likely make it unusable in Cube Warlock (since hitting face is the main reason you run it), while nerfing Zoo at the same time, so the first option seems better.
  • Possessed LackeySkull of the Man'ari – I actually think that those two are the main culprits and should be the first cards to get nerfed. Both Doomguard and Voidlord are balanced cards if you play them in a “fair” way, from your hand. No one is saying “oh my god, that Warlock dropped Voidlord on Turn 9, what can I possibly do to deal with such a big body so early in the game”, simply because the card was balanced to be played for 9 mana (honestly, it’s even on the weaker side other than against Aggro player who forgot to tech in Silence). Similarly, Doomguard dropped from the hand is sometimes the right play, but you wouldn’t run it if that was your main game plan – there is a very high chance to discard some vital strategy pieces, such as DK Hero. The best way to nerf those would probably be upping their mana cost, even by one. The thing is, those cards are really problematic on the curve, but the later you get into the game, the worse they get. Not only you have a higher chance to be able to answer them (with Silence, weapon removal etc.), but the impact of big Demons is WAY higher on Turn 5/6 than it is later. It would also make the Skull into Cube + Dark Pact combo impossible on the curve.
  • Voidlord – Like I’ve mentioned before, I don’t think this card deserves a nerf. However, it really depends on their approach – whether they will go ahead and nerf the Demons (Doomguard, Voidlord) or the cards that cheat them out. I personally think that the second option is better. But if they decide to nerf Voidlord, it would most likely be a stats nerf (nerfing the mana cost is pointless, since you cheat them out so often anyway). For example, I could see them changing it to a 2/7 and lowering the mana cost to 8 to compensate for that when you play it from your hand. It would be worse to cheat out on Turn 5/6 (especially the attack part – there are so many 3 health minions that the 2 damage Taunt wouldn’t clear in a single hit), but the reduced mana cost might somewhat compensate the reduced stats. Tampering with the stats would kill the card’s flavor, though – because 3/9 stats come from the tripling stats of Voidwalker (three of which he Deathrattles into).
  • Bloodreaver Gul'dan – And finally, another incredibly powerful card in the Warlock’s arsenal. After you think that you’ve won, removed all of their threats, they just play DK Hero and get them all back again. There are two things that could be changed when it comes to this card. First part is the Battlecry. Summoning all of the Demons that died means that it’s very easy to fill your board with big Demons you’ve cheated out. But what if it summoned all of the Demons you’ve PLAYED this game instead? Yes, played, not summoned. So any Demon that you play from you hand would be re-summoned (meaning that, for example, it would still be the same card in Zoo), but the demons that you’ve Recruited, or pulled out from your hand, wouldn’t be. The slight upside here is that if multiple Voidlords have died, it would resummon only the big 3/9 bodies and not the Voidwalkers – but since you wouldn’t be able to cheat them out, that would be a fair exchange. Another way to change the card is nerfing the Hero Power a bit. The Battlecry part is powerful, yes, but it’s not the only reason to play the card. I won some games by just playing it with NO Demons to resummon (because they got Hexed, Polymorphed, Psyshic Screamed etc.) and won the game thanks to the upgraded Hero Power. 3 damage + 3 healing per turn is massive, it either lets you have a much better board control than your opponent, or put him on a clock, like you would with an upgraded Hunter Hero Power (but while healing yourself at the same time). If they don’t want to change the Battlecry, Hero Power could get nerfed to 2 damage (and thus 2 healing). It would still keep the flavor of “sucking the life out of your opponent”, but it would be more reasonable.

Of course, Blizzard should NOT nerf each one of those cards, because that would basically kill the deck. Hitting 2 or 3 of them should be enough to put it back to a reasonable power level.

Paladin – Nerfing Even Might Buff Odd

Even Paladin is one of the strongest, if not the strongest deck on the ladder right now. However, Genn Greymane‘s Hero Power cost reduction is not actually the main reason why it is so strong. It’s good, because it can have a cheaper Hero Power WHILE maintaining most of the Paladin’s powerful tools. Yes, it loses some cool cards, such as Righteous Protector or Divine Favor, but it retains the most powerful options, such as Call to Arms (with only 2-drops – so it pulls 6 mana worth of stuff from your deck straight to the board) and Sunkeeper Tarim (I’d say that it’s the #1 Legendary in the entire game right now).

However, they should be really careful about how they approach Even Paladin nerfs right now. Because remember that each mana cost change might make it playable in the OTHER build, so Odd Paladin, instead. And while a 5 mana Call to Arms most likely wouldn’t be too strong (since Odd can only put 1-drops in – pulling three 1-drops for 5 mana seems pretty balanced), nerfing Tarim to 7 mana would be a massive buff to Odd Paladin. It would become an auto-include, because the card is honestly still incredibly powerful at 7 mana, and it’s even better in the Odd build than in the Even one, since it’s more based around flooding the board.

So, Call to Arms to 5 would probably be a good idea. While we’re at it, one of the things that annoy me most about the card is pulling out a Knife Juggler as the first minion and throwing knives immediately. It adds even more unnecessary RNG to the card – getting Juggler as the first card means 2 extra additional random damage (which is HUGE, especially if it kills some minion), and pulling it as the last card does nothing. I think that this part should just get removed. If you have Knife Juggler on the board already, then by all means, throw you knives, but not when you pull it from CtA.

