Blizzard Discussing Changes to Naga Sea Witch & Some Popular Standard Cards

Iksar, Senior Game Designer on Hearthstone, responded to a question about Naga Sea Witch on Twitter today. The card has been a bane to some of the Wild community since the change that made multiple Giants decks viable.

For NSW it’s one of those strategies that is pretty cool to see once in awhile but when it’s a core part of the meta it gets really in-fun to play against. Just like anything else, it takes some time to evaluate whether or not it’s going to be a flavor of the week….. – Source

Or more long-term. At this point it feels like it’s going to be a higher than we would like population unless a change happens, so we’ve been discussing how best to go forward with that if it becomes necessary. – Source

As far as standard goes, every day we are playing on the ladder and evaluating player data. Every expansion we prep balance changes for high population or unfun community decks/cards, but I think it’s still too early to make an informed enough decision on a balance patch. – Source

Iksar further clarified his statements on Reddit. Blizzard has been discussing a variety of changes to the card, but haven’t fully decided on the final alteration. They are also actively discussing making changes to cards in Standard and are considering changing SOME of the following: Sunkeeper Tarim, Call to Arms, Baku Paladin Hero Power, Spiteful Summoner, Possessed Lackey, Bloodreaver Gul'dan, Dark Pact, Kobold Librarian, Quest Rogue, and Doomguard. There is no exact timeline for these changes.

This was a tweet reply to someone asking, but I’ll try to give more context here.

When we say we’re evaluating and playtesting every day, it’s actually happening. Not every time we speak on reddit or twitter (almost never, actually) is going to be an announcement of some grand change we’ve made. What we can do is be open about what our current thoughts are and the kinds of things we’ve been thinking about changing. When a decision does get made, community and dev will work together on drafting an official message, localization will translate that message into many different languages, then we’ll simultaneously release that message to every region.

So, what have we been thinking about? For NSW, I think the original tweet was taken out of context, but that’s probably my fault for splitting the message up. What I intended to say is that it takes time to understand whether a strategy is a flavor of the week, but in the case of NSW decks, that time has passed. We’ve been discussing a variety of changes for either just the cost or design. We haven’t 100% landed on one yet, but will continue this discussion when we do.

For Standard, what we generally do is look at all the high population, high win-rate, or potentially unfun cards and discuss changes to them so we’re ready when the time comes. We would not change all of these cards, but these are the cards we’ve discussed. Sunkeeper, Call to Arms, Baku Paladin Hero Power, Spiteful, Lackey, Gul’dan, Dark Pact, Librarian, Quest Rogue, and Doomguard. Again, we wouldn’t change every single one of those, but in the spirit of being open about what card changes we’ve been discussing/playtesting, those are it. I know a lot of you want to know the exact timeline for when a decision will be made, but reddit/twitter isn’t going to be the place where that is discussed, at least from individual developers. We’ll continue having these discussions at work this week and the next time you hear more about a potential balance/design patch will likely be from an official channel.

Source

Update

Here are some additional responses from Iksar from questions on Reddit.

Iksar responded to a concern about what they felt like was a “nothing response”:

This is the kind of thing I’m still feeling out. Whether people would rather hear what we’re thinking about doing, or would rather hear nothing until there is a solid decision with a timeline in place. Both are pretty reasonable, but if any discussion without a decision/timetable is a ‘nothing’ response then all posts are going to be ‘nothing’ responses. I tend to think just having the discussion is better, knowing there will be people that are upset the decision they want isn’t being made right then and there.

Source

When he mentioned “Quest Rogue” did he mean the quest itself?

Probably the card itself, yes. Quest Rogue matchups are so polarizing that they can leave you feeling like the outcome of the match is decided before the game begins rather than what happened during the game. It’s fine if Quest Rogue is a niche metagame counter for fatigue decks, but it become an issue if it becomes a metagame counter for a huge variety of control decks. I would say this is the most debated one internally, because it’s unclear if we’re actually facing a current of future ‘meta of the quest rogue’ problem. Part of the reason to list all the things we’re discussing is to gauge what you are the most important issues to address, or if there is anything unlisted that you think is worth talking about.

Source

Is Barnes on the table for a nerf?

