We’re finally getting some nerfs and changes to some problematic cards. Shaman is getting hit the hardest with an increase in mana cost for Rockbiter Weapon and limiting Tuskarr Totemic to only summoning basic totems. Hunter’s infamous Call of the Wild is getting an increased mana cost, while Warrior is seeing a nerf to Execute that increases its cost by one. Warrior’s Charge has been completely changed to “Give a friendly minion Charge. It can’t attack heroes this turn.” which will effectively remove OTK Worgen from the meta. On the Neutral front, Abusive Sergeant is having its attack reduced to 1. Yogg-Saron, Hope's End, probably the most controversial card in the game has also been nerfed. If Yogg-Saron is “destroyed, silenced, transformed, or returned to its owner’s hand” it will stop casting spells.
Check out the official Blizzard post below!
Shaman
Shaman has been representing a large population of the total decks played in Hearthstone for the past few months. While we think it’s great for Classes to fluctuate in power level, it’s important that Hearthstone always feels like there are a wide variety of decks to play with and against. We’re happy that Shaman has many deckbuilding options to choose from, but we are taking this opportunity to adjust two of the most widely played and frustrating Shaman cards. In the short-term, we think these adjustments bring Shaman closer to the pack in terms of both population and power level. In the long-term, we think these changes will make playing against Shaman less frustrating and make the deckbuilding decisions for Shaman more interesting.
Rockbiter Weapon
Rockbiter is the culprit of a few mass burst-damage combos in addition to being a reliable early game removal tool. Due to its strength in a variety of circumstances, it’s been one of the most widely played Shaman cards in Hearthstone’s history. Making changes to Basic cards that show up in every deck will help instigate more variety and help the Standard format succeed in the future. We’re preserving some of the synergistic potential of Rockbiter Weapon but decreasing its value as a removal tool by changing the cost of the card from 1 to 2 Mana.
We considered other Shaman cards like Tunnel Trogg and Totem Golem, but these are both leaving Standard relatively soon, so we thought it would be better to change Rockbiter and improve the Standard format in a more permanent way.
Tuskarr Totemic
We like that Tuskarr is contributing to totem focused decks, but currently the power level is centered around the possibility of summoning cards like Totem Golem or Mana Tide Totem. This isn’t the most fun type of randomness for a card that is low mana and sees this much play. We want this card to be an option for decks that take advantage of extra totems through cards like Thing From Below or Primal Fusion, but a weaker option for players looking for standalone high power level options on turn three. That said, we are adjusting the battlecry for Tuskarr Totemic to only summon basic totems.
Call of the Wild
Although Call of the Wild is intended to be a powerful late game option, it is over performing at 8 mana. By moving it to 9 mana we intend to tone down its power enough that it won’t be an automatic inclusion in every Hunter deck and overshadow other strategies.
Execute
The Warrior class has access to a large amount of removal spells, and while we want to continue providing Warrior players with powerful removal options, Execute stands out as one that has proven to be too efficient in too many situations. We’re increasing the cost of Execute from 1 to 2 Mana in order to keep the card as an option closer in power level to other existing and future removal tools.
Charge
While we enjoy seeing players explore combo styles of play and will continue to support it in the future, we’ve seen in the past that the ability to give Charge to minions that don’t normally have it has been particularly problematic and also heavily restricts future cards. We’ve redesigned the card Charge in a way that provides opportunities for minion combat, but does not enable strategies that intend to win without allowing opponents to interact.
Abusive Sergeant
Aggressive decks are stronger than we would like right now, and Abusive Sergeant is in virtually all of them. We like that Abusive Sergeant is available to players using minion heavy strategies, but neutral cards in the base set should be narrow enough that they aren’t showing up in such a wide variety of circumstances. We’re changing Abusive Sergeant to be a 1/1 so the battlecry becomes the clear focus, rather than the card being a reasonable turn one option for all aggressive deck types.
Yogg-Saron, Hope’s End
This is the most controversial card we’ve ever made. Some people LOVE Yogg, and others hate it. We felt like seeing Yogg in tournaments was not where we originally hoped it would end up. Yogg should be for players who want to have a lot of fun, but maybe not the card you see frequently in high-level tournaments. Yogg is relatively weak in power level for nearly every class at every level, but is slightly above average in 2 decks – Tempo Mage and Token Druid. We didn’t want to nerf it so much that it couldn’t still be a fun card for players who currently love Yogg. Yogg-Saron will now stop casting spells if, during Yogg-Saron’s battlecry, it is destroyed, silenced, transformed, or returned to its owner’s hand. We tried a bunch of things and we think this is a significant enough nerf that it could reduce the amount it gets seen (especially in tournaments), while still maintaining the dream for people who love the card.
In addition to the above changes, we will be addressing the bug where cards with Overload cast by Yogg-Saron, Hope’s End will not cause Overload to the player in a future update.