But what about Tarim? Well, for one, they could up the mana cost to 8. That would still make it unplayable by the Even Paladin, but would do the job. Is 8 too much? To be honest, I think it might still be playable, even at 8 mana, just not as broken as it is right now. Then, nerfing the stats would be a good way to handle it too. Reducing the attack to 2 and/or health to 6 would make it much more manageable. It would still be a powerful board control tool, but it would be easier to get through. Right now, if you have no removals in your hand, you need to run THREE minions to clear the 3/7 Taunt and all of your minions die. Reducing its attack to 2 would mean that Paladin has to work hard and finish those 3/1’s off, or alternatively reducing its health to 6 would make getting through it easier.

Another way would be changing it to affect only the opponent’s board. Right now, Tarim is often used as a swing card even if your opponent has no big minions. Buffing those 1/1’s and other small stuff on your side of the board is often the strongest part of this card. With this change, Tarim would still be a good control tool, but he would no longer be so insane in all kinds of token strategies.

Are there any other Paladin cards that need to get nerfed? While not exactly a Paladin card, but I could see a Rockpool Hunter getting nerfed. When focusing on Even Paladin too much, we sometimes forget that Murloc Paladin is also a thing and it’s a very powerful deck. A nerf that would specifically target Even build might not be enough of a hit against Murloc Paladin. And Rockpool Hunter is a great card to change, since it’s borderline broken. Making it a 2/2 would make it fair. It still has a Murloc tag and still can give +1/+1 to another Murloc, so it would still be great play in many situations. But right now you can even drop it as a vanilla 2/3 on Turn 2 and it’s still good, since you can follow with some Murloc buff.

Iksar also mentioned the Baku Paladin Hero Power. This is interesting – right now, Odd Paladin is not the strongest build, but it’s still good. However, it’s heavily held back by the Warlocks – if Warlocks and Even Paladin get nerfed, it might raise to the top. The deck’s main strength is Hero Power – having the ability to summon 2x 1/1 with Hero Power every turn makes it insane at flooding the board over and over again. There are some ways to handle that without completely destroying the deck, though. One idea would be to change 2x 1/1 to 1x 2/2, or even 1x 3/1. That would still be a nice upgrade to the Hero Power, but it wouldn’t make the board flooding so easy, and thus would decrease the power level of some of the other cards, such as Stormwind Champion or Level Up!. Talking about Level Up, it’s one of the most powerful cards in the deck, since all the 1/1’s you summon are Silver Hand Recruits. So another way to handle it would be leaving it as 2x 1/1, but renaming the tokens, just like playing Vilefin Inquisitor does. Those would no longer be Silver Hand Recruits, so you wouldn’t be able to utilize Level Up! Other board flood synergies would still be there, but it would make the strongest one unusable. Right now, it might not seem that the change is necessary, but I wouldn’t mind them nerfing the Hero Power slightly “just in case”.

Spiteful Summoner – Does It Need A Nerf?

I might go against the popular opinion here, but I don’t think that Spiteful Summoner is an overpowered card. Spiteful Druid seemed to be insanely powerful just two weeks ago, but it’s already going down in terms of popularity AND win rate. Notably, it’s stronger at lower ranks than at higher ranks, because let’s be honest, it’s not a difficult deck. While there are some difficult decisions, most of the time you can play stuff on curve and do just fine.

However, in my opinion, the main issue with the deck is not how strong it is, but how unfun it is to play against. We had a similar issue with Big Priest already – even though the deck had roughly sub-50% win rate at times, I still hated every second of playing against it, simply because them getting a Turn 4 Barnes was simply infuriating.

Spiteful Summoner decks share a similar story – huge influence of draw RNG. A big part of the deck’s power is concentrated in a single card, so whether you draw it or not is a big deal. Similarly, whether your opponent will find an answer or not in time is also a big deal. If I can just Shadow Word: Death that big minion, it’s not a big deal (unless they roll a Tyrantus, which is another story). But if I don’t draw my removal, there is literally nothing I can do, no matter how well I play, I just lose because they had on-curve Spiteful. That’s not fun to play against. On top of that, another unfun thing is that the Neutral core around the Spiteful decks is just… boring. Playing it or against it isn’t particularly exciting.

And for those reasons, I think that Spiteful Summoner should be changed. If not, we will most likely see it for the rest of this Standard year, in different classes, but with roughly similar decks built around a Neutral core, just playing a few different class cards. There are some ways to approach this problem, of course.

The first and most obvious change would be increasing the card’s mana cost to 7 or 8. The truth is – Spiteful is most broken when dropped on Turn 6. Each another turn reduces the card’s impact, and increases the chance that the big minion summoned by Spiteful will be answered.

Another common idea is to force him to burn the spell he rolls, similarly to how Grand Archivist works. If you already got a big minion from that spell, you shouldn’t be able to use it. But I feel like this one is too punishing – deck like Spiteful Druid already plays only two copies of UI, one of which you often draw in the early/mid game. It would leave you with one big spell and three cards that want to utilize it. Grand Archivist wouldn’t make a cut, that’s for sure, but even second Spiteful would most likely be a whiff.