We talked about Barnes for awhile but ultimately removed it from the list of cards we were considering changing, at least for the time being. Most Wild decks have some way to deal with Barnes, and he creates some interesting archetypes that are fun for people to play. I would agree it can be frustrating to lose to a T4 Barnes, but in the end we have to weigh all the positives and negatives of a card and make a judgment call. For now, we think there are enough answers out there for Barnes strategies that it doesn’t warrant making a change.

Source

If they ended up changing Baku’s Paladin Hero Power would it apply to Justicar Trueheart?

Probably both. We haven’t discussed that with all the people that would need to have an opinion, but currently I think both is the direction we’d lean if we felt odd paladin was becoming oppressive to other decks. Lately popularity seems to have shifted to Murloc and Even Paladin decks, though.

Source

Why would you nerf Justicar’s ability as well when it was never problematic?

Yeah, we’re aware of that. It’s mostly a question of how important is it to keep Baku and Justicar’s hero powers consistent vs how important it is to keep Justicar’s hero power exactly the same. Neither strike me as a ‘we MUST do this’ but we still have to make a decision. Also, I should repeat that we were discussing hypothetical changes to the hero power if we end up needing to address odd-paladin, not ones we’re actually doing. If you have an opinion on what we should do, that is the whole intention of discussing it publicly.

Source

How would the Paladin upgraded hero power be changed?

The most obvious one (at least to me) is to make the minion a 2/2. I think some people would argue that’s even better, but I think the minion swarm nature of the deck and how you can buff multiple targets is where most of the power lies. If odd paladin truly was a problem and that wasn’t enough, we would probably make either the 2/2 minion not a silver hand recruit to get buffed by recruit cards, or change the 1/1 minions to new minions for the same reason. Those are the three changes we’d been considering if we needed to change it in some way.

Source

How did the strong Paladin and Warlock cards make it through the Kobolds and Catacombs balance pass?

We knew they were risks going in. Rather than do a balance patch on launch when so much was changing we opted to wait and see how the first few weeks went. I think the biggest unexpected deck for me personally was even-paladin. It performed so well that it drove the population of paladin up and warped the meta in such a way that cubelock was a really strong deck to play even if there were enough metagame counters for it. I actually think the dynamic of even/odd paladin is different enough that it’s cool to see even if a lot of the cards in the decks are the same as pre-rotation, it’s just that the cube population gets a lot higher because of it and the meta starts to feel similar to pre-witchwood. These are all the things you have to learn over the first few weeks in order to make a good decision on how to move forward.

Source

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76 Comments

  1. AuraFlux
    May 8, 2018 at 2:32 pm

    Possible Nerf:

    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.

  2. Amministratore
    May 8, 2018 at 12:18 pm

    Evident, thanks! And thanks for sharing your great posts every week!

  3. Smilodex
    May 8, 2018 at 5:43 am

    Just change Naga Sea Witch back to the gamestate where it was before you could play giants for 0 mana, then the card would be playable and not completly dead and the giant problem wouldn’t exist anymore. The problem of NSW + Giants and the Rogue quest is the lack of posibilities to answer this power. It feels unfair, one sided and un-fun, that most of the time the game just ends out of nothing.
    Or if you play a control deck, you loose the game before the game starts against quest rogue.

    Please just remove this rogue quest version from the game, design something cooler, like: if you played 5 cards from another class you get a 5 mana 8/8 minion with a battlecry: every card you play from another class costs (0) until the rest of the game.
    That would be fun and would push the Burgle/Pick Pocket Rogue concept.

    The other thing is Paladin, I like the idea of creating just a 2/2 recruit, because it would nerf the sick swarming snowballing potential of odd Paladin BUT please don’t change something on Justicar, because he was never a problem so far…

    CTA should be nerfed, but I don’t know how…
    Maybe if it would pull 2x (1)mana minions and just 1x(2)drop.

    My idea would be, just adding some better boardclears (not for warlock only) Mossy Horror was the first right step to that direction but a bit to expensive (for 5 mana, a 2/5 with rush or lifesteal and the clear effect would be a good tool to handle Paladin).
    If more cards like this would exist you don’t have to nerf Paladin so hard.

    I would change Dark Pact to a +6 heal and change Voidlords effect to produce only 2 Voidwalkers then Warlock would be a bit fairer.