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I crafted yogg couse i was sure he will be nerfed. Now i think i will get my tirion!
Cursing, never thought Yogg-Saron would be nerfed… I had terrible luck in my opening of packs when Whispers came out and opened 8 of them. I Disenchanted all but one at the time ….
No nerf to tempo mage? Nice job fat Broden
Yogg
No more 30+ damage OTK Worgen/Faceless Warrior … Wooohooo! I’ll get the party poppers, who’s got cake?
These nerfs all seem pretty solid to me; they almost all target things that are basically just frustrating to play against. Tuskarr Totemic into Totem Golem, Mana Tide Totem or even Flamewreathed Totem is just BS.
30+ damage to face from Raging Worgen + buffs + charge + Faceless Manipulator – you’ve got no chance to respond and your best option is to kill the Warrior before turn 10; tricky with things like Pyromancer/Commanding Shout and Execute ensuring you’re always on the back-foot minion-wise. Still, at least the Warrior has to build their entire deck around that strategy – you know exactly what’s coming.
Yogg on the other hand can just be dropped into any strong, spell-heavy deck to add an additional, instant win condition at the cost of a single card slot. OK sometimes he’s going to kill you but if you’re at that state anyway…
Everything else just seems fair – 8 Mana for Call of the Wild *was* too cheap. 2/1 on Abusive Sergeant meant he was a reasonable 1 drop even if you had nothing to target with the Battlecry.
YESS!! I completely agree with you 🙂
It seems that Dragon Warrior remains tier 1 and shall be the best deck in the game by far (since now that execute has been nerfed, players can use 1 and play a second nzoth 1st mate instead, which will guarantee a strong starting turn) together with Lerroy Zoolock, which gains more power now. Probably we will see a paladin deck in a pretty high slot. And this will not change until xmas I believe.
Dragon warrior will be a lot weaker now, they are pretty much forced to play 2 executes but they will be a lot more clunky now and with shaman getting hit hard, one of dragon warrior’s best matchups is gone
I think dragon warrior is a fund deck to go aganist, no insane burst, and if you play well, you can beat the “best meta deck”
Yeah, nerf the good cards and let the crap cards stay crap cards….
I’ve always thought small aspects like the the excess mana card from wild growth shouldn’t count as a spell… Seems to benefit druid in this current meta a little too much. Or at least that it was unintended when the classic set came out and now it actually matters.
Or you could….you know….just ban Yogg from tournaments?
Since he kills himself almost all the time.
They saied it clear. Yogg wasn’t created for beeing a competitive card. It was created for beeing a fun card. And I am with them. Its just to variance for serious match ups.
Lol love the name and I kind of agree with you. I think that one HUGE chace card like Yogg is fine, idk why they nerfed him. Im not super into the competitive scene of HS but I do understand that he was a bit of a problem there. Oh well, least i can DC him for full
Yogg is frustrating on ladder too. He needed a change, since he was just so unfun for to many players.
I agree with this nerf.
Well Play,blizzard
Speaking of unfair burst cards…Can we get doomhammer and power overwhelming on the nerf line too??
PO is too good at 1 and doomhammer just murders people out of nowhere.
Power overwhelming is kinda op, but warlock needs it to actually be a class that people play.
You do understand that Doomhammer is a classic card, and all shaman classic cards are meh at best
Their explanation for nerfing Yogg is pretty much BS!! Just cause you didn’t wanna see it in tournaments you’ll make it less effective and Hey, no no one wants to play it. What a freaken joke!!
No it’s not. He was meant to be a fun card, but ended up oftentimes being extremely unfun. He was making the game a coin flip, which is never what you want.
Yeah it was only unfun to people it was played against. Just doesn’t make sense, the fact that they would make a card and not expect people in competitive play to play it. “Oh no, competitive players are using it in tournaments, let’s change it so it’s likely to be used anymore.” Better idea don’t create cards like this then cause every card is fair game.
best thing to happen to this game in a long time
Add goos nerfs and all, but tbh buff drain life to deal 3 damage and heal for 3 or add a card like: Deathcharger, 1 mana deal 2 damage, if a friendly minion died this turn, this card’s cost goes down to zero. Shadow bolt is not a good darkbomb replacement :/
“A light in the darkness” and “Silvermoon Portal” need a reduce 1 mana cost, even on that way im not sure of considering playing them, but the actual stats of those cards are pathetic, my eyes bleed everytime i want to construct a new paladin deck. Ohh! maybe a good idea is to stop doing 4 mana and 6 mana cards for this class. 😉
Yes I agree. But they havent incresed the power of any card. And they aren’t changing a card that was made two months ago
If silvermoon portal was lowered by 1 mana, that would make it too strong for arena as it’s already a pretty good card in arena rn
I still think Yogg shouldn’t be able to target himself as battlecries normally are triggered before the minion itself comes into play. This allowed for example Sacred Trial killing Dr. Boom when you already had one other minion on the board because the Boombots came into play before good ol’ Doc Balanced. Therefore Yogg and also Yogg’s Servant should not even be able to target themselves as they are not even in play but “on the stack”.