However, I like another approach to the problem – capping the maximum cost of a minion you can summon. For example, at 6. So, no matter if you roll a 6 mana spell, 8 mana spell or a 10 mana spell, you will always summon a 6 mana minion. That 6 might be changed to 7 or 8, I don’t have enough time to analyze each mana cost and pick the most balanced one right now. But the point is, what makes Spiteful Summoner so frustrating right now is summoning the 10-drops, where you basically have no low rolls. 8/8 is the WORST thing you can roll, you have a 40% chance to roll a 12/12, and specifically a 20% chance to roll a Tyrantus. That’s the most broken part of this card. Capping the cost would make card easier to deal with, but it would also make the decks more flexible in terms of spells they can play. They still wouldn’t want small spells, but for example, Spiteful Druid might run Spreading Plague,

Quest Rogue – Killing The Deck… Again

When they nerfed Quest Rogue back in the Journey to Un’Goro, I really thought that it’s the last time we’ll see this deck in a competitive play. But I was wrong, and it came back strong in The Witchwood. Not even because of the new powerful cards that supplemented it (even though Vicious Scalehide is better than a lot of people are giving it credit for), but because the meta is just right. There aren’t many ‘all in’ face decks that want to kill you as quickly as possible, and there are quite a lot of slow decks you can prey on. Because that’s what Quest Rogue does – it loses to Aggro and preys on slow builds.

That was the reason why it was nerfed in the first place. Even though statistically it wasn’t the best build on the ladder, it was absolutely frustrating to play against with a slower deck. It also dominated the tournament meta, which is notably slower. That part didn’t change – it was one of the more popular choices in the Europe HCT Summer Playoffs, being brought almost as often as Even Paladin or Spiteful Druid. After the card was nerfed (it used to require only 4 minions with the same name to be played, before it got changed to 5), many people tried to bring it back to life, but without much of a success… until now.

So, does it deserve another nerf? If you like the deck, then you will probably say no. And if we look at the statistics, once again, it’s a definite no. But statistics aren’t everything. It’s a game. First and foremost, it’s supposed to be fun – if a certain deck is just awful to play against, it should get addressed. When playing a hyper Aggro, you can just run over Quest Rogue. Sure, it’s a free win, but the game isn’t really fun or exciting. Then, if you play a slow build that can’t put pressure, you should think about immediately conceding instead of wasting your own time for something as low as 15-20% chance to win. I think it’s fine when decks have polarizing matchups, but not to such extent.

I’m also not sure about the deck. On the one hand, I enjoy playing it. On the other hand, facing it as let’s say Control Priest is just a nightmare. One thing is sure, though – if they nerf it this time around, they will most likely want to kill it off for good. Adding another minion to the requirement, or maybe nerfing the global buff from 5/5 to 4/4 might do the trick here. The first one will make the Quest even harder to complete, and give even the slow decks enough time to kill the Rogue. And the second one would make the deck more manageable to deal with after it finishes the quest. Flood of 4/4’s is much easier to handle than flood of 5/5’s, and some builds could really outcontrol it in the long run.

Stonekeep

A Hearthstone player and writer from Poland, Stonekeep has been in a love-hate relationship with Hearthstone since Closed Beta. Over that time, he has achieved many high Legend climbs and infinite Arena runs. He's the current admin of Hearthstone Top Decks.

Check out Stonekeep on Twitter!

Leave a Reply

55 Comments

  1. JustiFaiz
    May 14, 2018 at 8:48 pm

    Good read! Keep it up Stonekeep!

  2. Spacemoose
    May 11, 2018 at 10:07 am

    What a load of bull. The author is so biased in his analysis that it just boggles the mind.
    Lets start from the Warlock: he mentions all the cards that make the class playable and completely ignores the card that makes them sometimes broken – THE CUBE. Yeah it’s the cube and its faceless and prince copies what makes all the other cards “imbalanced” – because often you get highrolled by the lackey-dark pact-doomguard-Guldan just because of it. Don’t agree? Well try playing control lock without cubes and then see how all of the cards in list suddenly come back to normal.

    The comment about raising Defile cost because it hurts agro too much deserves a separate .!. you, because yeah we obviously need more pally decks in the ladder. Lets nerf the tools that stop brainless agro!

    Skull/lackey – Yeah again, easy destroyed by tech cards, huge tempo drop, pointless latter in the game, but again lets nerf them because someone can cube the results. But let’s not touch the cube.

    Guldan – Bringing back voidlords or voidwalkers isn’t a problem, lots of doomguards by the result of CUBES are. FFs it’s a 10 mana cost card, it’s supposed to be good.

    “Hitting 2 or 3 of them should be enough to put it back to a reasonable power level” – I have an even better solution: hit yourself in the face 2 or 3 times and realize that if not for the cube you wouldn’t even be writing this nonsense warlock part. But yeah you like the cube so you’d rather nerf everything instead.

    Another great example of the level of analysis is Tarim – again the main reason this card is a problem because its used not as control but as an agro tool. Not because it is too overpowered by itself, but because it is used in conjunction with other broken cards like call to arms and the endless token buffing that paladin has. Remove or nerf those options and suddenly Tarim is not broken anymore.