    • Thrombin
      May 8, 2018 at 6:03 am

      The problem is that NSW became different because steps were taken to make the general effect of cost-reduction cards consistent. So either you have to make things inconsistent, change all the other cost-reduction cards to work differently, or make some change to the wording on NSW so that it is seen as a different effect. I’m not entirely sure what wording you can use that wouldn’t be unwieldy…

  4. David
    May 7, 2018 at 11:10 pm

    Ugh, I fucking hate nerfs, I work so hard to create cards and decks only for it all to be taken away, and ya ya you get the dust back but only for the NERFED cards, not the other cards in a deck you used hard earned gold and dust to create….

  5. fareh
    May 7, 2018 at 9:03 am

    I think the problem was that Blizz never do playtest, otherwise its impossible to not see the power level of voidlord and his pals…

    And in that case all that´s needed to balance things is a cheap “silence and destroy demon” creature, like we had with murlocs and pirates…

  6. LazyTitanftMadB
    May 7, 2018 at 8:12 am

    Can’t we just nerf how many spells can go face in a game? Tempo mage is nothing more than hero power and spell on face and if they are lucky they can keep some minions on the board but the overall ‘strength’ of the deck is the fact that has lethal from only spells. I know it’s not a tier 1 deck but it is absolutely no fun to play against because you can’t do anything about it (except with Druid and Warrior).

    Also I agree that CtA needs to be more expensive but they shouldn’t change the mechanics of the cards. They should just add better cards for the other decks in the upcoming expansions instead of nerfing everything. It’s just a slippery slope downwards if they continue to nerf a deck that is popular in the meta because some other deck will take it’s place. That said, it’s good that they look at the cards of Paladin because it’s strange that it’s able to have 3 tier 1 decks, but the cards that are broken (or just OP) are under review.

    Dark pact should’ve higher mana cost but that was already an issue in the kobolds expansion.

  7. SlapLaB
    May 7, 2018 at 3:11 am

    IMHO the game is pretty interesting right now, I meet a variety of decks, not so much paladins and cubelocks, lots of Mage, druids, hunters… only warriors and shamans are very rare. If they have to nerf one card I’d say CtA – so we may see other paladin archetypes.

    • darkmagicpi
      May 7, 2018 at 7:27 am

      Call to Arms goes in every Paladin archetype, not just aggro. Control lists we’re running it last expansion to pull Dirty Rats and Loot Horders.

    • A
      May 7, 2018 at 7:44 am

      The only card they really need to change is shudderwock and all they need to do is speed up the battlecry animations. So it takes a minute and not 5 minutes or more.

  8. Biqi
    May 7, 2018 at 3:03 am

    I don’t know why they don’t just make Naga work as intended, amd make your cards cost 5. It’s a static effect. It shouldn’t be altered by other effects after it’s applied.

  9. Lohaan
    May 7, 2018 at 2:39 am

    HS is a broken game. Face it.

  10. MrMeme
    May 7, 2018 at 2:33 am

    Blizzard always nerfs, never buffs. FeelsBadMan
    Some cards could really use some buffs

  11. Levi
    May 7, 2018 at 1:49 am

    You wanna know what card you should nerf?! Nerf Vicious fledgling. Stupidest fuckin card ever. Just lost to a zoolock with that card on turn 3, I didn’t have taunt in hand and couldn’t do shit. I lost the game because of one FUCKIN card! Da fuk were you thinking when you designed the card?!

  12. Martian
    May 6, 2018 at 11:28 pm

    I’m disappointed that they’re not looking at Voidlord. The Demon-accelerating package isn’t that strong without it. Voidlord keeps aggressive decks at arm’s length and if it wasn’t so hard to punch through then EVERY deck wouldn’t need to play double Spellbreaker. Just take Taunt off the first one or make him a 2/6 Taunt that summons two Voidwalkers (same mana), it will lose too much to aggro to be top tier.

    So annoying that Quest Rogue is playable again; Jades finally gone and still can’t have any fun playing control decks. Nerf it to “play the same minion 99 times”, get it outa here.

    Thank goodness they’re doing something about Naga. They don’t need to change much, if Naga just cost a little more it would be fine. Probably costs exactly 1 too few mana (although I would love to see it as an 8 mana 8/8). Now if they would just ruin Barnes too then Wild would be a much better format.