That’s an interesting thought. Like maybe his animation could be him hovering over the board or something? But if that were the case, he’d have to get another nerf, so that might be pretty confusing.
I agree that it would be even more OP because you would have a guaranteed 7/5 body on board and there would be smaller problems if he manages to fill up your board and there is no space left for him. I was just thinking about having a consequent wording of mechanics. His effect should be something like “When Yogg-Saron has entered the battlefield, cast a spell etc.”. But that would be like another mechanic so I think Blizzard propably handled that right by just making him the way he acts. I will miss our Lord and Savior. RIP Yogg (2016-2016)
Actually the whole thing about battlecries triggering before the minion enters the board is wrong. There have been numerous videos you can look up that explain it.
I don’t think most of these were necessary, Tuskar for one is now useless and really wasn’t a big problem to begin with. And executes been with warrior since the beginning, why now?. And I’m in the Yogg is fun camp and now he’s mostly useless.
Tuskar was too op, mana tide totem provided stpuidly food draw. Yogg tbh was too op. I do agree with you on execute but the nerf just means warrior is more likely to be control deck since it is hard to play at 2 mana before turn 10.
Execute was nerfed because it was an auto-include in every deck and is simply the best tempo removal. When classic was released they weren’t a lot of execute activators and hence you were required to either have a board or play sometimes quite situational cars like whirlwind. However now warrior has a ridiculous amount of AoE or ping which are great standalone cards like slam, bash or ravaging ghoul hence why it was nerfed now instead of earlier
Are we playing the same game. 3 mana 3/2 and 3/4 is GG.
Cause tempo warrior hadn’t never exist. In control nobody has a problemas with that but in tempo bases decks its just Too good. Maybe another good removal on Next expansion to make control viable
Finally Tuskarr Totemic gets the nerf he deserves!!
Also, Rockbiter Weapon is a nice nerf.
Don’t misunderstand, I don’t hate Shaman but these nerfes are really needed: getting a Totem Golem from Tuskarr and the Doomhammer combo (7 mana – 16 damage) were too heavy.
Seems like Yogg will still be plenty strong enough to include. The chances of value are still high. Maybe just think twice about playing him when he would be alone on the board.
Great nerfs in general!
I think Yogg is still strong. What’s the probability to interrupt him? Very low I think.
the probability of yogg removing itself depends on the board state as well.
and no, he will not be good anymore; the reason he is good right now is that if you cast enough spells, he is very likely to clear the entire board; the chance of him removing himself before he clears the entire board makes him significantly worse.
its doubtful that he will ever see play again in a tournament.
When these are taking place and when can we craft with full cost? I did pull a golden Yogg so it’s kinda great news for me. Thx.
Nothing concrete, but they usually announce this stuff and release it the following tuesday (patch day).
I was betting on azure drake nerf. it’s played as often as knife juggler was before nerf.
Kinda tru buts its mostly just nice card draw. I think nerf the spell damage and add an hp is good.
No men we all love Drake. Rougue would die
Yeah true. I play mostly warlock, and I really wish blizzard introduces a low cost removal card for control warlock decks, like my idea Deathcharger, 1 mana deal 2 dmg, cost goes down to 0 if a friendly minion died this turn. Plus I think just buffing drain life to deal 3 damage heal for 3 would be also good for control warlock.
I could see azure drake getting nerfed after the dragon synergy rotates out of standard.
Cards like Abusive Sergeant get played because there aren’t enough options from the new sets. Hearthstone needs to get new cards faster, Elder Scrolls: Legend and Duelyst have a few new cards every single month and MTG gets about 200 new cards every 2 months.
That’s exactly what I think too. Need lot more cards more often. Especially when the general standard of the released cards are crap (which they are). So give us more options, Blizzard! The more frequent you release 200 or so cards the more money we are going to spend on packs, more cards, more variety… Everybody is happy. Sooo…
Good nerfs btw, well played!
damn I made 2x Call of the Wild yesterday, is there going to be any refund ?
Yes, there will most likely be a refund.
gosh hope yogg could be refoundable
I had sylvanas against a yogg drop. Sylvanas took over yogg and I reaped the rewards for it. Kinda cool.
So, should people disenchant Yogg for another legendary?
I wouldn’t do that yet, it might still see play.
If you’re not planning on experimenting with it, disenchant it but don’t spend the dust. That way, if it doesn’t see play you still get the full disenchant value, but if it does you can just recraft.