    But the funniest part of this text is the Spiteful Summoner part: Its apparently not an overpowered card in first paragraph, and then in the 2nd and 3rd its explained why exactly its overpowered and the 4th says it should be nerfed. *THUMBS UP*

    • Mr_Tickle
      May 11, 2018 at 3:33 pm

      You clearly have no clue what the word biased actually means. And tbh if you’re that dumb, I can’t even be bothered reading the rest!

    • Zack
      May 12, 2018 at 7:56 am

      I agree. The Cube is the problem.

      • Ealk
        May 12, 2018 at 11:04 am

        I am not convinced about that. Of course the effect is strong, but it is strong only in combination with some Recruit effect. Otherwise, your best-case scenario is some 4-drop (or 5- drop with Coin) + Cube + Dark Pact. Suddenly it isn’t too strong. And Dark Pact isn’t used on Cube every time. I am not an Aggro player, but Warlock decks are so slow that they need to Dark Pact something else before Cube in order to survive. I agree that Cube is very strong, but cards with this power level are in every expansion.

    • EkisHs
      May 14, 2018 at 8:31 am

      Its the doomguards and the voidlords that make the cube strong cuz you can get infinite amounts of doomguards but lets be real you play around that you kill the doomguards you silence lackey how hard is it man im 100% convinced you dont have a clue of whats going on in the meta
      P.S Great article keep up the good work and dont get effected by the haters!

    • Griffin
      May 15, 2018 at 1:55 am

      “The author is so biased…” Proceeds to write a biased opinion about how the cube is the problem.

  3. Huli
    May 10, 2018 at 8:47 am

    Really hope they nerf dark pact, so sick of Rin into Dark Pact.

    No counterplay, and when you play a slow Control deck like Control Mage, you can`t pressure them into not playing the seals.

    • CD001
      May 11, 2018 at 5:26 am

      That’s the whole point of Rin though – to punish slow control decks and it’s not like it’s instant either; it takes at least another 4 turns to destroy your deck – more if you, as a mage, start dropping counterspells that need to be played around.

      I’m OK with Rin as it’s such a long, convoluted win condition; Face Hunter (for instance) could kill the Warlock before they even get to play Rin – could probably kill Control Mage before they start getting board clears as well.

  4. Celestica
    May 9, 2018 at 7:42 pm

    For the Quest Rogue a possibile solution is:
    “The minions in your deck are 5/5 for the rest of the game”

    cuz the problem is that they have already the cheap buffed minions in their hand (or on board) and insta-win in an explosive way.
    Play 6 time a minions isn’t a real problem at all, and a board of 4/4 Charge kills you like a board of 5/5 Charge do.

    But…i think that the actual versione is unfun but fair.

    • UtopiaTree
      May 10, 2018 at 12:40 am

      Once again, the true problem is Charge. They need to just rotate out every Charge card.

  5. KaihatsuJai
    May 9, 2018 at 7:10 pm

    Only 1 nerf is absolutely necessary (thinking since new season launch).

    Have Possessed Lackey pull a demon from your hand, and not the deck, just like Voidcaller did.
    Change the deathrattle to battlecry, so no need to change the stats.

    And Spiteful Summoner is fine. As long as net deckers think filling their decks with taunts is a winning strategy they will stay low rank.
    When more people discover its burst potential with Leeroy, Blazecaller and Keeper of the Grove it becomes more fun and wins at the high levels. That’s when we may be having that nerf conversation.

    • CD001
      May 10, 2018 at 4:27 am

      Having Possessed Lackey play a demon from your hand with a battlecry would actually make it *more* powerful; Sense Demons on 3 means you’re guaranteed to draw both Voidlords in Control Warlock – and on the coin that’s a 2/2 + a Voidlord on the board on turn 4. A turn earlier than is currently possible.

      Spiteful Summoner doesn’t *have* any burst potential with Blazecaller or Keeper of the Grove as they’d both loose their battlecries … or am I missing something?

      • KaihatsuJai
        June 16, 2018 at 6:50 am

        Not spiteful, but with other elementals like tar creeper and firefly.
        The new meta is too fast for that style of spiteful deck, but it hasn’t lost in tournaments for me yet 🙂 Really good vs control!

  6. CD001
    May 9, 2018 at 4:08 pm

    Just my tuppence worth, bearing in mind I’m a no-nothing scrub…

    Reduce the healing on Dark Pact to 5, that makes it more akin to Sacrificial Pact – the additional mana cost counters the Demon target restriction. Upping the mana cost to 2 is also viable but I’m guessing one Pact would just be swapped for a Dark Possession then – you often don’t need the healing from both and 2 damage is enough to kill the Lackey on 5 with the coin.

    I like the idea of changing Doomguard to “Battlecry: Discard 2 cards and gain charge” … that alone nerfs the Cube, Bloodreaver Gul’dan AND the Possessed Lackey.

    Possessed Lackey and Voidlord I’d probably leave as they are; either on it’s own is pretty poor (a 5 mana 2/2 is awful in fact) – they’re only troublesome in a combo when you’ve got 6 mana available… and it’s a combo that can be destroyed by drawing both Voidlords before you’ve got the Lackey and a way to remove it – that happens to me with depressing regularity playing Control Warlock.

    Skull of the Man’ari I’d up to 6 mana… maybe… might be a bit harsh with the Doomguard nerf but it means, at best, you’d be dropping a free Voidlord on the board on turn 7 at the earliest – by which time you could well be within lethal range from extremely aggressive decks (if not dead already).