    • Matt
      May 7, 2018 at 12:14 am

      Boo hoo

    • Motikop
      May 7, 2018 at 12:25 am

      So your solution is to make a 9 mana 8/8?

      • Martian
        May 7, 2018 at 12:35 am

        Mmno, I think naga would be managable at 6 mana, but I would prefer it was an 8 mana 8/8 with the same effect.

    • Ryan Treacy
      May 7, 2018 at 1:13 am

      But why should they look at this card? Its only amazing when you spend 5 mana on it. Playing it for 9 mana without guldan is shockingly bad. The card is only good because of the other cards. Its ok when played from hand and thats it.

      • Martian
        May 7, 2018 at 7:34 am

        I like to play Warlock and I remember how bad it was before Kobolds. Having an early Voidlord is the overpowered part of the package, and it’s also the most boring part. If you don’t think Voidlord is the problem you can just look at all the Warlock decks in both Standard and WIld. Voidlord is in all of them, and Doomguard is only in some. With it changed the rest of the deck is still fun and playable, but you don’t just win if you Skull > Voidlord > Cube > Dark Pact against aggro. I’m not confidant a modest nerf to some of the cards they’re looking at would change how strong the deck is. I think something is going to have to get nerfed into unplayability and I’m much more attached to Gul’dan and Doomguard than I am to Voidlord.

        • Elzein
          May 7, 2018 at 5:11 pm

          “Having a Voidlord early is the overpowered part of the package” – yes, so the problem is Lackey not Voidlord. Nerf Lackey and our problem is solved without killing off a great card. Playing Voidlord from hand is not an overpowered move, specially if it gets silenced. As for Bloodreaver Guldan summoning multiple Voidlords back to life, it really is an insane play, but not easy to accomplish.

          • Martian
            May 7, 2018 at 6:11 pm

            If Lackey become unplayable then Voidlord becomes unplayable. Nine mana is way too slow. If your concern is to salvage Voidlord then you had better hope they don’t nerf the package enough to make a difference.

          • Elzein
            May 8, 2018 at 7:47 am

            I disagree. Voidlord can still be summoned via weapon on control warlock. That also applies to Doomguard. Its just not as easy and overpowered as having the weapon AND Lackey to cheat them out. Nerfing Voidlord is the most uncreative and unreasonable way to balance the game.

    • Kotimfs
      May 7, 2018 at 3:07 am

      Your ideas for voidlord changes are just bad

      • Martian
        May 7, 2018 at 7:36 am

        Your criticism is bad. If you don’t tell me why you’re just being a heckler. Lol, can you imagine if I just read this and thought, “Oh nevermind, guess I was wrong.”

    • MrPixels
      May 7, 2018 at 5:59 am

      I like your idea for changing Voidlord, but I think it would be too underpowered if it was left at 9 mana. Even taking it down to 8 with your change seems reasonable though

      • Martian
        May 7, 2018 at 7:39 am

        I thought about that, 8 mana does let you Hero Power the same turn you play it. I think something in the deck needs a Corridor Creeper level nerf to change how powerful it is, and I’d just rather it be Voidlord than something else. I don’t think Voidlord is an exciting part of the package and I don’t mind it being unplayable.

        • Fareh
          May 7, 2018 at 8:53 am

          And what aout removing the “demon” tag? that would leave it out of the deck, and still be viable with the doomguard approach i think

          • Martian
            May 7, 2018 at 8:59 am

            That sure would make the card unplayable. I think that’s an odd solution but I’d be fine with it.

    • CD001
      May 8, 2018 at 4:52 am

      “The Demon-accelerating package isn’t that strong without it.” … and Voidlord isn’t that strong without the Demon-accelerating package… tricky.

      • Martian
        May 8, 2018 at 9:17 pm

        I don’t think so, the demon accelerating package isn’t oppressive without Voidlord, but without the package Voidlord is unplayable. Voidlord is bad in either case but if Voidlord alone is ruined Warlock can still have a decent deck.

        • CD001
          May 9, 2018 at 5:02 am

          That means making a bad card, which only fills one single niche, worse… it’s already pretty terrible if you draw both the Voidlords before the Lackey’s if you’re not running Skull of the Man’ari (e.g. Control Warlock).

          https://twitter.com/ComethTheNight/status/993958033440100352

          ^ conceded that game … and lost the next where I drew both Voidlords before T6.

          I honestly think Skull of the Man’ari is more the problem than Voidlord; anything that can pull cards from the Warlock’s hand to the board, thus negating huge casting costs or crippling battlecries, is incredibly powerful in Warlock – that was the case with Voidcaller back in ye olde days and is even more the case now with the Skull.

          Only downside with the Skull is that it’s legendary so there’s only 1 in the deck to draw… but with the Warlock’s hero power that’s far less of an issue than it would be in any other class.

          • Martian
            May 9, 2018 at 9:10 am

            I would rather change one card that makes a deck too powerful than change a different card the deck needs to be viable.

            As for the example there, I think we both agree that a 9 mana Voidlord is terrible, and I think just about everyone agrees that a 5 mana Voidlord is too strong. We were debating what to do about it, not what the problem is. Any change to the powerful cards Warlock has right now makes the deck worse, I believe nerfing Voidlord to the point that at 5 mana it isn’t worthwhile would worsen the deck by enough that it isn’t oppressive while keeping Warlock as a class viable.

  13. OnlyMatt
    May 6, 2018 at 10:05 pm

    For me,the only change guldan need is to “nerf” his battlecry to summon all demons you PLAYED this game.In this way,the lackey shit will be finally dead,and the only way that will remain to summon voiord on 5 will be the skull.Also,i’m playing zoo right now, and i don’t want blizzard to ruin a deck that no one has problem with

    • OnlyMatt
      May 6, 2018 at 10:17 pm

      Also, don’t foget that before all the cube BS in Kobolds,the DK was the only card that made warlock almost viable. If they nerf the lackey/cube combo AND the DK,warlock will be dead again.

      • .
        May 6, 2018 at 10:53 pm

        And warlock being dead is a good thing? Didn’t you say that you play zoo?

        • OnlyMatt
          May 7, 2018 at 7:06 am

          It’s very simple,man.This is what i wanted to say with my comments:”PLEASE BLIZZ KILL CUBELOCK BUT DON’T KILL WARLOCK”.Get it?

    • Hellraiser
      May 7, 2018 at 4:57 am

      I dont see why they are so mad about te meta, i find it really entertaining atm, way better than jade druid meta with UI and innevertate prenerf. Although if they do want to nerf a card id say its not doomguard, cards been here forever and it helps the other arquetype of warlock that doesnt give problems to anyone since its “honest”. Voidlord could use a fix, i dont think guldan is the problem if they really want to nerf it so badly.

      • Chris
        May 7, 2018 at 6:18 am

        Charge should have never been put in this game, it’s inherently OP

  14. Curdium
    May 6, 2018 at 9:50 pm

    The Quest Rogue nerf just makes me shake my head. It’s the EXACT SAME DECK that was played in Kobolds, MINUS some of it’s bounce in the Ferryman. The deck is SLOWER than it was just months ago. The only thing that has changed is that the meta slowed way down, and when that’s the case, it’s nice to have a deck like QR to speed it back up. If they nerf QR again, Blizzard has no idea what it’s doing.

    Now Scalebane is likely OP. It’s played in darn near every fast deck, and when it’s buffed to 5/5 that rush/lifesteal combo is dangerous. But for heaven’s sake, don’t nerf a deck that hasn’t been a problem for months, just dial back scalebane to 3 mana or something.

    • Zurbleh
      May 6, 2018 at 10:55 pm

      Quest Rougue itself is just unbalanced by design. Destroys control, destroyed by aggro

      • Dagon
        May 7, 2018 at 12:35 am

        Just as any other combo deck. What is so unbalanced about it? It’s rock-paper-scissors balance, the thing card games are built on.

        • Fairo
          May 7, 2018 at 8:21 am

          The bad part about the deck is how polarizing it is. Combo decks aren’t inherently bad, but with Quest Rogue, the match is decided as soon as the match starts. If it’s facing aggro, it’s basically guaranteed that the aggro will win, while if it’s against control, the Rogue is guaranteed to win. This kind of situation is basically impossible to balance, so it either needs to be killed off or completely changed in design. Rock-paper-scissors balance isn’t bad, as long as it isn’t polarized.