    Call to Arms – upping it to 5 would hit regular and Even paladin and have little effect on Odd Paladin, seems like a good call as it’s extremely powerful as it is.

    Tarim … I despise Tarim. That might be because I enjoy playing quirky decks but they really get hammered by him; any deck that relies on giant monsters is instantly neutered, any deck that can’t cope with constant flood gets punished. Having said that though, I like the flavour of Tarim, he’s like Keeper of Uldaman’s big brother, so I’d keep the cost and effect the same but remove Taunt and lower his health to 5 (within Flamestrike + ping range from a Mage if he’s played too late).

    The Caverns below… I don’t know… it’s just horrible to play against – and it’s predominantly Vicious Scalehide. Just when you think you’ve got the Rogue within lethal range, they regain 10 health in a turn. Maybe increase the cost of the Crystal Core so you can’t play as many cards in the same turn it’s dropped.

  7. Raul Carrasco
    May 9, 2018 at 12:13 pm

    Super interesting and enjoyable post. Thanks a lot! Can’t wait to see what nerfs will be announced by Blizzard.

  8. XNanoks
    May 9, 2018 at 8:04 am

    I’m just hoping they’re not going to touch Carnivorous Cube. I’ve created a Deathrattle Hunter, Quest Priest and Taunt Druid, because of that card. I love it to death.

    Possessed should be reassessed, as well as Skull and Call to Arms. Anything else will change when they are changed. Maybe, maybe, up Dark Pact in mana cost of change it so it only works on Demons.

    • Montassar
      May 9, 2018 at 9:33 am

      Deck of deathrattle hunter??

    • Stonekeep - Site Admin
      May 9, 2018 at 1:28 pm

      Cube is one of my favorite cards from Kobolds & Catacombs too! I think that it’s a stronger side, but I wouldn’t call it overpowered. It’s really interesting and promotes some very cool strategies. It would be sad if they nerfed it just because of the CubeLock.

      • XNanoks
        May 9, 2018 at 1:37 pm

        I’m fairly certain they won’t, because it’s quite vulnerable to Silence. The only reason it works so well in Cubelock is because of instant destruction. Other classes don’t have that enough.

        • Blodia
          May 12, 2018 at 10:49 am

          Also works with druid; cube a charged devilsaur > naturalize; and you get another 2 devilsaurs hitting the face. More specifically, my face into lethal x.x;

      • Brb
        May 12, 2018 at 7:15 am

        Jade rogué / cc =fun

  9. Tweeg
    May 9, 2018 at 5:58 am

    Interesting debate here. It’s just simple tweaks that need to make the game more “balanced”. Cards that are deemed unfair for low amounts of mana are not really intuitive or fair and it’s so early in the game that you can’t play around them and puts you in such a bind early you cannot often recover.

    The main culprits are call to arms, possessed lackey and dark pact. Those are really the only cards that need to be reassessed.

    5 mana for call to arms is fair as you still get multiple dudes with upside. Paladin decks just need to re-adjust and change up their inventory of cards. You can look at cards that recruit multiple dudes like light in the darkness, circle of imps, etc. You’re paying 1 mana for each dude that’s a 1/1. In this instance you get one less dude, but these specific dudes are significantly better than tokens. Fair card.

    Possessed lackey should be on par with silver vanguard or katriana winterwisp. All these cards are built around to “cheat” out a specific/powerful minion without having to play it on your own. However, the cost is fair at usually a 1-mana discount for that minion. Lackey should be 6. Or you can take the other route, which is just increase dark pact by 1 mana. It’s just when warlock is able to do this at such an early stage, it feels somewhat hopeless. Once they get that early voidlord out, even silencing it isn’t that big of a deal.

    Kobold librarian is a fine card. Don’t touch it. Also lesser spellstone is completely fair for 4 mana.

  10. alanm
    May 9, 2018 at 4:21 am

    Man, here’s my take on these:

    Blizzards list:

    Naga Sea Witch: I’d leave this, the problem is the Warlock deck it’s in. Giants Hunter is a meme. I guess if Blizz nerf it, it’ll get the Warsong treatment and be moved to 10 mana.

    Sunkeeper Tarim: I’d nerf to 8 mana. Like your idea of only impacting other side of the board though, that makes it more of a control tool like I think they meant it to be.

    Call to Arms: Easy nerf to 5 mana, no worries with the Baku deck.

    Baku Paladin Hero Power: I dunno, would leave this.

    Spiteful Summoner: Borderline I think, this will get worse with each new standard expansion. If I were blizz I would just release some rubbish 10 and 8 mana summons in the next set. I guess if they nerf the card itself, 7 mana is a good point, puts the board you generate closer to AOE like Scream and Nether.

    Possessed Lackey: I’d nerf to 6 mana, comparable to Gather Your Party with upside (the body) and downside (deathrattle). The tribal recruit is not a downside.

    Bloodreaver Gul’dan: I’d leave him. He does what you’d expect from a 10-mana legendary.

    Dark Pact: I’d nerf to 3 mana, strictly worse than other “gain 8 health” effects. The minion sac isn’t really much of a downside anyway in Warlock.

    Kobold Librarian. Yeah I’d leave him, or maybe nerf to 1/1

    Quest Rogue: Is this really such an issue? I’d leave it.