  15. CocoAsticot
    May 6, 2018 at 9:50 pm

    What they are waiting for nerf Call to arms ?? That card make 3 pally archetype tier 1 in both standard AND wild.
    Same for Naga they should be more proactiv. I know it s very hard to balance this game but in some exceptions they should act quickly.
    For the others, Sunkeeper is very unfun to play against so i ll be glad if it s get nerfed.
    Same for Spiteful that brainlessly win game on turn 6 by it s own

    • Motikop
      May 7, 2018 at 12:27 am

      I feel that spiteful and CTA could both be fixed with a simple 1 mana increase, but tarim is ok the way he is. He’s not overpowered, just a strong card, and does not need changed.

      • Stonekeep - Site Admin
        May 7, 2018 at 12:58 am

        Tarim is the second strongest Paladin card after CtA and one of the strongest card in the entire game, he is definitely overpowered.

        But he’s not as oppressive as CtA, because he comes later and can be played around, at least to a certain extent. I like Tarim, because he makes playing against Paladin more skillful, in a way that how well you play around it often wins or loses you the game. CtA – you can’t really play around most of the time, if comes down on T4 and floods the board, that’s it.

        Honestly, Tarim is also a good nerf candidate. I’m 100% sure that it would still be great at 7 mana, or with worse stats.

        • Byk
          May 7, 2018 at 9:50 am

          What about equality? That needs to go to the hall of fame.

      • Kotimfs
        May 7, 2018 at 3:13 am

        If you change CTA mana cost by one, then you are actually buffing odd paladin and destroying even. Now if you consider that odd paladin is way more irritating to play against (in my opinion at least) then we can conclude that the change in CTA should not be in its mana.

  16. Feitonghofei
    May 6, 2018 at 9:46 pm

    Usually we have this kind of nerf /change discussion at the end of 4-month expansion, yet now we are only one month after the yearly set rotation. This shows how poor the state of the game currently is.

    • Stonekeep - Site Admin
      May 7, 2018 at 1:02 am

      I wouldn’t say that the state of the game is poor – the problem this time around was that The Witchwood’s power level was pretty low across the board, relatively to the Year of the Mammooth expansions. We had three sets in a row with high power level cards – Un’Goro, Frozen Throne and especially Kobolds & Catacombs. And now The Witchwood has… mediocre cards mostly.

      Which means that the decks relying on the 2017 cards, such as Cube Warlock or Paladin builds, weren’t affected by the rotation very hard, while no new archetypes have risen to counter them, since The Witchwood didn’t have strong enough cards.

      It’s a hard nut to crack. Going around and nerfing lots of 2017 cards is not a great way to handle that (especially with two more 2018 expansion in mind, which might have a slightly higher power level than Witchwood), but waiting for new cards to come in order to counter them is also a poor option.

      • XNanoks
        May 7, 2018 at 11:15 am

        This. Well said.

        Impossible job to get this point across to most though, unfortunately.

        • Pandamonium
          May 7, 2018 at 2:32 pm

          The POINT is, if we’re even talking about this, then Blizzard has failed badly at the card design and testing before this shit is released. This should have been apparent already. I think people haven’t even tested enough new decks or had enough time to all of a sudden know that paladin, warlock, quest rogue (already nerfed once), and spiteful (can’t run any spells practically) ALL need nerfs. This stupidity will lose lots of players. If you have to nerf that many 2017 cards NOW, that is an epic failure that you can’t talk your way out by merit of “enhancing the variety of the meta” if you’re Blizzard Activision. By design, this is how it should be. Every time they nerf things they admit they have fucked up and let us all down, because when one tries to plan how the meta will be and farm cards and construct a handful of 5-10 decks for use in ladder and tournaments, the presumption is that the cards will stay as they are. It takes time to farm decks and playtest them. Let alone when you nerf 10 things at once which would be an all-time high. The meta should only change once every expansion. If Blizzard can’t stop releasing cards that are so broken that they feel the need to inevitably nerf them a month in, then people should stop spending time and money on the game since Blizzard isn’t putting in their fair share. It’s like they have stopped caring. This is not a rant; it’s a valid criticism and truthful observation. They keep doing this to themselves and all of us and then acting like it was never in their control to begin with.

  17. to
    May 6, 2018 at 5:51 pm

    Cubelock is total BS …but I hate nerfs…it would be nice if they simply add cards for other classes that made them equally competitive ( in upcoming expansions) but it clearly seems beyond their ability as they continually demonstrate ..