    Doomguard: I’d leave it, but I do like your idea of making the charge part of the battlecry effect.

    Others not on Blizzards list:

    Skull: I’d nerf to 6 mana, again using Gather Your Party as the benchmark. Skull is slower but has repeating value to compensate.

    Voidlord: I would leave this guy, it’s a fair 9 drop.

  11. Perry Manson
    May 9, 2018 at 1:07 am

    I’m using the quest Rogue just because I hate The Cube Lock. yesterday i played 12 consecutive games against it, is not normal. Obviously, my win rate is not 100% but you can see the difference between the casual control player and the skilled one. I faced also a couple of Control Warrior and the games were fair and i lost some of them. I lost a lot of games against Odd Paladin, so I don’t think QR is good for the ladder but is perfect for hunting Cubes. A deck is wrong when leads to a victory regardless of the misplays, and for every bullshit, with the cube lock, there is always a Defile, a Dark pact, a Lackey. Odd Paladin wins without any planning or positioning, just hero power, play what you draw, buff buff buff. Rin Lock is ok in this binary meta, beats the Cubes but the games are boring, I hate Fatigue. Quest rogue affects only the win rate of one of the dominant decks, i don’t see the deal.

  12. JoyDivision
    May 9, 2018 at 12:55 am

    It might sound repetative but … just killnerf all the mentioned decks (and let’s be honest – bar a few exceptions, that’s what Blizzard does lately) and 3 weeks in the future we have Control Mage and Taunt Druid sitting at the top of the meta and everybody will complain again.

    The problem is fundamental. Nerfing some cards doesn’t solve the problem, it just delays it for a few weeks.

    On exception from the rule: As many players stated, Naga Sea Witch should work so that all your cards cost 5, period. By the way, to me that’s not a nerf. It’s ‘working as intended’.

  13. Robert
    May 8, 2018 at 11:42 pm

    I have to say I disagree with some of the suggestions here.

    First of all: “The rotation did not affect it (worlock) enough”. Where does this idea that after rotation all good decks should be replaced comes from ? Warlock is not even OP like Jades or Shaman of the past. It’s just a good deck but has plenty of counters. You can interact with pretty much anything they do in some way: weapon gets abolished by ooze , lacky can be silanced demons can be transformed. The main reason to nerf it it’s not even the fact is OP, but rather that people get bored way too quickly of a deck and I don’t agree with that. As a f2p player I don’t like the deck I barely just managed to craft be destroyed after just 1 or 2 months.

    Same goes for paladin. Deck is not OP at all. It’s actually easy to defeat if you have the right tools like aoe . But you need to know how to adapt to meta. Like for example if you meet lots of swarm decks just play something control.

    Without cards above the power curve game would be extremely boring. People like to feel like they do big moves.

    I do agree that quest rogue can be frustrating to queue into but imo if your deck is so slow that it literally can’t win vs them it means it’s way too greedy and you deserve the punish once on a while .

    About naga sea I don’t play wild so can’t comment on that.

    Last but not least I want to say this: if the meta would be perfectly balanced (all decks have 50 percent win rate) it would be insanely hard to do climb any rankings and it would feel exactly like flipping a coin aka “no fun” but for some reason this is what people think it’s the golden standard and keep wanting.
    I like to have a slightly superior deck I can rely on to do ranking. My favorite metas were Shaman stone and overpowered Jades.
    I hate meta where everything is decided to luck. (I draw well I win or I draw bad and I lose) and those things happen more often where decks are balanced.
    The ideal scenario for me would be to have a deck that could theoretically beat anything if played right. Like for example mid shaman was able to beat anything but you had to manage your resources very well vs something like control warlock/mage. And jade druid needed the right techs to best aggro or combo.

    • GuessMyMein
      May 9, 2018 at 12:56 am

      But the midrange shaman was literally unbeatable. You just played shit from your hand and your opponent couldn’t do anything about it. People have argued for it to be near a tier 0 deck. I somewhat agree with your point but bringing up Shamanstone is not a good example. That archetype was very overpowered.

      • Robert
        May 9, 2018 at 1:20 am

        You are wrong about shaman.
        There were counters like control warrior or control mage and if you didn’t manage your resourced well you easily got wrecked.
        One example that comes to mind is a game where RDU was playing shaman vs control warrior and for 2 3 turns he decided to just pass (not even hp). That ended up being the correct play as the opponentire had board clear but was anxious to use it and game the RDU time to cheap away damage .
        A low skill player would never be able to make such plays.

        • Ace
          May 10, 2018 at 3:21 am

          Just because deck has one or two counter doesn’t make a deck not OP. How about all other decks? A few decks dominate the ladder is the reason people boring about them. I have to choose to play them or be destroyed by them and it’s bad.

    • Ace
      May 10, 2018 at 3:14 am

      Obviously a bad idea to make a deck unbeatable. You want to give your opponent no chance no matter what deck they play? You say things in the name of f2p player? So I’ll tell you i am a f2p player and don’t have enough dust to create a meta deck. So i just play some budget deck (zoolock, midrange hunter), and if all of the broken decks become balance I’ll enjoy the game more because I can compete with them more fair. Definitely some deck will take their place at t1 deck but not broken like these decks right now so I’m totally fine with it, I’m pretty sure. How do you feel fun when you have a deck that can totally demolish any other deck? For me ,it’s fine if every deck have 50 % win rate and skill take an impotant role in it, something like if you have better skill you can have 60-70 % win rate and if you not you have 30-40 %. What do you think about it?