    • Nope
      May 6, 2018 at 7:21 pm

      New cards are definitely needed for the few classes that witchwood rotated to oblivion. On cubelock in particular though, I suspect that tweaking voidlord alone would be enough of a change. 18 health in one card is just about impossible to outvalue.

      • Hello
        May 6, 2018 at 9:33 pm

        Voidlord is one of the least problematic cards in Cubelock. Sure, it feels frustrating to face an 18 health taunt in the midgame already, but keep in mind the abilities to cheat him out are what makes the deck broken. On it’s own, the card is okay. 18 health are still a lot, but if you always had to hardcast him, it would see way less play.

  18. Brb
    May 6, 2018 at 4:53 pm

    Quest rogué nerf again, spifull sumumer is not really a problen, the problen is his poll, for the Standar rotation

    • Bill & jill
      May 6, 2018 at 5:49 pm

      The real problem here is your English..

  19. Govid
    May 6, 2018 at 2:46 pm

    Clearly Paladin is too powerful right now, but is strange because Odd Paladin is really strong without maybe the best Paladin cards (Call to Arms and Sunkeeper Tarim). It is the only class that has great odd and even decks. (plus murloc paladin)

    • YouNoTakeCandle
      May 6, 2018 at 3:23 pm

      No matter how powerful it might be, there is absolutely no need to nerf it’s cards. There are plenty of decks that can counter an odd pally. Cubelocks and Control mages steamroll it and so does spell hunter.

      • Brb
        May 6, 2018 at 4:54 pm

        Turn 6 leatha, not need a nerf at all

        • Motikop
          May 7, 2018 at 12:29 am

          Pirate warrior could lethal you or set you to one or some shit turn 4. Its not that it can rush you down, it’s that it relies on constant removal

      • Nightfall
        May 6, 2018 at 5:41 pm

        odd pally does need a nerf, because the deck that counters it and sees lots of play (cubelock) will most certainly see a nerf. with that, even pally needs a nerf just as bad as odd pally does

  20. chris
    May 6, 2018 at 2:41 pm

    you nerf one powerful deck – and another will just rise up in it’s place.

  21. mm
    May 6, 2018 at 2:31 pm

    Can we please have a naga sea change today while you think about the rest?

  22. WildRage
    May 6, 2018 at 2:18 pm

    I know they’re still in the “thought-process” and any company should evaluate their products at all times, but their choices…Blizzard, you’re walking on thin ice. If you do any changes to any of these cards, said changes can’t be sloppy or you’ve basically made them useless.

    • Nightfall
      May 6, 2018 at 5:43 pm

      they’ve done rushed nerfs in the past, killing cards isn’t really a problem for them, they’ve done it before, so probably will in the future

      • WildRage
        May 7, 2018 at 2:21 am

        Good point, but that’s not an excuse. Nor is it a “fuck it, we’ve have that before” type of situation.
        If they want to nerf card (that honestly aren’t even that broken to begin with), they have to do it right.

  23. Pandamonium
    May 6, 2018 at 2:08 pm

    So they want to nerf warlock, paladin, quest rogue, and spiteful… What’s left? We’d have to wait until the next expansion in 3.5 months or this will turn into hearthstone classic 1.0.

    • Daniel S
      May 6, 2018 at 2:21 pm

      Seeing as those are pretty much all we see on the ladder it would be nice to have some variety.

      • Ram
        May 6, 2018 at 3:24 pm

        There is always going to be a spefic set of decks in the ladder. Right now, it’s these lot.

    • Stonekeep - Site Admin
      May 7, 2018 at 1:05 am

      Meta doesn’t work that way. When those decks get nerfed, it’s not like they will live a gap in the meta. Other decks will take their place and be considered best decks. Now Tier 2-3 decks would take the Tier 1 places, and now off-meta builds such as Rush Warrior, Combo Priest, Token Druid or whatever might be playable as Tier 2-3 decks. Then some new decks might pop out that were held back by the top meta decks.

      We would never be back to “hearthstone classic 1.0” as you’re saying, from my long experience with the game I can definitely say that the nerfs only make the game more interesting, not vice versa. Especially if they’re handled well and the nerfed decks aren’t completely killed off.