  14. AuraFlux
    May 8, 2018 at 6:32 pm

    for Naga Sea Witch the fix is easy:
    “Your cards ALWAYS cost 5”
    no reduction for Giants (or everything) or Thaurissan effect.

  15. Opacho
    May 8, 2018 at 5:14 pm

    Hello. I would like to share with you guys my ideas about some changes as well 🙂
    Guldan:
    First we leave Possessed Lackey unchanged. Warlock has his new card Dark Possession and this card is not great, but if we delete self minion kill from Dark Pact, people will run it just to kill Lackey, so we change Dark Pact: 1 mana, discard a random card, restore 10 health to your hero. Power level of armor up effect in game is insane, so I think 10 health is fine. With Dark Pact like this one, you heal early and take a risk of discarding a key card from your hand or you wait, saving wanted cards, but unhealed. Maybe even a control Cruel Dinomancer, Clutchmother Zavas, Blood Qeen deck could be a thing this way.
    Kobolt Libriaria – just make it a 1/1 demon 😀 It’s so funny. 2/2 Lackey into 1/1 Kobolt. No to DK Guldan, yes to Jaraxxus. Still the best card in game but now you can’t play it in every deck. More cards in hearthstone should be like that.
    I like Voilord. Cards for 9 mana should be good. Like Obsidian Statue. You know what you have payed for.
    I like also the idea above with changing Doomguard’s charge to rush, but if so, Doomguard needs 9 health instead, because he needs great trades. Opponent loses a minion you did attack with Doomguard and you lose a random card. We discarded 2 cards, so enemy player needs to add a 2nd card to deal with Doomguard. It’s a cool trade.
    DK Guldan card is so stupid and boring. Both battlecry and hero power. I like the idea of Stonekeep that DK Guldan only summons demons that you have played this game, so you need to think twice. You cheat early with Lackey or Man’ari Skull, so you lose power in late game. Hero Power: “Discover and play a card you have discarded this game.” It’s so cool. You take DK Guldan in Cubelock just to ress your minions and with my new Dark Pact and Doomguards hero power is still viable. Or you can make a cool control Discardlock, probably loosing some power of battlecry. But that’s super cool. One card that fits in two archetypes, giving something here, loosing something there.
    Paladin:
    Call to Arms 5 mana change is great. Sunkeeper Tarim should be 2/5 and sets others to 2/2, because most of the time they just go face with everything and you will realize it’s over, because your minions on board become useless and if you don’t have a spell in your hand, you will lose in a moment after second face wave. You will not include Sunkeeper in every deck after change like that, won’t you? But still he will be a very good and playable card.
    Rogue:
    After my 1st game ever against Quest Rogue, when I lose with my Priest, I took Mass Dispel and came back just to silence some 5/5 minions. I’m still wondering why it doesn’t work. A buff, green numbers. Why can’t I silence them. Why if they bounce 5/5 to hand, it’s still 5/5. No other things in hearthstone work like that.
    And that’s the real solution! 🙂

    • Ace
      May 10, 2018 at 3:26 am

      Just make Possessed lackey 6 mana and it’ll be better. Dark pact discards 1 card is a good idea but since warlock have many cards in hand, it’s not a big deal and probaly can’t stop them.

  16. Brb
    May 8, 2018 at 4:53 pm

    Rework quest rogue not nerf

  17. AuraFlux
    May 8, 2018 at 2:36 pm

    CtA: 5 mana is fair if compared with cards like “Force of Nature” , 6/6 stats on 3 bodies for 5 mana is fair , specially if those 3 bodies came directly from your deck , making it thinner for pool Tarim

    Sunkeeper Tarim: 7 mana 3/7 OR 6 mana 3/6 (with 6HP he no longer block 3 3/3 enemies alone)

    Possessed Lackey: 6 mana OR “DeathRattle: Recruit a demon that cost 5 (or 6) or less from your deck”

    Doomguard: change “Charge” with “Rush” (IF they touch the Possessed Lackey)

    Dark Pact: 2 mana cost , so you can sacrifice your Possessed Lackey at turn 7 (or 6 with the coin)

    Kobold Librarian: 3 damage instead of 2 (like the Flame Imp, is fair)

    Bloodreaver Gul’dan: “Summon all friendly demons that you have PLAYED and died in this game”

    Quest Rogue: “your minions are 4/4 for the rest of the game” (sounds fair)

    Spiteful Summoner: print more 8,9 and 10 mana filler shitty cards.

    • Ace
      May 10, 2018 at 3:31 am

      I agree with almost all of your opinion except 7 mana sunkeeper tarim because it’ll be a huge buff for odd paladin and rush doom guard change would kill cubelock and affect innocent deck like zoolock.

  18. Cynce
    May 8, 2018 at 1:21 pm

    For quest rogue, I like the idea of making the quest reward replace all your minions with generic 5/5 minions. No more charge or lifesteal. This might even be enough of a nerf to revert the quest completion condition back to 4 minions of the same name, as it was originally.

  19. WildRage
    May 8, 2018 at 10:14 am

    You mentioned something interesting during your Doomguard section about making Charge part of its Battlecry, like “Battlecry: Gain Charge. Discard 2 cards”. While I think this is an extreme nerf to a card that doesn’t really deserve a nerf, I can’t say the same about Spiteful Summoner. It’s not Summoner herself that recquires the nerf, but one of the 10-mana minions she can summon: Tyrantus. While the other four minions can be dealt with by some form of removal Tyrantus is untargetable. Some decks just don’t have ways to deal with a Tyrantus on turn 6, it’s too much of a threat. Making “Can’t be targeted by Spells of Hero Powers” his Battlecry would balance Spiteful Summoner enough while also not ruining the Spiteful series of decks. Would it ruin Tyrantus? Of’course not, he’s not played in any Druid deck. What makes Tyrantus powerful is the fact you cheat him out with Spiteful Summoner.

    I think the nerfs you propose are too punishing and extreme and would ruin both the cards and the decks. We only met eye to eye when you proposed changing Kobold Librarian to dealing 3 damage and Dark Pact to healing you for 5-6 and for making Crystal Core’s buff to 4/4. Specifically the “Play 6 minions” nerf I personally believe wouldn’t make a big difference, Quest Rogue would still slaughter any slow deck.

    • Stonekeep - Site Admin
      May 8, 2018 at 11:20 am

      I think you underestimate the power level of those cards/decks if you think that those nerf are too punishing. For example, Call to Arms at 5 would still be a powerful card (obviously, no longer usable in Even Paladin, but no one says that you NEED to build it as even – more classic Aggro or even Murloc Paladin would still be using it), or a 3/6 or 2/7 Tarim would be slightly easier to get rid of, but basically just as strong.

      Keep in mind that I’m not saying that ALL of those nerfs should happen at once. For example, just changing Lackey’s cost to 6 and Librarian’s damage to 3 (an example set of two nerfs) would not kill Cube Warlock, the deck would still be strong.

      • WildRage
        May 8, 2018 at 2:45 pm

        Maybe you’re right. It’s not that I disagree with all your suggestions. And yes, I got that you didn’t intend to push all those nerfs. But some nerfs like Tarim as a 2/7 and Lackey as a 6 cost I feel do make enough of a difference to make themselves unplayable.
        Tarim as a 2 attack minion would lose his value. 3 Attack is what allows him to trade into the 3/3 he creates.
        And a 6 cost Lackey would push the combo way too late in the game. These two nerfs in specific I consider way too punishing.
        But again, you might be right. I might be underestimating the deck’s resilience.

    • Nieselregen
      May 9, 2018 at 2:23 am

      Or Would it be easier to just up the Manacost of a few cards to 10 which aren’t played that much anyway and have a Battlecry or special effect which justifies there Cost? Like Drangoncaller Alanna or Dragon Hatcher? then you would have a chance of getting a 3/3 or 2/4 Body which makes these Decks way less consistent?

      • XNanoks
        May 9, 2018 at 5:58 am

        Dragoncaller Alanna not played as much? She’s the staple of Big Spell Mage. I don’t necessarily have a problem with making it a 10-mana card though, as Big Spell doesn’t use many 1-cost cards.

    • Eastdragon42
      May 9, 2018 at 10:13 am

      Maybe decks will have to start running Big Game Hunter again to deal with Tyrantus….

      • Stonekeep - Site Admin
        May 9, 2018 at 1:30 pm

        I actually use BGH in Odd Control Warrior, mostly thanks to the Spiteful Summoner & Cube Warlocks (Mountain Giants).

        But I don’t really see it being a common tech card. It’s just a dead/nearly dead card in so many matchups…

  20. Taho
    May 8, 2018 at 10:08 am

    I agree with what you said about Guldan. It’s not just the rezzing of all past demons – it’s the 3/3 hero power. That is the part that should be changed. Just compare it to pally or druid DK hero power. Yes, the initial battlecry is powerful, but it’s the hero power that continues turn after turn that tips the scales.

  21. TNanderK
    May 8, 2018 at 9:40 am

    An additional idea for a Dark Pact nerf I read about, is to make it only affect Demons. Lackey and Cube can then not be targeted, while preserving the flavour.

    • GlosuuLang
      May 8, 2018 at 9:53 am

      An idea I had several weeks ago was to change it to “Silence and destroy a friendly minion. Restore 8 Health to your Hero”. That way it would fill the flavor of the card better, since right now you’re not sacrificing too much for all the upsides. It could then even be used to sacrifice minions with bad Deathrattles (Hoarding Dragon, Corrupted Healbot…), which I believe is a much more interesting synergy.

    • WildRage
      May 8, 2018 at 10:19 am

      But that would basically make it unplayable in Cubelock. The very premise of that card is to use it to sacrifice your Cube and Lackey.
      The right way to do a nerf to a deck that’s objectively not busted is to still be able to use it in that deck but making it so that the card just doesn’t make the huge impact it did before the nerf.

      • Zach
        May 8, 2018 at 3:47 pm

        Yeah, but Cubelock would still have things like Dark Possession and Ratcatcher to pop their Lackeys and Cubes. It would hurt the deck, but I don’t think it would hobble it completely.